Asperger

Asperger (pronounced a-spuh-guh or a-spr-gr)

(1) In neo-paganism and modern witchcraft, a ceremonial bundle of herbs or a perforated object used to sprinkle water (in spells as “witches water”), usually at the commencement of a ritual.

(2) In neurology, as Asperger's syndrome (less commonly Asperger syndrome), an autism-related developmental disorder characterised by sustained impairment in social interaction and non-verbal communication and by repetitive behaviour as well as restricted interests and routines.  The condition was named after Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger (1906–1980).

Pre-1300: The surname Asperger was of German origin and was toponymic (derived from a geographical location or feature).  The town of Asperg lies in what is now the district of Ludwigsburg, Baden-Württemberg, in south-west Germany and in German, appending the suffix “-er” can denote being “from a place”, Asperger thus deconstructs as “someone from Asperg” and in modern use would suggest ancestral ties to the town of Asperg or a similar-sounding locality.  Etymologically, Asperg may be derived from older Germanic or Latin roots, possibly meaning “rough hill” or “stony mountain” (the Latin asper meaning “rough” and the German berg meaning “mountain or hill”.  The term “Asperger’s syndrome” was in 1976 coined by English psychiatrist Lorna Wing (1928–2014), acknowledging the work of Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger (1906–1980).  Dr Wing was instrumental in the creation of the National Autistic Society, a charity which has operated since 1962.  Asperger is a noun (capitalized if in any context used as a proper noun).  Aspergerian & Aspergic are nouns; the noun plural forms being Aspergers, Aspergerians & Aspergics.  In the literature, Aspergerian & Aspergic (of, related to, or having qualities similar to those of Asperger's syndrome (adjective) & (2) someone with Asperger's syndrome (noun)) appear both to have been used.  In general use “Asperger's” was the accepted ellipsis of Asperger's syndrome while the derogratory slang forms included Aspie, autie, aspie, sperg, sperglord & assburger, now all regarded as offensive in the same way “retard” is now proscribed.

The noun asperges described a sprinkling ritual of the Catholic Church, the name was applied also to an antiphon intoned or sung during the ceremony.  It was from the Late Latin asperges, noun use of second-person singular future indicative of aspergere (to scatter, strew upon, sprinkle), the construct being ad (to, towards, at) + spargere (to sprinkle).  The use in Church Latin was a learned borrowing from Latin aspergō (to scatter or strew something or someone; to splash over; to spot, stain, sully, asperse; besmirch; (figuratively) to bestow, bequeath something to, set apart for) the construct being ad- +‎ spargō (strew, scatter; sprinkle; moisten).  The origin lay in the phrase Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo et mundabor (Thou shalt sprinkle me, O Lord, with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed), from the 51^st Psalm (in the Vulgate), sung during the rite of sprinkling a congregation with holy water.  Hyssop (any of a number of aromatic bushy herbs) was from the Latin hȳsōpum, from the Ancient Greek ὕσσωπος (hússōpos), of Semitic origin and the idea was would be cleansed of one’s sins.  In the Old English the loan-translation of the Latin aspergere was onstregdan.

The three most recent popes demonstrate their aspergillum (also spelled aspergill) technique while performing the sprinkling rite.  In the more elaborate rituals, it's often used in conjunction with a container called an aspersorium (holy water bucket).  Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022, left), Francis (1936-2025; pope 2013-2025, centre) and Leo XIV (b 1955; pope since 2025, right).

In the Christian liturgy, an aspergillum was used to sprinkle holy water and the borrowing, adaptation and re-purposing of ceremonies, feasts days and such from paganism widely was practiced by the early Church.  In the Bible (notably chapter 14 in the Old Testament’s Book of Leviticus) there are descriptions of purification rituals involving the use of cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet wool to create an instrument for sprinkling blood or water and historians sometimes cite this as “proto-aspergillum”.  While it seems the earliest known use on English of “aspergillum” dates from 1649, the documentary evidence is clear the practice in the Christian liturgy was ancient and common since at least the tenth century.  Exactly when the ritualistic practice began isn’t known but because water is so obviously something used “to cleanse”, it’s likely it has been a part of religious rituals for millennia before Christianity.

Asperger ceremonial herb bundle.

The use of the “asperger” in neo-paganism & witchcraft was a continuation of the concept and well documented in the remarkably prolific literature (some book shops have dedicated sections) devoted to modern witchcraft and the construction of the objects (a bundle of fresh herbs or a perforated object for sprinkling water) is a lineal descendent of the aspergillum of the Medieval church and that makes sense, both institutions devoted to the process of cleansing although the targets may have differed.  According to Ancient Pathways Witchcraft (which sounds an authoritative source), although it’s the fluid which does the cleansing, the asperger is significant because it symbolizes “the transformative and cleansing properties of water…”, rinsing away “…spiritual debris that might interfere with the sanctity of rituals.”  In both neo-paganism and witchcraft, the herbs used may vary and while, pragmatically, sometimes this was dictated by seasonal or geographical availability, priests and witches would also choose the composition based on some “unique essences” being better suited to “enhance the sacred water's effectiveness”.  Nor were herbs always used for, as in the rituals of the church, “an asperger might be a metal or wooden rod designed with perforations or an attached mesh”, something like a “small brush or a dedicated holy water sprinkler akin to those seen in Christian liturgy.”  Again, it was the sprinkling of the water which was the critical element in the process, the devices really delivery systems which, regardless of form, existed to transform simple water into “a divine medium of purity and transformation.”  That said, their history of use did vest them with tradition, especially when certain herbs were central to a spell.

Dr Hans Asperger at work, Children's Clinic, University of Vienna, circa 1935.

The term “Asperger’s syndrome” first appeared in a paper by English psychiatrist Lorna Wing (1928–2014) although use seems not to have entered the medical mainstream until 1981.  Dr Wing (who in 1962 was one of the founders of the charitable organization the National Autistic Society) named it after Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger (1906–1980) who first described the condition in 1944, calling it autistischen psychopathen (autistic psychopathy).  Dr Wing was instrumental in the creation of the National Autistic Society, a charity which has operated since 1962.  The German autistischen was an inflection of autistisch (autistic), the construct being Autist (autistic) +‎ -isch (an adjectival suffix).

Dementia Praecox, oder Gruppe der Schizophrenien (1911) by Eugen Bleuler.

The English word autism was from the German Autismus, used in 1913 by Swiss psychiatrist and eugenicist Eugen Bleuler (1857-1939), the first known instance dating from 1907 and attributed by Swiss psychiatrist & psychotherapist Carl Jung (1875-1961) as an alternative to his earlier “auto-erotism” although in his book Dementia Praecox, oder Gruppe der Schizophrenien (Precocious Dementia, or Group of Schizophrenias, 1911) Bleuler differentiated the terms.  The construct of the word was the Ancient Greek αὐτός (autos) (self) + -ισμός (-ismós) (a suffix used to form abstract nouns of action, state or condition equivalent to “-ism”).  Being a time of rapid advances in the relatively new discipline of psychiatry, it was a time also of linguistic innovation, Dr Bleuler in a Berlin lecture in 1908 using the term “schizophrenia”, something he’d been using in Switzerland for a year to replace “dementia praecox”, coined by German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin's (1856-1926).  What Dr Bleuler in 1913 meant by “autistic” was very different from the modern understanding in that to him it was a symptom of schizophrenia, not an identifiably separate condition.  In the UK, the profession picked this up and it was used to describe “a tendency to turn inward and become absorbed in one's own mental and emotional life, often at the expense of connection to the external world” while “autistic thinking” referred to those who were “self-absorbed, fantasy-driven, and detached from reality; thinking patterns, commonly seen in those suffering schizophrenia.”

Looking Up was the monthly newsletter of the International Autism Association and in Volume 4, Number 4 (2006), it was reported Lindsay Lohan’s car had blocked the drop-off point for Smashbox Cares, a charity devoted to teaching surfing to autistic youngsters.  Arriving at the designated spot at Malibu’s Carbon Beach, the volunteers were delayed in their attempt to disembark their charges, something of significance because routine and predictability is important to autistic people.  To make up for it, Ms Lohan staged an impromptu three hour beach party for the children, appearing as a bikini-clad DJ.  Apparently, it was enjoyed by all.

Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact (1943) by Leo Kanner.

The modern sense of “autistic” began to emerge in the 1940s, among the first to contribute the Austrian-American psychiatrist Leo Kanner (1894–1981) who in 1943 published a paper using the phrase “early infantile autism” to describe a distinct syndrome (which now would be understood as autism spectrum disorder).  The following year, in Vienna, Dr Asperger wrote (seemingly influenced by earlier work in Russia) of his observational studies of children, listing the behaviors he associated with the disorder and unlike some working in the field during the 1940s, Dr Asperger wasn’t wholly pessimistic about his young patients, writing in Autistic Psychopathy in Childhood (1944): “The example of autism shows particularly well how even abnormal personalities can be capable of development and adjustment. Possibilities of social integration which one would never have dreamt of may arise in the course of development.”  Many of the documents associated with Dr Asperger’s work were lost (or possibly taken to the Soviet Union) in the chaotic last weeks of World War II (1939-1945) and it wasn’t until Dr Wing in the 1970s reviewed some material from the archives that his contributions began to be appreciated although not until 1992 did “Asperger’s Syndrome” became a standard diagnosis.

DSM IV (1994).  Not all in the profession approved of the reclassification of Asperger’s syndrome under the broader Autism Spectrum Disorder, believing it reduced the depth of diagnostic evaluation, flattened complexity and was disconnected from clinical reality.  There was also regret about structural changes, DSM-5 eliminating the multiaxial system (Axes I–V), which some clinicians found useful for organizing information about the patient, especially Axis II (personality disorders) and Axis V (Global Assessment of Functioning).

Asperger’s Syndrome first appeared in the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) classification system when it was added to the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV, 1994) and the utility for clinicians was it created a sub-group of patients with autism but without a learning disability (ie characterized by deficits in social interaction and restricted interests, in the absence of significant language delay or cognitive impairment), something with obvious implications for treatment.  In the DSM-5 (2013), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) was re-defined as a broader category which combined Asperger syndrome, Autistic Disorder & PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified) into a single ASD diagnosis, the editors explaining the change as a reflection of an enhanced understanding of the condition, the emphasis now on it being something with varying degrees of severity and presentation rather than distinct types.

However, although after 2013 the term no longer appeared in the DSM, it has remained in popular use, the British military historian Sir Antony Beevor (b 1946) in Ardennes 1944 (2015, an account of the so-called "Battle of the Bulge") speculating of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (First Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, 1887–1976) that "one might almost wonder whether [he] suffered from what today would be called high-functioning Asperger syndrome."  The eleventh release of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Classification of Diseases (ICD) (ICD-11) aligned with the DSM-5 and regards what once would have been diagnosed as Asperger’s Syndrome to be deemed a relatively mild manifestation of ASD.  The diagnostic criteria for ASD focus on deficits in social communication and interaction, as well as repetitive behaviors and interests.  Although no longer current, the DSM IV’s criteria for Asperger's Disorder remain of interest because while the label is no longer used, clinicians need still to distinguish those in the spectrum suffering some degree of learning disability and those not so affected:

DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for Asperger’s Disorder (299.80).

A. Qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following:

(1) marked impairments in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body postures, and gestures to regulate social interaction.

(2) failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level.

(3) a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people (eg by a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest to other people).

(4) lack of social or emotional reciprocity.

B. Restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities, as manifested by at least one of the following:

(1) encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus.

(2) apparently inflexible adherence to specific, non-functional routines or rituals.

(3) stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (eg hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements).

(4) persistent preoccupation with parts of objects.

C. The disturbance causes clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning

D. There is no clinically significant general delay in language (eg single words used by age 2 years, communicative phrases used by age 3 years).

E. There is no clinically significant delay in cognitive development or in the development of age-appropriate self-help skills, adaptive behavior (other than social interaction), and curiosity about the environment in childhood.

F. Criteria are not met for another specific Pervasive Developmental Disorder or Schizophrenia.

The term in the twenty-first century became controversial after revelations of some of Dr Asperger's activities during the Third Reich (Austria annexed by Germany in 1938) which included his clinic in Vienna sending selected children to be victims of Aktion T4 (a mass-murder programme of involuntary euthanasia targeting those with disabilities), an operation which ran at times in parallel with the programmes designed to exterminate the Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and others.  While there is no surviving documentary evidence directly linking Dr Asperger to the selection process which decided which children were to be killed, researchers have concluded the records suggest his construction of what came later to be called “Asperger’s syndrome” was actually that very process with an academic gloss.  Because those Dr Asperger so categorized were the autistic children without learning difficulties, they were thus deemed capable of being “cured” and thus spared from the T4’s lists, unlike the “uneducable” who would never be able to be made into useful German citizens.  While the surviving material makes clear Dr Asperger was at least a “fellow traveller” with the Nazi regime, in professional, artistic and academic circles there was nothing unusual or even necessarily sinister about that because in a totalitarian state, people have few other choices if they wish to avoid unpleasantness.  However, it does appear Dr Asperger may have been unusually co-operative with the regime and his pre-1945 publication record suggests sympathy with at least some aspects of the Nazis’ racial theories and eugenics.

Violin

Violin (pronounced vahy-uh-lin)

(1) The treble instrument of the family of modern bowed instruments, built as a small unfretted instrument with four strings tuned (lowest to highest) G-D-A-E and held nearly horizontal by the player's arm against the chin, with the lower part supported against the collarbone or shoulder; it’s played with a bow.

(2) In musical performance, metonymically, the position of a violinist in an orchestra, string quartet or other formation or group (sometimes as first violin, second violin etc).

(3) In musical composition, a part to be played on a violin.

(4) Any instrument of the violin family, always inclusive of violins, violas, and cellos and sometimes further including the double bass (used by certain musical specialists but a use derided by most).

(5) To play on, or as if on, a violin (rare except in technical use),

1570–1580: From the Italian violino (a little viola), the construct being viol(a) (from the Italian viola, from the Provençal and of uncertain origin but there may be some link with the Latin vītulārī (to rejoice)) + -ino (the suffix used to form diminutives).  The sixteenth century word described the modern form of the smaller, medieval viola da braccio.  The violin and viola share similarities in terms of construction and playing technique but a violin is smaller.  A full-size violin has a body length around 14 inches (360 mm) while a viola typically extends to around 16 inches (405 mm) and the larger instrument tends to have a lower pitch range and different tonal qualities.  The violin is noted for a high pitch range (G-D-A-E low to high) while a viola is tuned to C-G-D-A, a perfect fifth lower which lends it a deeper, mellower sound.  In an orchestra, the violin usually plays the melody (the highest voice in the string section) and thus many solo pieces are written which attract the most virtuosic players.  Viola pieces are usually supportive , providing harmony, inner voices, or countermelodies although it does have its own solo repertoire.  Violin is a noun & verb, violinist is a noun and violining & violined are verbs; the noun plural is violins.

The Duce with violin.

As well as professionals, the violin has long attracted also those who enjoy music as a hobby, Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977), Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992), Albert Einstein (1879-1955) & Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943) were all keen players and leader of the US Nation of Islam (NOI), Louis Farrakhan (b 1933), in 1993 even performed Felix Mendelssohn's (1809-1847) Violin Concerto in E Minor.  His skill aside (and the reviews were warm enough), the choice of a piece by Mendelssohn was interesting because of Mr Farrakhan's history of anti-Semitic rhetoric but even in that the interpretations of motive varied because although of Jewish ancestry, the composer was baptized and raised a Christian and while in recent years some scholars have made the case for the sincerity of his Christianity, others maintain that for most of his life he displayed an unalloyed reverence for his Jewish roots.  While the persistent legend is that Roman Emperor Nero (37-68) "fiddled while Rome burned" in 64 AD it probably isn't true; even if he "fiddled away" on some instrument, it wouldn't have been a fiddle because that device was 15 centuries away.  If he played anything mid-inferno it was probably a lute but historians think the phrase was intended to mean something like "twiddled his thumbs", suggesting he was negligently inactive or inept in his handling of the disaster.  Even this is now thought by many historians to be the fake news of its day, spread by his political enemies (of which justly he had many).

Lindsay Lohan backstage with guitarist Michael Isbell (b 1979) & fiddle player Amanda Shires (b 1982) at the Dylan Fest concert, Bowery Ballroom, New York City, November 2013.

The distinction between the violin and the fiddle is less about the actual instruments than the use to which they’re put although both words are replete with cultural baggage.  What is essentially the same instrument is thought a violin when playing from the classical canon and a fiddle if performing folk or country & western (C&W) music.  Of course there are many genres apart from these and when the instrument is used in other settings (jazz, pop etc), the use is up to the individual, influenced either by their own preference or some sense of adherence to the conventions describing whatever is being performed.  The fiddle (as a stringed musical instrument) has a long history and is a feature of much Medieval art depicting performances of folk music.  It was from the late fourteenth century Middle English fedele, fydyll & fidel, from the eleventh century fithele, from the Old English fiðele (fiddle) which was related to the Old Norse fiðla, the Middle Dutch vedele, the Dutch vedel, the Old High German fidula and the German Fiedel, all of which are of uncertain origin.  There’s never been anything to suggest there’s anything onomatopoeic in the origin and the most cited theory (based on resemblance in sound and sense) is there’ may be some connection to the Medieval Latin vitula (stringed instrument (source of Old French viole and the Italian viola), which may be related to the Latin vitularia (celebrate joyfully), from Vitula, the Roman goddess of joy and victory, thought to have been drawn from the Sabines.  That however remains speculative and it’s not impossible the Medieval Latin word was derived from one of the Germanic forms.

The Dallas-based Quebe Sisters (siblings Grace, Sophia & Hulda) are a triple fiddle trio who play what is described as "neo-traditionalist western swing".

Despite the snobbery of some, those who enjoy C&W music are not culturally inferior; it’s just a different form of sophistication.  In certain circles however there is a dismissive contemptuousness of “fiddle songs” and the fiddle’s reputation has suffered by association, relegated to colloquial use by the respectable violin, a process doubtlessly hastened and encouraged by phrases such as "fiddlesticks" (from the 1620s meaning “untrue; absurd”), "fiddle-de-dee" (from 1784 and a nonsense word in the sense of “contemptuously silly”) and "fiddle-faddle" (a mid-nineteenth century coining to convey the idea of “a statement worthy only of ridicule; blatantly untrue”).  The outlier of course is "fit as a fiddle" (robust; in rude good health), noted since the 1610s and apparently unrelated to music or the instrument, it being probably one of those English sayings which caught on because of the alliterative appeal and there are etymologists who suspect the original form was “fit as a fiddler” but the familiar version prevailed because it more easily rolled from the tongue.

The Kreutzer Sonata (1901), oil on canvas by René François Xavier Prinet (1861-1946).

The Kreutzer Sonata was inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s (1828-1910) novella of the same title (1889), which was named after Ludwig van Beethoven’s (circa 1770–1827) Violin Sonata No 9, Opus 47 (1803), a violin and piano composition dedicated to the French violinist & conductor Rodolphe Kreutzer (1766-1831).  Kreutzer never performed the piece but whether this was related to him being the “second choice” is unknown.  Beethoven originally dedicated the sonata to another violinist who first performed it but the two had a squabble about something and the bad-tempered composer instead conferred the honor on Kreutzer.  The work is a favorite among violinists because it can convey an emotional range from anger and despair to joy and in this vein, Tolstoy’s tale is one of a woman murdered by her husband because of his suspicion of her infidelity with a violinist.  In Moscow, the Tsar’s censor (a busy, full-time job) for a time banned the book because of concerns it might “stir the emotions”.

Viola is a genus of flowering plants in the violet family Violaceae.

The sonata certainly stirred something in Tolstoy who said he was “shocked at the eroticism” when it was performed by a man & woman and he wasn’t the only one affected by the instrument, both the Italian composer and violinist of the Baroque period Giuseppe Tartini (1692–1770) and Russian composer Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) referred to the violin as “the devil’s instrument”.  Tolstoy depicted the violin as something so evil in the eroticism it could summon it could drive a man to murder and infamously there was a violinist who murdered on a grand scale.  The roll-call of evil-doers among the Nazi hierarchy was long and it’s morally dubious to suggest which were worse than others but probably all agree Schutzstaffel (SS) Obergruppenführer (an SS rank then equivalent to an army general) Reinhard Heydrich (1904–1942; head of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Main Security Office (including the Gestapo, Kripo, and SD 1939-1942)) was as repellently awful as any.  He was though a genuinely gifted musician and could have pursued a musical career; it was said when he played the violin, grown men could be reduced to tears.  Heydrich died before he could be tried for his crimes but such was the infamy his name remains a byword for evil, however contested that word; like Mussolini, Heydrich is an example of how a skill to make beautiful art is no guarantee of fine character.

Kiki in Le Violon d'Ingres.

One of the enduring images of surrealist photography Le Violon d'Ingres (Ingres's Violin) was taken by the US visual artist Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky 1890-1976) in Paris 1924.  The model was Kiki de Montparnasse (“Kiki of Montparnasse”: Alice Prin; 1901–1953) and the title was something of a play on words, the French phrase “le violon d'Ingres” meaning “hobby” and mademoiselle Kiki the photographer’s muse and lover (it was a tempestuous relationship). The French expression was derived from the habit of the neoclassical painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780–1867) insisting on playing the violin to visitors who in his studio anxious to view his paintings.  The photograph references one of the artist’s most admired works, La Grande Baigneuse (The Valpinçon Bather) which focuses also on the female back.  Obviously, Man Ray worked in the pre-digital world when images were committed to celluloid but his post-production editing technique used layers in a way analogous with that of Photoshop and other image handlers: Wanting to explore the similarity in shape between the body of a violin and the pleasing torso of his model, he first printed a copy onto which he painted the f-holes of a violin, then photographed the modified image.  That became the famous work and in June 2022 it went under the hammer for US$12.4 million at Christie's New York, making it the most expensive ever to be sold at auction.

Kiki in a French postcard, circa 1920.

Mademoiselle Kiki was from the provinces and came to nude modelling in Paris only after a succession of dreary jobs, the last in a bakery from which she was fired by the baker’s wife for punching her in the face after being called a whore for wearing eye make-up.  Man Ray “discovered her by accident” (historians seem never to have gone into the details) and she found nude modelling both a pleasant occupation and more lucrative than the hard work of being a baker’s assistant but that view wasn’t shared by her mother who, tipped off by a neighbor, burst into the photographer’s studio and make it clear she agreed with baker’s wife, banning her from the apartment they shared.  The affair with Man Ray was thus immediately convenient but their feelings seem genuinely to have been sincere although it did end badly; at one point he was seen chasing her down the street, revolver in hand.

Model Adriana Fenice (b 1995) with violin and horsehair bow.

Modelling "in the buff" was at the time frowned upon by the more respectable of those engaged by Parisian fashion houses, something which endures to this day.  Even in 1946, the inventor of the bikini (not a new style but his cut was daringly minimalist and according to him inspired by his observation on a beach at St Tropez of young ladies "rolling up their bathing suits to get a better tan") couldn’t find a model on the books of the agencies willing to be photographed in such a thing so he hired a nude model; for her it was more fabric than usual.  The disapprobation of the middle-class towards non-conforming women persists and manifests in different cultures at different levels.  In India, nude modelling definitely is out but mothers will also tar occupations such as prostitute, flight attendant and call-centre worker with the same brush of un-virtue, apparently because they all sometimes work during the hours of darkness when respectable girls are in the home, cooking & cleaning.

Nicola Benedetti CBE (b 1987) with her "Earl Spencer" Stradivarius.

Violinist (one who plays the violin) dates from the 1660s and was an un-adapted borrowing from the Italian.  A violinist is thus a musician and not a “violin maker”: those practicing that profession are properly called luthiers.  A luthier is a skilled craftsperson who specializes in the construction, repair, and restoration of stringed instruments, particularly violins and the range of skills needed is wide because the artisan needs to select different types of wood to be cut & carved before being assembled and varnished, all processes which ultimately determine the instrument’s tone and aesthetic qualities.  In the traditional way of making violins, there is both artistry and craftsmanship.  Luthier has no connection with “Lucifer” (and there’s thus no link with the notion of the “devil’s instrument”).  Luthier was from the French luth (lute), a stringed instrument of great antiquity that was wildly popular during the medieval era and the Renaissance periods and the luthier's craft once focused predominately on the construction and repair of lutes.  As the lute faded from use and the violin gained prominence, luthiers adapted and changed, becoming specialists in the violin making, some branching out to include other stringed instruments such as violas, cellos, and guitars.  The French luth was from leutier, from the Latin luteum (yellow or yellowish), thought to refer to the honey-colored wood most suited to musical instruments.

Yehudi Menuhin on stage, 1943.

Still the most famous of the luthiers is Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737) whose workshop was in the norther Italian town of Cremona.  His violins, of which there were thousands, may or may not have been the product of his own hands because he had sons and pupils in his business but the survivors were anyway by the 1990s were selling for millions.  The familiar "Stradivarius" is the anglicized form and although some “blind tests” have suggested even experts can’t tell the difference in the sound from a genuine “Strad” and a good quality modern violin, they have become a collectable and now sell for even more millions.  The acclaimed virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999) for decades played on one of the rare Soil Stradivarius, crafted in 1714 during the luthier’s “golden period”.  During World War II (1939-1945), Menuhin sometimes played concerts to entertain troops and once found out that due to an army SNAFU, his waiting audience was expecting an attractive young lady to sing for them.  Undeterred, he walked on stage, telling the soldiers: “You won’t enjoy this, but it’s good for you”, proceeding to play Handel’s Violin Sonata No. 3.  It was well received.

The Joachim-Ma Stradivarius.

In February 2025 a Stradivarius violin, authenticated as having been crafted in 1714, sold at a Sotheby’s of Manhattan auction in New York for $11.25 million which disappointed some who had expected a new record for the instrument.  The 311-year-old artefact was known in the trade as the “Joachim-Ma Stradivarius”, a reference to one-time owners Hungarian violinist, conductor & composer Joseph Joachim (1831–1907 (who had been a friend of the German composer, pianist & conductor Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)) and violinist Ma Si Hon (1925-2009); in 2015 it had been donated to the New England Conservatory (NEC) with the proviso it would one day be sold to fund musical scholarships for youth.  That it didn’t set a new mark may be because, like many collectables, there is the power of celebrity association.

The Lady Blunt Stradivarius in case.

The 1721 “Lady Blunt Stradivarius” which in 2011 passed under the hammer for US$15.9 million had been named for Lord Byron’s (1788–1824) granddaughter (Anne Blunt (1837-1917); Baroness Wentworth but styled usually as Lady Anne Blunt) and in artistic circles there’s quite an allure to Byron (emos and others also affected).  That said, the mid-decade downturn in other collector markets does suggest macro-economic conditions may have been a factor in the 2025 auction, especially if recent inflation and the massive increase in the money supply since 2011 are considered.  However, the official record for US$15.9 million may not be the highest paid because, something like the Ferrari 250 GTOs, Stradivarii do change hands in unpublicized private sales (the so-called “off-market” transactions) and there are (unverified) tales of sales in excess of US$20 million.  Many analysts are sceptical about the notion of US$20 million violins because the price achieved for the Lady Blunt (though one of the finest Stradivarii known to exist, almost unflawed and still with its presentation case by W.E. Hill & Sons of London) was in a charity auction conducted for the benefit of the Nippon Foundation's relief fund for victims of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.

Yehudi Menuhin playing the Lady Blunt, Sotheby's, London, 1971.

In a long career 75 years, Menuhin played a number of famous violins including the Lord Wilton Guarnerius (1742), the Giovanni Bussetto (1680), the Giovanni Grancino (1695), the Guarneri filius Andrea (1703), the Soil Stradivarius (1714), the Prince Khevenhüller Stradivari (1733) and the Guarneri del Gesù (1739).  Unlike racing car drivers who in their memoirs usually list the best (and, often more expansively, the worst) machines they handled, in neither of his volumes of autobiography (Unfinished Journey (1977) and Unfinished Journey: Twenty Years Later (1997)) he didn’t rate them although the one he played for almost four decades was the Soil Stradivarius, purchased in 1950.

Violin and Viola

Of the four instruments in the bowed string family (violin, viola, cello & double bass) it’s the larger and latter two which easily are distinguished, the double bass so big that when seeing a musician with their instrument, it will never be confused with a cello.  However, the violin & viola not only look similar but are much closer in size and unless seen side-by-side, it takes a trained eye to tell them apart.  The viola is the second highest-pitched instrument of the family and compositions in both orchestral and chamber music are so often written with it filling harmonies because it can be the bridge between the low-pitched cello and high-pitched melodies of the violin. There were solo compositions for the viola in the Baroque and Classical epochs but the instrument became unfashionable before the modern era when it was “re-discovered” and in recent decades, more have been written.  For those who want to stick to the classics and hear duets for violin & viola, there's Mozart (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's (1756–1791)), the #5 Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat Major an orchestral work while his #6 Duo for Violin and Viola in B-flat Major is unusual in being written for just the two instruments.

Standard size instruments: viola (top) and violin (bottom).

The violin is smaller than the viola, a full-size violin typically some 14 inches (355 mm) in length while a full-size viola is around two inches (50 mm) longer and there are variations (four “standard” sized violas and nine violins) with the smallest generally available viola at 12 inches (300 mm), ideal for very young students with smaller limbs and hands.  Apart from the niche products, a viola will tend to be longer and have a body both deeper and wider.  The difference in size may not seem great but it affects the sound tone, the viola’s ability to play the lower frequencies partly a product of it physical bulk. The two are also played with different bows, the violin’s longer and slimmer and some 10 g (.35 oz) lighter, a product of the viola’s heavier strings which demand a more solid bow to attain clarity of sound in the lower frequencies.

2023 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS with Weissach Manthey Racing Package in (paint-to-sample) Viola Purple Metallic.

A more subtle difference in the design of the bows is found on the frog (the part at the end held by the player, to which the horsehair is attached), that on a viola’s fitting chunkier and often curved compared to the straight edge on a violin bow.  This appears to have no direct effect on the sound but because it influences the way a player holds the bow, experienced musicians can exploit the variations in the shape and the differences in tone can be stark.  While there are five-stringed violins and violas, the standard is four (G – D – A – E (violin: E is highest, G is lowest & viola: A is highest, C is lowest)).  Like the violin, the viola is tuned in fifths but instead of having the high E, it has a low C, one octave below the middle C and a viola’s strings are thicker (and thus heavier).  What all this means is that the notes produced by a violin produces are higher-pitched, thus the attraction to composers for use in solos.  That’s a well-known part of the tradition but both instruments are best understood when the family of four are played in unison, producing what musicians call a “sound color” with each distinct yet when combined the four can in certain compositions be interpreted as a “single instrument”.

Trunk

Trunk (pronounced truhngk)

(1) The main stem of a tree, as distinct from the branches (limbs) and roots (also as bole; tree trunk).

(2) Of, relating to or noting a main channel or line, as of a railroad, waterway or something which assumes a similar shape (topographically).

(3) A large, sturdy box or chest for holding or transporting clothes, personal effects or other articles.  Such trunks usually have a hinged (sometimes domed) lid and handles at each end, provided because such is the size & weight, it takes at least two to carry one when loaded.

(4) A compartment, most often in the rear coachwork of an automobile, in which luggage, a spare tire, and other articles may be kept (a “boot” in the UK and certain other places in the English-speaking world and a “dicky” in India and elsewhere in South Asia).

(5) A storage compartment fitted behind the seat of a motorcycle and known also as a top-ox or top-case (as distinct from a “pannier” or “saddlebag” which is fitted at the side (usually in pairs), below the level of the seat).

(6) In anatomy, the body of a person or an animal excluding the head and limbs (the torso).

(7) In pathology, the main body of an artery, nerve, or the like, as distinct from its branches.

(8) In ichthyology, that part of a fish between the head and anus.

(9) In engineering and architecture, a name for a conduit, shaft, duct, channel or chute etc, used variously for airflow (thermal or blown), water, coal, grain etc.

(10) In steam engines, a large pipe forming the piston rod of a steam engine, of sufficient diameter to allow one end of the connecting rod to be attached to the crank, and the other end to pass within the pipe directly to the piston, thus making the engine more compact.

(11) In extractive mining, a flume or sluice in which ores are separated from the slimes in which they are contained.

(12) In architecture, the dado or die of a pedestal.

(13) In architecture, the part of a pilaster between the base and capital, corresponding to the shaft of a column.

(14) In hydrology, the main channel, artery or line in a river, railroad, highway, canal or other tributary system.

(15) In telephony, a telephone line or channel between two central offices or switching devices that is used in providing telephone connections between subscribers generally (also called a “tie-line”).

(16) In telegraphy, a telegraph line or channel between two main or central offices.

(17) In telecommunications, to provide simultaneous network access to multiple clients by sharing a set of circuits, carriers, channels or frequencies.

(18) In clothing, brief shorts (loose-fitting or tight) worn by men chiefly for boxing, swimming and athletics (some historically known as “trunk hose”.

(19) In zoology, the elongated prehensile, flexible, cylindrical nasal appendage of the elephant and certain other creatures (the proboscis).

(20) In nautical use, a large enclosed passage through the decks or bulkheads of a vessel, used as air ducting for purposes of heating, cooling, ventilation and such.

(21) In shipbuilding, any of various watertight casings in a vessel, as the vertical one above the slot for a centerboard in the bottom of a boat.

(22) A long tube through which pellets of clay, peas etc are driven by the force of the breath; a peashooter (archaic).

(23) In software engineering, the most current source tree, from which the latest unstable builds (so-called “trunk builds”) are compiled.

1400–1450: From the late Middle English tronke & trunke, from the Old French tronc (alms box, tree trunk, headless body), from the Latin truncus (stem, a stock, lopped tree trunk), a noun use of the adjective truncus (lopped; cut off, maimed, mutilated), (the later related to the English truncated).  Trunk & trunking are nouns & verbs, trunkful is a noun, trunked is a verb & adjective and trunkless is an adjective; the noun plural is trunks.

There are a myriad of “truck” terms in human pathology and other derived phrases include “elephant's trunk” (rhyming slang for “drunk”), “hand trunk” (a piece of luggage smaller than the traditional trunk and able to be carried by one), “junk in one's trunk” (corpulence of the buttocks, the alternative forms being “dump truck” or the vernacular “fat ass”), “the apple does not fall far from the trunk” (a variant of “the apple/pear etc does not fall far from the tree”) (children tend in appearance & characteristics to resemble their parents), “trunklid” (literally obviously “the lid of a trunk” and used of the opening panel which provides access to a car’s trunk), “bootlid” the UK equivalent and confusingly in the US used also as “decklid” on the basis of the trunk being a part of a car’s “rear deck”), “trunk novel” (a novel abandoned by the author while still a project), “trunk or treat” (an organized alternative to trick-or-treating where candy is handed out to children from cars in a parking lot; it was introduced as a child safety measure), “trunk show” (an event in which vendors present merchandise directly to store personnel or customers at a retail location or other venue, based on the idea of selling “out of a trunk”), “trunk sale” (and event at which goods are displayed for sale in the trunks of cars), “boot sale” the companion term)), “trunking” (travelling sitting in the trunk of a car”), and “trunk shot” (in film-making, a cinematic shot from within a car trunk (although there was a case of a serial killer who shot his victims while concealed in the trunk of a car.

Louis Vuitton Trunk #5 (left) and Louis Vuitton Trunk on Fire (right) by Tyler Shields (b 1982).

The original idea of a trunk being a “box; case etc” may lie in the first such “trunks” being hollowed-out tree trunks although some suggest the post-classical development of the meaning “box, case with a lid or top” was based on the notion of human body’s trunk being a “case” in which the organs were transported.  The modern idea of a “luggage compartment of a motor vehicle” dates from circa 1930, about the time trunks cease to be something separately carried and replaced by and space for luggage integrated into the bodywork.  The use of trunk had long been familiar in the medical literature (both of the torso and blood vessels etc) and the idea was by 1843 extended to railroad trunk lines and telephone networks by 1889.  “Trunk-hose” were first sold in the 1630s and seems to have been a kind of thermal underwear, the description a reference to them covering the whole torso (ie, the trunk) as opposed to most “hose” which was for the lower limbs.

The use of trunk to describe the “long snout of an elephant (or other beast with a similar appendage)” appeared first in the 1560s but etymologists are divided on whether it was an allusion to a tree’s trunk or has some connection with “trumpet”, based on the loud sound elephants are able to generate although the evidence does suggest the early use may have been a reference to the thing’s ability to hold water.  Predictably, by the early eighteenth century, it was a slang term for the human nose.  The use in clothing (always in the plural as “trunks”) emerged in the mid 1820s and initially described “short breeches of thin material”; it was a use of trunk in the sense of “torso”.  Use began in theatrical jargon but, as was not uncommon, soon it was applied to breeches generally, especially in US English and for the short, tight-fitting breeches worn by swimmers and other sporting types, adoption was close to universal by the 1890s.  “Swimming trunks” has survived as a regionalism; even within the one country, there are often several different names for what is one of humanity’s most simple garments.

Trump Trunks: MAGA (Make America Great Again) swimming trunks.  Trump trunks are made from a “silky, breathable, 4-way stretch mesh fabric” and features include (1) a small internal pocket, (2) a built-in anti-chafe liner.  The country of manufacture is not disclosed.  Clearly, the DNC (Democratic National Committee) in 2016 missed an opportunity by failing to release the "Crooked Hillary Clinton Bikini".

One linguistic curiosity was “subscriber trunk dialing” (later changed to “subscriber toll dialing” which later still switched to DDD (Direct Distance Dialing).  The “other” use of STD was as “sexually transmitted disease”, previously known as VD (venereal disease) and it wasn’t until the 1970s the initialism VD began to be replaced by STD (VD thought to have to have gained too many specific associations) but fortunately for the US telecommunications carrier American Telephone and Telegraph Company (later AT&T), in 1951 they renamed their STD service (for long-distance phone calls) to DDD, apparently for no better reason than the alliterative appeal although it's possible they just wanted to avoid mentioning “toll” with all the potential market resistance the word imparts.  Many countries in the English-speaking world continued to use STD for the phone calls, even after the public health specialists had re-purposed the initialization.  In clinical use, STI (Sexually Transmitted Infection)seems now the preferred term.

The evolution of the trunk: 1851 Concord stagecoach on display at the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum, Washington DC (left) with truck strapped to the back, additional trunks carried on the roof; 1928 Mercedes-Benz Nürburg 460 K Pullman Limousine (W08, centre left) with separate trunk still carried on a rear frame; 1936 Studebaker Dictator 4-door sedan (centre right) with the trunk now an integrated part of the bodywork and from that modest appendage they would grow.  The US full-sized cars of the 1960s & 1970s had most capacious trunks but few could match Leyland Australia's infamous P76 (1973-1975, right) which effortlessly could carry a 44 (imperial) gallon (200 litre) drum although the reputed ability to handle fours sets of golf clubs (including collapsible trolleys) was probably more of a selling point.  Unfortunately, as the P76's rapid demise indicates, there just aren't that many golfers.

The compartment which is most located in the rear coachwork of an automobile is used for luggage and historically also the spare tyre a toolkit (neither now not always supplied).  In North American use, this is called a “trunk”, an inheritance from the time when the passengers’ trunks (ie, in the sense of the box-like suitcases) were strapped on to an extension at the back of horse-drawn carriages.  In the early automobiles, the practice continued (often with lined wicker baskets because they were of lightweight construction) and when these were integrated into the bodywork, the space provided continued to be called “the trunk”.  The British called the same thing a “boot”.  In horse-drawn carriages in the UK, a “boot” was a compartment used to store travel essentials, among which (in an age of rutted, poorly maintained roads) included boots, the male passengers sometimes required to push the coach when it became stuck in mud, the frequent inclusion of a “boot box” or “boot locker”, made typically of leather and attached at the rear.  The other suggested origin is the French boute (compartment; box).  The term “boot” thus spread throughout the British Empire although, under the Raj, in India & Ceylon (later Sri Lanka) it became the “dickie”.  That was based on the dicky seat (also as “dickie seat” & “dickey seat” and later more commonly known as the “rumble seat”), an upholstered bench mounted at the rear of a coach, carriage or early motorcar and as the car industry evolved and coachwork became more elaborate, increasingly they folded into the body.  The size varied but generally they were designed to accommodate one or two adults although the photographic evidence suggests they could be used also to seat half-a-dozen or more children.  Why it was called a dicky seat is unknown (the word dates from 1801 and most speculation is in some way related to the English class system) but when fitted on horse-drawn carriages it was always understood to mean “a boot (box or receptacle covered with leather at either end of a coach, the use based on the footwear) with a seat above it for servants”.  Under the Raj, “dickie” was preferred while the colloquial “mother-in-law seat” was at least trans-Atlantic and probably global.

Lindsay Lohan illustrates how there are frunks (left) and there are trunks (right).

The rear-engined Porsche 911 Carrera (997, 2004-2013) Cabriolet (Los Angeles, 2012, right) has a frunk while the front-engined Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG roadster (Los Angeles,  2005, right) has a trunk.  Based on the R230 (2001-2011) platform, the SL 65 AMG was produced between 2004-2012 and Ms Lohan also later drove an SL 550 (2006-2011), a model which was a quirk in the naming system because the designation was exclusive to the the North American market, the RoW (rest of the world) cars retaining the SL 500 badge even though both used the 5.5 litre (333 cubic inch) V8 (M273).  As the SL 65's open trunk lid reveals (right), because of the need to accommodate the bulky, folding aluminum hard-top, when lowered, it absorbed much of the trunk space so the design, like many, involved a trade-off between what was gained and what was lost.  Ms Lohan had (relatively) minor accidents in both her SL 65 and later a 911 coupé so clearly should avoid driving black, German cars.

The Fiat X1/9 (produced by Fiat 1972–1982 and Bertone from 1982–1989) featured both a frunk (left) and a trunk (right).

Most cars built have had the engine mounted in the front, thus most trunks appeared in the rear bodywork.  There have however been cars with engines behind the driver (such things were quite numerous until well into the 1970s) and these usually had a storage compartment at the front (where the engine otherwise would sit, under the hood (bonnet)).  Until the early years of the twentieth century, these seem just to have been called a “trunk” or “boot” but as electric vehicles began to appear in volume “frunk” (the construct being f(ront) + (t)runk) and the less popular “froot” (the construct being fr(ont) + (b)oot)) came into use.  There have been mid-engined cars which have both a trunk and a frunk and those in the diminutive Fiat X1/9 were surprisingly large while others (such as Ferrari's Dino 308 GT4 (1973-1980) & 208 GT4 (1975-1980), both badged as Ferraris after 1976) were of a less generous capacity, the frunk in the Dinos best suited to storing something the size of a topless bikini but the GT4 was a genuine four-seater (in the sense of a 2+2), something not often attempted with the mid-engined configuration.

When there was no trunk lid, luggage racks were a popular fitting: 1959 "bug-eye" (or "frog-eye" depending on location) Austin-Healey Sprite (left) and 1971 Chevrolet Corvette Convertible LS5 454/365 (right).

There have been cars (and not all of them were sports cars) with no trunk lid.  In the case of the Austin-Healey Sprite (1958-1971), the lack of the structure on the early versions (1958-1961) was a cost-saving measure (the same rationale that saw the planned retractable headlights replaced by the distinctive protuberances atop the hood (bonnet) which lent the cheerful little roadster its nickname (bug-eye in North American and frog-eye in the UK & most of the Commonwealth).  It had additional benefits including weight reduction and improved structural rigidity but the obvious drawback was inconvenience: to use the trunk one had to reach through the gap behind the seats.  It was easy to see why luggage racks proved a popular accessory, sales of which continued to be strong even when later versions of the Sprite (1961-1971) and the badge-engineered companion model (the MG Midget (1961-1980)) gained a trunk lid.

Have trunk, can travel: Nor Cal’s (of Stockton, California) trunk lid kit for Austin Healy Sprite, May 1961.  Note the standard-sized registration (license) plate; the Sprite really was small.

However, noting Austin-Healey’s cost-cutting meant the Series 1 Sprite’s trunk came lidless, modern commerce quickly saw a gap (technically also a “lack of gap”) in the market and “lid kits” soon appeared.  Advertised as meaning “no more acrobatic maneuvers when loading luggage”, mention was made also of an installation making the spare tyre easier to reach, a matter in the early 1960s of some significance because tyres then were not as durable and punctures more frequent.  The advertising copy was selective in that it mentioned “no welding necessary” but neglected to point out an owner would need to cut the required hole but presumably, that would have been obvious.  It was a proper trunk lid in that it was lockable and said also to be “waterproof”, the latter a quality owners of British sports cars really didn’t expect so that novelty would have been a selling point.  For those Sprite owners whose family had gained a child, the improved accessibility to the trunk would have been most helpful because, as parents know, going anywhere with an infant requires carrying a large bag of stuff.  They might also have been attracted to the "baby seat" available as an accessory from the Healey factory; it was a design which would now be thought extraordinary (other words also come to mind) but it was at the time just the way things were done.  

1963 Corvette (C2) Coupe. This was one of GM's official publicity stills and one can see why the decision was taken not to include a trunk lid but the absence enhanced structural integrity and it was this Chevrolet chose to emphasize.

Curiously, between 1953-1962, the Chevrolet Corvette (C1) did have a trunk lid but when the second generation (C2, 1962-1967) was released for the 1963 season, it had been removed and not until the fifth generation (C5) in 1998 did one again appear.  By then, the Corvette's luggage rack moment mostly had passed but into the twenty-first century they were still being fitted.  In the modern collector market, it’s one of those accessories, the very sight of which seems to upset some.

Trunks: The long and short of it.

1968 Holden HK Brougham (left) and 1970 Holden Premier (right).

The Holden Brougham (1968-1971) was not so much a landmark of the era as a cul-de-sac but it did indicate how quickly the “brougham” label had come to be associated with prestige and like Chevrolet’s Caprice, the Brougham was a response to a Ford.  In Australia, Ford had been locally assembling the full-sized Galaxies for the government and executive markets but tariffs and the maintenance of the Australian currency peg at US$1.12 meant profitability was marginal, so the engineers (with a budget said to be: "three-quarters of four-fifths of fuck all") took the modest, locally manufactured Falcon, stretched the wheelbase by five inches (125 mm), tweaked the front and rear styling (which although hardly radical resulted in a remarkably different look), added some gorp (the term bling not yet in use) and named it Fairlane.

The Fairlane name was chosen because of the success the company had had in selling first the full-sized US Fairlanes (nicknamed by locals as the “tank Fairlane”) between 1959-1962 and later the smaller version (1962-1965) which Robert McNamara (1916–2009 and briefly the president of Ford Motor Company before serving as US secretary of defense (1961-1968) under John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) & Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969)) described as "the size of car Americans should be driving".  In that at least McNamara was right and what came in the 1960s to be called the "intermediates" (ie between the "compact" & "full-size" lines) proved a sweet spot in the market and that was because they were essentially the size of the "standard" US automobile before the breed became oversized in the mid-late 1950s.  The Australia Fairlane was for decades a successful and profitable product and eventually Holden (General Motors's (GM) local outpost) followed the formula but not before the curious diversion which was the Brougham.  For 1968, Holden chose what even at the time was thought a bizarre approach in trying to match the Fairlane; instead of a longer wheelbase (and thus more interior space), the Brougham was conjured up by extending the tail of the less exalted Premier by 8 inches (200 mm), the strange elongation a hurried and less than successful response.  Unwanted for decades when the could be bought for Aus$250, the handful of surviving Broughams became twenty-first century collectables, advertised for sale at as much as $Aus$90,000, some Holden connoisseurs (as one-eyed a crew as any) even finding a previously undetected elegance in the lines.

1958 Cadillac Series 62 Extended Length Sedan (Body Style 6239EDX, left) and 1958 Cadillac Series 62 Sedan (Body Style 6239, right).

In their defense, Holden could have pointed to a corporate precedent, the 1958 Cadillac range including the “Series 62 Extended Length Sedan”.  The Series 62 Sedan was already an impressive 216.8 inches (5.5 m) long but the Extended Length version measured an even more imposing 225.3 (5.7), the additional 8.5 inches (216 mm) all in the rear deck, creating a more capacious trunk.  There can’t have been many Cadillac buyers with that much luggage (although, impressionistically, golf club car parks did suggest there would be those for whom the ability to carry several sets of clubs might be compelling) but the new model did attract buyers, either despite or because of the healthy industry in jokes about Mafia functionaries and other figures in organized crime grateful finally to have more space to transport the bodies.  Unfortunately for Cadillac, there were only so many golfers and Mafia hit-men and despite 20,952 of the 103,455 (excluding Eldorados and “chassis only” sales) Series 62s produced in 1958 being the Extended Length Sedan (some 20%), it proved a single-season one-off which perhaps should have been a warning to Holden.

Cadillac's other take on the “long & slightly less long” of it: 1963 Cadillac Four-Window Sedan De Ville (Body Style 6239, left) and 1963 Cadillac Sedan De Ville Park Avenue (Body Style 6389, right).

Strangely, Cadillac’s next venture in rear-deck management went the other way, “short deck” versions of certain models offered between 1961-1963, the things created by removing 7 inches (178 mm) of aft bodywork, the effect more noticeable for the final season when the truncation was 8 inches (203 mm).  Demand, anyway muted, quickly declined and there ended Cadillac’s experiments with rear deck length.  There was at the time much criticism that “full-size” US cars had become too big but the “short deck” venture was most un-Cadillac like and, by international standards, the truck capacity of even the abbreviated models was still quite generous, able effortlessly to accommodate two sets of gold clubs, something which later became a de-facto standard in assessing the practicality of sports cars.  Jaguar used this feature as a selling point when the XK8 (1996-2006) was introduced because it wasn’t possible with all versions of the old E-Type (1961-1974).  For a variety of reasons, by the 1970s, there would be a smaller Cadillac and the first generation Seville (1975-1979) was most accomplished but of the even smaller Cimarron (1982–1988) there are few fond memories.  It wasn't that the Cimarron was, by the standards of its time, an especially bad car; it just wasn't "a Cadillac" as that construct was then understood.

1967 Ford GT40 Mark III (left) and 1967 Ford GT40 Mark I (road version, right).

From 1967 there was also a more contemporary example to inspire the antipodean engineers although it’s unlikely it much caught their eye; that was the Ford GT40 (1964-1969), one of the most successful machines in 1960s sports car racing which beat not only the competition but also the attempts by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the FIA; the International Automobile Federation) to legislate it into un-competitiveness,  Then (as now), the FIA was international sport’s dopiest regulatory body.  In the happy era when it was possible to make a few minor modifications and register a Le Mans race car for the road, 31 of the 105 GT40s were so configured (even a cigarette lighter was installed) but the driving experience was still very much that of a (slightly) quieter race car, the accommodation cramped, the ventilation marginal and the luggage space fit for little more than a proverbial topless bikini.  But some hardly souls bought them because there were few things on the road faster so thoughts turned to making a “more civilized” version with the creature comforts now expected.  Thus the 1967 GT40 Mark III with a slightly detuned engine, improved ventilation, a conventional, centrally mounted gear shift, sound deadening, more compliant suspension settings and even a reasonably sized ashtray to compliment the cigarette lighter.  However, only seven were built because they cost as much as a middle-class house, were still cramped (with challenging ingress and egress for all but the young or athletic) and in appearance differed in several aspects from the cheaper (Mark I) GT40 road cars still available from John Wyer (1909–1989).

Herbert von Karajan's 1967 Ford GT40 Mark III; of the seven produced, it was one of four LHD (left hand drive) versions.  The trunk would have be large enough for his conductor's baton and maybe a little more.

By virtue of the long tail, the Mark III did though have more luggage space (for soft baggage rather than suitcases) and it appealed to some, the most famous purchaser being the Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan (1908–1989).  The Mark III was fitted with additional sound deadening and the exhaust system made the sometimes Wagnerian sound of the 289 cubic inch (4.7 litre) V8 less intrusive but inside it was no Rolls-Royce and certainly not a 1965 Ford LTD (which Ford paid acoustic engineers to prove was quieter than a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III) so whether Karajan ever tried to fit a radio or tape deck ("sound-systems would come later) is unlikely.  It would anyway have been better to focus on the road because even in its detuned form the GT40 Mark III could be a handful, especially to those unacquainted with the then still novel characteristics of mid-engined road cars although Karajan also for a while drove a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing (W198, 1954-1957) so he may have been not unfamiliar with quirky handling.  Wisely, he never drove his GT40 on wet roads.

1935 MG NA Magnette Allingham 2/4-Seater by Whittingham & Mitchel (left) and a burl walnut storage box mounted in the frunk (right).  The box was a custom fitting and most Magnettes were seen with the frunk simply carpeted.  Sometimes described by auction houses as a DHC (drophead coupé), this body style (despite what would come to be called 2+2 seating) really is a true roadster.  Note the six spare spark plugs in the engine bay; motoring used to be a much more maintenance-intensive business. 

The combination of a frunk and a front-mounted engine is unusual but it has been done.  What the coach-builder did with the MG Magnette was take advantage of what would otherwise be wasted space and the frunk typically was used as the place to store the car's tool-kit (sometimes an extensive inventory because such things often were needed, reliability then not what it became).  Frunks as a thing long pre-dated use of the term which seems to have come into use only in the 1990s (apparently part of the jargon among the cult of of rear-engined Porsche owners) but it was Tesla "formalizing" the terminology in the 2010s which made it mainstream.  The MG N-Type Magnette (1934-1936) used a 1271 cm³ (78 cubic inch) straight-six and while the combination of that many cylinders and a small displacement sounds curious, the configuration was something of an English tradition and a product of (1) a taxation system based on cylinder bore and (2) the attractive economies of scale and production line rationalization of “adding two cylinders” to existing four-cylinder units to achieve greater, smoother power with the additional benefit of retaining the same tax-rate.  Even after the taxation system was changed, some small-capacity sixes were developed as out-growths of fours.  Despite the additional length of the block, there remained between cowl (scuttle) and engine enough space to include a modest frunk.

1935 MG NA Magnette Allingham 2/4-Seater by Whittingham & Mitchel with dickie seat.  Note the resemblance of the front bucket seats to those used in the early (S1 3.8; 1961-1964) Jaguar E-Type (1961-1974).  While the scalloped shape was admired for its elegance they really weren't all that comfortable and there were few complaints when a pair with more prosaic lines was substituted.   

The other unusual feature included by Whittingham & Mitchel in this Magnette was a dickie ("rumble" to the Americans) seat as part of the cockpit.  Although most rumble seats were mounted in an aperture separated from the passenger compartment, in smaller vehicles the additional seat often was integrated but became usable (by people) only when the hinged cover was raised; otherwise, the rear-seat cushion was a nicely upholstered parcel shelf.  Stylistically, what this afforded the designers was the scope to make a car appear a rakish two-seat roadster but one with the practicality of seating four when the panel was folded back.  That's no longer done but the concept remains, some designers artfully now concealing rear-door handles to hint at the look of a two door coupé, something now made more plausible by the adoption of the "four-door coupé" motif for the few remaining sedans and (less successfully) many SUVs (sports utility vehicles).