Docker (pronounced dok-er)
(1) In seaport operations, a laborer on shipping docks engaged
in the loading or unloading of a vessel (and sometimes “other duties as
required”); known in North America also as a longshoreman or stevedore, the
latter also used elsewhere in the English-speaking world (“stevedore” can also
be used of corporations which run loading & unloading operations). The general idea is of a “dock-worker”.
(2) A person who cuts off or trims the tails or (less
commonly the ears) of certain animals used in agricultural production (used
sometimes also of the tools they employ).
(3) In military aviation, a device used to connect (dock
together) two aircraft during air-to air refueling operations.
(4) In aerospace, the assembly used to permit two space
craft to “dock”, providing a port for access between the two.
(5) In engineering, any device allowing the temporary
connection of two components.
(6) In commercial food preparation, as “roller docker”, a
utensil resembling a small rolling pin with spikes, used to pierce dough to
prevent over-rising or blistering, the device creating in food: “docker holes”.
(7) One who engages in the sexual practice of docking
(where the tip of one participant's penis is inserted into the foreskin of their
partner (the success of the act said to be judged by the “extent & effect”
of the overlap). It is a niche activity.
1755–1765: The construct was dock + -er. Dock was from the Middle English dokke, from the Old English docce, from the Proto-West Germanic dokkā, from the Proto-Germanic dukkǭ (similar forms including
the Old Danish dokke (water-dock), the
West Flemish dokke & dokkebladeren (coltsfoot, butterbur),
from the primitive Indo-European dhew (dark) (which may be compared with the Latvian duga (scum, slime on water)). 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. Docker is a noun, docking is
a noun & verb and docked is a verb; the noun plural is dockers.
The use in agriculture (one who cuts off or trims the tails or (less commonly) ears of certain animals) dates from the early nineteenth century. Although there are dockers who dock, in English there is no tradition of dockee (that which has been docked) which is unusual in English when referring to devices which sometimes use the male-female anatomical descriptor model. In IT, there have been many “docks” (the best known being “docking stations” which allow something like a laptop temporarily to be tethered, gaining ports and such to allow various components and peripheral devices to be attached) but there never seem to have been “dockers”.
More than one authoritative site has rated the team song of Western Australia's Freemantle Dockers (1994) AFL (Australian Football League, which evolved from the told VFL (Victorian Football League (which apparently still own the AFL)) to become the national competition for football played under "Australian Rules") the worst of the 18 currently in use. Some on-line polls have confirmed the view but Dockers’ fans, when offered four alternatives, opted to retain the original, presumably on the assumption opposition fans must hate hearing it played (it's a tradition to play the winning team's song at the end of each match). The team’s name is an allusion to the docks at the Port of Freemantle.
Lindsay Lohan Leather Jacket (078LCJ) by Docker Trend, Kyiv.
The surname Docker was from the ancient Anglo-Saxon culture of the Britain Isles and was occupational, the name for a trapper of small game and translating literally as “cut the hare's tail”, derived from the Old English dokc (cut off) and hare, a very old word which meant then what it means now. So the surname definitely predates the Norman Conquest and the oldest known instance is the parish records in what is now the county of Cumberland. However, there was also a second linguistic fork for the surname and that was not occupational but locational, traced back to two small hamlets in Westmoreland and Lancashire, both named “Docker”, the name meaning “the grazing land in the valley”, from the pre seventh century Olde Norse-Viking dokr. Quite when the settlements were founded or named is uncertain but village in Westmoreland appears in the charters of the county for the year 1155 as Docherga, while the associated surname seems not to have been recorded before the sixteenth century and, given the high reliability of English parish records, is believed to indicate it had not previously been in use.
Historians suggest this suggests it’s possible the
village was “cleared” in the period of the Enclosure Acts (a kind of “land grab”
by the ruling class, a tradition which continues to this day) which occupied
parliamentary time for over three hundred years between 1450-1750. Under these acts, tenant farmers gradually
were deprived of their ancient rights to the “land held in common” for grazing
& tilling, forced from their humble homes to seek shelter and employment
elsewhere, often from the very beneficiaries of the “enclosure project”. One consequence of this was those expelled
often took or were given as their surname the name of their former village. There were (not unusually) many alternative
spellings of what evolved as “Docker”, the form not standardized until well
into the 1800s, the alternatives including Docker, Dockwra, Dockray, Dockwray
& Dockrell, some differences existing even within the one family, a not
uncommon practice of “branch differentiation” in the pre-modern era. In a phenomenon typical of the period of
European colonization, as the British Empire spread around the globe, the
Docker name travelled thus and is now known in Australia, the US, Canada, the
West Indies, New Zealand, a number of African states and the Indian
sub-continent.
The Docker Daimlers
In the slang of English divorce
lawyers, chatelaine was a term for a sub-set of husband-hunting women for whom
the most important criterion in their search was the quality of the house which
came with the prey, the play on words based on the ancient role of the
chatelaine being the "the keeper of the castle". Applied mostly either to the impoverished
gentry or aspirational young ladies seeking upward-mobility, chatelaines were
famously good "housekeepers"; after the divorce they often "kept the house". The more accessible modern form is
gold-digger. An exemplar of the type was
the admirable Norah Docker (Lady Docker, formerly Callingham, formerly Collins,
née Turner; 1906–1983) a dance-club hostess who was thrice-married, each
husband proving more lucrative than the last.
Her most famous acquisition was Sir Bernard Docker (1896–1978), chairman
of the Daimler motor company for which she helped design half a dozen cars;
known as the Docker Daimlers, they were an acquired taste but certainly large
and conspicuous as intended, each generating much publicity though it's
doubtful they made any positive contribution to Daimler's bottom line. Some of the more generous critics were
prepared to concede some weren't as bad as the others.
1955 Daimler DK400 Golden Zebra
The last of the Docker Daimlers, the
Golden Zebra was a two-door fixed head coupé (FHC) with coachwork by Hooper,
built on the existing DK400 (1954-1959) chassis. The interior was finished with an African
theme, the dashboard of ivory and the upholstery in zebra-skin while external
metal trim was gold-plated. Lady Docker
personally chose the zebra skin, claiming she found mink unpleasantly hot. It was first shown at the 1955 Paris Motor
Show and it's of note this stylistic mashup of pre-war motifs and mid-century
modernism appeared in the same building used for the debut of the Citroën DS
which, although as ancient under the skin as the Daimler, gave the crowds a
vision of the future although it would be decades before some of its
implications were realized.
Imposing though it was, dimensionally, being DK400-based, the Golden Zebra was actually less extravagant than some previous Docker Daimlers which had been built on the even bigger DE chassis (1946-1953) which was the last car in the UK with a straight-eight engine offered for general sale, the even more exclusive Rolls-Royce Phantom IV (1950-1956) available only to crowned royalty and heads of state. The UK in the early 1950s was still living through a period of post-war austerity but the Docker Daimlers were surprisingly well-received by the public which seemed to enjoy the splash of color they brought to the dreariness of the time when some consumer products were still rationed. The reaction of critics generally was less kind, the “Docker Specials” decried variously as “archaic”, “irrelevant”, vulgar or that worst of English insults: “tiresome”. It’s thought also not a coincidence that it was during Lady Docker’s supervision of the Daimler drawing boards the royal family’s automotive allegiance switched to Rolls-Royce, the association pre-dating even the royal warrant granted in 1902 by King Edward VII (1841–1910; King of the UK & Emperor of India 1901-1910), shortly after his accession to the throne, a Daimler 6hp mail phaeton delivered to Buckingham Palace on 28 March 1900, fulfilling an order place by the king while still Prince of Wales. So the Daimlers, in the Royal Mews since the nineteenth century, began to be relegated to secondary roles and another wouldn’t be ordered until well after The Jaguar takeover of the company in 1959.
Lady Docker’s intention however was
to achieve sensation and if some thought the cars vulgar so be it, subscribing
to the axiom of both Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) & Dr Joseph Goebbels
(1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945): “It doesn’t matter what people
are saying about us as long as they’re saying something.”. To ensure her vision would be rendered in
metal as she intended, she had her obedient husband appoint her to the board’s
of Hooper’s, (the corporation’s in-house coach-builder) as a director with “special
responsibility for styling matters”. The
irony was that unlike those on the Daimler board, she was quite correct in
perceiving their cars had become staid and unexciting with a change of
stylistic direction required; the problem was the direction she followed. When Lady Docker’s first project, the
spectacular “Golden Daimler” was unveiled at the 1951 Earls Court Motor Show,
it certainly got people talking, mostly about money. The “Golden” appellation, although not a
victory designation, was well deserved, gold plate applied to the trim where chrome
usually appeared, some 7000 gold stars appearing on the flanks, below the
waistlines. Quickly the press did their
calculations and determined the Stg£900 of the metal used would have been
enough to purchase two small cars and a motor-cycle but when asked, Lady Docker
explained: “It was practically impossible to obtain chrome.” Inside , the theme continued, the headliner
and upholstery in the rear compartment had made from gold silk brocade woven on
a loom, the timberwork all Australian camphor, selected for its honey-gold hue,
the traditional burl walnut just too dark.
The timber fittings were fine examples of the coach-builder’s craft, a matched
pair of cabinets containing a gold & crystal cocktail set to the left while
in the right sat a gold and black china tea set with a gold-plated Thermos tea
jug. Built into the
electrically-operated central divider were two folding picnic tables, able to
be laid with the linen tablecloth and napkins kept in a natty little container
while just in case a fingernail might be damaged while adjusting the gold-plated
radio controls in the armrests, a vanity set (in a gold case) was
provided. Really, Lady Docker thought of
everything.
Straight-eight Docker Daimler "Stardust" (1954), trimmed in hand-woven silver silk brocatelle and pale blue crocodile leather, the coachwork (left), Lady Docker "touching up" (centre) and the rear compartment (right).
Unfortunately, the comparison which
was obvious was with the new Daimler Regency (1951-1958) which also made its
debut at Earls Court. The Regency was
emblematic of the very problem Lady Docker had identified: it was conservative,
staid and owed more to the past than the present, let alone the future;
compared with the modernist lines being seen in the US and even Europe, it
looked like something which could have come from a decade earlier. The company was aware the world was moving on
without them and did embark on new projects, developing two of the best V8
engines of the post-war years (in 2.5 litre (155 cubic inch) & 4.5 litre
(278 cubic inch) displacements) and even an unexpected sports car which used the
smaller V8. The car was not a success
and while the drive-train attracted unqualified praise, reaction to the rest of
the package was muted at best; it was an engine crying out for a car and
typified the company’s piecemeal approach to things, culminating in Jaguar’s
takeover in 1959. Jaguar had some fine
cars but needed V8 engines for the US market so it would have seemed logical to
combine the two but, obsessed with the notion engines should have six or twelve
cylinders, neglected the opportunity and made only niche use of both, retiring
them in 1969.
As a design, the Silver Flash was the most interesting of the Dockers and was a representation perhaps of what a large FHC (fixed head coupé) would have looked like circa 1946, had there been no war. What can't be guessed is whether the design trends in the US, Europe and the UK (all with different traditions although always exchanging influences) would have tended to drift apart or begin to assume the kind of "international style" which came to architecture in the post-war years.
Satisfied however with what she had achieved in 1951, Lady Docker continued undeterred and oversaw the development of a further four “Docker Daimlers”, designed on the basis of “more of the same” (it's not known if she had in mind an old Docker family motto: Semper eadem (Always the same)), released annually, usually to a not uncritical reception but there was always the splash of publicity she craved so in that sense the designs worked. Within the corporation though, as the 1950s dragged into middle-age, the lifestyle and spending habits (with Daimler’s money) of the Dockers was causing increasing disquiet and early in 1956, a “boardroom coup” was organized, the conspiracy culminating in May when a special meeting of the board was summoned at which Sir Bernard was voted out, his wife departing with him. As if to exorcise the demons, the board ordered the Docker Daimlers be stripped of their expensive trimmings and sold.
