Bench

Bench (pronounced bench)

(1) A long seat (without arm or back-rest) for two or more people:

(2) A seat occupied by an official, especially a judge in a courtroom.

(3) Such a seat as a symbol of the office of an individual judge or the judiciary.

(4) The office or dignity of various other officials, or the officials themselves.

(5) In certain team sports, the seat (literally or figuratively) on which the reserve (substitute) players sit during a game while not playing and on which “starting side” players sit while substituted.

(6) The quality and number of the players named as substitutes.

(7) By extension, the quality and number of professionals or experts in reserve, to be called upon as needed:

(8) As a clipping of workbench, the worktable of those engaged in trades.

(9) In interior design, certain fixed flat surfaces (kitchen bench, bathroom bench etc).

(10) A platform on which animals or objects are placed for exhibition.

(11) In farming, a hollow on a hillside formed by sheep.

(12) In surveying, a bracket used to mount land surveying equipment onto a stone or a wall.

(13) In certain legislatures, as “front bench” (the office-holding members of a government or opposition who sit on the bench at the front of their side of the assembly), “back bench” (those elected members not appointed to an office who sit on benches behind) and “cross-bench” (those not members of the party in government or formal opposition who sit on other benches).  The terms are sometimes literal but depending on an assembly’s architecture or the size of a government’s majority, others can sometimes “overflow” to the physical “cross benches”.  Thus there are “front benchers”, “back benchers” & “cross benchers” (sometimes hyphenated).

(14) In geography, a shelf-like area of rock with steep slopes above and below, especially one marking a former shoreline.

(15) In extractive mining, a step or working elevation in a mine.

(16) In science (usually as “at the bench”), to distinguish between being engaged actively in research and concurrent or subsequent administrative functions.

(17) To furnish with benches (now rare).

(18) To seat on a bench or on the bench (now rare).

(19) In extractive mining, to cut away the working faces of benches.

(20) In certain team sports, to substitute or remove a player from a game or relegate them to the reserve squad.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English bench, benk & bynk, from the Old English benc (bench; long seat (especially if backless)), from then Proto-West Germanic banki, from the Proto-Germanic bankon & bankiz (bench), from the primitive Indo-European bheg.  It was cognate with the Scots benk & bink, the West Frisian bank, the Dutch bank, the Old High German Bank, the Old Norse bekkr, the Old Frisian benk, the Danish bænk, the Swedish bänk and the Icelandic bekkur, all from a Germanic source and all of which meant “bench”.  In the Old English there were the verbs bencian (to make benches) and bencsittend (one who sits on a bench).  The dialectal spellings benk & bink are both long obsolete.  Bench & benching are nouns & verbs, bencher is a noun, benched is a verb & adjective and benchy & benchlike are adjectives; the noun plural is benches.

The source of the idea of the “bench as a type of long seat” is thought to come from riparian imagery (natural earthen incline beside a body of water) and etymologists speculate the original notion was of a “man-made earthwork used as a seat”.  Bench was from the late fourteenth century used of the tables on which merchants displayed their wares and that may have been a borrowing from the reference to the seat the judge would occupy in a court of law, that use emerging early in the 1300s and coming soon to mean “judges collectively, office of a judge, the judiciary”.  Whether it was actually an allusion to customers “judging the goods displayed” is speculative.  The use in team sports of “the bench” being the “reserve or substitute team members” was drawn from the actual physical bench on the sideline on which those players would sit while not on the field.  The earliest known reference to the existence of furniture used for this purpose is from the US in 1899 but extending this generally to the “reserve of players” in baseball, football etc seems not to have begun until 1909.  In sport, the idiomatic forms include “bench player” (one habitually selected only in the reserves and not the “starting side”), “benched” (a player substituted during play and “sent to the bench”, either because of poor performance or as part of a planned rotation, “injury bench” (players substituted due to injury), “bench warmer (or “bench sitter”, or “bench jockey”) (one whose career has plateaued as a “bench player”, “warming the bench”) 

Bench has attracted many modifiers describing use including “bench grinder”, “bench saw”, “bench drill”, “sawbench”, “kitchen bench”, “deacon's bench”, “friendship bench”, “bench easel”, “mourners' bench”, “piano bench” (a “piano stool” for two), “preacher’s bench” etc.  The noun & verb “benchmark” refers to the optimal results obtained when testing something or someone on a “test bench” although the use is often conceptual, a physical “test bench” not necessarily part of the processes and even some structures in engineering referred to as a “test bench” may bear no relationship to any actual “bench” however described.

Of seats

Bench seats ranged from the functional to the extravagant.

1971 Holden HQ Belmont Station Sedan (station wagon or estate-car) (left) in turquoise vinyl and 1974 Imperial LeBaron four-door hardtop (right) in chestnut tufted leather though not actually “rich Corinthian leather” which was (mostly) exclusive to the Cordoba (1975-1983) until late 1975 when not only did the Imperial's brochures mention "genuine Corinthian leather (available at extra cost)" but for the first time since 1954 the range was referred to as the "Chrysler Imperial", a harbinger the brand was about to be retired.  Imperial's advertising copy noted of the brochure photograph above: “...while the passenger restraint system with starter interlock is not shown, it is standard on all Imperials.”; the marketing types didn't like seat-belts messing up their photos.  While all of the big three (GM, Ford & Chrysler) had tufted interiors in some lines, it was Chrysler which displayed the most commitment to the extravagance although regrettably, some testers at the time reported than while they looked accommodating, after an hour of so, they proved quite uncomfortable.  They contrasted the eye-catching seats in the Imperial with the "hard" pews provided by Mercedes-Benz which proved supportive and comfortable even after hours behind the wheel, concluding backs, shoulders and legs were a more reliable guide to orthopedic correctness  than visual appeal, Teutonic austerity proving more luxurious than Detroit's rococo.

Boring: Rear bench seat in 1963 Chrysler 300J.

The 1963 Chrysler 300J was the rarest (ie the one fewest customers purchased) of the eleven “letter-series” cars (1955-1965) and whether or not related to its performance in the market, one thing which at the time attracted comment was a rear bench seat replacing the eye-catching twin buckets and full length console which had for three seasons appeared in its predecessors (300F, 300G & 300H).  In 1963, the industry, chasing volume & profits, had begin the process of “de-contenting” their cars, either ceasing the availability of stuff expensive to make or install or moving such items to the option list; by the late 1960s even Cadillac would be afflicted.  The Chrysler “letter series” 300s had begin in 1955 with what many had assumed was a one-off high-performance model created by mixing & matching trim from the Imperial line (newly that year established as a stand-alone marquee) as well as tuning the mechanical components for speed.  Existing initially to homologate stuff for use in competition, not only did the C-300 sell in a pleasing volume but it was such a success as a image-building “halo car” the model was retained for 1956 and dubbed 300B with a further nine annually following until the end of the line in with the 300L 1965, each release appending as an identifier the next letter in the alphabet (thus 300C, 300D etc).

Much more swish: Rear bucket seats in 1961 Chrysler 300G.

However, as well as the dubious distinctions of being the least popular and being the only one the series between 1957-1965 not to be offered as a convertible, the 300J represents a quirk in the naming sequence, Chrysler skipping the letter “I”.  That was done for the same reason there are so few “I cup” bras, the rationale being “I” might be confused with the numeric “1” so most manufacturers go straight from “H cup” to “J cup” although some plug the gap with a “HH cup” and there are even those who stop at “G”, handing incremental increases in volume with “GG” & “GGG” cups; it does seem an industry crying out for an ISO.  There’s no evidence Chrysler ever pondered a “300HH”.  Like Chrysler and most bra manufacturers, the USAF (US Air Force) also opted to skip “I” when allocating a designation for the updated version of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress (1952-1962 and still in service).  Between the first test flight of the B-52A in 1954 and the B-52H entering service in 1962, the designations B-52B, B-52C, B-52D, B-52E, B-52F & B-52G sequentially had been used but after flirting with whether to use B52J as an interim designation (reflecting the installation of enhanced electronic warfare systems) before finalizing the series as the B-52K after new engines were fitted, in 2024 the USAF announced the new line would be the B-52J and only a temporary internal code would distinguish those not yet re-powered.  Again, “I” was not used so nobody would think there was a B521.

1958 Metropolitan Hardtop in two-tone Frost White and Berkshire Green over black and white houndstooth cloth and vinyl.

Under various marques, the Metropolitan was in production between 1953-1961 and its cartoon-like appearance was a result of applying the motifs of the standard-sized US automobile to something much smaller and in that it was conceptually similar in concept to the more severely executed Triumph Mayflower (1949-1953) which took as a model the “knife-edged” lines of the Daimlers and Rolls-Royces bodied by Hooper.  Although most four-door cars with front bench seats featured full-width cushions (one which one’s butt sat) and squabs (on which one’s back rested), most two door models had “split squabs” which individually could be folded forward, affording someone access to the rear passenger compartment without disturbing anyone sitting on the other side of the front seat.

1958 Metrolpoitan.

The split squabs erect (left), the passenger's folded forward to afford entry to the rear bench (centre) and the rear bench's squab laid flat to allow access to the trunk or provide a larger storage space (right).  In modern five-seaters, the trend has been the so-called 40/60 split seat which allows two passengers still to sit on the back seat while extending the trunk space into the cabin, the origin of the idea reputedly the desire of skiers to carry their skis & poles without the need to fit external racks.  The Metropolitan also had a fold-down rear bench, a common feature in many station wagons, SUVs (sports utility vehicle) and such but for the diminutive Metropolitan it was essential because there was no trunk (boot) lid.  Though not unique, that was unusual in four-seat sedans (which the Metropolitan sort of was) although some sports cars also lacked the fitting including the early Austin-Healey Sprite (the so-called bugeye or frogeye (depending on the side of the Atlantic where one sat)) and every Chevrolet Corvette between the release of the C2 in 1962 and the C5 in 1998.

Bench seat for four: the improbable 1948 Davis Divan.  The blue car (one of a dozen survivors of the 17 built) was restored by the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles where it is on display.

In cars and such, a “bench seat” differs from a “bucket” or “individual” seat in that comfortably it can accommodate three occupants, the comparison with furniture being the difference between a “chair” and a “sofa”.  In commercial vehicles, bench seats commonly can seat four but in cars the recommended (and eventually legal) limit was typically three although the truly bizarre Davis Divan (1948) featured a bench allowing four abreast seating for adults, something which would have been an interesting experience for the quartet because a quirk of the suspension system was the long, pointed nose of the thing actually rose under braking.  The three-wheeled Divan was the brainchild of “automotive entrepreneur” (some historians are less kind) Glen Gordon “Gary” Davis (1904-1973) who put some effort into building the prototypes, not enough into preparation for actual production but much into raising funds from “investors”, a goodly chunk of which apparently was spent on real estate, entertaining and mink coats for “friends” (with all that implies).  He had a flair for slogans so many investors were attracted but the project proved chimeric, Mr Davis subsequently tried and convicted of fraud & grand theft, spending two years in prison.  The name Divan was used as an allusion to the car's wide bench seat.  It was from the French divan, from the Ottoman Turkish دیوان (divan), from the Iranian Persian دیوان (divân), from the Classical Persian دیوان (dēwān), from Middle Persian dpywʾn' or dywʾn' (dēwān) (archive, collected writings, compilation of works”), from the Sumerian dub.  The sense was of a sofa-like piece of furniture comprising a mattress lying against the wall and on either the floor or an elevated structure.  Part of the tradition of interior decorating in the Middle East, in the West divans are sometimes called “ottomans”; those with an internal storage compartment: “box ottomans”.

Four American Airlines stewardesses proving the bench seat had “hiproom for four adults; its foam rubber cushion beautifully upholstered in long-wearing synthetic fabrics.”  Dr Phil Tiemeyer's Women and the Jet Age. A Global History of Aviation and Flight Attendants (2025) explores the post-war aviation industry and the not always happy part played by flight attendants.

Resembling a large shoe mounted on a tricycle undercarriage, so much was strange about the Davis Divan that in 1948 the four-abreast seating configuration probably didn’t seem so startling.  Still, the public were aware of the unusual feature because among the many publicity shots distributed was one of four American Airlines flight attendants (then called stewardesses) perched, apparently happily, on the bench seat while Mr Davis looked on approvingly.  Presumably, the four young ladies were relaxed and comfortable because the space available was rather more than airlines these days provide for economy-class passengers in airliners.  To this day, there are those who defend Mr Davis and claim the corporate failure was a consequence of his managerial ineptitude rather than constructive fraud but as well as the mink coats, there were clues some of techniques used to raise what would now be called VC (venture capital) were suspect, including the claim the movie star Greta Garbo (1905-1990) was one of the investors.  Ms Garbo was by 1948 already legendarily reclusive, never gave interviews and journalists who sent type-written questions (including a return SSAE (stamped self-addressed envelope)) were ignored.  If any alleged “investor” was unlikely to contradict Mr Davis, it was Greta Garbo.

Mannerist but not quite surrealist: Some artistic licence taken.

Advertising for the 1961 Pontiac Bonneville Sports Coupe (left) with images by Art Fitzpatrick (1919–2015) & Van Kaufman (1918-1995) and a (real) 1961 Pontiac Bonneville Sports Coupe (right) fitted with Pontiac's much admired 8-lug wheels, their exposed centres actually the brake drum to which the rim (in the true sense of the word) directly was bolted.  Four could be seated on the Bonneville's front seat but the packaging efficiency was not as good as was found on the Divan; although the car was 8.2 inches (208 mm) wider (78.2 (1,986) vs 72.0 (1,829)), at 63.4 inches (1,610 mm), the Pontiac’s front seat was narrower than the 64 inches (1,626 mm) found in the Divan.  The inefficiency inside was reflected under the hood (bonnet).  Although wide, even Detroit's large-displacement V8s of the post-war years were, by historic standards, relatively short, but to achieve the desired look (longer, lower, wider), the stylists rendered long noses and such was the capaciousness, a straight-8 or V16 could have been installed.  Remarkably, as a marker of distinction, some of these machines even had their noses extended a few inches, just "for the look", creating even more waste space.  Undeniably, something like the 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix was dramatic but it was emblematic of an era of self indulgence. 

Had one taken seriously some of the images used to advertise US cars in the 1960s, one might have assumed Mr Davis had been so influential that bench seats might by 1961 seat five but sadly, the work of Fitzpatrick & Kaufman (best remembered for what they rendered for GM’s (General Motors) PMD (Pontiac Motor Division) took some artistic licence and one piece of exaggeration was width.  The pair rendered memorable images but certainly exaggerated things where they though it would help created what were even then admired as simulacrums rather than something to be taken literally.  While PMD’s “Year of the Wide-Track” (introduced in 1959) is remembered as a slogan (the original advertising copy read “Wide Track Wheels” but was soon clipped to “Wide Track” because it was snappier), it wasn’t just advertising shtick, the decision taken to increase the track of Pontiacs by 5 inches (127 mm) because the 1958 frames were carried-over for the much wider 1959 bodies, rushed into production because the sleek new Chryslers had rendered the old look frumpy and suddenly old-fashioned.  That spliced-in five inches certainly enhanced the look but the engineering was sound, the wider stance did genuinely improve handling.  Just to make sure people got the message about the “wide” in the “Wide Track” theme, the advertising artwork deliberately exaggerated the width of the cars they depicted and while it was the era of “longer, lower, wider” (and PMD certainly did their bit in that), things never got quite that wide.  Had they been, the experience of driving would have felt something like steering an aircraft carrier's flight deck.

Davis Divan: Even if the car wasn’t “real”, the brochure was well-done, reflecting the influences of Art Deco and Mid-Century Modernism.

Although not in US terms a “big” car, at 72 inches (6 feet, 1.8 metres) in width, the Davis Divan was comparatively wide, as of course it had to be make the four-place bench seat viable.  Still, with an apparently aerodynamic body made from aluminium (taking advantage of the ample stock of the metal created when contacts for military aircraft had been cancelled after the unexpectedly abrupt end of World War II (1939-1945)) it weighed in at a svelte 2,450 pounds (1,110 kg) so the small, four cylinder engines would have delivered low fuel consumption and provided adequate, if not sparkling, performance although if the shape was as slippery as it appeared, the claimed top speed of 115 mph (185 km/h) may have been plausible; as far as is known, no one has ever attempted to verify the claim.  In a booming economy in which new cars were in high-demand, the package must have seemed attractive to investors, especially as it was expected to sell for what seemed a competitive US$995.

One of the mink coats made infamous in the court proceedings in which Mr Davis was handed a two-year sentence after being convicted of fraud & grand theft.

In retrospect, the projected price was as remote from economic reality as the 990 Reichsmarks (RM) the Nazi Party in 1938 promised would be the cost Germans would pay for a new KdF-Wagen.  The Kraft durch Freude-Wagen was the “people’s car” marketed by the Party’s Kraft durch Freude (Strength Through Joy) operation which also ran cruise liners and holiday resorts and although not one car had been delivered to a civilian customer by the end of the war, it would subsequently enjoy much global success as the Volkswagen Type 1 (VW Beetle, 1938-2003).  As late as 1943 some of the 340,000-odd Germans obediently still were making their weekly payment of 5 RM and it would be more than a decade before some received any form of refund.  While over 21 million VW Beetles were made, Davis Divan production only ever reached 16 or 17 (including three specialized military (non-combat-vehicles) variants) and remarkably, at least 12 have survived as curiosities in museums and private collections.

Of law

Bench seat for four: A gang of four Sceggs.  Sceggs should not be confused with the homophonic skegs, a feature from shipbuilding.

In courts of the common law tradition the terms “bench” & “bar” date from the medieval age and remain part of courtroom terminology.  “The bench” was originally the seat on which judges at while presiding, the early furniture apparently a simple wooden bench as one would find at many long dining tables and in the manner typical of the way English evolves, “bench” came to be used of judges collectively and of the institution of the judiciary itself.  The “bar” was the physical barrier separating the spectators and participants of a trial from the area where the lawyers and judges conducted the proceedings, thus the “bar table” being that at which the advocates sat and the right to practice law before the bench being “passing the bar”, familiar in the modern US phrase “passing the bar exam” or the English form “called to the bar”.  As “bench” became a synecdoche for the judiciary, “bar” came to be used of the lawyers although in jurisdictions where there is a separation between those who appear in court (barristers) and those who do not (solicitors) “bar” was applied only to the former and even after reforms in some abolished the distinctions between certain branches of the law, specialist practitioners continue often to be referred to as the “equity bar” & “common law bar”.  There’s thus the apparent anomaly of the use of “bencher” (recorded in the 1580s) being used to mean “senior member of an inn of court”, all of whom would have been members of “the bar”.  Presumably the idea was one of “approaching the bench” or (more mischievously) “aspiring to the bench”.  The bench-warrant (one issued by a judge, as opposed to one issued by a magistrate or justice of the peace (JP) dates from the 1690s. 

An illuminated manuscript (circa 1460) which is the earliest known depiction of the Court of King's Bench in session.

In England, the Court of King’s Bench (KB) (or Queen’s Bench (QB) depending on who was on the throne) began in the twelfth century as a court at which the monarch literally presided; it was a circuit court which would, from time-to-time, travel around the counties hearing cases.  The Court of KB was thus in some sense “virtual”, whatever wooden bench upon which he sat becoming the KB for the duration of the trial.  Kings would cease to sit as judges and the KB later was interpolated into the system of courts (there would be many internecine squabbles over the years) until (as the Court of Queen’s Bench), under the Supreme Court of Judicature Act (1873), it, along with the Court of Common Pleas, the Court of Exchequer and Court of Chancery were merged to become the High Court of Justice, each of the absorbed institutions becoming a division.  The Common Pleas and Exchequer Division were abolished in 1880 when the High Court was re-organized into the Chancery Division, Queen's Bench Division and the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division (the latter memorably known as “wills, wives & wrecks” in legal slang).  The origin of the KB is a hint of why a king or queen can’t appear before a court in the UK or other places in which they remain head of state: Although it is in a practical sense now a legal fiction, all courts of law are “their courts” of which they remain the highest judge.  The most famous (or infamous) relic of all this is the power of pardon which although no longer a personal power in the hands of the king, remains exactly that for a US president and is the only head of power in the US constitution not subject to "checks & balances", a POTUS able to grant pardons by ex-officio fiat.  In that sense, the POTUS is the "chief magistrate" mentioned in the Federalist Papers (1788) although the authors used the term to distinguish a republic's president from European monarchs by stressing the execution of legal duties under the rule of law rather than sovereign privilege.  Not all presidents have been much troubled by that distinction. 

Benches afforced with foreign judges, the Chinese Communist Party and Hong Kong’s national security law

Multi-national benches are not uncommon.  There have been courts operating under the auspices of the LoN (League of Nations;1920-1946) & UN (United Nations; since 1945) such as the ICC (International Criminal Court), the ICJ (International Court of Justice) and the various ad-hoc bodies set up to handle prosecutions related to crimes in specific locations (Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia etc) and the UK had the JCPC (Judicial Committee of the Privy Council) which included senior judges from the Commonwealth.  The JCPC functioned not only as a final court of appeal for Commonwealth nations (a role for a handful it still fulfils) but also as the appellate tribunal for a number of domestic bodies including some ecclesiastical bodies, admiralty matters and even matters from the usually obscure DCRCVS (Disciplinary Committee of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons).  There were also the IMTs (International Military Tribunal) which tried matters arising from the conduct of German & Japanese defendants from World War II (1939-1945), the bench of the latter Tokyo Tribunal notably diverse although those of the subsequent dozen trials in Nuremberg after the first (1945-1946) were staffed exclusively by US judges.  A number of former colonies also use foreign judges (and not always from the former colonial power).

However, what remains unusual is the matter of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) deciding to have foreign judges serve on The HKCFA (Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal), established in 1997 when the HKSAR (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region) was created upon Beijing regaining sovereignty (under the IC2S (one country, two systems)) principle, with the end of British colonial rule.  At that point, the HKCFA became the territory’s highest judicial institution, replacing the JCPC in London.  On the HKCFA’s bench sits the Chief Justice (a Hong Kong national), several “Permanent Judges” and some two-dozen odd “Non-permanent Judges” who may be recruited from Hong Kong or from among lawyers of the requisite background from any overseas common law jurisdiction.  As non-permanent judges, appointments have been drawn (from bar & bench) from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

Lindsay Lohan, foreign judge on the bench of The Masked Singer (2019), a singing competition, the Australian franchise of a format which began in the ROK (Republic of Korea (South Korea)) as King of Mask Singer.

While it may seem strange a developed country like the PRC (People’s Republic of China (the old "Red China"), the world’s second largest economy, a permanent member of the UNSC (UN Security Council) and since 1965 the final member of the original “Club of Five” declared nuclear powers) would have foreign judges sitting on the bench of one of its superior courts, on the mainland the PRC operates under a civil law system which, like the tradition in continental European, is based primarily on written statutes and codes (with ultimate effective control remaining with the CCP), unlike common law systems, which rely heavily on case law and judicial precedent.  As a British colony, Hong Kong had used common law and under that system had become a major regional and international presence, something in part due to its judicial system being perceived as fair and uncorrupted; it was a “rule of law” state.

In the PRC there simply wasn’t a body of judges or lawyers with the necessary background in common law to staff the territory’s highest appellate court and significantly, at the time of the handover from the Raj, Hong Kong was of great importance to the PRC’s economy and the CCP understood it would be critical to maintain confidence in the rule of law, investors and overseas corporations with a presence in Hong Kong needing to be assured matters such as contracts would continue as before to be enforceable.  So it was, literally, “business as usual”, whatever may have been the fears about the political undercurrent.  The growth of the mainland economy since 1997 has been such that the HKSAR now constitutes only a small fraction of the national economy but analysts (some of whom provide advice to the CCP) understand the linkages running through the territory remain highly useful for Beijing and some long-standing conduits are still used for back-channel communications about this and that.  As far as business is concerned, the operation of the legal system has remained mostly satisfactory, even though the CCP ensured Beijing retained a reserved power to overturn the HKCFA’s decisions, the "rule of the CCP" sometimes thought preferable to the implications of "rule of law".

The colonial era building where now sits the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal.  Formally opened in 1912, it was built with granite in the neo-classical style and between 1985-2011 was the seat of the Legislative Council (LegCo).

However, in 2020, a “National Security Law” (technically the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and thus usually written in English as the “NSL”) was imposed.  While not aimed at the regulation of business or economic matters, it was wide in scope and claims of application (the extraterritoriality extending worldwide), essentially extending to the territory many of the laws of the mainland regarding “political activities” and matters of “free speech”, the latter interpreted by the CCP in a way not unique but certainly different from Western understandings.  Citing the “political situation”, two British judges in June 2024 resigned from the HKCFA, prompted by Beijing’s recent crackdown on dissent in the city, something made possible by the NSL.  In his published letter, one judge, his rationale for departure notwithstanding, did say he continued “…to have full confidence in the court and the total independence of its members.”  As early as 2020, one Australian judge had already resigned, followed by two others from the UK, both saying the Hong Kong government had “…departed from values of political freedom and freedom of expression.”  The CCP may have anticipated some objection from the overseas judges because, since the passage of the NSL, no overseas judge has been allocated to hear the “security-related” cases.  The judicial disquiet seemed not to trouble the territory’s chief executive, former police officer Ka-chiu (John Lee; b 1957) who said the overseas appointments would continue to help “…maintain confidence in the judicial system and… strong ties with other common law jurisdictions.”  In response to the departing judge’s comment, he claimed the NSL had “no effect” on judicial independence and the only difference was that “…national security is now better safeguarded.”

Early in June, the Hong Kong authorities arrested two men and one woman attending a FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association (the International Federation of Association Football that, for historic reasons, recognizes more countries than the UN)) World Cup qualification match against Iran, their offence being “turning their backs to the pitch and not standing during the performance of the national anthem”, a police spokesman adding that anybody “…who publicly and intentionally insults the national anthem in any way in committing a crime.”  Before the NSL was imposed, bolshie Hongkongers were known to boo the anthem to express discontent with their rulers; that definitely will no longer be tolerated.  The match ended Iran 4: Hong Kong 2 but despite that, more than ever the HKSAR and the Islamic Republic have much in common.

Gorp

Gorp (pronounced gawrp)

(1) Greedily to eat (obsolete).

(2) A mixture of nuts, raisins, dried fruits seeds and such, often packed as a high-energy snack by hikers, climbers and others undertaking strenuous outdoor activities.

(3) By extension, in the slang of late 1950s US automobile stylists (and subsequently their critics), the notion of adding many design elements to a car, even if discordant.

(4) In fashion criticism, an adoption of the automotive use, used to describe an excessive use of decorative items, especially if loosely fitted and inclined to “stray”.

Early 1900s: Of uncertain origin (in the sense of “greedily to eat”) but assumed by most etymologists to be a merging of gorge & gulp, the construct being gor(p) + (gul)p.  The mid-fourteenth century verb gorge (to eat with a display of greediness, or in large quantities) was from the Middle English gorgen (greedily to eat) and was from the Old French gorger & gorgier (which endures in modern French as gorger (greedily to eat; to gorge)), from gorge (throat).  The Middle English noun gorge (esophagus, gullet; throat; bird's crop; food in a hawk's crop; food or drink that has been take consumed) came directly from the Old French gorge (throat) (which endures in modern French as gorge (throat; breast)), from the Vulgar Latin gorga & gurga, from the Classical Latin gurges (eddy, whirlpool; gulf; sea), of uncertain origin but perhaps linked with the primitive Indo-European gwerhs- (to devour, swallow; to eat).  The English word was cognate with the Galician gorxa (throat), the Italian gorga & gorgia (gorge, throat (ravine long obsolete)), the Occitan gorga & gorja, the Portuguese gorja (gullet, throat; gorge) and the Spanish gorja (gullet, throat; gorge).  The duality of meaning in French meant the brassiere (bra) came to be called “un soutien-gorge (with derived forms such as “soutien-gorge de sport” (sports bra) with “soutif” the common colloquial abbreviation; the literal translation was thus “throat supporter” but it’s better understood as “chest uplifter”.

Lindsay Lohan gulping down a Pure Leaf iced tea; promotional image from the brand's “Time for a Tea Break” campaign.

The mid-fifteenth century noun gulp (eagerly (and often noisily) to swallow; swallow in large draughts; take down in a single swallow) was from the Middle English gulpen and probably from the West Flemish or Middle Dutch gulpen &, golpen, of uncertain origin.  Although not exactly onomatopoeic, the word may have been of imitative origin, or even an extension of meaning of the Dutch galpen (to roar, squeal) or the English galp & gaup (to gape).  It was related to the German Low German gulpen (to gush out, belch, gulp), the West Frisian gjalpe, gjalpje & gjealpje (to gush, spurt forth), the Danish gulpe & gylpe (to gulp up, disgorge), the dialectal Swedish glapa (to gulp down) and the Old English galpettan (to gulp down, eat greedily, devour).  The derived senses (to react nervously by swallowing; the sound of swallowing indicating apprehension or fear) may have been in use as early as the sixteenth century.  Gorp is a noun; the noun plural is gorps.  In fashion (technically perhaps “anti-fashion appropriated by fashion”) “gorpcore” describes the use as streetwear of outerwear either designed for outdoor recreation (in the sense of hiking, wilderness tracking etc) or affecting that style.  Exemplified by the ongoing popularity of the puffer jacket, gorpcore is something much associated with the COVID-19 pandemic but the look had by the time of the outbreak already been on-trend for more than a year.  The name comes from the stereotypical association of trail mix (gorp) with such outdoor activities.  The verbs gorping and gorped (often as “gorped-up”) were informal and used among stylists and critics when discussing some of Detroit’s excessively ornamented cars of the late 1950s & early 1960s.  Acronym Finder lists eleven GORPs including the two for trail-mix which seem peacefully to co-exist:

GORP: Great Outdoor Recreation Pages (a website).
GORP: Good Old Raisins and Peanuts (trail mix).
GORP: Granola, Oats, Raisins, and Peanuts (trail mix).
GORP: Garry Ork Restoration Project (An ecosystem restoration project in Saanich, Canada, designed to save the endangered Garry Oak trees, British Columbia’s only native oak species.
GORP: Georgia Outdoor Recreational Pass (Georgia Wildlife Resources Division).
GORP: Graduate Orthodontic Residents Program (University of Michigan; Ann Arbor).
GORP: Grinnell Outdoor Recreation Program (Grinnell College, Iowa)
GORP: Good Organic Retailing Practices.
GORP: Get Odometer Readings at the Pump.
GORP: Gordon Outdoor Recreation Project (Gordon College, Wenham, Massachusetts).
GORP: Growing Outdoor Recreation Professionals (University of California, Berkeley).

Lexicographers acknowledge the uncertainty of origin in the use of “gorp” to describe the mix of nuts, raisins, seeds and such in the packaged, high-energy snack now often known by the description most common in US commerce: “Trail mix”.  So common and conveniently packaged are the ingredients of gorp that doubtlessly variations of the combination have been carried by travellers since the origins of human movement over distance but the first known references to the concept to appear in print were seen in the “outdoors” themed magazines of the early twentieth century.  Deconstructed however, the notion of “high-energy, long-life, low volume” rations were for centuries a standard part of a soldier’s rations with different mixes used by land-based or naval forces, something dictated by availability and predicted rates of spoilage; as early as the seventeenth century, recommended combinations appeared in military manuals and quartermaster’s lists.  Not until the mid-1950s however is there any record of the stuff being described as “gorp” although the oft quoted formations: “Good Old Raisins and Peanuts” & “Granola, Oats, Raisins, and Peanuts” may both be backronyms.

Lindsay Lohan (b 1986, either left or right) and Erin Mackey (b 1986, either left or right), hiking scene in The Parent Trap (1998).  They would have packed some trail mix in their back-packs.

In various places around the planet, similar concoctions (the composition influenced by regional tastes and product availability) were described by different names including the antipodean scroggin or schmogle (the latter apparently restricted to New Zealand) and beyond the English-speaking world, there’s been a myriad of variants among those in schools or universities including “student mix”, “study mix”, “student fodder” & “student oats”.  That variety has faded as US linguistic imperialism has exerted its pull and even before the internet attained critical mass, the product name familiar in US supermarkets and grocery stores had begun to prevail: “Trail mix”.

Packaged gorp and trail mix.  Historically, gorp bars lived up to their name, a typical ingredients list including "peanuts, corn syrup, rasins, salt & lecithin" so commercially available gorp often was "the truth if not the whole truth".  Oddly, even when manufactured in disk-shapes, the product still tended to be described as a "bar".  With the contents of trail mix, there's been a bit of "mission creep" and the packaged product can now include chunks of chocolate and other stuff not envisaged in years gone by.

1958 Buick Special Convertible (left) and 1958 Buick Limited Convertible (right).If asked to nominate one from the list of usual suspects, many might pick Cadillac as the most accomplished purveyor of gorp but historians of the breed usually list the 1958 Buicks as "peak gorp" and for the sheer number and variety of decorative bits and pieces, it probably is unsurpassed.  Unfortunately for the division, a combination of circumstances meant between 1956 & 1958, Buick sales more than halved and while "excessive" gorp wasn't wholly to blame, after GM (General Motors) re-organized things, gorp never made a comeback quite as lavish.       

In automotive styling “gorp” is not synonymous with “bling” although there can be some physical overlap.  The word “bling” long ago enjoyed the now obsolete meaning “a want of resemblance” but in modern use it means (1) expensive and flashy jewelry, clothing, or other possessions, (2) the flaunting of material wealth and the associated lifestyle or (3) flashy; ostentatious.  It seems in these senses first to have been recorded in 1997 and is thought to be from the Jamaican English slang bling-bling, a sound suggested by the quality of light reflected by diamonds.  In the Caribbean, bling-bling came to be used to refer to flashy items (originally jewelry but later of any display of wealth) and the term was picked up in the US in African-American culture where it came to be associated with rap & hip-hop (forks of that community’s pop music) creators and their audiences.  There were suggestion the word bling was purely onomatopoeic (a vague approximation of pieces of jewelry clinking together) but most etymologists list it as one of the rare cases of a silent onomatopoeia: a word imitative of the imaginary sound many people “hear” at the moment light reflects off a sparkling diamond.  The long obsolete meaning “a want of resemblance” came from earlier changes in pronunciation when dissem′blance became pronounced variously as dissem′bler and dissem′ bling with bling becoming the slang form.  There is no relationship with the much older German verb blinken (to gleam, sparkle).

1958 Continental Mark III by Lincoln.

Some critics of design insist "gorp" (like "bling") really applies only to stuff "added on" (ie glued, screwed, bolted etc) but some claim there's no better word when discussing the cars which were a "mash-up" of disparate elements and there's no better example than the Ford Motor Company's (FoMoCo) 1958 Continental which was actually a "Lincoln with more stuff" but named simply "Continental" in the hope it would fool people into thinking it was an exclusive line following the genuinely unique Continental Mark II (1956-1957).  The Continental division had however been shuttered as another victim of the recession and the propaganda proved unequal to reality.  The Mark III's huge body (a remarkable technical achievement because even the convertibles were unit-bodies with no separate chassis) lingered for three dismally unsuccessful seasons and remains as the period's most confused agglomeration of motifs, a reasonable achievement given some of the weird creations Chrysler would release.  Although the sheer size does somewhat disguise the clutter, as one's eye wanders along the length, one finds slants and different angles, severe straight-lines, curves soft and sudden, scallops, fins and strakes.  On McMansions, it's not uncommon to find that many architectural traditions in on big suburban house but it's a rare count in one car.  Despite the diversity, it's not exactly "post-modernism in metal" so even if a re-purposing, "gorp" seems to fit.

In the English-speaking world, bling & bling-bling began to appear in dictionaries early in the twenty-first century.  Many languages picked up bling & bling-bling unaltered but among the few localizations were the Finnish killuttimet and the Korean beullingbeulling (블링블링) and there was also the German blinken (to blink, flashing on & off), a reference to the gleam and sparkle of jewels and precious metals.  Blinken was from the Low German and Middle Low German blinken, from the root of blecken (to bare) and existed also in Dutch.  As viral-words sometimes do, bling begat some potentially useful (and encouraged) derivations including blingesque, blingtastic, blingbastic blingiest, blingest, a-bling & blingistic; all are non-standard forms and patterns of use determine whether such pop-culture constructs endure.  Bling & blinger are nouns, blinged, blingish, blingy & blingless are adjectives, bling-out, blinged-out & bling-up are verbs; the noun plural is blingers (bling and bling-bling being both singular & plural).

Gingerbread: 1974 Imperial LeBaron four-door hardtop (left) in chestnut tufted leather though not actually “fine Corinthian leather” which was (mostly) exclusive to the Cordoba (1975-1983) until late 1975 when not only did the Imperial's brochures mention "genuine Corinthian leather (available at extra cost)" but for the first time since 1954 the range was referred to as the "Chrysler Imperial", a harbinger the brand was about to be retired.  Imperial's advertising copy noted of the brochure photograph above: “...while the passenger restraint system with starter interlock is not shown, it is standard on all Imperials.”; the marketing types didn't like seat-belts messing up their photos.  While all of the big three (GM, Ford & Chrysler) had tufted interiors in some lines, it was Chrysler which displayed the most commitment to the gingerbread motif.  After 1958, exterior gorp, while it didn't every entirely go away, it did go into decline but in the mid 1960s, as increasingly elaborate and luxurious interiors began to appear in the higher-priced models of even traditionally mass-market marques, those who disapproved of this latest incarnation of excess needed a word which was both descriptive and dismissive.  The use "gorp" might have been misleading and according to the authoritative Curbside Classic (which called the trend the start of "the great brougham era"), the word of choice was "gingerbread" and truly that was bling's antecedent.

In the stylists’ (they weren’t yet “designers”) studios in the 1950s, what would come to be called “bling” certainly existed (and in the “age of chrome” was very shiny) but the idea of gorp was different in that it was quantitative and qualitative, the notion of adding to a design multiple decorative elements or motifs, even if this meant things clashed (which sometimes they did).  Why this happened has been debated but most historians of the industry have concluded it was the result of the unexpected, post-war boom which delivered to working and middle-class Americans a prosperity and wealth of consumer goods the like of which no mass-society had ever known.  In material terms, “ordinary” Americans (ie wage and salary earners), other than in measures like the provision of servants or hours of leisure, were enjoying luxuries, conveniences and an abundance unknown even to royalty but a few generations earlier.  Accordingly, noting the advice that the way to “avoid gluts was to create a nation of gluttons” (a concept used also in many critiques of rampant consumerism), the US car industry, awash with cash and seeing nothing in the future but endless demand, resolved never to do in moderation what could be done in excess and as well as making their cars bigger and heavier, began to use increasing rococo styling techniques; wherever there appeared an unadorned surface, the temptation was to add something and much of what was added came casually to be called “gorp”, based on the idea that, like the handy snack, the bits & pieces bolted or glued on were a diverse collection and, in the minds of customers, instantly gratifying.  Gorp could include chrome strips, fake external spare tyre housings, decorative fender and hood (bonnet) accessories which could look like missiles, birds of prey in flight or gunsights, the famous dagmars, fake timber panels, moldings which recalled the shape of jet-engine nacelles, taillights which resembled the exhaust gasses from the rockets of spacecraft (which then existed mostly in the imagination) and more.

A young lady wearing gorpcore, Singapore, 2022.  Along with Kuwait, Hong Kong, Monaco and Vatican City, Singapore is listed by demographers as "100% urbanized" but it's good always to be prepared.

Had any one of these items been appended as a feature it might well have become a focus or even an admired talking point but that wasn’t the stylistic zeitgeist and in the studios they may have been reading the works of the poet Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) who attributed to Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881; UK prime- minister 1868 & 1874-1880) a technique he claimed the prime-minister adopted during his audiences with Victoria (1819–1901; Queen of the UK 1837-1901): “Everyone likes flattery and when you come to royalty, you should lay it on with a trowel”.  Detroit in the late 1950s, certainly laid on the gorp with a trowel and the men and women (there was in the era the odd woman employed in the studios, dealing typically with interiors or color schemes) were students also of the pamphlet Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence, published in 1932 by US real estate broker (and confessed Freemason) Bernard London (b circa 1873 but his life is something of a mystery) and in the post-war years came the chance to put the theory to the test.  This meant not only was there much gorp but each year there had to be “different” gorp so the churn rate was high. Planned obsolescence began as a casual description of the techniques used in advertising to stimulate demand and thus without the negative connotations which would attach when it became part of the critique of materialism, consumerism and the consequential environmental destruction.  Like few before or since, the US car industry quickly perfected planned obsolescence and not content with “annual model changes” sometimes added “mid-season releases” thus rendering outdated something purchased only months earlier.  Unfortunately, just as “peak gorp” began with the release late in 1957 (replete with lashings of chrome and much else) of the 1958 ranges, an unexpected and quite sharp recession struck the American economy and a new mood of austerity began.  That would pass because the downturn, while unpleasant, was by the standard of post-war recessions, relative brief although the effects on the industry would be profound, structurally and financially.

1970 Plymouth 'Cuda AAR in Lemon Twist over Black.  The AAR stood for All American Racers, the teams which campaigned the 'Cuda in the Trans-Am series for 5.0 litre (305 cubic inch) modified production cars.

Not all "added-on" stuff can however be classed as "gorp", "bling" or "gingerbread" and the most significant threshold is "functionalism"; if stuff actually fulfils some purpose, it's just a fitting.  Thus the additional stuff which appeared on the 1970 Plymouth AAR ’Cuda (and the companion Dodge Challenger T/A) were “fittings” because they all fulfilled some purpose, even if the practical effect away from race tracks was sometimes marginal.  Added to the pair was (1) a fibreglass hood (bonnet) with functional air-intake scoop, (2) front and rear spoilers, (3) side outlet dual exhaust system, (4) hood locking pins and (5) staggered size front & rear wheels.  Of course, there were also “longitudinal strobe stripes” which did nothing functional but that seems a minor transgression and in the world of stripes, there have been many worse.