Decorum

Decorum (pronounced dih-kawr-uhm or dih-kohr-uhm)

(1) Dignified propriety of behavior, speech, dress, demeanour etc.

(2) The quality or state of being decorous, or exhibiting such dignified propriety; orderliness; regularity.

(3) The conventions of social behaviour; an observance or requirement of one’s social group (sometimes in the plural as “decorums” the use an allusion to the many rules of etiquette (the expectations or requirements defining “correct behaviour” which, although most associated with “polite society”, do vary between societal sub-sets, differing at the margins)).

1560–1570: A learned borrowing (in the sense of “that which is proper or fitting in a literary or artistic composition”) from the Latin decōrum, noun use of neuter of decōrus (proper, decent (ie decorous) from decor (beauty, elegance, charm, grace, ornament), probably from decus (an ornament; splendor, honor), the Proto-Italic dekos (dignity), from the primitive Indo-European déḱos (that which is proper), from deḱ- (take, perceive) (and used in the sense of “to accept” on the notion of “to add grace”).  By the 1580s the use of decorum has spread from its literary adoption from the Latin to the more generalized sense of “propriety of speech, behavior or dress; formal politeness”, a resurrection of the original sense in Latin (polite, correct in behaviour, that which is seemly).  Decorously (in a decorous manner) is an adverb, decorousness (the state or quality of being decorous; a behavior considered decorous) is a noun, indecorous (improper, immodest, or indecent) and undecorous (not decorous) are adjectives).  The adjective dedecorous (disgraceful; unbecoming) is extinct.  Decorum is a noun; the noun plural is decora or decorums.

Whether on rugby pitches, race tracks, in salons & drawing rooms or geo-politics, disagreements over matters of decorum have over millennia been the source of innumerable squabbles, schisms and slaughter but linguistically, the related adjective decorous (characterized by dignified propriety in conduct, manners, appearance, character, etc) has also not been trouble-free.  Decorous seems first to have appeared in the 1650s from the Latin decōrus and akin to both decēre (to be acceptable, be fitting) and docēre (to teach (in the sense of “to make fitting”) with the adjectival suffix –ōsus appended.  In Latin, the -ōsus suffix (full, full of) was a doublet of -ose in an unstressed position and was used to form adjectives from nouns, to denote possession or presence of a quality in any degree, commonly in abundance.  English picked this up from the Middle English -ous, from the Old French –ous & -eux, from the Latin -ōsus and it became productive.  In chemistry, it has a specific technical application, used in the nomenclature to name chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a lower oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ic.  For example sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).  Decorous is an adjective, decorousness is a noun and decorously is an adverb.

In use there are two difficulties with decorous: (1) the negative forms and (2) how it should be pronounced, both issues with which mercifully few will be troubled (or even see what the fuss is about) but to a pedantic subset, much noted.  The negative forms are undecorous & indecorous (both of which rarely are hyphenated) but the meanings are differences in the meaning.  Undecorous means simply “not decorous” which can be bad enough but indecorous is used to convey “improper, immodest, or indecent” which truly can be damning in some circles so the two carefully should be applied.  There’s also the negative nondecorous but it seems never to have been a bother.  The problem is made worse by the adjective dedecorous (disgraceful; unbecoming) being extinct; it would have been a handy sort of intermediate state between the “un-” & “in-” forms and the comparative (more dedecorous) & superlative (most dedecorous) would have provided all the nuance needed.  The related forms are the nouns nondecorousness, indecorous & indecorous and the adverbs nondecorously, undecorously & undecorously.

The matter of the pronunciation of decorous is one for the pedants but there’s a lot of them about and like décor, the use is treated as a class-identifier, the correlation between pedantry and class-identifiers probably high; the two schools of thought are  dek-er-uhs & dih-kawr-uhs (the second syllable -kohr- more of a regionalism) and in 1926 when the stern Henry Fowler (1858–1933) published his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, he in his prescriptive way insisted on the former.  By 1965, when the volume was revised by Sir Ernest Gowers (1880–1966), he noted the “pronunciation has not yet settled down”, adding that “decorum pulls one way and decorate the other”.  In his revised edition, Sir Ernest distinguished still between right & wrong (a position from which, regrettably, subsequent editors felt inclined to retreat) but had become more descriptive than his predecessor of how things were done rather than how they “ought to be” done and added while “most authorities” had come to prefer dih-kawr-uhs, that other arbiter, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) had listed dek-er-uhs first and it thus “may win”.  By the 2020s, impressionistically, it would seem it has.

Décor is another where the pronunciation can be a class-identifier and in this case it extend to the spelling, something directly related.  In English, the noun décor dates from 1897 in the sense of “scenery and furnishings” and was from the eighteenth century French décor, a back-formation from the fourteenth century décorer (to decorate), from the Latin decorare (to decorate, adorn, embellish, beautify), the modern word thus duplicating the Latin decor.  The original use in English was of theatre stages and such but the term “home décor” was in use late in the 1890s to described the technique of hanging copies of old masters as home decoration.  From this evolved the general use (decorations and furnishings of a room, building etc), well established by the mid 1920s and it’s been with us ever since.  Typically sensibly, the French l'accent aigu (acute accent) (the “é” pronounced ay in French) was abandoned by the Americans without corroding society but elsewhere, décor remained preferred by among certain interior decorators and their clients, the companion French pronunciation obligatory too.

Courtoom decorum: Lindsay Lohan arriving at court, Los Angeles, 2011-2013.  All the world's a catwalk.

Top row; left to right: 9 Feb 2011; 23 Feb; 2011; 10 Mar 2011; 22 Apr 2011.
Centre row; left to right: 23 Jun 2011; 19 Oct 2011; 2 Nov 2011; 14 Dec 2011.
Bottom row; left to right: 17 Dec 2011; 30 Jan 2012; 22 Feb 2012; 28 Mar 2012.

In English, the original use of decorum was in the technical jargon of what word come to be called literary theory; decorum describing a structuralist adherence to formal convention.  It was applied especially to poetry where rules of construction abound and it was about consistency with the “canons of propriety” (in this context defined usually as “good taste, good manners & correctness” which in our age of cultural (and linguistic) relativism is something many would label as “problematic” but all are free to “plug-in” their own standards).  Less controversially perhaps, decorum was understood as the matter of behavior on the part of the poet qua ("in the capacity or character of; as being" and drawn from the Latin legal qua (acting in the capacity of, acting as, or in the manner of)) their poem and therefore what is proper and becoming in the relationship between form and substance.  That needs to be deconstructed: decorum was not about what the text described because the events variously could be thought most undecorous or indecorous but provided the author respected the character, thought and language appropriate to each, the literary demands of decorum were satisfied.  Just as one would use many different words to describe darkness compared to those used of sunlight, a work on a grand and profound theme should appear in a dignified and noble style while the trivial or humble might be earthier.

The tradition of decorum is noted as a theme in the works by the Classical authors from Antiquity but the problem there is that we have available only the extant texts and they would be but a fragment of everything created and it’s acknowledged there was much sifting and censoring undertaken in the Medieval period (notably by priests and monks who cut out “the dirty bits” and it’s not known how much was destroyed because it was thought “worthless” or worse “obscene”.  What has survived may be presumed to be something of the “best of” Antiquity and there’s no way of knowing if in Athens and Rome there were proto-post modernists who cared not a fig for literary decorum.  The Greek and Roman tradition certainly seems to have been influential however because decorum is obvious in Elizabethan plays.  In William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) Much Ado About Nothing (circa 1598), the comic passages such as the badinage between Beatrice and Benedick appear for amusing effect in colloquial dramatic prose while the set-piece romantic episodes are in formal verse; the very moment Benedick and Beatrice realize they are in love, that rise in the emotional temperature is signified by them suddenly switched to poetic verse.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December, 2011.

By contrast, in rhetoric, the conventions of literary decorum were probably most useful when being flouted.  Winston Churchill’s (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) World War II (1939-1945) speeches are remembered now for their eloquence and grandeur but there’s much evidence that at the time many listeners regarded their form as an anachronism and preferred something punchier but what made them effective was the way he could mix light & dark, high and low to lend his words a life which transcended the essential artificiality of a speech.  Once, when discussing serious matter of international relations and legal relationships between formerly belligerent powers, he paused to suggest that while Germany might be treated harshly after all that had happened, the Italians “…might be allowed to work their passage back.” [to the community of the civilized world].  What the flouting of decorum could do was make something worthy but dull seem at least briefly interesting or at least amusing, avoiding what the British judge Lord Birkett (1883–1962) would have called listening to “the ‘refayned’ and precious accents of a decaying pontiff.”

In English literature, it was during the seventeenth & eighteenth centuries that decorum became what might now be called a fetish, a product of the reverence for what were thought to be the “Classical rules and tenets” although quite how much these owned to a widespread observance in Antiquity and how much to the rather idealized picture of the epoch painted by medieval and Renaissance scholars really isn’t clear.  Certainly, in the understanding of what decorum was there were influences ancient & modern, Dr Johnson (Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)) observing that while terms like “cow-keeper” or “hog-herd” would be thought too much the vulgar talk of the peasantry to appear in “high poetry”, to the Ancient Greeks there were no finer words in the language.  Some though interpolated the vulgarity of the vernacular just because of the shock value the odd discordant word or phrase could have, the English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744) clearly enjoying mixing elegance, wit and grace with the “almost brutal forcefulness” of the “the crude, the corrupt and the repulsive” and it’s worth noting he made his living also as a satirist.  His example must have appealed to the Romantic poets because they sought to escape the confines imposed by the doctrines of Neoclassicism, William Wordsworth (1770–1850) writing in the preface to Lyrical Ballads (1798 and co-written with Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)) that these poems were here to rebel against “false refinement” and “poetic diction”.  He may have had in mind the odd “decaying pontiff”.

Bubbletop

Bubbletop (pronounced buhb-uhl-top)

(1) In aircraft design, a design of pilot’s canopy (originally military slang for what designers dubbed the “bubble canopy”, a Perspex molding which afforded exceptional outward visibility).

(2) An automobile using a transparent structure over the passenger compartment, replacing the usual combination of roof & windows.

(3) A descriptor of certain automobiles of the early 1960s, based on the shape rather than the method of construction, the conventional metal and glass used.

1940s: The construct was bubble +‎ top.  Bubble dates from the late fourteenth century and was from the Middle English noun bobel which may have been from the Middle Dutch bubbel & bobbel and/or the Low German bubbel (bubble) and Middle Low German verb bubbele, all thought to be of echoic origin.  The related forms include the Swedish bubbla (bubble), the Danish boble (bubble) and the Dutch bobble.  Top pre-dates 1000 and was from the Middle English top, toppe & tope (top, highest part; summit; crest; tassel, tuft; (spinning) top, ball; a tuft or ball at the highest point of anything), and the Old English top & toppa (top, summit, tuft of hair), from the Proto-West Germanic topp, from the Proto-Germanic tuppaz (braid, pigtail, end), of unknown origin.  It was cognate with the Old Norse toppr (top), the Scots tap (top), the North Frisian top, tap & tup (top), the Saterland Frisian Top (top), the West Frisian top (top), the Dutch top (top, summit, peak), the Low German Topp (top), the German Zopf (braid, pigtail, plait, top), the Swedish topp (top, peak, summit, tip) and the Icelandic toppur (top).  Alternative forms are common; bubble-top in automotive & aeronautical engineering and bubble top in fashion.  Bubbletop is a noun and bubbletopped is an adjective; the noun plural is bubbletops.

Evolution of the Mustang's bubbletop: P-51C (top), P-51 III (centre) and P-51D (bottom).

“Bubbletop” began as World War II (1939-1945) era military slang for officially was described as the “bubble canopy”, the transparent structure sitting atop the cockpit of fighter aircraft, the advantages being (1) superior visibility (the purest interpretation of the design affording an unobstructed, 360° field-of-view, (2) improved aerodynamics, (3) easier cockpit ingress & egress (of some significance to pilots force to parachute and (4), weight reduction (in some cases).  Bubbletops had been seen on drawing boards in the early days of aviation and some were built during World War I (1914-1918) but it was the advent of Perspex and the development of industrial techniques suitable for the creation of large, variably-curved moldings which made mass-production practical.  The best known early implementations were those added to existing air-frames including the Supermarine Spitfire, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and North American P-51 Mustang.  By 1943, the concept had become the default choice for fighter aircraft and the technology was applied also to similar apparatuses used elsewhere on the fuselage where they were styled usually as “blisters”.  In the post war years it extended to other types, most dramatically in the Bell 47 helicopter where the cabin was almost spherical, some 70% of the structure clear Perspex.

The enormous and rapid advances in wartime aeronautics profoundly influenced designers in many fields and nowhere was that more obvious than in the cars which began to appear in the US during the 1950s.  Elements drawn variously from aeronautics and ballistics did appear in the first generation of genuinely new post-war models (most of what was offered between 1945-1948 being barely revised versions of the 1942 lines) but it was in the next decade the designers were able to embrace the jet-age (a phrase which before it referred to the mass-market jet-airline travel made possible by the Boeing 707 (which entered commercial service in 1958) was an allusion to military aircraft, machines which during the Cold War were a frequent sight in popular culture).  On motif the designers couldn’t resist was the bubble canopy, something which never caught on in mass-production although Perspex roofed cars were briefly offered before word of their unsuitability for use in direct sunlight became legion.

GM Firebird XP-21 (Firebird I, 1953).

Not content with borrowing the odd element from aircraft, the General Motors (GM) team decided the best way to test which concepts were adaptable from sky to road was to “put wheels on a jet aircraft” and although they didn’t do that literally, by 1953 when Firebird XP-21 was first displayed, it certainly looked as though it was exactly that.  Its other novelty was it was powered by a gas turbine engine, the first time a major manufacturer in the US had built such a thing although a number of inventors had produced their own one-offs.  When the XP-21 (re-named Firebird I for the show circuit) made its debut, some in the press referred to it as a “prototype” but GM never envisaged it as the basis for a production car, being impractical for any purpose other than component-testing; it should thus be thought of as a “test-bed”.  The bubble canopy looked as if it could have come from a US Air Force (UFAF) fighter jet and would have contributed to the aerodynamically efficiency, the 370 hp (280 kW), fibreglass-bodied Firebird I said to be capable of achieving 200 mph (320 km/h) although it’s believed this number came from slide-rule calculations and was never tested.  Despite that, in its day the Firebird II made quite a splash and a depiction of it sits atop the trophy (named after the car’s designer, Harley Earl (1893–1969), the long time head of GM’s styling studio) presented each year to the winner of NASCAR’s (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) premiere event, the Daytona 500.

GM Firebird II (1956).

Compared with its predecessor, the Firebird II (1956), rendered this time in titanium was almost restrained, the Perspex canopy a multi-part structure over a passenger compartment designed to seat “a family of four”.  The family might have chosen to drive mostly in darkness because the heat build-up under the midday sun would have tested the “individually-controlled air conditioning”, a system upon which comfort depended because the Perspex sections were fixed; there were no opening “windows”.  Still, even if hot, the family would have got places fast because the same 200 mph capability was claimed.

GM Firebird III (1958).

The Firebird III was displayed at the 1958 Motorama and although GM never built any car quite like it, within a season, elements of it did begin to appear on regular production models in showrooms (notably the rear skegs which Cadillac used for a couple of years) and some of its features are today standard equipment in even quite modest vehicles.  The striking “double bubbletop” never made the assembly lines although some race cars have at least partially implemented the concept.  What proved more of a harbinger was the specification, the Firebird III fitted with anti-lock brakes, cruise control, air conditioning, an automated “accident avoidance system” and instead of a steering wheel, the driver controlled the thing with a joystick, installed in a centrally-mounted “Unicontrol & Instrument Panel”.  All these were analogue-era electro-mechanical devices too bulky, fragile or expensive for mass production, wider adoption in the decades to come made possible by integrated circuits (IC) and micro-processors.

1959 Cadillac Cyclone (XP-74).

Borrowing from the Firebird II, Cadillac also used a bubble top for the Cyclone (XP-74) concept car which in 1959 toured the show circuit.  Although it was powered by the corporation’s standard 390 cubic inch (6.5 litre) V8, there was some adventurous engineering including a rear-mounted automatic transaxle and independent rear suspension (using swing axles, something not as bad as it sounds given the grip of tyres at the time) but few dwelt long on such things, their attention grabbed by features such as the bubble top (this time silver coated for UV (ultra violet) protection) which opened automatically in conjunction with the electrically operated sliding doors.  The Perspex bubble canopies from fighter aircraft never caught on for road or race cars but so aerodynamically efficient was the shape it found several niches.

1953 Ferrari F166MM Spider by Vignale (left) and 1968 MGCGT (centre & right).

Bubbles often appeared atop the hood (bonnet) to provide clearance for components inconveniently tall.  Most were centrally located (there was the occasional symmetrical pair) but the when BMH (British Motor Holdings, the old  BMC (British Motor Corporation) shoehorned their big, heavy straight-six into the MGB (1963-1980), it wouldn’t fit under the bonnet, the problem not the cylinder head but the tall radiator so the usual solution of a “bonnet bulge” was used.  However, for that to clear the forward carburetor, the bulge would have been absurdly high so a small bubble (and usually, ones this size are referred to as "blisters") was added.  It probably annoyed some there wasn’t a matching (fake) one on the other side but it’s part of the MGC’s charm, a quality which for years most found elusive although it’s now more appreciated.  For MGC owners wish to shed some weight or for MGB owners who like the look, the “bonnet with bubble” is now available in fibreglass.

The winning Ford GT40 Mark IV (J-Car) with bubble to the right, Le Mans 1967 (left) and the after-market (for replicas) “Gurney Bubble” (right).

US racing driver Dan Gurney (1931–2018) stood 6' 4" (1.9 m) tall which could be accommodated in most sports cars and certainly on Formula One but when he came to drive the Ford GT40 Mark IV it was found he simply didn’t fit when wearing his crash helmet.  The original GT40 (1964) gained its name from the height being 40 inches (1016 mm) but Mark IV (the “J-Car”, 1966) was lower still at 39.4 inches (1,000 mm).  Gurney was the tallest ever to drive the GT40 and the solution sounds brutish but fix was effected elegantly, a “bubble added to the roof to clear the helmet.  Gurney and AJ Foyt (b 1935) drove the GT40 to victory in the 1967 Le Mans 24-hour endurance classic and the protrusion clearly didn’t compromise straight-line speed, the pair clocked at 213 mph (343 km’h), on the famous 3.6-mile Mulsanne Straight (which was a uninterrupted 3.6 miles (5.8 km) until the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the FIA; the International Automobile Federation and world sport’s dopiest regulatory body) imposed two “chicanes”),  Known ever since as the “Gurney Bubble”, such is the appeal that they’re now available for any GT40 replica: Like the AC Shelby Cobra, the GT40 “reproduction” industry is active and there are many times more of these than there are survivors of 105 originals.

Ferrari 250 GT “Tour de France” LWB Berlinettas by Zagato: The “double bubble” roof (left), the Hofmeister kink (centre) and the famous “Z” kink, (right).

The Italian coachbuilding house Zagato was founded in 1919 by Ugo Zagato (1890-1968) and since the early post-war years, their designs have sometimes been polarizing (the phrase “acquired taste” sometimes seen), their angularity often contrasted with the lines of other, notably Pinninfarina and Bertone but unlike many which have over the years folded, Zagato remains active still.  One Zagato design never criticized was his run in 1956 of five Ferrari 250 GT “Tour de France” LWB Berlinettas, memorable also for introducing the signature “Zagato double-bubble roof.  The roof was practical in that it better accommodated taller occupants but it really was a visual trick and a variation on the trick Mercedes-Benz used on the “Pagoda” (W113; 230, 250 & 280 SL; 1963-1971) which they explained by saying “We didn’t lower the roof, we rained the windows”.  The other famous feature (which appeared on only one) was the fetching “Z” shape on the rear pillar, replacing the “Hofmeister kink” used on some others.

1962 Chevrolet Impala “bubbletop” Sport Coupe (left), 1963 Ford Consul Capri (centre) and 1972 BMW 3.0CS (E9, right).

The 1959 Chevrolet quickly came to be nicknamed “bubbletop” and the style spread, both within GM and beyond.  The “bubbletop” reference was to the canopy on aircraft like the P-51D Mustang but was an allusion to the shape, not the materials used; on cars things were done in traditional glass and metal.  Across the Atlantic, Ford in the UK applied the idea to their Consul Capri (1961-1964), a two-door hardtop which the company wanted to be thought of as a “co-respondent's” car (ie the sort of rakish design which would appeal to the sort of chap who slept with other men’s wives, later to be named as “co-respondent” in divorce proceedings).  The Capri was a marketplace failure and the styling was at the time much criticized but it’s now valued as a period piece.  Chevrolet abandoned the look on the full-size cars after 1963 but it was revived for the second series Corvair (1965-1969).  A fine implementation was achieved in the roofline of the BMW E9 (1968-1975) which remains the company’s finest hour.

The bubble shirt and bubble tops.

The bubble skirt (worn by Lindsay Lohan (centre)) is one of those garments which seems never to quite die, although there are many who wish it would.  Once (or for an unfortunate generation, twice) every fashion cycle (typically 10-12 years), the industry does one of its "pushes" and bubble skirts show up in the high street, encouraged sometimes by the odd catwalk appearance; it will happen again.  While the dreaded bubble skirt is easily identifiable, the “bubble top” is less defined but there seem to be two variations: (1) a top with a “bubble skirt-like” appendage gathering unhappily just above the hips (left) and (2) a kind of “boob tube” which, instead of being tightly fitted is topped with an additional layer of material, loosely gathered.  The advantages of the latter (which may be thought of as a “boob bubble”) are it can (1) without any additional devices create the illusion of a fuller bust and (2) allow a strapless bra to be worn, something visually difficult with most boob tubes because the underwear’s outline is obvious under the tight material.

Zigzag

Zigzag (pronounced zig-zag)

(1) A line, course, or progression characterized by sharp turns first to one side and then to the other.

(2) One of a series of such turns, as in a line or path (typically in a repeating “Z-like” pattern.

(3) Proceeding or formed in a zigzag:

(4) In sewing, dressmaking etc, a pattern or stitches in this shape.

(5) In military use (land, sea & air), to move or manoeuvre in a zigzaging motion, usually as a form of evasion.

(6) In figurative use, something performed in a non-lineal way, characterized by frequent changes, often in response to external influences such as criticism.

(7) As “zigzag rule”, a rule composed of light strips of wood joined by rivets so as to be foldable, all the opening and closing parts being in parallel planes.

(8) In World War I (1914-1918) US military slang, a slang term for “someone drunk”.

1712: From the mid-seventeenth century French zigzag which replaced the earlier ziczac, from the German zickzack, from the Walloon ziczac, a gradational compound based on Zacke (tack) (familiar in English use as the “zigzagging technique” used in yachting).  It’s thought the coining of the original may have been influenced by the letter “Z” which appears twice, a “Z” able to be interpreted as a representation of a “zigzag movement”.  Less supported among etymologists is the alternative theory the German Zickzack was from Zacke (point; tooth; prong; jagged projection).  The earliest known use in German was to describe military siege approaches, a use adopted (by analogy) by early English landscape architects (then known as “gardeners”) to the layout of appropriately shaped paths in parks.  It was used as an adjective from the mid eighteenth century, the first appearing in 1774.  The brand of cigarette paper (a favorite of many stoners because the glue was said to make joints “easier to roll”) was first sold in 1909.  The adjectival use is common in fabric design and dressmaking, the zigzag pattern widely used.  In sewing, a zigzag stitch is one of the standard set in sewing machines, used usually to finish edges, the attachment to create such stitches known as a zigzagger.  The hyphenated spelling zig-zag is common.  Zigzag is a noun, verb adjective & adverb; zigzaggedness & zigzagger are nouns and zigzagged & zigzagging are verbs; the noun plural is zigzags.

ZIG is used as an acronym for a number of purposes including (1) zoster immune globulin (a globulin fraction of pooled plasma from patients who have recovered from herpes zoster and used prophylactically for immuno-suppressed children exposed to varicella and therapeutically to ameliorate varicella infection), (2) a general-purpose imperative, statically typed, compiled programming language intended as a modern successor to the C language and is (3) the abbreviation of Zimbabwe Gold, the official national currency of Zimbabwe since April 2024; it began in October 2023 as a gold-backed digital token in October 2023.  ZAG is the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) code for Zagreb International Airport, Croatia and to describe Zymosan-Activated Granulocytes (a type of white blood cell (granulocytes) that have been stimulated by exposure to zymosan, a polysaccharide derived from the cell walls of yeast species like Saccharomyces cerevisiae).

Lindsay Lohan with Kim Kardashian (b 1980) with strategically placed “gash” in dress.

The feature may be described as either a “zig” or “zag” because the terms are interchangeable.  However, were there to be two connected gashes which assume opposite directions: that would be a “zigzag”.  While the nature of the formation of the words “zig” & “zag” is not unique, it is unusual in that, dating from the late eighteenth century, both were extractions: back-formation from “zigzag”.  A notable quirk of zig & zag is that interchangeably they can be used to mean the same thing yet when used in the same sentence, they mean “to move in opposite directions”.  In separate use, it thus matters not whether one says “she zigged around” or “she zagged around”; the meaning is the same.  Used together however, the rule is strict: she will always be described as “zigzagging” and never “zagzigging”.  Zigzag is often intended to be humorous and when applied to politicians it’s a way of saying they are “being evasive” or “flip-flopping”.

Lindsay Lohan wearing a Tolani zig zag scarf (given it was winter, the piece should probably be described as a “muffler”) in the style made famous by the Italian fashion house Missoni, New York, November 2007.

Founded in 1953 by Ottavio (1921-2013) and Rosita (b 1931) Missoni, the house became well-known during the 1960s for their vibrant and colorful knitwear, the signature motif of which was a distinctive zigzag pattern.  The technology which made the garments possible was not new, the Missoni’s “re-discovering” the long discarded “Rachel” machines traditionally used to create the shawls worn in the south of Italy, devices which permitted an almost infinite variation of lines and styles within a given design; such things were of course possible using other machinery but the versatile Rachels allowed changes to be integrated into the production line process, making possible economies of scale not available to other manufacturers; all that was required was a quick juggling of the assembly’s array of multi-colored points and what would emerge was fabric with horizontal and vertical lines in a rainbow of colors.  Ottavio Missoni did acknowledge the stylistic debt owed, once saying: “For a thousand years, the Incas have been copying my knit sweaters…”

A swatch of Missoni's signature zigzag.

The event which made Missoni famous was at the time thought scandalous although, given what these days is worn on catwalks and red carpets, it seems quaint indeed.  After their first, well-received, catwalk show in 1966, Missoni was invited to the event held in Florence’s Pitti Palace in April 1967 and it was only during last-minute rehearsals Rosita Missoni became aware the shape and color of the models’ bras were clearly visible, distracting attention from the unique zigzagging patterns which were the brand’s signature.  With no time to arrange a fix like skin-toned bodysuits, her solution was for the models to remove their bras; that solved the problem but replaced one distraction with another, the assembled pack of photographers most impressed because, under venue’s unusually bright lights, the pieces became transparent.  Since dubbed “The Battle of the Bras”, at the time not all thought the look “appropriate” but it generated much publicity and was one of the reasons Milan would in the late 1960s emerge as one of the world’s fashion capitals, the photographers following the Missonis back to Milan.  The couple weren’t invited to the next year’s Pitti Palace show but Vogue, Marie Claire, Elle, and Harper's Bazaar all provided generous coverage and the Rubicon had been crossed, Yves Saint-Laurent (1936–2008) in 1968 displaying the “see-through” look.  Since then, it’s never gone away.

PLA Shenyang J-8II (left) and USN Lockheed EP-3E ARIES II (right)

The phrase “he zigged when he should have zagged” came into common use in the mid-twentieth century and is believed to have been popularized by radio sports commentators who needed something “graphical” to paint a “word picture” of why a football player had been tackled.  The origin is thought to be sardonic military humor and a euphemism for “he was killed while attempting an evasive maneuver”.  An example of “he zigged when he should have zagged” was the fate of the unfortunate Lieutenant Commander (shao xiao) Wang Wei (1969-2001) of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy of the PRC (People’s Republic of China), killed when his Shenyang J-8II interceptor (a Chinese knock-off of the old Soviet-era MiG 21) collided with a US Navy Lockheed EP-3E ARIES II signals reconnaissance aircraft (a development of the old P-3 Orion).  The affair became known as the “Hainan Island Incident” because the damaged EP-3 was forced to land on the Chinese territory of Hainan Island, the ensuring diplomatic spat played out over the next ten days, resolved by the US ambassador to Beijing handing to the PRC’s foreign minister the “Letter of the two sorries”; US surveillance flights have continued and the PLA is now more cautious in its shadowing.  US pilots noted the dark linguistic coincidence of the name “Wang Wei” being pronounced “wong way”.

Jewish Museum Berlin (2001), overhead view (left), exterior (centre) and interior (right).

Designed by US architect Daniel Libeskind (b 1946) and opened in 2001, Berlin’s Jewish Museum is noted for the “zigzag” theme reflected in its floor plan, exterior surfaces and interior detailing.  The “gashes”, a recurring motif, are integral to the design and described as “voids”, deep, empty spaces which “cut their way” through the building, serving as symbols representing the absence, loss, and emptiness left by the Holocaust.  The architect’s idea was to evoke a sense of disorientation & fragmentation, recalling the often disrupted history of the Jewish people in Germany (the Holocaust only the most severe of the pogroms suffered).  According to the museum, the voids are intended to summon in visitors periods of reflection, silence, and remembrance; a recall of what irrevocably has been lost.  In terms of design & effect, one of the most celebrated voids is the "Memory Void" in which houses the installation Shalekhet (Fallen Leaves) by Israeli painter & sculptor Menashe Kadishman (1932–2015), constructed with thousands of metallic faces spread across the floor.  On these, visitors walk, producing a haunting sound many report as “intensifying the emotional experience”.  Voids are not unusual in museums, galleries and other exhibition spaces but unlike some, those in the Jewish Museum contain no exhibits, reminding visitor of the void in Jewish culture rent by the Holocaust.

Shemozzle

Shemozzle (pronounced sch-moz-il)

(1) In slang, a state of chaos or confusion (especially if noisy); an uproar.

(2) In slang, a quarrel (especially if noisy).

(3) In slang, to run away; to flee; to scarper (rare).

Late 1800s (in English and some sources cite 1889 as the first known instance of use): From the Yiddish שלימזל (shlimazl) (bad luck; difficulty; misfortune), the construct being shlim (bad, ill), from the Middle High German slimp (awry, not right) + the Hebrew מַזָּל (mazzāl), from the Late Hebrew mazāl (luck, fate, (one’s) star) and cognate with the US English schlimazel (an unlucky person).  There are many variations of the German joke (such things really exist, even in Prussia) to explain the related nouns shlemiel & shimazl but all are in the flavor of: “A shlemiel is the fellow who climbs to the top of a ladder with a bucket of paint and then drops it and a shimazl is the fellow on whose head the bucket falls.”  The colloquial German noun Schlamassel (plural Schlamassel) (trouble, difficult situation, misfortune) was from the same Yiddish source.  The gender of Schlamassel is usually masculine in Germany except in the southern state of Bavaria where, like the neighboring Austria it can also be neuter, this prevalent in the latter.  Because from the ninth century Yiddish evolved from its West-Germanic origins as a vernacular tongue which a number of forks & parallel streams in Europe, the Middle East and North America before being (sort of) standardized in the mid-twentieth century in “Western” and “Eastern” variants, many words spread by oral use and the a variety of spellings was not unusual and other spellings of shemozzle included: chemozzle, chermozzle, chimozzle, schemozzle, schimozzle, schlemozzle, schmozzle, shamozzle, shimozzel, shimozzle, shlemozel & shlemozzle.  The modern alternative spelling is schmozzle.  Schmozzle is a noun & verb and shemozzled & shemozzling are verbs; the noun plural is schmozzles (which is sometimes used also as a singular).  In humorous use, shemozzle is used also as a collective noun.

Because there’s rarely been reluctance by English-speakers to adopt words from other languages if they’re useful, better than what’s in use or just an attractive alternative, there no compelling reason to use shemozzle because there are so many other words and phrases to describe states of noisy chaos or confusion.  Obvious candidates include frenzy, mess, fiasco, snafu, chaos, clusterfuck (often sanitized as the clipped “cluster”), commotion, hubbub, kerfuffle, débacle, disarray, confusion, turmoil, ado, affray, altercation, argument, battle, bickering, brawl, brouhaha, bust-up, bustle, clash, combat, commotion, competition, conflict, contention, controversy, debate, discord, dispute, muddle, dissension, disturbance, dustup, fracas, quarrel, row, ruction, scandal, strife, struggle, tiff, tumult, uproar, wrangle, disorganized, disorder, mayhem, pandemonium, uproar, havoc & bedlam.  That the list is long suggests shemozzles are a significant and not infrequent feature of human interaction and the choice of which to use is one of nuance, the connotation one wishes, some of the words emphasizing the chaos, some the conflict.  Shemozzle is an attractive choice because (1) most know what it means, (2) it’s not commonly heard so has some novelty value and (3) it's a "fun" word to say.

A media shemozzle snapping Lindsay Lohan walking into LA Superior Court, Los Angeles, February 2011.

A shemozzle can be used to illustrate chaos theory, a conceptual model of the phenomenon of an event’s ultimate trigger being something distant and apparently unconnected with its consequences.  Physicists illustrate the idea by speculating that waving one’s hands in the air might, some billions of years hence, alter the Earth’s speed of rotation and the most commonly quoted thought experiment is the metaphor for the behavior: “Can a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil cause a tornado in Texas?”  It’s an intriguing topic for those building big-machine models which can both explore and reveal patterns in what was once thought randomness.

The shemozzle of reporters and photographers clustered when Lindsay Lohan in February 2011 walked to one of the well-publicized (and not infrequent) court appearances of her “troubled Hollywood starlet” phase wasn’t unexpected and nor would she have found it an unfamiliar environment, the yellow & black plastic “Police Line: DO NOT CROSS” tape strung between the bollards vaguely reminiscent of the velvet rope & stanchions which define the limits for photographers at red-carpet events.  What was unpredicted was the almost immediate effect in commerce, the white Kimberly Ovitz (b 1983) Glavis Albino bandage dress from the houses pre-fall collection reported as “sold out worldwide” within hours of the images appearing on-line, a reasonable achievement for a piece listed at US$575 made in a run of a few hundred.

The matter before the court raised no novel legal points and thus attracted little analysis but the re-purposing of the walk to the arraignment as an impromptu catwalk strut triggered a shemozzle of its own as women around the world clamoured to buy their own Glavis Albino and media companies sought comment from Kimberly Ovitz, anxious to learn if the appearance was some sort of “sponsored promotion”.  A representative from the company was soon quoted as saying “Kimberly had no role in Lindsay Lohan wearing the dress” which Ms Lohan had purchased.  Apparently disappointed, the journalists resorted to dutifully noting her “signature Chanel 5182 sunglasses.”

Ms Lohan that evening tweeted: “What I wear to court shouldn’t be front page news. It’s just absurd” although her choice of wardrobe for subsequent court appearances hinted she may have concluded absurdity has its place and at Kimberley Ovitz’s corporate headquarters the reaction was equally pragmatic, the company offering retailers a “re-cut” (the industry term for a second production run, a la a “second printing” in the publishing world) of the Glavis Albino in response to the phones “ringing off the hook”.  “It’s been a frenzy!” CBS News quoted an Ovitz sales associate as saying.  So that’s a case study in how the choice should be made: A rabble of photographers milling behind the bollards while shouting questions is “a shemozzle” while desperate fashionistas and boutiques besieging a designer for a frock is “a frenzy”.  Now we know.

Pencil

Pencil (pronounced pen-suhl)

(1) A slender tube, usually of wood, metal or plastic containing a core or strip of graphite (still referred to as lead) or a solid coloring material, sharpened to some extent, used for writing or drawing.

(2) A stick of cosmetic coloring material for use on the eyebrows, eyelids etc.

(3) Anything shaped or used like a pencil, as a stick of medicated material.

(4) In optics (from the seventeenth century), an aggregate or collection of rays of light, especially when diverging from or converging to a point.

(5) In geometry (from the nineteenth century), a set of geometric objects with a common property, such as the set of lines that pass through a given point in a projective plane.

(6) As a verb, "to pencil in", to schedule or list tentatively, as or as if by writing down in pencil rather than in more permanent ink.

(7) In animation, as "pencil-test", a first take of pictures, historically on black and white film stock, now emulated in software; also used to describe a test which assesses (1) the viability of bralessness (Western tradition) or (2) one's attainment of "real womanhood" (Chinese use).

(8) In medicine, a small medicated bougie (from the nineteenth century and now archaic).

(9) A paintbrush (from the fourteenth century and now archaic).

1350–1400: From the Middle English pencel (an artist’s fine brush of camel hair, used for painting, manuscript illustration etc), from the Anglo-Norman and Old French pincil (artist's paintbrush) from the Old & Middle French pincel from the Medieval Latin pincellus, from the Latin pēnicillum & pēnicillus (painter's brush, hair-pencil (literally "little tail"), a diminutive of pēniculus (brush), a diminutive of penis (tail).  It’s from the old French variant pincel that Modern French gained pinceau (paintbrush).  The verb pencil emerged early in the sixteenth century as pencellen (apply (gold or silver) in manuscript illustration) and by the 1530s was being used in the sense of “to mark or sketch with a pencil-brush”, extended to work undertaken with lead pencils from the 1760s.  Despite the obvious similarity, there is no relationship with the word pen.  The spelling pensill is long obsolete.  Pencil is a noun & verb, penciler is a noun, penciled is a verb, penciled is a verb & adjective and pencillike is an adjective; the noun plural is pencils.  The additional "l" (penciller, pencilled etc) is used in traditional British spelling.

The alluring catwalk combination of a "pencil-thin" model (note the shoulder-blade definition) & polka-dots.  The industry has “solved” the problem of the perception of models being “dangerously thin” by adding a token number of “plus-size” units to their DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) roster.  However, the agencies report the fashion houses still first select the slenderest.

Pencils are produced in quite a variety and specialized types include the carpenter's pencil, the wax (or china) pencil, and the color pencil although what’s more precisely defined are the technical descriptions based on the specification of the graphite (HB, 2B etc), used to rate darkness and hardness.  A propelling pencil is one with a replaceable and mechanically extendable lead that wears away with use, designed to provide lines of constant thickness without requiring sharpening and typically featuring a small eraser at the end opposite the tip.  Pencil pouches and pencil cases are containers in which one stores ones pencils and related items (pencil sharpener, eraser et al); by convention a pouch was made of a soft material while cases tended to be fashioned from some hard substance (steel, wood, plastic etc) but the terms are used loosely.  A kohl pencil (also called an eyeliner pencil) is one with a kohl core (which can be sharpened in the usual manner) used for enhancing the eyes.  The golf pencil was originally designed for golfers and was about three inches (75 mm) in length though they’re now commonly used in situations where pencil turnover is high (election booths, gambling houses etc).

School pencils are a useful way to convey important messages to children.

The "pencil skirt" is a close-fitting garment which classically was knee to calf length.  In explosives, a "pencil detonator" (also as "time pencil") is a timed fuse designed to be connected to a detonator or short length of safety fuse.  "Pencil-thin" is a term (historically one of admiration but of late also used negatively) for an especially slender woman but it can be applied to any thin object (synonymous with "stick-thin", thought a clipping of the earlier zoological reference "stick insect thin").  The phrase "power of the pencil" is from professional gambling and refers to an authority to charge a punter's gambling or other bills to the casino (the house).  The "lead in one's pencil" is slang which referencing the state of erection of one's penis; to "put the lead into one’s pencil" referred to some form of stimulation which induced such an erection (including presumably the sight of an attractive, pencil-thin woman).  To "pencil something in" is to make a tentative booking or arrangement (on the notion of being erasable as opposed to using ink which suggests permanence or something confirmed); the phrase has been in use only since 1942.  The derogatory slang "pencil-pusher" (office worker) dates from 1881; prior to that such folk had since 1820 been called "pen-drivers", the new form reflecting the arrival at scale of mass-produced pencils.  The derogatory "pencil neck" (weak person) was first noted in 1973 while "pencil dick" (a penis of a girth judged inadequate or a man with such an organ) is documented in US slang since 1962.

Lindsay Lohan in pencil skirts: The pencil skirt can be thought the companion product to the bandage dress; while a bandage dress ends usually above the knee (the more pleasing sometimes far above) a pencil skirt typically falls to the knee or is calf-length.

Technical terms for the grips with which a pencil is held.

The test pencil is a device with a small bulb or other form of illumination which lights up when an active current is detected.  Available in many voltages (the most common being 12, 24, 48 (for automotive and other low-voltage applications) and 110/120 & 220/240v), they work either by direct contact with the wire through which the current passes or (through the insulation) as a proximity device.  The "test pencil" should not be confused with the "pencil test" which is either (1) in animation, an early version of an animated scene, consisting of rough sketches that are photographed or scanned (now overtaken by technology which emulates the process in software and almost obsolete but the term is still used by graphic artists to describe conceptual sketches or rough takes), (2) in apartheid-era South Africa, a method of determining racial identity, based on how easily a pencil pushed through a person's hair could be removed and (3) a test to determine the necessity (some concede on the advisability) of wearing a bra, based on whether a pencil placed in the infra-mammary fold stays in place with no assistance (which sounds standardized but sources vary about whether the pencil test should be performed with the arms by the side or raised which can significantly affect the result.

The Pencil Test

The pencil test: In the West this photograph would be graded "fail"; in China it’s a "pass", an example of "cultural specificity".

Although it sounds a quintessentially TikTok thing and did trend in 2016, the year the Chinese version of TikTok was released, re-purposing of the pencil test by Chinese women as the “true womanhood” test actually pre-dated the platform.  Like the best trends it was quick and simple and required only the most basic piece of equipment: a pencil (although a pen would do).  The procedure was the classic pencil test used to determine the viability of bralessness but, unlike the occidental original where the pencil falling to the ground was graded a “pass”, in the oriental version, that’s a “fail”, the implement having to sit securely in place to prove one is “a real woman”.  Millions of images were uploaded to Chinese social media channels as proof the challenge had been passed; this presumably will assist in ensuring one doesn’t become a leftover woman.

The Flying Pencil

Prototype Dornier 17 V1, 1934.

One of terms of the Treaty of Versailles (1919), imposed on Germany after the World War I (1914-1918) was it was denied the right to military aviation.  Those familiar with the operations of sanctions in the twenty-first century will not be surprised that within a few years, there were significant developments in German civil aviation including gliding clubs which would provide the early training of many pilots who would subsequently join the Luftwaffe, even before the open secret of the organization’s existence formerly was acknowledged in 1935.  Additionally, under well-concealed arrangements with Moscow, German pilots underwent training in the Soviet Union, one of the many programmes in a remarkably flourishing industry of military exchanges undertaken even during periods of notable political tension.  In those years, the German aircraft industry also had its work-arounds, sometimes undertaking research, development and production in co-operation with manufacturers in other countries and sometime producing aircraft notionally for civil purposes but which could easily re-purposed for military roles.  An example was the Dornier Do 17, nicknamed the “flying pencil” in an allusion to the slender fuselage.

Battle of Britain era Dornier Do17 E, 1940.

In 1934, Dornier’s initial description of the Do 17 as a passenger plane raised a few eyebrows in air ministries around the continent but in an attempt to lend the ruse a (thin) veneer of truth, the company submitted the design to Deutsche Luft Hansa (which became the modern carrier Lufthansa), the airline admiring the speed and flying characteristics but rejecting the proposal on the reasonable grounds the flying pencil had hardly any room for passengers.  To all observers, the thing was obviously a prototype bomber and one of the fastest and most advanced in the world but to maintain the subterfuge, Dornier instead claimed it was now a “fast mail transport”.  That fooled few but so soon after the Great War, there was little appetite in Europe for confrontation so Dornier was able to continue to develop the Do 17 as a bomber, adding a glazed nose, provision for internal armament and an internal bomb bay.

Dornier Do 217 E, 1943.

The deployment as part of the Condor Legion in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) provided valuable information in both battle tactics and the need for enhanced defensive armaments and it was these lessons which were integrated into the upgraded versions which formed a part of the Luftwaffe’s bomber and reconnaissance forces at the start of World II.  They provided useful service in the early campaigns against Poland, Norway & the Low Countries but the limitations were exposed when squadrons were confronted by the advanced eight-gun fighters of the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the Battle of Britain (July-September 1940).  However, in the absence of a better alternative, they played an important part in the early successes Germany enjoyed in the invasion of the Soviet Union but such was the rapidity of art-time technological advances that by 1942 the Do 17 was obsolescent and withdrawn from front-line service, relegated to training and other ancillary roles.  The slim frame which had in 1934 helped provide the flying pencil with its outstanding performance now became a limitation, preventing further development even as a night-fighter, the role assigned in those years to many airframes no longer suitable for daytime operations.  Its successor, the Do 217 was notably fatter in the fuselage but even it was soon rendered obsolete and by 1944 had been withdrawn from front-line service.

The extraordinary Mohammed Rafieh

A COVID-19 era Mohammed Rafieh at work in his Persian pencil place.

Mohammed Rafieh opened Medad Rafi in Tehran in 1990, specializing in color pencils, a description which is no exaggeration.  Although his stock numbers in the thousands, Mr Rafieh has no need for databases, barcodes or lists of part-numbers, having committed to memory the place of every pencil in his shop, an inventory said to include every color known to be available anywhere in the world.  Mr Rafieh's shop is located in the vast bazaar which sits between the two mosques in Tehran's district 15.  Medad (مداد) is Persian for pencil and Rafi the affectionate diminutive of Rafieh so in translation the shop is thus "Rafi's Pencils"; never has Mr Rafieh been accused of misleading advertising.

Mr Rafieh at work.

The pencil in its familiar, mass-produced form is surprisingly modern.  Quills made from bird feathers and small brushes with bristles from a variety of creatures were used long before chalk or lead pencils.  Sticks of pure graphite (commonly (if chemically inaccurately) known as "black lead") were used in England for marking writing instruments from the mid sixteenth century while the wooden enclosure was a contemporary innovation from the Continent and it seems to have been in this era the word pencil was transferred from a type of brush to the newly encapsulated "graphite writing implement".  The modern clay-graphite mix, essentially little different to that still in use, was developed in the early nineteenth century, mass-production beginning in mid century, something made possible by the availability of cheap, precision machine tools.  The inventor of the handy innovation of an eraser being attached to the end opposite the sharpened lead was granted a patent in 1858.  Some like these on pencils and some don't.

Pencil sharpeners of increasing complexity.  Unless one has specific needs, the old ways are usually the best.

The modern pencil also encouraged the development of the pencil sharpener, one of the world's most simple machines and something which really hasn't been improved upon although over the last century an extraordinary array of mechanical and electro-mechanical devices have been offered (some so wondrously complex it's suspected they existed just to flaunt the engineering although they do make fine gifts for nerds; it's likely nerds do prefer pencils to pens).  Apparently first sold commercially in 1854 (prior to than a hand-held blade of some sort would have been the usual method), some have been intriguing and imaginative designs which sometimes found their specialized niche but none sharpen a pencil better than the cheapest and most simple.  Even now, if one has paper, the creation of just about anything in theoretical physics, poetry or literature demands little equipment beyond pencil, sharpener & eraser.  

The Faber-Castell production process.

The pencil as collectable

Lot 278: Four volumes of Roget's International Thesaurus.

Pencils can be collectables if their provenance adequately is documented.  Doyle’s in New York on 18 June 2024 conducted an auction of some items from the estate of US composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim (1930–2021), attracting dealers, collectors & Sondheim devotees and Lot 278 was indicative of the strength of bidding: four (well worn) volumes of Roget's International Thesaurus.  Although one was from the first printing (June 1946), it lacked a dust jacket and came with library markings and a “Withdrawn” stamp.  None of those offered were rarities (reflected in the pre-sale estimate of US$200-300) but the hammer fell at an impressive US$25,600.  The stationery freaks (it really is quite a thing) were also in the crowd, a signed spiral notebook selling for what one commentator called “a startling US$15,360.”

Lot 275: Three boxes of Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602 pencils.  They were not cylindrical so, like a "carpenter's pencil", were less prone to rolling onto the floor.  

What was most surprising though was the fate of Lot 275: “Three boxes of vintage Blackwing 602 pencils (Circa 1940s-1950s).  Three blue boxes printed with "Eberhard Faber/Blackwing/Feathery-Smooth Pencils, two of the boxes complete with 12 pencils, one with 8 only (together 32 pencils).  Some wear to the boxes and drying of the erasers.”  Sondheim was a devoted Blackwing user, telling one interviewer: “I use Blackwing pencils. Blackwings.  They don’t make ’em any more, and luckily, I bought a lot of boxes of ’em.  They’re very soft lead.  They’re not round, so they don’t fall off the table, and they have removable erasers, which unfortunately dry out."  The pencils sold for US$6,400 against a pre-sale estimate of US$600-800.

The pencils were an example of how critical is provenance in the collectables market.  In June 2023, Bloomfield Auctions in east Belfast, Northern Ireland, held a “specialist” sale focused “militaria, police and important Irish historical items”, one entry with a pre-sale estimate of US$65,000-100,000 being Lot 148: “An engraved, silver-plated pencil, believed to have been a 52nd birthday present (20 April 1941) from Eva Braun (1912–1945) to Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945).  On the day, the pencil sold for US$6,900.

The lower than expected price may have been the result of doubts being cast on the authenticity of the item’s claimed history.  Technically, Lot 148 was a mid-20th-century mechanical pencil, of white metal (presumably one with a high nickel content) and silver-plated, engraved along one louvered side facet with the inscription: ZUM 20 APRIL 1941 HERZLICHST EVA.  That’s an abbreviated form of phrase typically used on occasions such as birthdays, the brevity necessitated by the surface area with which the engraver had to work, the pencil only some 3¼ inches (82.5 mm) long.  Deconstructed, the sentence fragment begins with the preposition “to” and a contracted, inflected article of speech, “the” expressed in the dative case.  Zum is literally “To the...”, understood as “Upon the...”.  So, the signatory (“Eva”) is marking the occasion the birthday on 20 April 1941, the inherent formality of form what one would expect in a gift to a head of state though perhaps not one from a lover.  However, the very existence of the relationship between the Führer and the woman who later briefly would be Frau Hitler was unknown beyond his court circle and it may have been even the jeweller wasn’t to be given a hint; the exact (physical) nature of their relationship remains a mystery.  However, the word herzlichst is from the root noun Herz (heart) and as an adjective or adverb, herzlich, is often used in the sense of “heartful” or “heartfelt” which at least suggests something intimate and the –st suffix operates to create a superlative, which if literally translated (“most heartful” or “most heartfelt”) sounds in English like something which might be used ironically or cynically but there’s nothing to suggest it should be understood as anything but something like: On the occasion of the 20th April, 1941, most heartfully, Eva.

The "Hitler" Pencil top.

The provenance of the pencil however proved controversial, something not helped by the anonymity of the seller and the lack of any documentary trail which might have helped confirm the veracity of the back-story.  While one could speculate any number of the life the pencil may have led over the decades, no evidence was offered.  The sale also attracted criticism which is increasingly heard when auction houses offer any of the militaria, memorabilia and ephemera connected with Hitler or the Nazis in general.  Although such objects have for decades been collectables there’s now more resistance to the notion of profits being derived from the trade in what is, in some sense, “the commemoration of evil” and the Chairman of the European Jewish Association had called for the pencil to be withdrawn from sale, issuing a statement in which he called the auction part of a “…macabre trade in items belonging to mass murderers, the motives of those buying them are unknown and may glorify the actions of the Nazis, and lastly, their trade is an insult to the millions who perished, the few survivors left, and to Jews everywhere.”  The president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews described the sale as “…distressing, disturbing and hugely disrespectful”, arguing that even if of historical significance “…these items have no place in our country other than inside the walls of a museum or other institution where they can be used to teach about the results of anti-Semitism.”

1938 Mercedes-Benz 770K (W150) Cabriolet F, a seven passenger tourer & parade car, pictured here with the folding soft-top in sedanca de ville configuration.

There is still some tolerance for the trade in items which would otherwise anyway be collectables (such as the Mercedes-Benz 770Ks (W07 (1930-1938) & W150 (1938-1943), many of which when offered are claimed (dubiously and not) to have some association with Hitler) and for anything of genuine historical significance (such as diplomatic papers) but the circulation of mere ephemera with some Nazi link is increasingly being condemned as macabre and the higher the prices paid, the most distasteful it seems.  A spokesman for Bloomfield Auctions defended the inclusion of such items in the sale, arguing they “…preserve a piece of our past and should be treated as historical objects, no matter if the history they refer to was one of the darkest and most controversial in recorded history.”, adding “We do not seek to cause hurt or distress to any one or any part of society” and that buyers typically were “legitimate collectors who have a passion for history… all items are a part of history, and we shouldn't be writing history out of books or society.”

Pencil sculpture by Russian artist Salavat Fidai (b 1972).