Booby

Booby (pronounced boo-bee)

(1) A bird, a gannet of the genus Sula, having a bright bill, bright feet, or both; some are listed as threatened or endangered.

(2) A slang term for someone thought stupid or a dunce, ignorant or foolish (although still used in the mid-twentieth century, it's probably now obsolete, the meaning crowded out by intrusion of newer slang, some of which has also fallen victim to the linguistic treadmill).

(3) The losing player in a game (the historic UK usage "booby prize", now largely obsolete except in informal use).

(4) One of the many slang terms for the human female's breasts and related to the more common boob, boobs and boobie.

(5) In croquet, a ball that has not passed through the first wicket. 

1590s: From Spanish Latin from the earlier pooby, apparently a blend of (the now obsolete in this context) poop (to befool) and baby, perhaps by association with Spanish bobo (stupid person, slow bird), thought to be from an imitative root of the Latin balbus (stuttering).  Balbus was from the primitive Indo-European balb- & balbal- (tongue-tied) and was cognate with the Ancient Greek βαμβαίνω (bambaínō) & βαμβαλύζω (bambalúzō) (I chatter with the teeth), the Russian болтать (boltatʹ) (to chatter, to babble), the Lithuanian balbė́ti (to talk, to babble), the Sanskrit बल्बला (balbalā) (stammering) and the Albanian belbët (stammering).  The booby prize dates from 1883, a prize given to the loser in a game as concept which persists in some sporting competitions as "the wooden spoon", the idea being something as removed as possible from the usual silverware given as trophies.  The booby trap was first noted in 1850, originally a schoolboy prank (ie something only a "boob" would fall for); the more lethal sense developed during World War I and remain common military and para-military use.  Booby and boobyism are nouns, boobyish and (the non-standard but potentially useful)  boobyesque are adjectives; the noun plural is boobies.

Boobies: found usually in pairs

A nice pair of boobies.  Charmingly, blue-footed boobies are known to be monogamous, pairs often staying together for life.

A booby is a seabird in the genus Sula, part of the Sulidae family. Boobies are closely related to the gannets (Morus), which were formerly included in Sula, the genus created in 1760 by the French naturalist Mathurin Jacques Brisson (1723-1806).  The name is derived from súla, the Old Norse and Icelandic word for the other member of the family Sulidae, the gannet.  The English name booby was based on the Spanish bobo (stupid) as the tame birds often landed on board sailing ships, where they were easily captured and eaten.  As well as a popular addition to the diet of sailors for whom meat other than fish was a rarity, it was fortuitous for many, the Admiralty's archives revealing boobies are often mentioned as having been caught and eaten by shipwrecked sailors.  In taxonomic classification, variations include Abbott's booby (Papasula abbotti), blue-footed booby (Sula nebouxii), brown booby (Sula leucogaster), masked booby (Sula dactylatra), Nazca booby (Sula granti), Peruvian booby (Sula variegata), red-footed booby (Sula sula) & Tasman booby (Sula dactylatra tasmani).

One step at a time.

The distinctive blue feet (the result of pigments ingested from their diet of fish) also play a part in the bobby’s mating ritual although not exactly in the podophilic sense familiar in a sub-set of humans.  In the spring mating season, the bird’s feet become a bright turquoise blue and, to demonstrate their health and vitality conspicuously they will display them to potential partners.  The job done, as their eggs hatch, the blue hue fades to something less vivid.  One aspect of their behaviour which amused the ornithologists who first observed it was that if among fishers unloading their catch, it tossed a small fish from the by-catch, a booby will take it and waddled off somewhere to enjoy it in solitude rather than gulping it down as in common in many species.  Like penguins, although ungainly on land, they are skilled plunge divers which used their streamlined bodies and air sacs “fly” through the water, catching their prey at high speed and they hunt in "packs", coordinating their movement to maximize the catch.  Boobies have been recorded diving from as high as 90 m (300 feet), their speed upon entry estimated at around 100 km/h (60 mph).

Boobies in time, in step.

Based on the use by mainstream internet sites (including nominally reputable news organizations), boob (more commonly in the plural as boobs) seems to have emerged as the preferred slang for breasts, probably because it seems the term women find most acceptable and the one they most often use, not infrequently as their default descriptor.  The origin appears to lie in bubby (plural bubbies), a slang term for the female breast dating from the 1680s which is thought to be imitative of a baby's cry or the sucking sound heard during lactation.  It was most associated with south-east England although that may reflect more extensive documentation rather than proof of regionalism.  Inherently anyway a form in oral use, the alternative pronunciations included buhb-ee, boo-bee & boob-ee so the evolution to boob was perhaps not unexpected although most dictionaries list the earliest known instance as a late 1930s Americanism with the back-formed clippings boob & boobs not appearing until the early post-war years, initially as a vulgarism, women not embracing use for decades although that their approval seems to have coincided with late second-wave feminism is presumably coincidental.

Fully loaded: Lindsay Lohan in boobie-top with crash helmet in Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005).

In fashion, the boobie top (less commonly as booby-top) is a style of clothing (including dresses) which in some way draws attention to or emphasizes the breasts.  The design is most associated with generous displays of cleavage or skin but is used also to refer to garments which wholly cover the breasts in such as way as to highlight the size, shape or movement.  In the industry, a “boobie top” differs from a “boob tube” in that while the former seeks to highlight the breasts as a feature (either by using the fabric tightly to shift the focus to the size and shape or with a cut which displays the cleavage component of the décolletage) while a “boob tube” is a different interpretation of the minimalist: it completely envelopes the breasts (ie little or no visible cleavage) but otherwise exposes the torso.

A “tube top” in the original style (left) and a “boob tube” (right), both now likely to be advertised as a “boob tube”.

The style was in 1972 first described as a “tube-top” (strapless and extend from the armpits to the naval; such garments had earlier been available but the name was new) and the companion “tube skirt” appeared the next season (again, a re-labeling).  The first “boob tubes” were advertised in 1977 and the early were all a truncated version of the “tube top” in that they wrapped only around the breasts); inherently it was a midriff-baring creation and could be thought of as a kind of strapless, bandeau bra designed for outdoor wear (on warmer days).  Constructed with elasticized fabrics, they were designed to be worn without a bra but, like all forms of structural engineering, physics does limit what's possible and they came later to be available also with a “built in bra”.  Others just choose boob tubes made with a thicker material so a strapless bra unobtrusively could be worn beneath but, VBS (visible bra-straps) no longer being a sin against fashion, some now choose a to make the bra part of the look.  In truth, the terms “tube top” & “boob tube” were all a bit misleading because it was only the material covering the breasts which tended toward a truly tubular bra with the rest being more or less flat and a better description might have been “flange” but this wouldn’t have had the same appeal in a boutique so “tubes” they became.  In product descriptions, the distinction between “tube top” and “boob tube” quickly became blurred and the latter tends now often to be used of both types. 

US Army booby trap messaging, 1942.  Such infections have for centuries been a significant part of military medicine because STIs often would reduce unit strength (ie "battle-ready" troops).

During World War II (1939-1945), the US military kept up with evolution of slang, something reflected in advertising which lent a new definition to "booby trap", a familiar concept in which soldiers were well-drilled.  Despite the efforts of padres, it was rare for commanders to attempt to impose morality and when on deployment it was common for there to be "authorized" brothels (often separate facilities for officers and other ranks) with the prostitutes subject to regular inspection by medical staff and allowed to practice their ancient profession only if the supervising doctor issued a "clean" certificate.  Until well into the twentieth century (and the beginning of the antibiotic era), it wasn't unusual for the losses of combat-ready troops to illness & disease to exceed those caused by battlefield causalities and although the numbers were dwarfed by conditions such as malaria, preventing and treating sexually transmitted diseases (STDs, then called venereal disease (VD)) was an important component of military medicine.  It wasn’t until the 1970s the initialism VD began to be replaced by STD (VD thought to have to have gained too many specific associations) but fortunately for AT&T, in 1951 they renamed their STD (Subscriber Toll Dialing) service (for long-distance phone calls) to DDD (Direct Distance Dialing), apparently for no better reason than the alliterative appeal although it's possible they just wanted to avoid mentioning “toll” with all that implies.  Many countries in the English-speaking world continued to use STD for the phone calls, even after the public health specialists had re-purposed the initialization.  In clinical use, STI (Sexually Transmitted Infection) seems now the preferred term.

The other booby trap: Helpful advertising circa 1950.

In Western legal systems, two aspects of consumer protection which greatly advanced in the twentieth century were product liability and “truth in advertising”.  What the changes in product liability did was break the nexus of “privity of contract”, meaning it was no longer required that to seek redress or compensation, an injured party had to be the purchaser of the defective goods.  That reform took shape during the inter-war years but “truth in advertising”, although an old concept enforced in contract law, really became a movement in the post-war years; it was designed to remove from commerce “deceptive or misleading” claims although advertising agencies still had a wide scope to be “economical with the truth” if they could make their assertions fit into the “mere puffery” rubric.  One field never policed was women’s shapewear (corsets and such) which, with a judicious placement of struts, elasticized panels, ribs and padding could variously make body parts appear curvier, straighter, smaller, larger or higher.  The Wonderbra (and its many imitators) was probably the best known example because among the many garments and devices it was the one which most dramatically deceived and misled.  Of all this trickery the law remained silent and the sage advice remained: caveat emptor.

Cinque

Cinque (pronounced singk)

(1) In certain games (those using cards, dice, dominoes etc), a card, die, or domino with five spots or pips.

(2) As cinquefoil (1) a potentilla (flower), (2) in heraldry, a stylized flower or leaf with five lobes and (3) in topology, a particular knot of five crossings.

(3) As cinquecentist, (1) an Italian of the sixteenth century, especially a poet or an artist, (2) a student or imitator of the art or literature of that period and (3) the style of art or architecture of that period.

(4) In fine art, as cinquecento, the works of the sixteenth-century (ie the 1500s).

(5) In bladesmithing, as cinquedea, a long dagger (ie short sword) with an unusually heavy blade, developed in Renaissance-era northern Italy during the fifteenth century.  The name is from the Italian cinquedea (literally “five fingers”), a reference to the width of the tapered-blade at the hilt, the expanse of steel meaning they often were richly ornamented although, typically being only some 18 inches (460 mm) in length, they were still light enough in combat to be an effective weapon.

1350–1400: From the Middle English cink, from the Old French cinq (five), from the Vulgar Latin cinque, from the Latin quīnque (five).  The archaic spelling cinq was from the modern French cinq, whereas the standard spelling probably emerged either under the influence of the Italian cinque or was simply a misspelling of the French.  In typically English fashion, the pronunciation “sank” is based on a hypercorrect approximation of the French pronunciation, still heard sometimes among what use to be called “the better classes”.  The alternative forms were cinq (archaic), sinque (obsolete) and sink & sank (both misspellings) while the homophones are cinq, sink, sync & synch (and sank at the best parties).  Cinque is a noun; the noun plural is cinques.

Cinque outposts, attested since the 1640s was a term which referred to the five senses.  The noun cinquecento (written sometimes as cinque-cento) is used in (as noun & adjective) criticism & academic works when describing sixteenth century Italian art and literature.  It dates from 1760, from the Italian cinquecento (literally “500”) and was short for mil cinquecento (1500).  The use to describe "a group of five, five units treated as one," especially at cards or dice, dates from the late fourteenth century and in English was borrowed directly from the French cinq, a dissimilation from Latin quinque (five) which in Late Latin also picked up the familiar spelling cinque.  The ultimate root was the primitive Indo-European penkwe (five).

Cinquefoil housing stained glass (leadlight) window.

In architecture, a cinquefoil is a ornament constructed with five cuspidated divisions, the use dating from the late fifteenth century, from the Old French cinqfoil, the construct being cinq (five) + foil (leaf).  The basis for the French form was the quinquefolium, the construct being quinque (five) + folium (leaf), from the primitive Indo-European root bhel- (to thrive, bloom).  In Gothic tracery, there was a wide use of circular shapes featuring a lobe tangent to the inner side of a larger arc or arch, meeting other lobes in points called cusps projecting inwards from the arch and architects defined them by the number of foils used, indicated by the prefix: trefoil (3), quatrefoil (4), cinquefoil (5), multifoil etc.  Although used as stand-alone fixtures, bands of quatrefoils were much used for enrichment during the "Perpendicular Period" (the final phase of English Gothic architecture, dated usually between circa 1350–1550; it followed the "Decorated Style" and was characterized by strong vertical lines, large windows with intricate tracery, and elaborate fan vaulting) and, when placed with the axes set diagonally, quatrefoils were called cross-quarters.

Porsche "phone-dial" wheels, clockwise from top left: 1981 911SC, 1988 924S, 1987 944S & 1985 928S.  With a myriad of variations, the cinquefoil motif was a style for wheels used by a number of manufacturers, the best known of which were the ones with which Porsche equipped the 911, 924, 944 & 928 where they were known as the “phone-dial”, a reference which may puzzle those younger than a certain age.  Because these have five rather than ten holes, they really should have picked up the nickname "cinquefoil" rather than "phone-dial" but the former was presumably too abstract or obscure so the more accessible latter prevailed.  All Porsche’s phone dial wheels looked similar and for non-expert eyes it really was necessary to have the variants side-by-side to notice the subtle differences.  The factory for example fitted 15” wheels to the early 928s if equipped with an automatic transmission and 16” units if a manual but the larger wheels were available (option code I401) for the former while the smaller could be ordered even on a manual, the attraction being the smoother ride provided by the taller tyre’s sidewall.  Fortunately for restorers and collectors, the part-number is stamped on the inside of each wheel (eg the 7” x 16” fitted typically to a 1979 928 with a five-speed manual transmission is part # 928 361 916 00) and the compatibility list widely is available.  Being this is a Porsche thing, there are specialists who have memorized all the permutations and thus have no need to resort to looking up the papers; such folk are great fun at dinner parties.

Fiat 500 (2023), watercolor on paper by Monika Jones.  While the artist hasn't provided notes, it's tempting to imagine the inspiration was something like “Lindsay Lohan in white dress during summer in Rome, leaning on Fiat 500, painted in the tradition of Impressionism.”

A classic of the La Dolce Vita era, the rear-engined Fiat 500 was in continuous production between 1957-1975 and was the successor to the pre-war Fiat 500 Topolino, an even more diminutive machine which proved its versatility in roles ranging from race tracks to inner-city streets to operating as support vehicles used by the Italian Army in the invasion of Abyssinia (1935).  Almost 3.9 million of the post-war 500s (dubbed the Nuova Cinquecento (New 500)) were produced and as well as the two-door saloon (almost all fitted with a folding sunroof) there were three-door station wagons (the Giardiniera) & panel vans.  Although not all wore the 500 badge, in the home market, universally Italians called them the Cinquecentro.  There was also the unusual 500 Jolly, a cut down version built by Carrozzeria Ghia which featured wicker seats and a removable fabric roof in the style of the surrey tops once used on horse-drawn carriages.  The Jolly was intended as “beach car”, some carried on the yachts of the rich and although Ghia built only 650 originals, many 500s have since been converted to “Jolly Spec”, one of coach-building’s less-demanding tasks.  Being an Italian car, there were of course high-performance versions, the wildest of which was the Steyr-Puch 650 TR2 (1965-1969) which ran so hot it was necessary to prop open the engine cover while it was in use.  The Nuova 500’s successors never achieved the same success but such was the appeal of the original that in 2007 a retro-themed 500 was released although, al la Volkswagen’s “new Beetles” (1997-2019), the configuration was switched to a water-cooled front-engine with FWD (front-wheel-drive).

1985 Ferrari Testarossa “monospecchio-monodado”.

The early Testarossas were fitted with centre-lock magnesium-alloy wheels, chosen for their lightness.  Responding to feedback from the dealer network, as a running-change during 1988, these were substituted for units with a conventional five-bolt design.  The centre-lock wheels were called monodado (one nut) while the five lug-types were the cinquedado (five nut) and because of the time-line, while all the monospecchio cars are also monodado, only some of the monodaddi are monospecchi.  Monospecchi (literally "one mirror") is an unofficial designation for the early cars fitted with a single external mirror, mounted unusually high on the A-pillar, the location the product of Ferrari's interpretation of the EU's (European Union) rearward visibility regulations.  The Eurocrats later clarified things and Testarossas subsequently were fitted with two mirrors in the usual position at the base of the A-pillar. 

Plastic wheelcover for the Ford (Australia) Fairmont XE (1982-1984, left), a circa 1949 British GPO standard telephone in Bakelite (centre) (globally, the most produced handset in this style was the Model 302, which, with a thermoplastic case, was manufactured in the US by Western Electric between 1937-1955 and plastic wheelcover for the Ford (Australia) Fairmont XF (1984-1988, right).  Telephones with larger dial mechanisms usually didn't use all the available space for the finger-holes.

Probably some are annoyed at the “five-hole” wheel design coming to be known as the “phone-dial” because of course the classic rotary-dial mechanism had ten holes, one for each numeral.  Ford Australia actually stuck to the classics when designing a plastic wheel-cover for the XE Fairmont (then the next rung up in the Falcon's pecking order) because it featured the correct ten holes and it was re-allocated as a “hand-me-down” for the Falcon when the XF was introduced, the Fairmont now getting an eight-hole unit.  None of these seem ever to have been dubbed “phone-dials”, probably because plastic wheel–covers have never been a fetish like the older metal versions or aluminium wheels (often as “rims” in modern usage, a practice which also annoys some).  The XE hubcap may be thought a decemfoil (10 leaf) and the XF unit a octofoil (8 leaf).

1971 Ford (South Africa) XY Fairmont GT with the GS Pack wheel covers.

The South African Fairmont GTs were never fitted with the "five slot" wheels used in Australia, getting instead the chromed wheel cover which in Australia was part of the "GS Pack", a collection of "dress-up" options designed to provide much of the look of a GT without the additional costs to purchase or insure one.  The GS Pack wheel covers were first seen in Australia on the 1967 XR Falcon GT and came from the Mercury parts bin in the US where they'd appeared on the 1966 Mercury Comet Cyclone GT; they were designed to look like a chromed, naked wheel, the idea a tribute to the Californian hot rod community in which the motif originated.

1971 Ford (Australia) XY Falcon GT with “five slot” wheels.

Although scholars of Latin probably haven’t given much thought to the wheels Ford used in the 1960s & 1970s, their guidance would be helpful because the correct Latin form for “slot” depends on context, the words being (1) Fissura: “crack, split or narrow opening”, (2) Rima: “narrow gap or slit”, (3) Foramen: “opening, hole or perforation” and (4) Scissura “cleft or division”.  So a XY GT’s wheel would be a cinquefissura, cinquerima, cinqueforamen or cinquescissura.  The scholars would have to rule but cinquerima seems best, tied in nicely with the modern (albeit contested) use of “rim” to mean wheel.      

In production over six generations between 1965-2008 the Fairmont was a "blinged-up" version of the Australian Ford Falcon (1960-2016), a car based on the US compact (1960-1969) Ford of the same name (the one-off 1970 US Falcon an entry level model in the intermediate Torinio (formerly Fairlane) range).  Ford in the US would also use the Fairmont name for a compact (1978-1983) but the most quirky use was that between 1969-1971, Ford South Africa sold a car substantially similar to the Australian Falcon GT but badged it "Fairmont GT".  Assembled (with some local components) in South Africa from CKD (completely knocked down) packs imported from Australia, the Fairmont name was chosen because US Falcons (assembled from Canadian CKD packs) had been sold in South Africa between 1960-1963 but had gained such a bad reputation (Ford Australia had to do much rectification work after encountering the same fragility) the nameplate was decreed tainted.  In the technical sense, "Fairmont GT" would have been a more accurate name in Australia too because the Falcon GT was trimmed to the same specification (ie bling) as the Fairmont; the choice of "Falcon GT" was just a desire by the marketing team to create a "halo" machine for the mainstream range, something which succeeded to an degree which probably surprised even those ever-optimistic types.  Ford South Africa never offered a Fairmont GTHO to match the Falcon GTHOs produced in Australia to homologate certain combinations of parts for competition.

Lamborghini has used the phone-dial since the first incarnation appeared on the Silhouette in 1976 and it likes it still, left to right: Huranan, Gallardo, Countach, Diablo and Silhouette.  With five "holes", these are true cinquefoils and thoughtlessly, like Porsche, Lamborghini seems never to have provided a "trigger warning" urging caution on the trypophobic (those suffering from trypophobia (an obsessive or irrational fear of patterns or clusters of small holes)).

Despite being often called a "hubcap", what appeared on the South African Fairmont GTs really was a "wheel cover".  The origin of the hubcap was, fairly obviously, “a cap for hub”, something which dates from the age of horse-drawn carts.  Although they would later become something decorative, hubcaps began as a purely function fitting designed to ensure the hub mechanism was protected from dirt and moisture because removing a wheel when the hub was caked in mud with bolts “rusted on” could be a challenge.  In the twentieth century the practice was carried over to the automobile, initially without much change but as wheels evolved from the wooden-spoked to solid steel (and even in the 1920s some experimented with aluminium), the hubcaps became larger because the securing bolts were more widely spaced.  This meant they became a place to advertise so manufacturers added their name and before long, especially in the US, the humble hubcap evolved into the “wheel-cover”, enveloping the whole circle and they became a styling feature, designs ranging from the elegant to the garishly ornate and some were expensive: in 1984 a set of replacement “wire” wheel covers for a second generation Cadillac Seville (the so-called “bustle-back”, 1980-1985) listed at US$995.00 if ordered as a Cadillac part-number and then that was a lot of money.  By the late 1980s, most wheel covers were plastic pressings, other than in places like the isolated environments behind the Iron Curtain.

Beltless: Lindsay Lohan in 2004 using touch-dial wall-phone, note the hooking of the thumbs in the belt loops.

Remarkably, although touch-dial (ie buttons) handsets appeared in the consumer market as early as 1963 and soon became the standard issue, in 2024 it’s possible still to buy new, rotary-dial phones although only the user experience remains similar; internally the connections are effected with optical technology, the “sound & feel” emulated.  There’s also a market for updating the old Bakelite & Thermoplastic units (now typically between 70-90 years old) with internals compatible with modern telephony so clearly there’s some nostalgia for the retro-look, if not the exact experience.  Even after the touch-dial buttons became ubiquitous the old terminology persisted among users (and in the manufacturers' documents); when making calls users continued to "dial the number".  The same sort of linguistic legacy exists today because ending a call is still the act of "hanging up" and that dates from the very early days of telephony when the ear-piece was a large conical attachment on a cord and at a call's conclusion, it was "hung up" on a arm, the weight of the receiver lowering the arm which physically separated two copper connectors, terminating the link between the callers.  

Ms Justine Haupt with custom rotary-dial cell phone in turquoise.

Ms Justine Haupt (b 1987), an astronomy instrumentation engineer at New York’s Brookhaven National Laboratory went a step further (backwards, or perhaps sideways, some might suggest) and built a rotary-dial cell phone from scratch because of her aversion to what she describes as “smartphone culture and texting”, something to which many will relate.  In what proved a three year project, Ms Haupt used a rotary-dial mechanism from a Trimline telephone (introduced in 1965 and produced by Western Electric, the manufacturing unit of the Bell System), mounted on a case 4 x 3 x 1 inches (100 x 75 x 25 mm) in size with a noticeably protuberant aerial; it used an AT&T prepaid sim card and had a battery-life of some 24-30 hours.  Conforming to the designer’s choices of functionality, it includes two speed-dial buttons, an e-paper display and permits neither texting nor internet access.  

Designer colors: Available in black, white, turquoise, beige and the wonderful Atomic Hotline Red.

“Atomic Hotline Red” is an allusion to the Moscow-Washington DC “hotline” installed in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962). In truth, despite frequently appearing in popular culture, there never was a “red phone” and the US connection terminated not on the POTUS’s desk in the Oval Office but in the Pentagon (now HQ of the Department of War) in Arlington County, Virginia.  The first implementation in 1963 used a version of Telex while it was an analogue facsimile service (ie fax machines) between 1986-2008.  Since 2008 the data has travelled over a secure digital link, decrypted into text at each end.

Although she intended the device as a one-off for her own use, Ms Haupt was surprised at the interest generated and in 2022 began selling a kit (US$170) with which others could build their own, all parts included except the rotary-dial mechanism which would need to be sourced from junk shops and such.  Unlike the larger mechanism on the traditional desk or wall-mounted telephone, the holes in the Trimline’s smaller rotary-dial used the whole circle so the ten-hole layout is symmetrical and thus the same as the XE Fairmont’s wheelcover, something doubtlessly wholly coincidental.  Unfortunately, Ms Haupt encountered many difficulties (bringing to market a device which connects to public telephony networks involves processes of greater complexity than selling mittens and such) but the project remains afoot.

The rough-fruited cinquefoil or sulphur cinquefoil (Potentilla recta).

In botany, the potentila is a genus containing some three-hundred species of annual, biennial and perennial herbaceous flowering plants in the rose (rosaceae) family.  Since the 1540s it’s been referred to as the cinquefoil (also “five fingers” or “silverweeds”), all distinguished by their compound leaves of five leaflets.

The Confederation of Cinque Ports was a group of coastal towns in Kent, Sussex and Essex, the name from the Old French which means literally “five harbors”.  The five were Hastings, Sandwich, Dover, Romney, and Hythe, all on the western shore of the English Channel, where the crossing to the continent is narrowest.  Because of (1) their importance in cross-channel trade and (2) being in the region ,most vulnerable to invasion, they were granted special privileges and concessions by the Crown in exchange for providing certain services essential for maritime defense, dating from the years prior to the formation of the Royal Navy in the fifteenth century.  The name was first used in the late twelfth century in Anglo-Latin and the late thirteenth in English.

An early version of a PPP (public-private partnership), with no permanent navy to defend it from sea-borne aggression, the crown contracted with the confederation to provide what was essentially a naval reserve to be mobilized when needed. Earlier, Edward the Confessor (circa 1003–1066; King of England 1042-1066) had contracted the five most important strategically vital Channel ports of that era to provide ships and men “for the service of the monarch” and although this was used most frequently as a “cross-Channel ferry service” and was not exclusively at the disposal of the government.  Under the Norman kings, the institution assumed the purpose of providing the communications and logistical connections essential to keeping together the two halves of the realm but after the loss of Normandy in 1205, their ships and ports suddenly became England’s first line of defense against the French.  The earliest charter still extant dates from 1278 but a royal charter of 1155 charged the ports with the corporate duty to maintain in readiness fifty-seven ships, each to be available each year for fifteen days in the service of the king, each port fulfilling a proportion of the whole duty.  In return the ports and towns received a number of tax breaks and privileges including: An exemption from tax and tolls, limited autonomy, the permission to levy tolls, certain law enforcement and judicial rights, possession of lost goods that remain unclaimed after a year and of flotsam (floating wreckage and such) & jetsam (goods thrown overboard).  Even at the time this was thought to be a good deal and the leeway afforded to the Cinque Ports and the substantial absence of supervision from London led inevitability to smuggling and corruption although in this the Cinque Ports were hardly unique.

The Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports was something like a viceroy and the office still exists today but is now purely ceremonial and, although technically relict, remains a sinecure and an honorary title, regarded as one of the higher honors bestowed by the Sovereign and a sign of special approval by the establishment which includes the entitlement to the second oldest coat of arms of England.  The prestige it confers on the holder is derived from (1) it being the gift of the sovereign, (2) it being England’s most ancient military honor and (3), the illustrious standing of at least some of the previous hundred and fifty-eight holders of the office.  It is a lifetime appointment.

William Lygon (1872-1938), seventh Earl Beauchamp, in uniform as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.

The office of lord warden has not been without the whiff of scandal.  William Lygon, who in 1891 succeeded his father as the seventh Earl Beauchamp, was at twenty-seven appointed governor of New South Wales, a place to which he would later return, happily and otherwise.  In 1913, Lord Beauchamp, well-connected in society and the ruling Liberal Party’s leader in the House of Lords, was appointed Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and, fond of pomp, ceremony and dressing-up, he enjoyed the undemanding role.  However, in 1930, he embarked on a round-the-world tour which included a two-month stint in Sydney, where he stayed, accompanied by a young valet who lived with him as his lover.  This, along with other antics, did not go unnoticed, and the Australian Star newspaper duly reported:

“The most striking feature of the vice-regal ménage is the youthfulness of its members … rosy cheeked footmen, clad in liveries of fawn, heavily ornamented in silver and red brocade, with many lanyards of the same hanging in festoons from their broad shoulders, [who] stood in the doorway, and bowed as we passed in … Lord Beauchamp deserves great credit for his taste in footmen.”

The report found its way to London when Beauchamp’s brother-in-law, the second Duke of Westminster (1879–1953), hired detectives to gather evidence, hoping to destroy him and damage the Liberal Party, the Tory duke hating both.  Evidence proved abundant and not hard to find so in 1931 Westminster publicly denounced Beauchamp as a homosexual to the king (George V 1865–1936; King of the United Kingdom & Emperor of India 1910-1936), who was appalled and responded that he “…thought men like that always shot themselves.”  Westminster insisted a warrant be issued for Beauchamp’s arrest and that forced him into exile.

Lady Beauchamp seems to have shown some confusion upon being informed of her husband’s conduct.  Although he had enjoyed many liaisons in their (admittedly large) residences (his partners including servants, socialites & local fishermen) and his proclivities were an open secret known to many in society, his wife remained oblivious and expressed some confusion about what homosexuality was.  Leading a sheltered existence, Lady Beauchamp had never been told about the mechanics of “the detestable and abominable vice of buggery” and was baffled, thinking her husband was being accused of being a bugler.  Actually, that evocative phrase from the statute of 1533 no longer existed in English law so someone must have gone into the details with her because the charge would have been “Gross Indecency contrary to Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885”.  The change had been created by the so-called Labouchere Amendment and it solved the practical problem created by the specificity of the words of the sixteenth century.  For the state, the problem was the old law had been too exact in that if the prosecution could not beyond reasonable doubt prove anal sex had happened between at least two “male persons”, a conviction couldn’t be secured.  Thus the attraction of the phrase “Gross Indecency” which covered the whole vista of “unnatural caresses” and it was under the new law Irish writer Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was tried and convicted, receiving a sentence of two years.  So it cast a wider net but was less harsh in that as late as 1861 a conviction could attract the death penalty although this was thought so onerous a punishment for what was often a consensual act that prosecutions became rare.  Despite the reforms in England, in some parts of the old British Empire, terminology like “the abominable crime of buggery” remained on the statute books until late in the twentieth century.

Once things were became clear in Lady Beauchamp's mind, she petitioned for divorce, the papers describing the respondent as: “A man of perverted sexual practices, [who] has committed acts of gross indecency with male servants and other male persons and has been guilty of sodomy … throughout the married life … the respondent habitually committed acts of gross indecency with certain of his male servants.”  Tipped-off (then as now, the establishment had a "gay network"), his lordship promptly decamped, first to Germany which then would have seemed a prudent choice because, although homosexual acts between men had been illegal since the unification of Germany in 1871, under the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), enforcement was rare and a gay culture flourished blatantly in the larger German cities, the Berlin scene famous even then, the writer Christopher Isherwood (1904–1986) describing things memorably although it wasn't until his diaries were later published one fully could "read between the lines".  After the Nazis gained power in 1933, things changed and Beauchamp contemplated satisfying George V’s assumption but was dissuaded, instead spending his time between Paris, Venice, Sydney and San Francisco, four cities with a tolerant sub-culture and certainly places where wealthy gay men usually could bribe their way out of any legal unpleasantness.

Sir Robert Menzies in uniform as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.

Sir Robert Menzies (1894–1978; prime-minister of Australia 1939-1941 & 1949-1966) was one of the more improbable appointments as lord warden.  In the office (1965-1978), he replaced Sir Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) on whom the hardly onerous duties had been imposed in 1941.  The old soldier Churchill had spent a lifetime appearing in a variety of military uniforms (his RAF (Royal Air Force) Air Commodore's outfit adorned with "pilot's wings" (aviator badge), "awarded" by the RAF on the basis of flying lessons (concluded after a non-fatal crash) he'd undertaken at the Royal Naval Flying School at Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey while serving as First Lord of the Admiralty (1911-1915)) and wore it well but the very civilian Menzies looked something like one of the characters from a Gilbert & Sullivan (Sir William Gilbert (1836–1911) & Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) comic opera.  That he was made lord warden rather than being granted a peerage was thought by some emblematic of the changing relationship between the UK and Australia.

After the death of George V, the warrant for Beauchamp’s arrest was lifted and, in July 1937, he returned to England.  What did come as a surprise to many was that soon after his arrival, invitations were issued for a Beauchamp ball, ostensibly a coming-of-age celebration for Richard Lygon (1916-1970; the youngest son) but universally regarded as an attempt at a social resurrection.  In a sign of the times, much of London society did attend although there were those who declined and made it known why.  Still, it seems to have appeared a most respectable and even successful event, Henry "Chips" Channon (1897-1958) noting in his diary it was a bit dull, the “only amusing moment when Lord Beauchamp escorted… a negress cabaret singer into supper.  People were cynically amused but I was not surprised, knowing of his secret activities in Harlem.  It is never a long step from homosexuality to black ladies.”  Lord Beauchamp didn’t long enjoy his return to society, dying within a year of the ball but the vicissitudes of his life were helpful to Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) when writing Brideshead Revisited (1945), the character of Lord Marchmain based on Beauchamp himself while the ill-fated Sebastian Flyte was inspired by Beauchamp’s son Hugh (1904-1936) who shared and (with some enthusiasm) pursued some of his father’s interests.  Despite it all, an appointment as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports is for life and Lord Beauchamp remained in office until his death.

Kamikaze

Kamikaze (pronounced kah-mi-kah-zee or kah-muh-kah-zee)

(1) A member of a World War II era special corps in the Japanese air force charged with the suicidal mission of crashing an aircraft laden with explosives into an enemy target, especially Allied Naval vessels.

(2) In later use, one of the (adapted or specifically built) airplanes used for this purpose.

(3) By extension, a person or thing that behaves in a wildly reckless or destructive manner; as a modifier, something extremely foolhardy and possibly self-defeating.

(4) Of, pertaining to, undertaken by, or characteristic of a kamikaze; a kamikaze pilot; a kamikaze attack.

(5) A cocktail made with equal parts vodka, triple sec and lime juice.

(6) In slang, disastrously to fail.

(7) In surfing, a deliberate wipeout.

1945: From the Japanese 神風 (かみかぜ) (kamikaze) (suicide flyer), the construct being kami(y) (god (the earlier form was kamui)) + kaze (wind (the earlier form was kanzai)), usually translated as “divine wind” (“spirit wind” appearing in some early translations), a reference to the winds which, according to Japanese folklore, destroying Kublai Khan's Mongol invasionfleet in 1281.  In Japanase military parlance, the official designation was 神風特別攻撃隊 (Shinpū Tokubetsu Kōgekitai (Divine Wind Special Attack Unit)).  Kamikaze is a noun, verb & adjective and kamikazeing & kamikazed are verbs; the noun plural is kamikazes.  When used in the original sense, an initial capital is used. 

HESA Shahed 136 UAV.

The use of kamikaze to describe the Iranian delta-winged UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle, popularly known as “drones”) being used by Russia against Ukraine reflects the use of the word which developed almost as soon as the existence of Japan’s wartime suicide bomber programme became known.  Kamikaze was the name of the aviators and their units but it was soon also applied to the aircraft used, some re-purposed from existing stocks and some rocket powered units designed for the purpose.  In 1944-1945 they were too little, too late but they proved the effectiveness of precision targeting although not all military cultures would accept the loss-rate the Kamikaze sustained.  In the war in Ukraine, the Iranian HESA Shahed 136 (شاهد ۱۳۶ (literally "Witness-136" and designated Geran-2 (Герань-2 (literally "Geranium-2") by the Russians) the kamikaze drone have proved extraordinarily effective being cheap enough to deploy en masse and capable of precision targeting.  They’re thus a realization of the century-old dream of the strategic bombing theorists to hit “panacea targets” at low cost while sustaining no casualties.  Early in World War II, the notion of panacea targets had been dismissed, not because as a strategy it was wrong but because the means of finding and bombing such targets didn’t exist, thus “carpet bombing” (bombing for several square miles around any target) was adopted because it was at the time the best option.  Later in the war, as techniques improved and air superiority was gained, panacea targets returned to the mission lists but the method was merely to reduce the size of the carpet.  The kamikaze drones however can be pre-programmed or remotely directed to hit a target within the tight parameters of a GPS signal.  The Russians know what to target because so many blueprints of Ukrainian infrastructure sit in Moscow’s archives and the success rate is high because, deployed in swarms because they’re so cheap, the old phrase from the 1930s can be updated for the UAV age: “The drone will always get through”.

Imperial Japan’s Kamikazes

By 1944, it was understood by the Japanese high command that the strategic gamble simultaneously to attack the US Pacific Fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbor and the Asian territories of the European powers.  Such was the wealth and industrial might of the US that within three years of the Pearl Harbor raid, the preponderance of Allied warships and military aircraft in the Pacific was overwhelming and Japan’s defeat was a matter only of time.  That couldn’t be avoided but within the high command it was thought that if the Americans understood how high would be the causality rate if they attempted an invasion of the Japanese home islands, that and the specter of occupation might be avoided and some sort of "negotiated settlement" might be possible, the notion of the demanded "unconditional surrender" unthinkable.

HMS Sussex hit by Kamikaze (Mitsubishi Ki-51 (Sonia)), 26 July 1945 (left) and USS New Mexico (BB-40) hit by Kamikaze off Okinawa, 12 May 1945 (right).

Although on paper, late in the war, Japan had over 15,000 aircraft available for service, a lack of development meant most were at least obsolescent and shortages of fuel increasingly limited the extent to which they could be used in conventional operations.  From this analysis came the estimate that if used as “piloted bombs” on suicide missions, it might be possible to sink as many as 900 enemy warships and inflict perhaps 22,000 causalities and in the event of an invasion, when used at shorter range against landing craft or beachheads, it was thought an invading force would sustain over 50,000 casualties by suicide attacks alone.  Although the Kamikaze attacks didn't achieve their strategic objective, they managed to sink dozens of ships and kill some 5000 allied personnel.  All the ships lost were smaller vessels (the largest an escort carrier) but significant damage was done to fleet carriers and cruisers and, like the (also often dismissed as strategically insignificant) German V1 & V2 attacks in Europe, resources had to be diverted from the battle plan to be re-tasked to strike the Kamikaze air-fields.  Most importantly however, so vast by 1944 was the US military machine that it was able easily to repair or replace as required.  Brought up in a different tradition, US Navy personnel the target of the Kamikaze dubbed the attacking pilots Baka (Japanese for “Idiot”).

A captured Japanese Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka (Model 11), Yontan Airfield, April 1945.

Although it’s uncertain, the first Kamikaze mission may have been an attack on the carrier USS Frankin by Rear Admiral Arima (1895-1944) flying a Yokosuka D4Y Suisei (Allied codename Judy) and the early flights were undertaken using whatever airframes were available and regarded, like the pilots, as expendable.  Best remembered however, although only 850-odd were built, were the rockets designed for the purpose.  The Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka (櫻花, (Ōka), (cherry blossom)) was a purpose-built, rocket-powered attack aircraft which was essentially a powered bomb with wings, conceptually similar to a modern “smart bomb” except that instead of the guidance being provided by on board computers and associated electronics which were sacrificed in the attack, there was a similarly expendable human pilot.  Shockingly single-purpose in its design parameters, the version most produced could attain 406 mph (648 km/h) in level flight at relatively low altitude and 526 mph (927 km/h) while in an attack dive but the greatest operational limitation was the range was limited to 23 miles (37 km), forcing the Japanese military to use lumbering Mitsubishi G4N (Betty) bombers as “carriers” (the Ohka the so-called "parasite aircraft") with the rockets released from under-slung assemblies when within range.  As the Ohka was originally conceived (with a range of 80 miles (130 km)), as a delivery system that may have worked but such was the demand on the designers to provide the highest explosive payload, the fuel load was reduced, restricting the maximum speed to 276 mph (445 km/h), making the barely maneuverable little rockets easy prey for fighters and even surface fire.

Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka.

During the war, Japan produced more Mitsubishi G4Ms than any other bomber and its then remarkable range (3130 miles (5037 km)) made it a highly effective weapon early in the conflict but as the US carriers and fighters were deployed in large numbers, its vulnerabilities were exposed: the performance was no match for fighters and it was completely un-armored without even self-sealing fuel tanks, hence the nick-name “flying lighter” gained from flight crews.  However, by 1945 Japan had no more suitable aircraft available for the purpose so the G4M was used as a carrier and the losses were considerable, an inevitable consequence of having to come within twenty-odd miles of the US battle-fleets protected by swarms of fighters.  It had been planned to develop a variant of the much more capable Yokosuka P1Y (Ginga) (as the P1Y3) to perform the carrier role but late in the war, Japan’s industrial and technical resources were stretched and P1Y development was switched to night-fighter production, desperately needed to repel the US bombers attacking the home islands.  Thus the G4M (specifically the G4M2e-24J) continued to be used.

Watched by Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945), Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) presents test pilot Hanna Reitsch (1912-1979) with the Iron Cross (2nd class), Berlin, March, 1941 (left); she was later (uniquely for a woman), awarded the 1st-class distinction.  Conceptual sketch of the modified V1 flying bomb (single cockpit version, right).

The idea of suicide missions also appealed to some Nazis, predictably most popular among those never likely to find themselves at the controls, non-combatants often among the most blood-thirsty of politicians.  The idea had been discussed earlier as a means of destroying the electricity power-plants clustered around Moscow but early in 1944, the intrepid test pilot Hanna Reitsch suggested to Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 & of state 1934-1945) a suicide programme as the most likely means of hitting strategic targets.  Ultimately, she settled on using a V1 flying bomb (the Fieseler Fi 103R, an early cruise missile) to which a cockpit had been added, test-flying it herself and even mastering the landing, a reasonable feat given the high landing speed.  As a weapon, assuming a sufficient supply of barely-trained pilots, it would probably have been effective but Hitler declined to proceed, feeling things were not yet sufficiently desperate.  The historic moment passed although in the skies above Germany, in 1945 there were dozens of what appeared to be "suicide attacks" by fighter pilots ramming their aircraft into US bombers.  The Luftwaffe was by this time so short of fuel that training had been cut to the point new recruits were being sent into combat with only a few hours of solo flying experience so it's believed some incidents may have been "work accidents" but the ad-hoc Kamikaze phenomenon was real.

According to statics compiled by the WHO (World Health Organization) in 2021, globally, there were an estimated 727,000 suicides and within the total: (1) among 15–29-year-olds, suicide was the third leading cause of death (2) for 15–19-year-olds, it was the fourth leading and (3) for girls aged 15–19, suicide ranked the third leading.  What was striking was that in middle & high income nations, suicide is the leading cause of death in the young (typically defined as those aged 15-29 or 15-34.  Because such nations are less affected by infectious disease, armed conflicts and accident mortality that in lower income countries, it appeared there was a “mental health crisis”, one manifestation of which was the clustering of self-harm and attempted suicides, a significant number of the latter successful.  As a result of the interplay of the economic and social factors reducing mortality from other causes, intentional self-harm stands out statistically, even though suicide rates usually are not, in absolute terms, “extremely” high.  Examples quoted by the WHO included:

Republic of Korea (ROK; South Korea): Among people aged 10–39, suicide is consistently the leading cause of death and that’s one of the highest youth suicide rates in the OECD (Organization of Economic Cooperation & Development, sometimes called the “rich countries club” although changes in patterns of development have compressed relativities and that tag is not as appropriate as once it was.

Japan (no longer styled the “Empire of Japan although the head of state remain an emperor): Suicide is the leading cause of death among those aged 15-39 and while there was a marked decline in the total numbers after the government in the mid 1990s initiated a public health campaign the numbers did increase in the post-COVID pandemic period.  Japan is an interesting example to study because its history has meant cultural attitudes to suicide differ from those in the West.

New Zealand (Aotearoa): New Zealand has one of the highest youth suicide rates in the developed world, especially among Māori youth and although the numbers can bounce around, for those aged 15–24, suicide is often the leading or second leading cause of death.

Finland:  For those aged 15-24, suicide is always among leading causes of mortality and in some reporting periods the leading one.  Because in Finland there are there are extended times when the hours of darkness are long and the temperatures low, there have been theories these conditions may contribute to the high suicide rate (building on research into rates of depression) but the studies have been inconclusive.

Australia: Suicide is the leading cause of death for those in the cohorts 15–24 and 25–44 and a particular concern is the disproportionately high rate among indigenous youth, the incidents sometimes happening while they’re in custody.  In recent years, suicide has road accidents and cancer as the leading cause in these age groups.

Norway & Sweden: In these countries, suicide is often one of the top three causes of death among young adults and in years when mortality from disease and injury are especially low it typically will rise to the top.

Kamikaze Energy Cans in all six flavors (left) and potential Kakikaze Energy Can customer Lindsay Lohan (right).

Ms Lohan was pictured here with a broken wrist (fractured in two places in an unfortunate fall at Milk Studios during New York Fashion Week) and 355 ml (12 fluid oz) can of Rehab energy drink, Los Angeles, September 2006.  Some recovering from injuries find energy drinks a helpful addition to the diet.  The car is a 2005 Mercedes-Benz SL 65 (R230; 2004-2011) which earlier had featured in the tabloids after a low-speed crash.  The R230 range (2001-2011) was unusual because of the quirk of the SL 550 (2006-2011), a designation used exclusively in the North American market, the RoW (rest of the world) cars retaining the SL 500 badge even though both used the 5.5 litre (333 cubic inch) V8 (M273).

Given the concerns about suicide among the young, attention has in the West been devoted the way the topic is handled on social media and the rise in the use of novel applications for AI (artificial intelligence) has flagged new problems, one of the “AI companions” now wildly popular among youth (the group most prone to attempting suicide) recently in recommending their creator take his own life.  That would have been an unintended consequence of (1) the instructions given to the bot and (2) the bot’s own “learning process”, the latter something which the software developers would have neither anticipated nor expected.  Given the sensitivities to the way suicide is handled in the media, on the internet or in popular culture, it’s perhaps surprising there’s an “energy drink” called “Kamikaze”.  Like AI companions, the prime target for the energy drink suppliers is males aged 15-39 which happens to be the group most at risk of suicide thoughts and most likely to attempt suicide.  Despite that, the product’s name seems not to have attracted much criticism and the manufacturer promises: “With your Kamikaze Energy Can, you'll enjoy a two-hour energy surge with no crash.”  Presumably the word “crash” was chosen with some care although, given the decline in the teaching of history at school & university level, it may be a sizeable number of youth have no idea about the origin of “Kamikaze”.  Anyway, containing “200mg L-Citrulline, 160mg Caffeine Energy, 1000mg Beta Alanine, vitamin B3, B6 & B12, zero carbohydrates and zero sugar, the cans are available in six flavours: Apple Fizz, Blue Raspberry, Creamy Soda, Hawaiian Splice, Mango Slushy & Rainbow Gummy.