Edition

Edition (pronounced ih-dish-uhn)

(1) One of a series of printings of the same publication, each issued at a different time and differing from another by alterations, additions etc (historically sometimes referred to as impressions).

(2) The format in which a work is published (single volume edition, abridged edition, leather-bound edition, French language edition etc).

(3) In newspaper production, a form of differentiation between different versions of the “same” issue (late edition, city edition etc) and used in a similar manner in radio & television broadcasting.

(4) In book collecting, as “first edition”, a copy of a book from its first release or print run.

(5) The whole number of impressions or copies of a book, newspaper etc, printed from one set of type at one time.

(6) A version of anything (physical and not), often (sometimes misleadingly) in forms such as “limited edition”, “special edition” etc).

1545–1555: From the French édition, from the Middle French, from the Latin ēditiōn- (publication), the stem of ēditiō (a bringing forth, publishing), the construct being ēdit, the past participle of ēdere (to give out; bring forth, produce) + -iōn (the suffix appended to a perfect passive participle to form a noun of action or process, or the result of an action or process).  When the word entered English in the sense of “version, translation, a form of a literary work” (and later “act of publishing”) the dominant linguistic influence was probably the Latin editionem (a bringing forth, producing (although in specialized use it also carried the meaning “a statement, an account rendered”, from the past-participle stem of ēdere, the construct being e(x) (in the sense of “out”) + -dere, a combining form of dare (to give), from the primitive Indo-European root do- (to give).  Edition is a noun; the noun plural is editions.

More Issues Than Vogue sweatshirt from Impressions.

In publishing and (sometimes vaguely) related fields, the terms “issue”, “edition” and “version” have come to be used so loosely that they sometimes function interchangeably but within the publishing industry, there are conventions of use: Issue traditionally was used to refer to a specific release of a recurring publication (magazine, journal, newspaper etc) and tended to be tied to the release sequence (“October 2024 Issue”, “Fall 2024 Issue”, “Issue No. 215” etc).  Issue can however be used also as “re-issue” which refers usually to a “re-print” of a previous edition although it’s not uncommon for blurbs like “re-issued with new foreword” or “re-issued in large print” to appear, the implication being the substantive content remains the same.  Edition was used of a particular form or version of a publication that might differ from previous ones in significant ways which might include text corrections, foreign language translations, or updates, thus descriptions like “German Language Edition”, “Second Edition” or “Abridged Edition.  Some editions (especially those which appear in an irregular sequence) actually give in their title some hint of the nature of what distinguishes them from what came before such as the convention adopted by the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic for their Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).  What the APA does is change the number if a DSM is regarded as a “new edition” but retain the number with an appended “R” (revised) or “TR” (text revision) if it’s an “updated edition”.  Thus has appeared the DSM-III-R (1987), the DSM-IV-TR (2000) and the DSM-5-TR (2022).  There’s some overlap in use for version and this perhaps reflects the influence of technology because it tends to be used of a specific form or variant of a publication such as language (eg Spanish version), format (eg audio version) or materials used in the construction (eg e-book version) rather than an implication of a chronological or iterative update (which in publishing tends to be called an “edition”.  In that the industry differs from IT where version numbers are almost always sequential although the convention widely used in the 1980s in which something like “version 2.4.3” could be interpreted as 2=major release, 4=update and 3= bug fix has long fallen into disuse.

Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version (RSV), 1952 limited edition, first printing by Thomas Nelson & Sons, brown full leather binding with inlaid gold lettering, silk end paper and green cardboard slip case, custom bound by the Chicago Bible Society.  US$750 from Abe Books.

There are also special uses which assume a life of their own, notably the Revised Standard Version (RSV), an English translation of the Bible published in 1952 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the US.  The RSV was a revision of the American Standard Version (ASV, 1901) and was published to render the text into the modern English which readily would be understood by a contemporary reader of modest education.  The object was not to change the meaning of the text but to preserve it and paradoxically this required editing the classic verses written by William Tyndale (circa 1494–1536) or in the King James Version (KJV, 1611) because the over hundreds of years the language had evolved and the much of what was in the original needed to be interpreted for a general audience and the controversy of clerical gatekeepers between God and his people had for centuries been a thing.  The RSV however has not been the last words and those who track novel initializms will have been delighted by the appearance of the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV, released in 1989 by the National Council of Churches (NCC) and the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVue), published in 2021.  Students of such things aren’t expecting the next update for at least a decade but finding a name might prove more of a challenge than editing the Old Testament’s Book of Leviticus for a modern audience although those who have worked in biblical forks have found alpha-numeric solutions such as RSV-2CE (Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition (2006))

First Edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses, "Copy No 1", held in the National Library of Ireland.  It contains in Joyce's hand an inscription to the English political activist Harriet Shaw Weaver (1876–1961) who was for decades his patron.

A first edition of Ulysses (1922) by James Joyce (1882–1941) in 2009 sold on the opening day of an antiquarian book fair London for Stg£275,000, at the time a record for a twentieth century first edition.  Ulysses is regarded in the industry as the most collectable modern novel and the first editions, printed on hand-made Dutch fine-paper, are well-catalogued and this was number 45 of the first edition print run (all signed by the author) of 100, one of four not previously accounted for.  It had been sold originally by the Manhattan’s obviously subversive Sunwise Turn bookshop (Ulysses at the times banned in the US) and remained in the possession of the same family, stored in its original box and thus not exposed to light, accounting for the preservation of the construction.  Proving that dealers in literary circles can gush with the finest used car salesmen, the dealer who arranged the sale explained: “The color is amazing – this lovely Aegean Sea, Greek flag blue which would normally have darkened into a more dirty blue but because it has been in a box it is a complete thing of beauty.”  The almost pristine condition was a product also of its history of use, an inspection suggesting it was seemingly unread except for the well-thumbed final chapter where the most salacious passages can be found.  The existence of unread copies of well-known books is not unusual and those notorious for sitting neglected on the bookshelf include “challenging” texts such as A Theory of Justice (1971) by John Rawls (1921–2002), A Brief History of Time (1988) by Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) and Joyce’s own, bafflingly difficult Finnegans Wake (1939).  Intriguingly, the antiquarian book business also includes the category “pre-first edition” (any limited run copy of a book printed before the “first edition” is published).  The apparent oxymoron is explained by “first edition” being an industry definition rather than a literal description; pre-first editions thus analogous with “pre-production” or “final prototype” cars which (if they’ve survive the crusher which claims most) can be prized by collectors.

Among special editions there are, inter alia, “Collector's Editions”, “Anniversary Editions” and even, in one instance, the “So Fetch Edition”.

In commerce, “special editions” have become notable income generators for content providers and the movie business has embraced the concept with editions such as “the making of”, “bloopers & out-takes”, “director’s cut” and others and the idea isn’t new.  Led Zeppelin's eighth studio album (In Through the Out Door (1979)) originally was sold with an outer sleeve of plain brown paper, stamped with nothing more than the while the cardboard sleeve proper within was released with six different versions of the artwork.  Buyers would thus not know which sleeve they were selecting.  There’s nothing to suggest it was anything but a gimmick and neither the band nor the record company were expecting many to keep buying copies in the plain brown wrapped until they’d scored all six covers but there were press reports at the time of "Led Heads" doing exactly that.  The industry took note.

Taylor Swift's The Anthology, one of 34 available editions of The Tortured Poets Department.

The attraction of releasing multiple versions of essentially the same product with variations restricted to some added content or detail differences in the packaging is that the additional costs in production and distribution are marginal yet there’s sometimes it’s possible to charge a premium for the “non-standard editions”.  The practice had for decades been quite a thing with car manufacturers but the music business came also to like the idea because, unlike with the cars where customers tended to buy one at a time, obsessive fans of musicians might be persuaded they needed several copies of what was essentially the same thing.  Leftist UK student site The Tab noted few music fans were as obsessive as Taylor Swift’s (b 1989) Swifties and, more significantly, they were also impressively numerous and thus an irresistible catchment of disposable income.  What The TAB noted was the almost simultaneous release of a remarkable (and apparently unprecedented) of 34 versions of Ms Swift’s eleventh album, The Tortured Poets Department (2024), something which as well as generating revenue has the statistical benefit of afforcing her presence on the charts, every sale counting as a 1.0.  Some were technologically deterministic in than four were released as audio cassettes and nine were exclusively digital bit most were essentially the same product except for the inclusion of a bonus track and there were some available only through the retailer Target.  The most obsessive Swifties obviously could buy all 34 editions but for those which want just an exhaustive collection of the music, it appeared all was included on the accurately named The Anthology so there was that.  One day, all 34, still (where appropriate) unopened in their original packaging will appear begin to appear on auction sites.  The approach attracted some adverse comment (which the Swifties doubtless ignored) and probably confirmed in the mind of JD Vance (b 1984; US senator (Republican-Ohio) since 2023) that childless cat ladies are evil.

All editions: The Tab’s The Tortured Poets Department discography:

1. Collector’s Edition Deluxe with The Manuscript
2. Collector’s Edition Deluxe with The Albatross
3. Collector’s Edition Deluxe with The Bolter
4. Collector’s Edition Deluxe with The Black Dog
5. Standard album and The Manuscript
6. Standard and The Manuscript (signed)
7. Standard and But Daddy I Love Him (Acoustic)
8. Standard and Guilty As Sin? (Acoustic)
9. Standard and Down Bad (Acoustic)
10. Standard and Fortnight (Acoustic)
11. Standard and Fresh Out The Slammer (Acoustic)
12. Target exclusive with The Albatross
13. Target exclusive with The Bolter
14. Target exclusive with The Black Dog
15. Target exclusive vinyl
16. The Manuscript vinyl (pressing one)
17. The Manuscript vinyl (pressing two)
18. The Albatross vinyl
19. The Bolter vinyl
20. The Black Dog vinyl
21. The Manuscript vinyl
22. The Anthology
23. Standard and The Black Dog ‘voice memo’
24. Standard album and Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me voice memo
25. Standard album and Cassandra voice memo
26. Standard album (digital)
27. Standard album and Daddy I Love Him (Acoustic)
28. Standard album and loml (live from Paris)
29. Standard album and My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys (live from Paris)
30. Standard album and The Alchemy / Treacherous mashup (live from Paris)
31. The Manuscript cassette
32. The Bolter cassette
33. The Albatross cassette
34. The Black Dog cassette

1976 Lincoln Continental Mark IV, Lipstick edition.  The shade of red appears to be close to Dior's lipstick #744 (Party Red).

The car manufacturers have produced at least hundreds of “special editions”, a concept to which they kept returning because it was lucrative, the things usually profitable to an extent exceeding greatly the nominal sum of their parts.  Quite how many have existed over the years is difficult to estimate because, in addition to the well-documented examples from manufacturers which were sold nationally or even globally, some were offered only briefly or regionally and barely advertised.  Additionally, dealers or sometimes an agglomeration of them would also conjure up their own "special editions" so the total of such things is probably in the thousands.  Sometimes, fashion houses were paid to lend their name, AMC teaming with Pierre Cardin, Levi Strauss (Volkswagen also had a denim-trimmed Beetle though without a specific brand attribution) & Oleg Cassini while the Lincoln Continental at times was offered with themes by Emilio Pucci, Cartier, Bill Blass and de Givenchy although the most memorable were the reputed 500 “Lipstick editions”, a study in red & white, quite a sight given the expanse of sheet metal and leather.

1969 Dodge Charger R/T SE (left), 1972 Chrysler VH Valiant Charger 770SE E55 (centre left), 1976 Holden HX LE (centre right) and 2002 Mazda Miata Special Edition (MX-5 in some markets) (right).

In most of the “special” editions, offered over the decades, it was only in the advertising or press kits that terms like “special edition” or “limited edition” appeared.  Sometimes though, such physical badges did appear on the vehicles. In the US, on the 1969 Dodge Chargers with the SE option, the badge included both “SE” & “Special Edition” while in Australia, only “SE” appeared on the 1972 Chrysler VH Valiant Charger 770SE E55 (one of the industry’s longer model names) although the marketing material called it a “Special Edition”, a usage borrowed from the parent corporation in the US and even the badge used was the same part as that which had been stuck on the 1970 Dodge Challenger SE.  Holden’s frankly cynical (but most profitable) 1976 LE spelled out “Limited Edition” under a “LE” (in a larger font) while Mazda used only the full term for the Miata (MX-5) Special Edition models.

Limited Edition, less limited profit: The Holden LE

1976 HX Holden LE

By the mid 1970s, the market had come to prefer the cheaper, smaller and easier to use cassette tapes which meant warehouses were soon full of the once desirable 8-track players and buyers were scarce.  In Australia, GMH (General Motor Holden) by 1975 had nearly a thousand in the inventory which also bulged with 600-odd Monaro body-shells, neither of which were attracting customers; fashions change and both had become unfashionable.  Fortunately, GMH was well-acquainted with the concept of the "parts-bin special edition" whereby old, unsaleable items are bundled together and sold at what appears a discount, based for advertising purposes on a book-value retail price there’s no longer any chance of realizing.  Thus created was the high-priced, limited edition LE (which stood for "Limited Edition", the Monaro name appearing nowhere although all seem still to use the name), in metallic crimson with gold pin striping, golf "honeycomb" aluminium wheels, fake (plastic) burl walnut trim and crushed velour (polyester) upholstery; in the 1970s, this was tasteful.  Not designed for the purpose, the eight-track cartridge player crudely was bolted to the console but five-hundred and eighty LEs were made, GMH pleasantly surprised at how quickly they sold with no need to resort to discounting.  When new, they listed at Aus$11,500, a pleasingly profitable premium of some 35% above the unwanted vehicle on which it was based; these days, examples are advertised for sale for (Aus$) six-figure sums and anyone who now buys a LE does so for reasons other than specific-performance.  Although of compact size (in US terms) and fitted with a 308 cubic inch (5.0 litre) V8, it could achieve barely 110 mph (175 km/h), acceleration was lethargic by earlier and (much) later standards yet fuel consumption was high; slow and thirsty the price to be paid for the early implementations of the emission control plumbing bolted to engines designed during more toxic times.      

1971 Holden HQ Monaro LS 350

The overwrought and bling-laden Holden HX typified the tendency during the 1970s and of US manufacturers and their colonial off-shoots to take a fundamentally elegant design and, with a heavy-handed re-style, distort it into something ugly.  A preview of the later “malaise era” (so named in the US for many reasons), it was rare for a facelift to improve the original.  The 1971 HQ Holden was admired for an austerity of line and fine detailing; what followed over three subsequent generations lacked that restraint.  The HX LE was one of a number of "special" and "limited" editions offered during the era and it remains one of the few remembered.

Byzantine

Byzantine (pronounced biz-uhn-teen, biz-uhn-tahyn, bahy-zuhn-tyne or bih-zan-tin)

(1) Relating to Byzantium, the Byzantine Empire, or the Eastern Orthodox Church.

(2) Of or about a situation deemed excessively complicated and typically involving a great deal of seemingly pointless administrative detail (usually without initial capital).

(3) A citizen of Byzantium or the Byzantine Empire.

(4) Of or belonging to the style of architecture developed from the fifth century AD in the Byzantine Empire, characterized especially by a central dome resting on a cube formed by four round arches and their pendentives and by the extensive use of surface decoration, especially veined marble panels, low relief carving, and colored glass mosaics.

(5) Of the painting and decorative style developed in the Byzantine Empire, characterized by formality of design, frontal stylized presentation of figures, rich use of color, especially gold, and generally religious subject matter.

(6) Characterized by elaborate scheming and intrigue, especially for the gaining of political power or favour (usually without initial capital).

(7) In numismatics, a coin issued by the Byzantine Empire.

(8) A dark, metallic shade of violet.

1651 (in English use): From the Late Latin Bȳzantīnus (of Byzantium), the name derived ultimately from the ancient Greek city Byzantion on the Bosporus and the Sea of Marmara, said to have been named in 657 BC for it founder, Byzas of Megara.  Constantine I (circa 272–337; Roman emperor 306-337 (and the first to convert to Christianity) rebuilt the city and renamed it Constantinople.  The city fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 although the modern-day name Istanbul wasn’t (except in the Vatican and the Orthodox Church) universally adopted until the years after World War II (1939-1945).  Although in Greek legend the ancient city name Byzantion came from King Byzas, leader of the Megarian colonists, who is said to be its founder, the etymology remains uncertain although most historians of the period seem to agree it must be of Thraco-Illyrian origin and there’s no doubt Byzantium is a Latinization of the original.  Centuries later, in Western literature, the name Byzantium became the standard term with which to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire (the "Byzantine Empire” centred on the walled capital Constantinople.  For all the generations which lived while the empire stood, the term would have been mysterious and it gained currency only after 1555 when introduced by the German historian Hieronymus Wolf (1516-1580), a century after Constantinople had fallen and the empire had ceased to exist.  Until Wolf introduced the phrase, the word Byzantium was restricted to just the city, rather than the empire which, in the way of such things, had waxed and waned.  Byzantine is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is Byzantines.

Byzantium

A hand-painted rendition of Byzantine Constantinople after the style of medieval mapmakers.

Standing for centuries on blood-soaked soil on the Bosporus where Europe ends and Asia begins, Greek forces laid siege during the Peloponnesian war and Sparta took the city in 411 BC before it was reclaimed by the Athenian military in 408 BC.  Almost razed, by Roman forces in 196 AD, Byzantium was rebuilt by Septimius Severus (145-211; Roman emperor 193-211) and quickly regained its previous prosperity.  The location of Byzantium attracted Constantine I (circa 272–337; Roman emperor 306-337 (and the first to convert to Christianity)) who in 330 AD re-created it as an imperial residence inspired by Rome itself and after his death, it was called Constantinople (Κωνσταντινούπολις (Konstantinoupolis (literally "city of Constantine"))).  For a thousand years, it was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and a commercial, cultural & diplomatic centre and from its strategic position, Constantinople’s rulers controlled the major trade routes between Asia and Europe, as well as the passage from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea.  On 29 May 1453, in the first example of a major city falling to a siege by artillery, Constantinople fell to the Turks, becoming the capital of the Ottoman Empire.  The great walls which for centuries had defied invaders from land and sea, crumbled to modern cannon fire.  Even then, the Turks called the city Istanbul (from the Greek eis-tin-polin (to-the-city) although it was not officially renamed until 1930, almost a decade after the Empire was dissolved and it remains Turkey’s largest and most populous city, although Ankara is now the national capital.

Lindsay Lohan meeting Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (b 1954; prime-minister or president of the Republic of Türkiye since 2003), Istanbul (formerly Constantinople), January 2017.

The other senses of byzantine (as often used without the initial capital): (1) “characterized by a devious and usually surreptitious manner of operation, often for some nefarious purpose” and (2) “something intricate, complicated; inflexible, rigid, unyielding” are both of dubious historical validity.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), “byzantine” was first used in English in 1937 (of the impenetrable despotism of the Soviet Union which appeared to those in the Foreign Office schooled in the classics to be much the same as what they’d learned of the antics practiced in Constantinople) in the sense of “reminiscent of the manner, style, or spirit of Byzantine politics; intricate, complicated; inflexible, rigid, unyielding” but in French political scientists had earlier applied in the same figurative context, something which would surprise few familiar with the politicians of inter-war France, a generally rotten crew about whom it was remarked “they can’t keep a government for nine months, nor a secret for five minutes”.  Still, it was probably the English who lent the word its loaded meaning.  Edward Gibbon’s (1737–1794) magisterial The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (six volumes: 1776-1788) was influential for generations in forming the construct of the period in the European imagination and he caricatured the history of the empire as endless chicanery, shadyness, back-channel deals, low skulduggery, back-stabbing, and naked grabs for power.  Until late in the twentieth century, phrases like “bewildering Oriental intrigue” flowed easily from the pens of English historians and hints of the attitude, cloaked in wokish words, appear even since they’ve switched to keyboards.  Much modern scholarship though has been more forgiving and there’s now an understanding that while like everywhere, low politics and dirty deeds were sometimes done, a remarkable civilization grew on the Bosporus.

Byzantium architectural styles.

The association with needless complexity and pointless administrative duplication was probably born of the same prejudices to which was added the view the empire was infused with strange religious rituals and stubbornness in the way it clung to superstition.  Historians have of late have refined this view, suggesting words like “intricate” or even “labyrinthine” might better capture the spirit of the place which was, by any standards and certainly those of medieval Europe, a complex and highly developed society.  The loaded meaning though seems here to stay, perhaps reinforced in the public imagination by the phonetic similarity between “byzantine” & “bizarre”.  Bizarre means “strangely unconventional; highly unusual and different from common experience, often in an extravagant, fantastic or conspicuous ways” and was from the French bizarre (odd, peculiar (and formerly “brave; headlong, angry”), either from the Basque bizar (a beard (on the notion that bearded Spanish soldiers made a strange impression on the French) or from Italian bizzarro (odd, queer, eccentric, weird (and, of a horse “frisky” in the sense of the English “bolter”)) of unknown origin but thought probably related to bizza (tantrum), which may be of Germanic origin.  In summary then, the Byzantines would have had their moments but were no more nasty and duplicitous that politicians everywhere and when describing convoluted things as byzantine it might be more accurate to instead call them labyrinthine or just bizarre.

Oiler

Oiler (pronounced oi-ler)

(1) A person or device that which is some way delivers oil.

(2) A worker employed to oil machinery.

(3) Any of several devices, other than pressure devices, for feeding lubricating oil to a bearing.

(4) In oil exploration, a productive well.

(5) An oilcan.

(6) An oilskin garment, especially a coat.

(7) A ship which uses oil as fuel (archaic).

(8) In admiralty slang, an oil tanker used to refuel other vessels.

(9) In admiralty slang, an assistant in the engine room of a ship, senior only to a wiper, mainly responsible for keeping machinery lubricated (archaic).

(10) In the cleaning kits of firearms, a small (typically thumb-sized) metal container of oil, often containing an integral brush.

(11) As an ethnic slur (mostly southern US), a Mexican (sometimes extended to other of Latino appearance.

Circa 1290: The construct was oil + -er.  Oil was from the Middle English olyer, oyller & oyellere (the later alternative spellings included oylle, olie, oli, eoli, eoyle, olige, oyll, uile, oile & oyl.  Oyler was from the Anglo-Norman olie and the Old French oile, from the Latin oleum (olive oil), from the Ancient Greek ἔλαιον (élaion) (olive oil).  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been borrowed from the Latin –ārius where, as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  In English, the –er suffix, when added to a verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action indicated by the root verb.   The use in English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or describing the person whose occupation is the noun.  The meaning “an appliance for distributing oil in machines" was in use by 1861 and was adopted by the British Admiralty in 1916 to describe "navy vessels carrying oil for use by other ships"; although such vessels had been in use for some years, the Royal Navy having begun the conversion from coal to oil a decade earlier, by 1911 only the submarine fleet ran exclusive on oil and coal (sometimes sprayed with oil) still fuelled most of the navy’s vessels.

Evolution of the Ford 427 side-oiler

The side valve (usually called “the flathead”, an allusion to the almost flat plate covering the combustion chambers) Ford V8 of 1932 is remembered for its vices as well as the many things which made it one of the great engines of the mid-century.  In the 1930s, those vices could be both forgiven and worked-around but by 1953, it was still in production and outdated (though in overseas production it would continue, in French Simca cars until 1961, in Brazilian Fords until 1964 and remarkably, until 1990 in the Simca Unic Marmon Bocquet military truck.  For 1954, Ford responded to the modern overhead valve (OHV) V8s others had introduced with the debut of two new engines, essentially (by the standards of the time) small and big block versions of the same design.  Known as the Y-Blocks because of the shape of the castings, they were sturdy pieces of machinery and addressed many of the problems identified in the flathead over two decades of production but neither was suited to the evolutionary path the American automobile would follow during the 1950s.

1962 Ford 406 FE V8 with 3 x 2 barrel carburetors.

That path was not one which anyone in Detroit was likely to foresee in the late 1940s when the design work on the Y-Blocks began but by 1954, it was at least competitive with the competition.  However, in 1955, Chevrolet introduced their small-block V8 which was light, compact and free-breathing, not something which could be said of the Y-Blocks and more importantly, the design afforded a potential for development which would play out over decades.  By contrast, the Y-Blocks’ potential in both capacity and power output soon plateaued and Ford was forced to resort to exotic solutions like supercharging, something not practical for low-cost mass-manufacturing.  Ford’s solution was not one new V8 but three.  All released during 1958, the SD (Super Duty, a large, low revving truck engine), the MEL (a big block for what were now very large Lincolns and Mercurys) and the FE (thought at the time a big-block but subsequently listed by pedants as a mid-block because later castings would out-weigh it by so much).  The durable SD would remain in the catalogue until 1980, its demise prompted only by the implications of the second oil-shock in 1979, the sole complaint about it being its prodigious thirst.  The MEL would last a decade, early attempts to use it on the race-tracks abandoned because of the penalty imposed by excessive weight although it did enjoy some success in powerboat racing where it’s capacity to run reliably at full throttle for sustained periods was much admired.

Lubrication systems: 1964 Ford 427 FE V8 top oiler (left) & Ford 427 FE V8 side oiler (right).

By their bolts they shall be known.  By convention a "four bolter" was one with the four all into the boss while in a "cross bolter" two were in the boss and two into the block.  "Six bolters" (with four in the boss, two in the block) are now common.

Although it would quickly earn a stellar reputation which endures to this day, Ford’s FE V8 engine didn’t enjoy a wholly auspicious start, associated as it was with the ill-fated Edsel (FE really did stand for “Ford-Edsel” despite some post-debacle attempts to suggest “Ford Engine” (the contemporary MEL stood for Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln)).  However, whatever the problems of the Edsel, the use of the FE is some was not one.  Offered initially in several displacements, the most produced in the 1960s would be the 352 & 390 cubic inch (5.8 & 6.5 litre) versions, both of which briefly were offered in high-performance versions until the decision was taken to develop such engines as a separate FE branch, the first fruit of which was the 406 (6.6 litre) which debuted in 1962.  The 406 had performed well on Ford’s test-rigs, its output slightly exceeding the engineers’ projections and when installed in the new, slippery bodies offered that year, proved fast on the track.  The power and speed however came at the cost of reliability and the increasing speeds on the circuits had exposed weaknesses in the bottom-end, the main bearing caps “walking” when the vibrations reached a certain resonance.  The solution was to “cross-bolt” the caps; an addition two securing bolts (installed sideways through the block) per cap augmenting the pairs mounted in the conventional vertical position.  This approach, still widely used to this day, proved successful and was carried over when in 1963 the FE was further enlarged to 425 cubic inches (7.0 litre), Ford labelling the new mill the 427 to align it with the displacement limit used by both NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) and the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the International Automobile Federation and world sport’s dopiest regulatory body)).  However, greater capacity meant more power, higher speeds and increased heat and the 427 began to also to suffer, the higher internal pressures meaning lubrication to the now cross-bolted main bearings had become marginal.  Ford’s solution was to reverse the priority with which oil was delivered.  The original design (subsequently known as the “top-oiler”) lubricated first the valve-train at the top of the engine, then the main bearings which supported the crankshaft.  The new process reversed this order and the design became known as the side-oiler.

1966 Ford 427 FE V8 side oiler with tunnel-port cylinder heads and Kar-Kraft transaxle, the specification used in the GT40s which recorded a 1-2--3 finish at that year's 24 Le Mans 24 hour classic. 

Introduced in 1965, the side-oiling proved the final solution and the 427 became a paragon of reliability, powering even the Le Mans 24 hour winning GT40s in 1966 & 1967.  Today the 427 is perhaps best remembered as the power-plant in the 427 AC Shelby Cobra (although some of those actually used the rather more tame FE 428) but in those happy days when one could tick a box and have what was essentially a racing engine installed in a road car, it was available also in full-sized machines (the Galaxie), intermediates (the Fairlane) and, at the tail-end of production, a few (by then somewhat toned down) were even put in the Cougar, Mercury’s Mustang-based take on the pony-car.  By then however, the side-oiler’s days were numbered because not only was it noisy, apt to be cantankerous and a bit of an oil-burner, the complex lubrication and cross bolting made it quite expensive to build, added to which the big bore was at close to the limit the FE block could accommodate so during the manufacturing process, even a slight shift in the casting cores meant a scrapped block.  Thus the attraction for most purposes of the 428 with its smaller bore.

Cutaway schematics: The pushrod 427 FE (left) and the 427 SOHC (right).

As supplied ex-factory: Ford 427 SOHC on stand.

The side oiler also provided the basis for one engine which wasn’t quite mythical because quite a few were built but remains mysterious because nobody seems quite sure how many but the consensus is it was somewhere in three figures.  This was the 427 SOHC (single overhead camshaft (the “sock” in the slang of some)) which for all sorts of reasons never made it onto the circuits for which it was intended nor into even one road car, despite the wishes of many.  Popularly known as “the cammer”, even some sixty years on there’s still a mystique surrounding the cammer and if one can’t find an original for sale (one sold at auction in 2021 for US$60,000), from a variety of manufacturers it’s possible still to buy all the bits and pieces needed to build one.

An oiler: To remove what she describes as "crazy mascara", Lindsay Lohan posted on Instagram details of her technique which is to apply organic coconut oil to the whole face, rubbing in well.  Then she uses a damp towel to remove the oil which takes with it the dissolved mascara.  It actually removes most forms of makeup and has the added benefit of leaving the skin clean and soft.

Bolter

Bolter (pronounced bol-tah)

(1) A person or animal (most especially a horse) that bolts or is prone to running away.  The phrase (applied to HWAGs (horses, wives and girlfriends)) is usually “a bit of a bolter” and historically was never applied to unreliable men; for them, women have many other epithets.

(2) In Australian colonial slang, an escaped convict or absconder.

(3) In botany and horticulture, a plant that grows larger and more rapidly than usual.

(4) In flour milling, a machine or mechanism that automatically sifts milled flour; a person who sifts flour or meal; to sift or filter through a sieve or bolter.

(5) In petroleum refining, a filter mechanism.

(6) In the slang of engine builders, to distinguish between the means used to secure the main bearings supporting a crankshaft (2-bolter, 4-bolter, cross-bolter) which is rare except in the US, where it's most common south of the Mason-Dixon line.

(7) In sport, an obscure athlete who wins an unexpected victory or is a surprise selection in a team (Australia & New Zealand).

(8) In horse racing, a horse which wins at long odds (Australia & New Zealand).

(9) In politics, a member of a political party who does not support the party's nominee or (US archaic).

(10) In naval aviation, a missed landing on an aircraft carrier; an aircraft that has made a missed landing.

(11) As the homophone boulter, a kind of fishing line.

(12) In archaic dialectal use, to smear or become smeared with a grimy substance (later by blood).

(13) In zoology (cetology; the study of whales), to swim or turn sideways while eating.

(14) In the design of retail haberdashery outlets, the shafts supporting bolts of fabric for purposes of display and facilitation of cutting (UK).

From the Middle English bolt (verb) and the Old English (noun); it was cognate with the Dutch bout and the German Boltz.  The Old English bolt (short, stout arrow with a heavy head; crossbow for throwing bolts) was from the Proto-Germanic bultas, source also of the Old Norse bolti, the Danish bolt, the Dutch bout & the German Bolzen.  The original meaning may have been or connected in some sense with "arrow, missile" and therefore derived from the primitive Indo-European bheld- (to knock, strike), source also of the Lithuanian beldžiu (I knock) & baldas (pole for striking).  The word has since Middle English been applied to short metal rods (especially those with knobbed ends) meaning variously "stout pin for fastening objects together" and "part of a lock which springs out" both from circa 1400. A bolt of canvas or (circa 1400 and later applied to other fabrics) was so called for its shape.  The adverbial phrase bolt upright (like a bolt or arrow) is from the late fourteenth century.  The sense of a "sliding metal rod that thrusts the cartridge into the chamber of a firearm" is from 1859.  From the notion of an arrow's flight comes the bolt of lightning (1530s) and the sense of "a sudden spring or start" is attested from the 1540s.

The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought usually to have been borrowed from Latin –ārius and reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant was -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  As an abbreviation (or sometimes following a number), it’s written sometimes as -'er.  The suffix was added to verbs, forming an agent noun to describe a person or thing that does an action indicated by the root verb.  The antonym suffix was –ee which was added to nouns to denote an occupation, hobby etc and to numbers to denote a quantified set.  The related forms were the present participle bolting and the simple past and past participle bolted.  In one sense, the use by Shakespeare in Macbeth (1623) made specific what was once more general.  In Middle English, it meant “to smear or be smeared with a grimy substance” and was applied usually to farm animals getting wet with sweat, rain etc and then "boltering" with mud, hair etc.  However, the Shakespearian purloin popularized the term as means to describe getting covered in blood and that became the most common use in that context.  Bolter is a noun; the noun plural is bolters.

Cross bolters

By their bolts they shall be known.  By convention a "four bolter" was one with the four all into the boss while in a "cross bolter" two were in the boss and two into the block.  "Six bolters" (with four in the boss, two in the block) are now common.

Cross bolters (sometimes hyphenated) is engine-builder slang for the main bearing caps in an internal combustion engine (ICE) being secured by bolts which are screwed into ribs in the block as well as the traditional pair (now often four) into bolt bosses.  The bolt sets are thus mounted at 90^o to each other, a diagram of which would form a + shape when viewed from the front of the engine, hence the idea of “cross-bolted”.  The general effect of cross-bolting is to make a crankcase stiffer by reducing the tendency to twist, something made inherent by the the reciprocating motion of the crankshaft.  The additional bolts limit the movement of the bearings (which engine-builders call "walking"), the purpose being to reduce component failure because a break anywhere in the crankcase area can destroy an engine.  Six-bolt arrangements are now common and some specialists even sometimes install the bolts into the bosses at slightly differing angles on the basis that computer modelling confirms this confers a (slight) benefit in torsional rigidity under certain conditions.  Although not unique to the line and far from novel when added, the best known of the cross-bolters were those in two iterations of the Ford FE range (1958-1976) produced between 1962-1968.  Although it would quickly earn a stellar reputation which endures to this day, Ford’s FE V8 engine didn’t enjoy a wholly auspicious start, associated as it was with the ill-fated Edsel (FE really did stand for “Ford-Edsel” despite some post-debacle attempts to suggest “Ford Engine” (the contemporary MEL stood for Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln)).  However, whatever the problems of the Edsel, the use of the FE is some was not one.

The Ford FE 427: Top vs side oiling.

Offered initially in several displacements, the most produced in the 1960s would be the 352 & 390 cubic inch (5.8 & 6.5 litre) versions, both of which briefly were offered in high-performance versions until the decision was taken to develop such engines as a separate FE branch, the first fruit of which was the 406 (6.6 litre) which debuted in 1962.  The 406 had performed well on Ford’s test-rigs, its output slightly exceeding the engineers’ projections and when installed in the new, slippery bodies offered that year, proved fast on the track.  The power and speed however came at the cost of reliability and the increasing speeds on the circuits had exposed weaknesses in the bottom-end, the main bearing caps “walking” when the vibrations reached a certain resonance.  The solution was to “cross-bolt” the caps; an addition two securing bolts (installed sideways through the block) per cap augmenting the pairs mounted in the conventional vertical position.  This approach, still widely used to this day, proved successful and was carried over when in 1963 the FE was further enlarged to 425 cubic inches (7.0 litre), Ford labelling the new mill the 427 to align it with the displacement limit used by both NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) and the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the International Automobile Federation and world sport’s dopiest regulatory body)).  However, greater capacity meant more power, higher speeds and increased heat and the 427 began to also to suffer, the higher internal pressures meaning lubrication to the now cross-bolted main bearings had become marginal.  Ford’s solution was to reverse the priority with which oil was delivered.  The original design (retrospectively dubbed the “top-oiler”) lubricated first the valve-train at the top of the engine, then the main bearings which supported the crankshaft.  The new process reversed this order and the design became known as the "side-oiler" so all FE 427s are "cross-bolted" but only some are "side oilers". 

The Bolter

"The Bolter" entered popular culture after the publication in 1945 of Nancy Mitford’s (1904-1973) The Pursuit of Love (1945) in which one character, (the bolter) was so named because of her many marriages, a consequence of her tendency to bolt from one relationship to another; throughout the novel, the bolter is never named and is referred to by all as “the bolter”.  Love in a Cold Climate (1949) was a companion volume to The Pursuit of Love, the title a direct quotation from George Orwell's (1903-1950) Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936).  The usual form of expression is: “she’s a bit of a bolter”, borrowed from the use to refer to a flighty horse and historically, was applied only to wives and girlfriends; for unreliable men, women have many other epithets.  Mitford based the character on Lady Myra Idina Sackville (1893-1955), daughter of the eighth Earl De La Warr (1869-1915) and Lady Muriel Agnes Brassey (1872-1930).  Known always by her middle name, Idina, she led what many considered a scandalous life and married and divorced five times, her other connection with unconventionality that she was the cousin of the writer Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962), remembered for many things including her long marriage to the writer Harold Nicholson (1886-1968) and being the inspiration for the protagonist of Orlando: A Biography, by Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), one of her lovers.  A modern version of the phrase "a bit of a bolter" is "I'm going to Meghan Markle" meaning (in this context) "I'm leaving".  It must be used with care because as the entries in Urban Dictionary suggest, "to Meghan Markle" can mean many things.

Usage guide: The meaning of "to bolt" from somewhere differs from "to leave" the place in that the former indicates the departure was either (or a combination of) rapid, unexpected, unauthorized or sudden.