Bastard

Bastard (pronounced bas-terd, br-sted, or bar-stad)

(1) A person born of unmarried parents; an illegitimate child (technically gender-neutral but historically applied almost exclusively to males).  Use is now mostly in a historic context.

(2) In slang as a term of disparagement, a vicious, despicable, or thoroughly disliked person.

(3) In slang, an expression of sympathy for a man who has suffered in some way (unlucky bastard, poor bastard etc).

(4) In slang, an expression used of someone who has been fortunate (lucky bastard).

(5) In jocular slang, a term of endearment (chiefly Australia & New Zealand).

(6) Something fake, phony, irregular, inferior, spurious, or unusual; of abnormal or irregular shape; of unusual make or proportions (now rare).

(7) In engineering, politics, architecture etc, something which is a mixture of inputs as opposed to pure versions.

(8) In metalworking & woodworking, a type of file.

(9) In informal use an extremely difficult or unpleasant job or task.

(10) In animal breeding, a mongrel (biological cross between different breeds, groups or varieties) (now rare).

(11) A sword midway in length between a short-sword and a long sword.

(12) In sugar refining, (1) an inferior quality of soft brown sugar, obtained from syrups that have been boiled several times or (2) a large mold for straining sugar.

(13) A very sweet fortified wine, often with spices added.

(14) In commercial printing, paper not of a standard size.

(15) In theatre lighting, one predominant color blended with small amounts of complementary color; used to replicate natural light because of their warmer appearance.

(16) In theology, a heretic or sinner; one separated from one's deity (archaic).

(17) In biology, a botanical tendril or offshoot (rare and used only in the technical literature).

(18) In linguistics, any change or neologism in language that is viewed as a degradation.

1250–1300: From the Middle English bastarde, basterd & bastart, from the Anglo-Norman bastard (illegitimate child), from the eleventh century Medieval Latin bastardus of unknown origin but perhaps from the Germanic (Ingvaeonic) bāst- (related to the Middle Dutch bast (lust, heat)), a presumed variant of bōst- (marriage) + the derogatory Old French –ard (the pejorative agent noun suffix), taken as signifying the offspring of a polygynous marriage to a woman of lower status (ie the acknowledged child of a nobleman by a woman other than his wife), a pagan Germanic custom not sanctioned by the Christian church.  The Old Frisian boask, boaste & bost (marriage) was from the proto-Germanic bandstu- & banstuz (bond, tie), a noun derivative of the Indo-European bhendh (to tie, bind).  It was cognate with the French bâtard (bastard), the West Frisian bastert (bastard), the Dutch bastaard (bastard), the German Bastard (bastard) and the Icelandic bastarður (bastard).  Etymologists caution that charming as it is, the traditional explanation of Old French bastard as derivative of fils de bast (literally “child of a packsaddle”, the source of this the idea of a child conceived on an improvised bed (medieval saddles often doubled as beds while traveling)) is dubious on chronological and geographical grounds.  The Medieval Latin Bastum (packsaddle) is of uncertain origin.

One etymologist noted that while the origin of bantling (a young child known or believed to be "a bastard") was uncertain, it could be from the German Bänkling (bastard-child) which was from the Luxembourgish Bänk, from the Middle High German and Old High German bank, from the Proto-West Germanic banki, from Proto-Germanic bankiz (and cognate with the German Bank, Dutch bank, English bench, Swedish bänk and Icelandic bekkur.  The alleged link with bastard offspring is that conception took place on "a bank" rather than in a bed where responsible & respectable folk did such things.  In music, a song titled Lindsay Lohan List was released by an artist named That Trending Bastard.  The noun bastarditis is pseudo-Latin used (usually in an offensive or derogatory way) to suggest some tendency to act like a bastard; the formation of the word hints the behavior may be due to disease or affliction (the -itas suffix was from the Proto-Italic -itāts & -otāts (-tās added to i-stems or o-stems, later used freely) and ultimately from the primitive Indo-European -tehats.  There are literally dozens of uses of "bastard" as a modifier and it has been applied to plants animals and devices but it has also proved one of English's more productive nouns:  Bastard is a noun, verb & adjective, bastardliness, bastardizatio, bastardness, bastardy, bastardship, bastardism, bastardhood & bastardling are nouns, abastard, abastardized, abastardizing, bastardise & bastardised are verbs, bastardish, bastardous, bastardly, bastardless & bastardlike are adjectives and bastardly is an adjective & adverb; the noun plural is bastards.

US film star James Dean (1931–1955) with 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder (chassis 550-0055) shortly before his death.

The 1955 Ford Country Squire with tandam-axle trailer (behind Little Bastard) was the the team’s tow vehicle while the Cadillac to the right was a 1953 model.  Beyond both having four wheels and running on gas (petrol), one of the few things the Cadillac had in common with the Porsche was the availability of a manual transmission (Porsche at the time offered no self-shifting choice).  The black Cadillac was probably fitted with the company's four-speed Hydra-Matic automatic transmission although, after a fire destroyed the factory, almost 30,000 were in 1953 equipped with Buick's famously smooth but inefficient two-speed Dynaflow.  After the end of production of the 1953 Series 75, almost three decades would pass before Cadillac again offered a model with a manual transmission although that didn't end well (among the Cadillac crowd the Cimarron (1982-1988) is never spoken of except in the phrase "the unpleasantness of 1982") but in a much more convincing way the option returned to the list in 2004 and by 2013, while one could buy a Cadillac with a clutch pedal, one could not buy such a Ferrari.  For most of the second half of the twentieth century, few would have thought that anything but improbable or unthinkable.

The Little Bastard being serviced.

James Dean was pronounced dead on 30 September, 1955, shortly after crashing the Porsche 550 Spyder he'd bought for use as a race car.  Like the prototype Porsche 356/1 of 1948 the 550 was mid rather than rear-engined as all Porsches had to that point been and while an ideal configuration for racing, it did possess quirks which meant it was best handled by experts.  It was never envisaged as a road car and had few of the then rudimentary safety features which were beginning to appear in series production models.  Dean clearly was a gifted driver and had enjoyed some success but since his death, a minor industry has existed to create or perpetuate myths about the Porsche and it's not certain why the Little Bastard nickname was bestowed (the stories differ) thought it may not be related to the car's handling characteristics.  What is agreed is the name was painted in black script on the 550's tail by Dean Jeffries (1933–2013) who divided his time between stunt work for film production and customizing cars.

The crash aftermath.

The crash happened on SR (South Route) 466 (now SR 46) near Cholame, California, en route to October’s upcoming Salinas Road Races and Mr Dean was driving to familiarize himself with the machine.  In the dimming light of the late afternoon, the Porsche collided with the passenger-side of a 1950 Ford Tudor (two-door sedan) which had just entered the highway, driven by California Polytechnic State University student Donald Turnupseed (1932-1995).  Mr Turnupseed (later cleared by authorities of any blame) suffered only minor injuries while Mr Dean, less than an hour later, was pronounced DoA (dead on arrival) at hospital.  The wreck of Little Bastard was sold and parts were used in other race cars and although the legend of the Little Bastard curse remains entrenched in US urban mythology, the extent of its links to other racing accidents seems overstated and although there was certainly one confirmed death, more then than today, motorsport was a dangerous business and in some seasons it wasn't unknown for drivers to attend a couple of funerals. 

Little Bastard's salvaged transaxle in display frame mounted on wheels.

There is a corner of the collector market which focuses on the trade in macabre items and while a big event like the sinking of RMS Titanic on her maiden voyage in 1912 has provided a wealth of memorabilia (watches, menus, crockery, flatware etc), the death toll need not be in the dozens for collectors to be drawn to relics associated with tragedy; one celebrity can be enough.  In 2021, the four-speed transaxle from film star James Dean’s 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder (550-0055) sold in an on-line auction for US$382,000.  Again, based on the serial number (10 046) & part number (113 301 102), factory verified the authenticity and of the auction lot and it was only the transaxle which had been salvaged from the wreck, the display stand and peripheral bits & pieces (axles, axle tubes, brake assemblies etc) all fabricated.

The bastard son of a hundred maniacs: Mr Krueger with glove.

Freddy Krueger, the fictional antagonist of the A Nightmare on Elm Street horror film franchise (first seen in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) was best known for his gloved hand with "built-in" blades.  In the third and best of the series (A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors), Mr Kruger's origin was revealed as the son of a nurse in a lunatic asylum who, because of a filing error or some other oversight, was for a long weekend locked in a ward with hundreds of the worst of the criminally insane, the consequences predictable.  Thus was Mr Kruger known as "the bastard son of a hundred maniacs".

In pre-modern Europe, being born to unmarried parents was not always regarded as a stigma although the Church in canon law prohibited bastards from holding clerical office without an explicit papal indult.  Royalty and the aristocracy, famously prolific in the production of bastards, seemed often unconcerned, Norman duke William, the Conqueror of England, is referred to in state documents as "William the Bastard" and one Burgundian prince was even officially styled “Great Bastard of Burgundy”.  From this, came the idea of something bastardized being associated with the creation of an inferior copy or version of something, hence the sense of corruption, degradation or debasement, hence the association with words like counterfeit, fake, imperfect, irregular, mongrel, phony, sham, adulterated, baseborn, false, impure, misbegotten, mixed & spurious, the adjectival form common by the late fourteenth century.  However, the word eventually became used to describe things deliberately designed to be variations of something, typically between two established types.  Thus emerged bastard agrimony, the bastard alkanet, bastard bar, bastard hartebeest, bastard file, bastard hemp, bastard hogberry, bastard pennyroyal, bastard pimpernel, bastard quiver tree, bastard tallow-wood, bastard tamarind, bastard teak, bastard musket, bastard culverin, bastard gemsbok, bastard mahogany, bastard toadflax, bastard trumpeter, bastard cut, bastard eigne & bastard amber.

All Men are Bastards diary, 1995.

Variations of the word existed in many languages including the Scots bastart & bastert, the French bâtard, the Old French bastardus, the Galician bastardo, the Middle Dutch bastaert, the Dutch bastaard, the Italian bastardo, the Late Latin bastardus, the Indonesian bastar, the Saramaccan bása, the Sranan Tongo basra, the Middle English bastard, bastarde, basterd & bastart.  Use as a generic vulgar term of abuse for a man appears to date from circa 1830 although presumably it may have be slanderously applied in the past.  The early fourteenth century noun bastardy (condition of illegitimacy) was from the Anglo-French and Old French bastardie and appears from the 1570s in contemporary documents in the sense of "begetting of bastards, fornication".  The early seventeenth century verb bastardize meant "to identify as a bastard", predated by the figurative sense, "to make degenerate, debase" which dates from the 1580s, probably because bastard since the 1540s had also served as a verb meaning "to declare illegitimate".  The later use of bastardize, bastardized, bastardizing & bastardization to mean “rituals and activities involving harassment, abuse or humiliation as a way of initiating a person into a group or organization” was associated with the military, crime gangs and university fraternities, (ie structures where the membership is predominately made up of males aged 17-25.  The terms hazing, initiation, ragging & deposition were synonymous and all began as regionally-specific but soon tended towards the internationalism which marks modern English.  The once useful phrase “political bastardry” is still seen but is now rare, a victim of association; as children born out of wedlock are now no longer described as bastards, the word is also being banished from some other contexts, including political discourse which is also losing many gender-loaded expressions.

One of the opening sequences used for Alexei Sayle's Stuff, a comedy sketch show that, over 18 episodes, was shown on BBC2 for three seasons (1988-1991).  Alexi Sayle (b 1952) was a left-wing comedian and one of the show's signature lines was "Who is that fat bastard?"

Notable bastards include Confucius (circa 551-479 BC), William the Conqueror (circa 1028-1087), Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Thomas Paine (1737-1809), Lawrence of Arabia (1888-1935), Eva Peron (1919-1952), Fidel Castro (1926-2016) & Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962).  There was once some sensitivity to any admission of the status and as late as 1971, in The Gorton Experiment (a study of the prime ministership of Sir John Gorton (1911-2002; prime-minister of Australia 1968-1971)), the journalist Alan Reid (1914-1987) mentioned his subject was "A bastard by birth" but added the footnote: "Normally, I would ignore as irrelevant the circumstances of Gorton’s birth, but Alan Trengrove [1929-2016] in a biography of Gorton, written with Gorton’s full cooperation, recorded the facts until then unknown even to Gorton intimates."  He noted also: "Trengrove suggests that the mature Gorton can be understood fully only in the light of Gorton’s childhood 'insecurity' which was the product of his illegitimacy."  Journalists still find it hard to resist acting as amateur psychologists. 

The bastard file.

A bastard file is a half-round file.  It gained the name from being rendered with an intermediate cut, neither very coarse nor very fine and was thus neither one thing nor the other; it was something impure.  The concept of things in engineering, architecture, literature etc being thought bastardized versions if in any way hybrids or deviations from established forms can apply also to proper nouns.  Bob Cunis (1941-2008) was a New Zealand cricketer described as a “medium pace bowler”.  That may have been generous though he also extracted little movement from the ball without ever being classed a a spinner.  Still, between 1964-1972 he played in 20 test matches and coached the national side for three seasons in the late 1980s.  His contribution to the list of linguistic amusements came when BBC Radio commentator John Arlott (1914-1991), unimpressed by the bowler’s pedestrian deliveries commented: “Cunis, a funny sort of name, like his bowling, neither one thing nor the other."  It passed into the sporting annals but may have be plagiarized, apparently appearing in an earlier newspaper report on a match the tourists played against a county side and Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) had sometime before 1952 used the line after learning the name of a MP (member of parliament) was Alfred Bossom (1881–1965).

Surplus

Surplus (pronounced sur-pluhs)

(1) Something that remains above what is used or needed.

(2) In agricultural economics, produce or a quantity of food grown by a nation or area in excess of its needs, especially such a quantity of food purchased and stored by a governmental program of guaranteeing farmers a specific price for certain crops.

(3) In accounting, the excess of assets over liabilities accumulated throughout the existence of a business, excepting assets against which stock certificates have been issued; excess of net worth over capital-stock value.

(4) In public finance, an excess of government revenues over expenditures during a certain financial year.

(5) In international trade, an excess of receipts over payments on the balance of payments.

(6) In economic theory, an unsold quantity of a good resulting from a lack of equilibrium in a market.  For example, if a price is artificially high, sellers will bring more goods to the market than buyers will be willing to buy.  In classical economics, the opposite of shortage.

(7) In Chancery law (and its successor courts), the remainder of a fund appropriated for a particular purpose.

1325–1375: From the Middle English surplus, from the Old French sorplus (remainder, extra), from the Medieval Latin superplūs (excess, surplus), the construct being super (over) + plūs (more).  The Italian surplus was a borrowing from modern French where surplus had existed since the twelfth century while in English, surplus has been used as an adjective since the fourteenth century.  Enjoying the same pronunciation, surplice and surplus are often confused.  A surplice is a liturgical vestment of the Christian Church, usually styled as a tunic of white linen or cotton material, with wide sleeves and often some lace embellishment or embroidered edges.  Lengths vary; in medieval times it reached almost to the ground but tends now to be shorter; some still retain the longer garments for the ceremonial.  As surplis, it was a thirteenth century Middle-English borrowing from the Anglo-French surpliz, a syncopated variant of Old French surpeliz, derived from the Medieval Latin superpellīcium (vestīmentum) over-pelt (garment), neuter of superpellīcius, the construct being super (over) + pellīt(us) (clothed with skins or fur) + -ius (the adjectival suffix).  A clerical surplice is thus a kind of frock; a clerical surplus means "too many priests".  Surplus is a noun, adjective & verb, surplusage is a noun and surplused & surplussing are verbs; the noun plural is surpluses or surplusses.

Surplus Repression

German-American Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979), a sociologist and philosopher, highly influential in the mid-late twentieth century.  Even today, Marcuse enjoys a cult following and remains a hate-figure for those on the right who trace the ills of Western civilization to the corrosive influence Marxist & neo-Marxists exerted on youth in the newly expanded universities in the 1960s & 1970s.

A critique of capitalism’s culture and economic arrangements, Marcuse's book Eros and Civilization (1955) drew, inter alia, from Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and described an alternative structure for society.  He didn’t reject Freud’s idea that repression of man's instinctive desires was necessary for civilization to endure but Marcuse distinguished between basic (or necessary) repression and surplus repression, detailing the differences between the biological vicissitudes of the instincts and the socially imposed.  His construct was that basic repression was that which man suppresses to permit peaceful societies to form; repression or modification of the instincts being necessary “…for the perpetuation of the human race in civilization.”  Surplus repression meant those “…restrictions necessitated by [the] social domination” of the particular ruling-class or hegemony.  The purpose of surplus repression was to shape the instincts of individuals to conform to the requirements of modern capitalism, a surrender to what Marcuse called the “performance principle”, a construct building on Marx’s theories of alienation and surplus value.

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

Marcuse's writing did have the attraction of being more accessible than that of Marx or Freud (and certainly that of many neo-Marxists or Freudians) but that also meant it was easier for critics to cherry pick the points they found most objectionable.  For an explanation of why society need to be organized the way it was, conservatives seemed to prefer the rationalization of the "harsh but deliciously clever" English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) best known for his book Leviathan (1651) in which appeared the memorable passage describing the life of man in a world where there existed no restraining authorities forcing people to repress their worst instincts:

In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Such a culture Hobbes called the "state of nature" by which he meant not an environmentally sustainable hippie commune but a place in which there was "bellum omnium contra omnes" (war of all against all) and murder went unpunished except by another murder.  Although the distinction is now an unfashionable one to draw, conservatives liked the way Hobbes seemed to know not all cultures were civilizations and that a little surplus repression was a small price to pay for for its benefits.  Hobbes lived through troubled times and his views on the importance of stable, strong governance should be understood as the writings of one who had seen what the alternative looks like but as a list of exculpatory bullet-points, his world view was one which could be ticked off by by the ayatollahs in Tehran or the CCP (Chinese Communist Party).  Marcuse is not so transportable.

Peace man: PotM (Playmate of the Month) Debbie Ellison (b 1949) on the cover of Playboy magazine, September 1970.  That year's PotY (Playmate of the Year) was Sharon Clark (b 1943).  With due respect to Ms Ellison, sometimes, it really may have been bought for the articles: Michael G Horowitz's profile of Marcuse was published in this edition.  The old curmudgeon of the left wouldn’t have had much sympathy for hippies and their piece sign because neither appeared to be doing much to bring on the revolution and was anyway once heard to remark: “Ach, women!  Useless in a revolutionary situation!”

Playboy titled the profile Portrait of the Marxist as an Old Trooper although the author (one of the philosopher's old students) preferred to call the piece a "personality snapshot" and it certainly had a different flavor than what would have been found in the activist press or journals of political science.  Years later, the author would concede some of his critique of Marcuse's work was misplaced and many of the old pessimist's predictions had (unfortunately) transpired.  That said, Marcuse seems never to have complained about the piece, unlike Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) whose interview by Eric Norden, conducted over an apparently convivial ten days in the “richly furnished living room of his spacious home” in Heidelberg, was published in Playboy’s June 1971 edition.  Speer would later complain the piece had been “…restructured, with words and formulations entirely foreign to me.”  He did however conclude “…on the whole the interview as printed corresponds with my opinions…” by which he meant Nordon was yet another to accept an recycle his core position: “If I didn't see it [the Holocaust], then it was because I didn't want to see it.”  That was the so-called “Billigung defense” which Speer since 1945 had, in a masterful manner, used simultaneously to accept a collective guilt yet absolve himself of individuality responsibility.  Others no more guilty but less cunning had been hanged at Nuremberg and the Playboy interview was printed years before material was discovered in the German federal archives documenting his part in the persecution of Jews and the unearthing of private correspondence in which he admitted knowledge of the holocaust and its awful, chilling rationale.  As one of his biographers, Gitta Sereny (1921–2012), rightly pointed out in Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth (1995): “If Speer had said as much in Nuremberg, he would have been hanged.”

Marcuse’s work was acknowledged as a landmark in the synthetization of Marxist and psychoanalytic theories but was criticized for being just another of the "pointless utopian myths" written of since antiquity, work cut adrift from the moorings of the political reality which seemed in the 1960s more urgently to demand attention.  Marcuse acknowledged the distance of his work from reality and conceded his theories could reach actualization only by revolution or gradual infiltration of the structures of the power-elite and, after the disappointments of the moments in 1968 when revolution fleetingly was in the air, he preferred the latter.  German student activist Rudi Dutschke (1940–1979) had advocated a "…march through the institutions of power", radically to change society from within government and cultural institutions by becoming part of the machinery and structures under which capitalism operated.  This too owed a debt to the theories of hegemony and Marcuse wrote to Dutschke in 1971 saying he “regarded your notion of the "march through the institutions" as the only effective way.”  It all failed.  It was the highly unusual coincidence of political, economic & demographic circumstances in the post war (1948-1973) Western world which briefly in 1968 made the system seem internally vulnerable and the hegemony learned the lesson: they would control who manned the institutions that matter and the trouble-makers could march through things like theatre trusts, literary festivals and art gallery committees.

Bespoke

Bespoke (pronounced bih-spohk)

(1) A simple past tense and past participle of bespeak.

(2) Of clothes, those made to individual order and custom custom-made.

(3) The making or selling such clothes.

(4) By extension, anything (physical or weightless) produced to a customer’s specifications, especially if a one-off creation.

(5) To ask for in advance; to reserve (obsolete).

(6) As bespeak & bespoken, betrothed or engaged to be married; spoken for (obsolete except in the literary novel).

1745–1755: The adjective was a coining in Modern English in the sense of “custom-made goods; made to order (as distinguished from ready-made; an item on the shelf of a shop)” from the late sixteenth century Middle English bespoken, the past-participle adjective from bespeak (in its sense of “arrange beforehand”), a prefixed variant of speak.  The verb bespeak was from the Middle English bispeken, from the Old English besprecan (speak about, speak against, complain), the construct being be- + sprecan (to speak).  A common Germanic compound (the cognates including the Old Saxon bisprecan, the Dutch bespreken, the Old High German bisprehhan and the German besprechen) originally meaning “to call out”, it evolved by the 1580s to enjoy a wide range of meaning in English, including “speak up”, “oppose”, “request”, “discuss”, “arrange” and “order (goods)”.  By virtue of the different application of the be- prefix, the connections between the various meanings of bespoke, bespeaking; bespeak etc are thought at least very loose and it’s clear some arose independently of others.  Bespoke long was used usually of tailored suits and other clothing but in recent decades it has been applied (with some enthusiasm) to products as diverse as a one-off Rolls-Royce and customized hacking software offered on the dark web.  Bespeak was from the Middle English bespeken & bispeken, from the Old English bespecan & besprecan (to speak about, speak against, accuse of, claim at law, complain), from the Proto-Germanic bisprekaną (to discuss, blame), the construct being be- +‎ speak.  It was cognate with the Scots bespeke (to beseech, speak or negotiate with), the West Frisian besprekke (to discuss), the Dutch bespreken (to discuss, review; debate) and the German besprechen (to discuss, review, talk about).  Bespoke & bespoken are verbs & adjectives, bespeak is a noun & verb, bespeaking is a verb, bespeaker & bespokeness are nouns and bespokely is an adverb; the noun plural use is rare.

Wartime bespoke tailoring, Henry Poole & Co (1806), Savile Row, London, 1944.

The be- prefix was from the Middle English be- & bi-, from the Old English be-, from the Proto-Germanic bi- (be-), from the Proto-Germanic bi (near, by), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European hepi (at, near) and cognate with the Saterland Frisian, West Frisian, Dutch, German Low German, German and Swedish be-.  Although there remain in English many relics of its use, (becalmed, beseige etc), the be- prefix has long ceased to be productive.  It was used to modify other forms to create various meanings: (1) By, near, next to, around, close to (beset), (2) Around; about (belay, bestir, belive), (3) About, regarding, concerning, over (bemoan, bewail), (4) On, upon, at, to, in contact with something (behold, befall), (5) Off, away, over, across (behead, besleeve), (6) As an intensifier (ie thoroughly, excessively; completely; utterly) (belabour, bedazzle), (7) All around; about; abundantly; all over (belick, bescatter), (8) Forming verbs derived from nouns or adjectives, usually with the sense of "to make, become, or cause to be" (becalm, befriend) and (9) Used to intensify adjectives meaning "adorned with something", often those with the suffix -ed (now mostly archaic or informal) (besequined, befeathered, beclawed, beloved).

Artist Louise Duggan (b 1974) delivers the bespoke "mixed-media work" Blue Lips, commissioned by Lindsay Lohan to hang in her Dubai villa, June 2023.

Bespoke is an uncontroversial word if applied in the way which for centuries mostly it was: clothing custom made for an individual, based on measurements taken prior to the tailor or seamstress cutting the fabric.  It was used also of the shoes made by cobblers, the gloves sewed by glove makers, the hats created by milliners and so on, all of whom had their own methods of maintaining their customer records, those dealing with body parts which usually didn’t much change able for decades to use the same dimensions; others had to re-measure with some frequency.  In the case of cobblers, for regular customers they would keep a pair of wooden lasts which emulated exactly the shape of the feet.  The synonyms for bespoke in this context included “custom-made”, “customized”, “purpose-built”, “tailored” & “tailor-made” and the traditional antonyms were “off the peg”, “off the rack” & “off the shelf”.  In recent years, “bespoke” has become a marketing term and stuff which is far from unique and in many cases produced in great volume (perhaps with some minor change) is now often labeled “bespoke” and “bespoke solution” is a favorite in the software business, whether it be something to manage a hairdressing salon or code on the dark web supplied by Russian hackers to certain branches of the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) military to facilitate theft or covert operations.

Google ngram (a quantitative and not qualitative measure): Because of the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.  What the trend lines indicate is bespoke came increasingly to be used in the late twentieth century and the rate of increase has shown no signs of subsiding.  That may to some extent be accounted for by Google’s methods or the publications over-represented in its catchment but, impressionistically, it seems plausible and in the US, scholars by the 1990s were noting the way bespoke was tending to supplant the traditional American “custom”, apparently because the word had appeal because it conveyed “wealth and prestige” whereas custom had been devalued by its association with things like hotted-up motor cycles.  If bespoke is uncontroversial when used of anything genuinely one-off, the appropriateness when used of anything else needs to be assessed on a case by case basis and because it’s so popular in the business of expensive cars, they provide a good case-studies.

The Maserati 5000 GT (1959-1966)

1959 Maserati 5000 GT (Shah of Iran) by Touring.

Before the ayatollahs ran Iran, it was ruled by the Shah (king) and he got a lot more fun out of life than his clerical successors, noted especially as a connoisseur and of fast, exotic and expensive cars, his collection including multiple models from Lamborghini, Mercedes-Benz, Rolls-Royce, Ferrari and Maserati among others.  In 1958 he’d driven Maserati’s then popular 3500 GT but thought it lacking in power and, because hundreds a year were sold to the (rich) public, it seemed "a bit common".  Accordingly, after receiving material advertising both the 3500 GT and the remaining 450S race cars the factory wished to dispose of after withdrawing from racing, the shah decided he wanted a combination of the two: race engine in road car.  To have it created, essentially he sent Maserati a blank cheque and asked them to call when it was ready.  Delivered to the shah (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 1919-1980) in 1959, it was almost a secret but when a second, commissioned by a South African customer,  was displayed at the 1959 Turin Motor show, it generated such interest that Maserati soon were fielding enquiries from rich commoners wanting what royalty had.  Priced stratospherically however, there weren’t enough rich folk on the planet to make it a viable option for their production lines so it entered the catalogue as a bespoke item, Maserati modifying the 3500 chassis which, frankly had been a bit over-taxed by the big V8 and tweaking the engine still further, slightly increasing the capacity but in a way that rendered it more docile, yet still a howler when stirred.  The chassis appeared in the list and buyers could choose their own coachbuilder and eventually eight produced their own interpretations, the most numerous being by Carrozzeria Allemano which, over the years, finished twenty-two.

1959 Maserati 5000 GT by Allemano.

So the conclusion must be that the Shah’s original was and remains a true bespoke creation because exclusively it was built for him.  Of the other 33 5000 GTs built, although they were all variations on the theme and mechanically similar, no two were exactly alike and each was built in response to an order from an individual customer, some of whom specified certain touches.  Given that, all probably deserve to be regarded as bespoke though pedants might insist the chassis was a regular production item and only the coachwork was truly bespoke.  Few seem to agree and on the rare occasions the things are offered for sale, they’re almost always described as “bespoke”.

The Rolls-Royce Phantom IV (1950-1956)

1950 Rolls-Royce Phantom IV pick-up truck.  "Luxury" pick-up trucks have been produced in volume since the 1970s and the first existed in the pre-war years but the Phantom IV was the most exclusive of them all.

Among collectors, the Phantom IV has quite an allure because it was one of the few cars produced in any number never offered for sale to the general public, only 18 produced and available only to heads of state or crowned royalty (a distinction important in royal circles which has its own pecking order).  In a manner similar to the Maserati 5000 GT, no two Phantom IVs were exactly the same although all were built on substantially the same underpinnings (the only Rolls-Royce passenger cars ever to use a straight-8).  Thus all should be thought “bespoke” in the context of the industry but there was one version which radically was different, a Phantom IV pick-up truck (a style in some places called a "ute", a back-formation from "utility" which in linguistics is described as a "complex clipping" or "elliptical abbreviation" although the punchier "short for" is the more common use) which was used by the factory to ferry bits & pieces from place to place.  So it’s a genuine one off pick-up truck but because it was just a functional workhorse which existed only because an unsalable prototype chassis was available, it’s never been regarded as something bespoke, the long ago scrapped “shop ute” just a historic curiosity.  The other 17 Phantom IVs used the body-styles more expected of the Phantom lineage (limousines, cabriolets and landaulets) and three were built for Generalissimo Francisco Franco (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975) but even in the less litigious 1950s there was a awareness words needed carefully to be chosen.  When ordering one of the two built as formal limousines (in five and seven-seat configurations), the Spanish embassy in London specified "bullet-proof bodywork" but the coach-builder (H. J. Mulliner), aware there were now some very big bullets, replied what they could do was fit "armoured panels" but a guarantee of "bullet proof" wasn't possible.  A practical military man, the Generalissimo must have accepted that because all were built and remain in the possession of the Spanish Army, still sometimes use for state occasions.    

The Rolls-Royce Phantom V (1959-1968) & Phantom VI (1968-1990)

1973 Rolls-Royce Phantom VI "All Weather Cabriolet" (four-door convertible) by Fura (right) and 1971 Rolls-Royce Phantom VI DHC by Fura (left). 

By comparison with the exclusive Phantom IV, its two successors were almost mass-produced, 1206 (832 of the Phantom V & 374 of the VI respectively) crafted over three decades.  In this case, it’s thought only some should be thought truly bespoke because although there were a few variations in the coachwork, many were substantially the same and its only the ones with the greatest differences (notably the odd sedanca de ville, the handful of landaulets or the other “state” cars with their elevated rooflines) which are usually thought “bespoke” and even they weren’t unique things like the Phantom IVs.  Two of the bodies on the Phantom VI chassis however indisputably were bespoke.  By the 1970s, it was only the big Phantom VI which Rolls-Royce still built on the separate chassis which made bespoke bodies easier to mount so anyone wanting a really exclusive Rolls-Royce had no other choice.  Accordingly the Italian house Fura fashioned two very big bespoke creations, one a DHC (drophead coupé, which by then the rest of the world was calling a cabriolet or convertible), the other described as an "all weather cabriolet" (which eventually was re-fashioned as a four-door convertible).  Both were on a scale not seen since seen since the 1930s and nothing like them has since been attempted.  Because the limousine chassis was designed for something long, narrow and tall, both the Fura cars were fundamentally ill-proportioned although skilled photographers have managed to create pleasing images by selecting just the right angle.  Flawed though they were, at the time there was probably nothing on four wheels which so conveyed disposable wealth which, in many cases, is of course often the essence of the bespoke.  It was a good thing they made such an impression because presumably it dissuaded people from looking too closely: underneath the engineering was pure Phantom VI which meant drum brakes and a rear axle suspended on semi-elliptic (cart) springs so it was (refined) Ford Model T (1908) technology under all that leather and burl walnut veneer.  Such was the attention to detail those cart spring were encased in Wefco leather gaiters so those enjoying the seclusion of the rear compartment (trimmed usually in West of England cloth rather than the leather on which the chauffeur sat) weren't disturbed by any tiresome squeaks.   

1956 Mercedes-Benz 300c (W186 "Adenauer") Estate Car by Binz.

Consumption can be conspicuous yet still subtle, achieved usually if a bespoke creation is both expensive and functional.  The Mercedes-Benz 300 saloons and four-door cabriolet of (W186 & W189 1951-1962) were large, stately and beautifully built and the platform attracted coachbuilders who saw the potential for estate cars (station wagons), ambulances and (especially) hearses.  Many were built and the hearses in particular typically aren't regarded as bespoke because they were essentially catalogue items with little variation between editions.  Some of the rare estates ("shooting brakes" to the English, "station wagons" in North America and for a time, "station sedans" if built by Holden, General Motors' (GM) Australian outpost) however have always been treated as bespoke even though from an engineering point of view the changes were minimal and the styling hardly imaginative.  The reason for the association seems to be that they “dripped money”; even to the uninformed they were obviously expensive so it seems possible there is the matter of "bespoke by acclamation".  Interestingly, in 1960 the factory did their own one-off 300 Estate, this one a “telemetry car” built in the era before sensors to travel at high speed on a test track, recording data from the vehicle ahead, the two tethered with long cables.  Styled in an almost avant-garde manner with rear glass which curved into the roof, the factory regarded it rather as Rolls-Royce treated their pick-up: a mule to be used until something better came along.  They never called it bespoke.

1965 Aston Martin DB5 Shooting Brake.

Sir David Brown (1904–1993) liked his DB5 coupé (which the factory in their English way called a "saloon") but found it too cramped comfortably to accommodate his polo gear, shotguns and hunting dogs.  Now, that would be called a “first world problem” but because Brown then owned Aston Martin, he simply wrote out a work order and had his craftsmen create a bespoke shooting brake (an English term best understood as “station wagon owned by someone rich”) which they did by hand-forming the aluminum with hammers over wooden formers.  It delighted him and solved his problem but created another because good customers stared writing him letters asking for their own.  Unfortunately, Aston Martin was at full capacity building DB5s and developing the up-coming DB6 and V8 models.  With a bulging order book, the resources didn’t exist to add a niche model so the project was out-sourced to the coachbuilder Radford which built a further 11 (and subsequently another 6 based on the DB6).  That Brown’s original car was bespoke seems clear but the others might be a gray area because the coachbuilder’s records and assessments of the cars indicate they were identical in all but the color of the paint and leather trim.  There may have been only 12 DB5s and 6 DB6s but by conventional definition, they came of a production line, albeit a leisurely and exclusive one so can all but the original be thought truly bespoke?  According to the Aston Martin website, they are bespoke so that’s presumably the last word on the subject.

There is even bespoke Nutella.  In 2014, while appearing on-stage in a London production of David Mamet's (b 1947) Speed-the Plow (1988), Lindsay Lohan stayed at the Mandarin Oriental hotel which supplied her with a personalized jar of the nutty treat, complete with bespoke label.

At its messy margins, English often troubles the purists but it’s a democratic language and meanings do evolve through popular use.  That can mean a meaning shift as has happened to “decimate” (originally “reduce by 10%”; probably now understood as “reduce to 10%”) or alternative meanings can emerge and run in parallel.  In tailoring, “bespoke” is used still in its original sense but with cars it seems now industry shorthand for “one-off or short-run variants” of existing models.  In the matter of the DB5 Shooting Brakes, the rear coachwork for Sir David’s original genuinely was “bespoke” and what Radford did was eleven exact replications but, by even Aston Martin’s then standards, a dozen-odd is a small number with enough of a hint of “exclusivity” for the label to seem appropriate.  That of course does beg the question: At what point does a design cease reasonably to be called “bespoke” if identical copies are being produced?  Empirically, the number must be “greater than eleven” but it probably can’t be defined except by suggesting it’s the point at which production can be said to have happened in “a series” and that should be well-short of three figures.  Of cars, “bespoke” now probably is over-used but its new career seems here to stay.

The Smart Fortwo (top left) and some bespoke imaginings channeling (clockwise) DMC DeLorean (in filmic incarnation), Chevrolet Corvette, Lotus Esprint, Porsche 911, Bugatti Veyron, Lamborghini Countach and Jaguar E-Type (XKE) .

Some year ago, even before mass-market generative AI made such sights routine, the happy combination of the internet, Photoshop and a large cohort of gullible viewers encouraged the creation of a meme purporting to be a survey of the bespoke carbon fibre bodies available to be bolted to the diminutive Smart Fortwo (C451; 2007-2015).  Even a cursory look at the scale of the humans included in some of the photos should have been enough for people to work out this was fake news but the "factory" is said to have received “some” enquiries asking where the bespoke bodies could be bought.