Ellipsis

Ellipsis (pronounced ih-lip-sis)

(1) In grammar, the omission from a sentence or other construction of one or more words that would complete or clarify the construction.

(2) In grammar, the omission of one or more items from a construction in order to avoid repeating the identical or equivalent items that are in a preceding or following construction.

(3) In grammar, a sequence of three dots (…) appearing in a text to indicate a pause, sometimes used for dramatic effect such as a “wait for it” moment.

(4) In typography, a mark or marks (——;* * *; … etc) to indicate an omission or suppression of letters or words.  The sequence of three dots (…) is now the most common (four if used at the end of a sentence, the last a period (full stop).  In linguistics jargon, the “three dots” are also called “suspension dots” or “suspension points”.

(5) In mathematics, the use of such a convention to indicate a pattern continues (ie in “1, 2, 3, ..., 8, 9”, the numerals “4, 5, 6, and 7” are “implied” and thus “mentally included “as part of the pattern.  As a digital representation of the vulgar fraction “one third”, “0.333…” means it’s a “repeating decimal”, having “threes” going on to infinity, tending always towards (but never quite reaching “one third”).

(6) In geometry, an ellipse (obsolete though, confusingly, the adjectival elliptical endures).

(7) In film & television production, the omission of scenes that do not advance the plot.

(8) As vertical ellipsis (⋮), three dots) vertically aligned, used to extend a list vertically, or as mathematical notation for “is divisible by” or “is a multiple of” and latterly adopted in computer GUIs (graphical user interface) for various purposes, notably the “Customize and Control” drop-down menu in Google’s Chrome web browser (although Microsoft Edge and some other browsers based on the open source Chromium use a horizontal three dots).

1560–1570: An unadapted borrowing from the Latin ellīpsis, from the Ancient Greek ἔλλειψις (élleipsis) (omission; a falling short, defect), noun of action from elleipein (to fall short, leave out), from en- (in the sense of “in”) + leip- (stem of leípein (to leave) + -sis.  Leipein was reconstructed to be from the primitive Indo-European root leikw- (to leave).  The –sis suffix was from the Ancient Greek -σις (-sis) and was used to forms noun of action), often via Latin but increasingly also from French; it had exactly the same effect as the Latin –entia and the English -ing.  Historically, the use in terms borrowed from Ancient Greek was comparatively rare but there are many modern coinages based on Ancient Greek roots, reflecting to ongoing reverence for the ancient languages.  Confusingly, the word elliptical needs detailed explanation.  As an adjective, elliptical can mean (1) in geometry, in a shape of, or reminding of, an ellipse; oval or (2) in linguistics of, or showing ellipsis (having a word or words omitted); relating to or containing an instance of ellipsis or (3), of speech, concise or condensed.  The geometric use is also specific in botany, elliptical referring only to the general shape of the object (typically a leaf), independently of its apex or margin (and sometimes the base), so that an “elliptic leaf” may at both ends be pointed.  A three-dimensional elliptical object is ellipsoid, while an object that is not a perfectly stretched circle is ovoid or obovoid (and to mathematicians, a circle is a type of elipse).  In the gym equipment business, am “elliptical trainer” is an exercise machine in which the feet of the user travel an elliptic path; they’re used to simulate stair climbing, walking, or running while offering the advantage of being “low impact”, meaning there’s less jarring to inflict excessive pressure on joints.  The synonym is eclipsis (omission of parts of a word or sentence).  Ellipsis, ellipsization & ellipsism are nouns, elliptical is a noun & adjective and elliptically is an adverb, the noun plural is ellipses.

In classical and medieval texts, ellipses were unmarked, but the practice of marking them originated in the scripts of late sixteenth century plays as a way to indicate the “imperfections of the voice”, the omissions, pauses and interruptions fundamental to spoken language (seen in the modern day discipline of “disfluencies”, something of a backwater in linguistics until the importance of the phenomenon in “natural language” was recognized by those developing AI (artificial intelligence) bots).  All those years ago, those inserting ellipsis marks all had much the same purpose but there was initially no standardization of form, a continuous rule (-), a series of hyphens (---), or a series of points (. . .) all used, and which appeared reflected sometimes the practice of the printer (or possibly what “hard” fonts were to hand in the operation’s typographical sets (ie sometimes technologically deterministic)).  Asterisks (***) were first employed to display hiatuses in the printer's copy-text, but, as rules and points came to be used for other forms of omission (such as censorship or citation), strings of asterisks became interchangeable with alternative forms of ellipsis marks.

Promotional poster for Ellipsis (2017).

The film's published synopsis was: “In the middle of a crowded city, the paths of two strangers, a man and a woman, collide.  This accidental, chance occurrence sets in motion a chain of events that sees the two strangers embark on a night of adventure and connection that challenges their separate lives.  Ellipsis is a film about the random nature of life and human interaction and the small choices that can set our course.  Set in Sydney over the course of one night, it is also a portrait of the city and its inhabitants.  The film celebrates the distinct nature and idiosyncrasies of the people that live and work there.”  As blubs go, that’s a bit long and something tighter would be: “A film for book club ladies who like to talk about their feelings.”  Tempted?  There's a trailer.

It wasn’t until late in the 1800s that clear distinctions of use emerged on the path to twentieth century standardization with the dash (or continuous rule) the most commonly used (signalling abrupt changes or breaks) while points implied something longer and more hesitant (the classic “pause”).  Points also became the preferred mark for indicating omissions from quotations with the asterisk assuming the primary role of marking footnotes (“*” for the first, “**” the second and so on although other distinctive symbols would also be used (the obelus (†) or dagger the best known of many) and for endnotes (appearing at the end of the chapter, sequential superscript numbers became the standard convention, an obvious innovation rendered essential as endnotes came to exist in dozens.  In some aspects, the “standardization” of English over the last century-odd has for some been regretful but in printing, the uniformity in typographic conventions has been welcomed by most.  While dictatorial edicts on matters of content rightly are resisted, the combination of increasingly pervasive style guides and standardized font-sets in word-processers (and the now apparently extinct variant, the “desktop publisher”) has been a positive influence, meaning texts almost always use the same “language of symbols”, removing one source of potential ambiguity.  This has meant most obviously (and helpfully): (1) hyphens now rarely make up a rule, (2) dashes are usually one em in length, (3) an ellipsis mark is comprised of three points (or four if a full-stop is added) and (4) the asterisks (that once often signified ellipses) now have a “substitutive rule” to indicate a word or phrase has been self-censored (usually to avoid use of a vulgarity although sometimes this is done in a way to make the original still obvious (“s**t” or “f**k”) while attempting to evade text-based electronic filters.  In the less standardized world of social media and such, variants are common (such as “f#$k”) and all these forms differ from redactions (solid black lines where the words or entire passages would appear), the intention genuinely to conceal identities or events.

Ellipses (in red ellipses) in the Google Chrome (left) and Microsoft Edge web browsers; in Chrome, a vertical ellipsis was used whereas in Edge they were the traditional horizontal form.

Technically, there was no difference in function, the “three dots” just shapes on the screen used by the GUI (graphical user interface) for similar purposes and why Google’s designers opted for one and Microsoft’s the other may just be an example of “product differentiation”, both browsers ultimately derived from the open-source Chromium project.  Microsoft’s original Edge was proprietary with a unique interface, the product necessitated by the company’s IE (Internet Explorer) becoming a victim of its own success, locked into a cul-de-sac of a development path because of the need to maintain backward compatibility with the large base of corporate users using software with a “high IE dependency”.  As things turned out, embarking on a separate development path was “a browser too far” (even with all Microsoft’s resources) and, once reality bit, the decision was taken to “jump on the Chromium bandwagon”.  Few mourned IE although nerds still pine for the download bucket.

Filmmakers like “Ellipsis” as a title.

In texts, the use of ellipses is common but compared with other “technical” words from the jargon of grammar, it’s not well known.  For that reason, some style guides suggest oral use is governed by one’s audience: If addressing a circle of scholars of English literature, one may be assured they’ll know the meaning but if the gathering less specialized, it’s permissible (indeed, probably desirable) to say “dot dot dot”; this is a “verbal clue” as opposed to the “visual clue” of “air quotes” one might use to indicate a word or phrase should be visualized as appearing within “quotation marks”.  When Henry Fowler (1858–1933) published his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926), the use of the ellipsis (and other symbols used in texts) was still so inconsistent as to demand an untypically long and detailed entry, the technical details of which might mystify modern readers brought up on standardized conventions; genuinely there have been advantages in the way word processors and editors have imposed a kind of “structural homogenization”.

Even in 1965 when the second edition (with a textual revision by Sir Ernest Gowers (1880–1966)) appeared, Henry Fowler’s original entry substantially was left unchanged but by 1996 when there was a major update by Robert Burchfield (1923–2004), the entry radically was different, reflecting (1) the publishing industry having removed (almost all) inconsistencies and (2) readers being now less familiar with the kind of descriptive language Henry Fowler used because his expectation was of reaching an “educated audience”.  Many modern readers of a book like A Dictionary of Modern English Usage are of course in some ways “better educated” than previous generations but it’s a “different education” (not “inferior”, just “different”).  While in some aspects what Mr Burchfield did was by the purists, not well-received (“purity” probably not a helpful world-view when judging changes in the use of the English language) because he seemed all too accommodating of “lower standards”, his revision of the book’s entry for “Ellipsis” was helpful and common-sense, an indication of which was the same format being used by Jeremy Butterfield who edited the fourth edition (2015).  While the curmudgeons will continue to lament “linguistic promiscuity”, in some cases simplicity is better and anyway, some never forgave Burchfield for having “taken the lexicographical axe” to thousands of archaic words while an editor of the OED (Oxford English Dictionary).

A Lohanic ellipsis in action.  The operative part of the text: “It's waist-length, perfectly coiffed, and... blonde?” is read “…and [pause] blonde?”  As Ms Lohan points out, the distinction between “blonde” and “strawberry blonde” is significant because the latter happens at the margins of red.

So, in modern use, the working definition of ellipsis is accepted as the one appearing in the OED: “The omission of one or more words in a sentence, which would be needed to complete the grammatical construction or fully to express the sense.”  In spoken form, the ellipsis is so common as usually to pass unnoticed (such as: “Want some?” in which the pronoun has been dispensed with).  In other words, the ellipsis is an essential part of the “verbal shorthand” that comprises so much of conversational English, constructs created by a process in which certain notional elements of a sentence may be omitted if clearly they are predictable or recoverable by virtue of context.  Indeed, in “legitimate” use, English grammar really “demands” the omission of certain elements if sentences are to be thought “elegant”, the most obvious the injunction not the repeat the definite article: “He heard the whirr and ʌ click of machinery; (ie infinitive marker to not repeated before a second infinitive) or “I was forced to leave and ʌ give up my work at the hospital” (subject not repeated).  That doesn’t mean insertion of the missing elements is wholly proscribed because, if for dramatic effect some degree of emphasis is required, the repetition is an accepted device, but, but in everyday use or declarative or narrative prose, ellipsis is the “natural” form.  Those wishing to perform textual analysis of what’s been digitized will find many fields in literature littered with both ellipses and their deliberate avoidance.  Being English, in academic linguistics a remarkable number of variant forms have been identified and defined, the CGEL (A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (1985), edited by Professor Randolph Quirk (1920–2017) et al) needing more than 50 pages to list, illustrate, and label them all (strict, standard, situational, structural etc).  Of course the “rules” work because they interact with the human brain and, both being flexible, the “imaginary words” usually come quickly to mind.

The “rules” do however extend to defining “unacceptable types”, the most often cited being if two auxiliary verbs that operate in different ways are placed together.  So although it doesn’t seem obviously clumsy, one should not say or write: “No state has or can adopt such measures” because idiomatic tradition has come to require: “No state has adopted or can adopt such measures”.  Burchfield’s caution was: “When a change of grammatical voice is involved, ellipsis spells danger.  A reader cannot be expected to make the necessary adjustment from the active voice to the passive and supply an omitted part of the passive form.”  With that, old Henry Fowler would have concurred and even in the later editions one of his examples from 1926 was cited: “Mr Dennett foresees a bright future for Benin if our officials will manage matters conformably with its ‘customs’, as they ought to have been [insert managed]”. Comparisons can also produce unacceptable sequences when unwise ellipses are attempted: “The paintings of Monet are as good or better than those of van Gogh [read as good as or better than].  Perhaps less obviously wrong but best avoided is leaving out an auxiliary which is not the same number (singular/plural) as one that is given: “The murderer was hanged and his followers ʌ imprisoned [ellipsis of were].”  Of course, in non-standard speech the rules often are not followed and in literature are ignored for “conversational authenticity” a person in the US in 1973 affecting to be unaware of the Watergate scandal likely in certain circles to be admonished: “Watergate, man, where you been [insert have]?”  A sentence like that is also fun to play with by changing the emphasis on each word, each producing a subtle shift in effect.

The Oxford Handbook of Ellipsis (2018), edited by Jeroen van Craenenbroeck (b 1976) and Tanja Temmerman (b 1985).

That the concept of the ellipsis sounds simple and easily is illustrated by examples (“Sarah likes coffee and Jane, tea”) may leave some baffled the CGEL could fill 50-odd, densely packed pages on the topic but in modern structural linguistics, specialist scholars think that a mere bullet-point list.  For those wishing further to explore, there is The Oxford Handbook of Ellipsis (2018) and, running to an impressive 1148 pages and weighing in at 1.89 kg (4.16 lb), it’s a hefty tome, academically and physically.  Importantly, the work is not restricted to the way the ellipsis phenomena operates in English, a dozen-odd languages explored, examining, as the editors put it: “inter- & intralinguistic variation”.

Those wanting simply directions on “right & wrong” constructions are better off with a style guide but for word nerds of the le langage pour le langage school (language for language (best translated as “language focusing on itself”)) in the tradition of Russian literary theorist & linguist Roman Jakobson (1896–1982 and one of the most influential figures in structural linguistics), any deep dive into metalinguistics is tempting and somewhere in those 1148 pages must surely be “the last word on ellipsis”.  The Oxford Handbook of Ellipsis is divided into four parts: (1) the purpose of ellipsis and how it may be analysed when mapped to various theoretical frameworks, (2) an exploration of the utility of ellipsis as a diagnostic tool for other linguistic phenomena, (3) descriptions of the types of elliptical constructions found in natural language, such as “sluicing, gapping, and null complement anaphora” (students of jargon will not be disappointed by this work) and (4) case-studies in languages, including Russian, Hungarian, Dutch, Japanese, Persian and Finnish Sign Language.  The text is spread over 38 chapters, the tempting titles include Codeswitching, Sluicing and Its Subtypes, Predicate Ellipsis, Gapping and Stripping and Comparative Deletion.

Microaggression

Microaggression (pronounced mahy-kroh-uh-gresh-uhn)

(1) A casual comment or action directed at a marginalized, minority or other non-dominant group that (often) unintentionally but unconsciously reinforces a stereotype and can be construed as offensive.

(2) The act of discriminating against a non-dominant group by means of such comments or actions.

1970: The construct was micro- + aggression.  The word was coined by African-American Chester Middlebrook Pierce (1927-2016), a former Professor of Education and Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.  Micro (small, microscopic; magnifying; one millionth) was a word-forming element from the New Latin micro- (small), from the Ancient Greek μικρός (mikrós) (small).  The origin is disputed between etymologists, the traditional view being it was from the primitive Indo-European (s)meyg- & (s)mēyg- (small, thin, delicate) and was cognate with the Old English smicor (beauteous, beautiful, elegant, fair, fine, tasteful), source also of the Modern English smicker and related to the German mickrig.   However, there’s a highly technical discussion within the profession, hinged around the unexplained “k” in the Greek and there’s the suggestion of pre-Greek origin on the basis of variation between initial /m/ and /sm/, as well as the variant forms μικός (mikós) and μικκός (mikkós).  Aggression, dating from 1605–1615, was from the French aggression, from the Latin aggressionem (nominative aggressio (a going to, an attack)), a noun of action from past participle stem of aggredi (to approach; attack) the construct being ad (to) + gradi (past participle gressus (to step)) from gradus (a step).  The Classical Latin aggressiōn (stem of aggressiō), was equivalent to aggress(us) + iōn derived from aggrēdi (to attack).  The psychological sense of "hostile or destructive behavior" had its origin in early psychiatry, first noted in English in 1912 in a translation of work by the Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939).  While not exactly synonymous, microassault and microinequity are similar concepts, the most closely related verb being microinvalidate (to engage in microinvalidation, to make a relatively small statement or action (microaggression) that negates another person's experience, thoughts or feelings).  Microaggression, microaggressiveness, microaggressor & microaggressee are nouns, microaggress, microaggressed & microaggressing are verbs, microaggressive is an adjective and microaggressively is an adverb; the noun plural is microaggressions. 

Dr Chester Middlebrook Pierce (1927-2016).

Microaggression is an adaptable and possibly infinitely variable concept that probably most belongs in sociology; typically, it's defined as any of the small-scale verbal or physical interactions between those of different races, cultures, beliefs, or genders that are (perhaps sometimes generously) assumed to carry no malicious intent but which can be interpreted as revealing an underlying (and often unconscious) bias.  The criteria can be both objective and subjective and it’s noted compliments or comments intended to be positive can be defined as microaggressions if interpreted as patronizing or perpetuating stereotypes (racial, gender, sexual orientation, class, occupational, geographical etc).  Probably, the only "safe" identity-based categorizations are now those purely statistical: average heights by nationality and such although such is the sensitivity, the recommendation of many is now wholly to avoid anything that possibly could be construed as a microaggression, the only exceptions being those directed at groups defined as "privileged" (white people, Christians, cisgender, heterosexual males etc).  Very much a "spectrum" word, microaggression began life as a defensive shield but has in recent years attracted criticism (from both left and right) because it was able to be weaponized in "cancellation culture".  The standard psychology texts suggest the behavior manifests in three forms:

Microassault: An explicit racial derogation which can be verbal or nonverbal which can include labelling, avoidant behavior and purposeful discriminatory actions.

Microinsult: Communications that convey rudeness or insensitivity and demean a person's racial heritage or identity; subtle snubs which may be unknown to the perpetrator; hidden insulting messages to the recipient of color.

Microinvalidation: Communications that exclude, negate, or nullify the psychological thoughts, feelings, or experiential reality of a person belonging to a particular group.

The concept emerged to address the underlying racism that endured even after overt, deliberate expressions of racism (at least against defined minorities) had become unacceptable in polite society.  It held that microaggressions generally happened below the level of awareness of well-intentioned members of the dominant culture and were different from acts of intentional bigotry (such as the use of racist epithets) because the those committing microaggressions often intend no offense and are unaware they are causing harm.  That wasn't exactly a Golgothaesque "forgive them for they know not what they do" but in the abstract did position the dominant (and not of necessity majority) culture as normal with minorities treated as aberrant or pathological.

Although the word’s origin lay in the politics of race and ethnicity, it proved readily adaptable to other areas such as gender, sexual orientation, mental illness, disability and age.  Within academic sociology, there’s a (typically) highly technical debate about the nature of microaggression and intersectionality at the cross-cutting cleavages of non-dominant groups.  As regards the media, the discipline had a well-refined model to describe how microaggressions were either reinforced or encouraged by a news and entertainment industry that both reflected and was controlled by the hegemony of the dominant culture.  The sudden shock of the emergence of social media has changed things (diversity of source and content) but the main effect has been to balkanize: While there are places where microaggressions will not be tolerated, there are others where such things are routine and some where microaggressions are about the mildest forms of racism and such.  To date, much work in exploring this area has been impressionistic and it’s not clear if the analytical metrics, where they exist, are sufficiently robust for theories to be coherent beyond the sense of constant "mission creep".  In a sense, social media and the development of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) are synergistic with the maintenance and critique of microaggressions one of many elements in the culture wars.

As an indication of the how things have changed, in 1939 the terms “paleface” and “redskin” were in 1939 appropriated for use in literary criticism by Russian-born (in modern-day Ukraine) Jewish-American literary critic and essayist Philip Rahv (1908–1973).  What in retrospect makes that most interesting was Rahv was not a kind of “proto-MAGA” (Make America Great Again) figure from the Republican Party’s far-right (a faction that definitely existed in 1939 although different labels were applied) but was of the “left”, emphasizing the virtues of cosmopolitanism and Marxist analysis, one irony in his casual use of “paleface” and “redskin” being his advocacy of “breaking down” ethnic and racial barriers.  He was in the early 1930s a member of the ACP (American Communist Party) but, trans-nationally, long-suppressed fissiparous forces had been unleashed by comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) and Rahv in 1937 was expelled from the ACP by the dominant Stalinist Popular Front faction, condemned as a “Trotskyite” (a follower the exiled Russian comrade Leon Trotsky (1879-1940; founder in 1938 of the Fourth International).  His political activities in the US for a while continued but by the 1950s he’d become one of “The God that Failed” ex-communists and, after a brief flirtation with the “New Left” (or rather what he thought the New Left should have been), he retreated to literature to wage a low-intensity campaign against structuralism.

One of General LeMay’s “civilizing influences”, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay that delivered the first of the two nuclear weapons (thus far) used in conflicts.  It’s now on display in the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, Dulles International Airport, Chantilly, Virginia.

The splicing of the planet's “races” into “civilized”, “barbarian” and “savages” was very much a thing of nineteenth century European thought (although the notion existed also in Imperial China, the definitely very civilized mandarins there appalled by “barbarians” such as the British).  While the terms in this context probably originated in casual use, as the “scientific methods” of the Enlightenment became more generally applied, the notion was taken up, systematized and in some cases codified (with anatomical illustrations) by ethnographers, anthropologists, academic physicians, palaeontologists and others, the most notorious application probably the use in the pseudo-science of eugenics, a “discipline” to some so persuasive its echo continues on both sides of the Atlantic to be heard in the twenty-first century.  The concept of civilization (very much equated with “Western”) has long been a great concern of white supremacists and although the composition of “threats to its survival” does shift, it’s perceived always to be under assault.  Some have offered solutions.  US General Curtis LeMay (1906–1990; Chief of Staff of the USAF (US Air Force) 1961-1965) once remarked to a colleague: “Empirical evidence suggests the most successful way to civilize a nation is to A-bomb it…twice.”  It was said in making the observation he seemed “at least half-serious” and it had been Boeing B-29 Superfortresses under his command that in August 1946 had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki so the general likely felt entitled to be proud of his contribution to that civilizing influence.  A confessed Freemason, (a cult that can hardly be said much to have improved civilization), General LeMay was vice-presidential running mate on the 1968 ticket of notorious racist and segregationist George Wallace (1919-1998; governor (Democratic Party) of Alabama 1963–1967, 1971–1979 & 1983–1987) and, by historic standards, the duo enjoyed success, the AIP (American Independent Party) ticket gaining 13.5% of the popular vote, carrying five states for 46 votes in the Electoral College.

Allen's "Red Skins" and "Chicos": On supermarket shelves in Australia until 2020.

It is of course now unthinkable a figure of the left (liberals, progressives etc), Trotskyites or otherwise, would be so casually microaggressive as to take terms so vested with racism as “paleface” and “redskin” so they could, with no acknowledgment of the history, be re-purposed as devices in literary criticism.  However, “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there” and in the US in 1939, to do such a thing was unremarkable, an indication of the cultural currents underpinning society with the use of language both a product and part of the construct.  Paleface (the construct being pale +‎ face) came from US English and appeared in the anthropological record as early as 1797 (the origin uncertain) but seems not to have entered general use until the early 1920s.  The origin is uncertain but it was supposedly a calque from a Native American language; the form presumably coined when those of the first nations encountered Europeans.  The earliest verified use of the word redskin (the construct being red + skin) dates from 1769 although despite documents from the 1580s referring to the skin-tone of indigenous Americans as “red”, that use by European explorers and settlers was not consistent and in some instances may have been a reference to the use of red “paint” used to adorn the face and upper-body.  “Paleface” has been used as an intended slur against white people (with little apparent effect) but “redskin” definitely is an ethnic slur offensive to Native Americans although the record suggest than until around the mid-nineteenth century it was neutral and merely descriptive before ascending the “linguistic treadmill”.  Use puts it now well beyond being a microaggression.

The re-brand, 2020.

Allen's "Red Skins" and "Chicos" were in 2020 re-named "Red Rippers" and "Cheekies" respectively.  In the US, it was in 2020 the NFL (National Football League) team the Washington Redskins retired the name used since 1933, adopting Washington Football Team before in 2022 settling on a re-branding as Commanders.  The team's administration, when announcing the name-change, made no mention of the preceding controversy, nor the pressure from corporations, something most analysts suggested prompted the change more than any of the representations by Native American communities.  According to the Allen's, the recipes for the lollies remained “unchanged” and thus far Streets’ Golden Gaytime (sold in New Zealand as the Cookie Crumble) ice cream snack has survived the linguistic treadmill.

  

Gaytime meme.

The meme features Eric Abetz (b 1958; Liberal Party senator for Tasmania, Australia 1994-2022, Treasurer of Tasmania since 2024).  A student of Leviticus, Mr Abetz does not approve of any form of gaynessness.  First sold in 1970, and in general use clipped usually “Gaytime”, the confectionery is a toffee and vanilla ice cream, dipped in compound chocolate with a heavy sprinkling of large “crumbs” of vanilla biscuit, all on a wooden paddlepop-stick.  Although by 1970 “gay” was in use in the context of “male homosexuals”, it had not in Australian society gained critical mass and there’s nothing to suggest the name was then chosen for reasons other than the historic association of “gay” with “happy” and certainly the connotations later attached to “golden” by the gay community would have been unknown to most.  The company in the 1980s anyway embraced the possibilities with advertising tag lines such as “It's hard to have a Gaytime on your own” and complaints about the name in the new century received scant support from even gay-rights activists.

In 1939, Rahv used “paleface” and “redskin” to distinguish between what he called “two poles”; his sense was of the diametrically opposed “north & south” but his model was stylistic and thematic rather than geographic (and really not quite an antinomy as some have suggested).  The polarization as defined by Rahv had him group writers according to their attitude, style, subject matter and such, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864), Herman Melville (1819–1891) and Henry James (1843-1916) classified as “palefaces” while Walt Whitman (1819–1892), and Mark Twain (1835-1910) were “redskins”.  In Rahv’s literary world view, palefaces had cultured and patrician attitudes, wrote in a mannered style using symbolism and explored “lofty” themes with great complexity.  The redskins wrote works of the rugged men of frontier life or the working class, criminals and “low lifes” in the unpleasant parts of towns and cities.  He didn’t seem to suggest writing in a colloquial and naturalistic way couldn’t be interpolated into thematically complex literary texts, just that it was inevitable a “down market” cast of characters and places they frequented would shape the work.  So Rahv saw palefaces as “civilized” and redskins as “barbarians”; presumably he’d have thought “savages” to be “non-literary” and thus “beyond the pale” as it were.  Of those Americans who came later, categorization must be speculative but can be fun.

Use of "Eskimo" definitely can be deemed microaggressive. While ice-cream lovers can still buy "Gaytimes", they had to adjust to the "Eskimo Pie" being renamed (variously "Edy's Pie" or "Polar Pie").  It remains to be seen if the use of polar bears in some of the new packaging triggers controversy.  The creatures do appear in aspects of Inuit culture and religion and it's not clear if permission for use has been sought.

William Faulkner (1897–1962) and Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) both seem redskins and Norman Mailer (1923–2007) clearly was no paleface though he might have thought being filed with the barbarians an effete slight on his savagery.  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) was a redskin who really wanted to be a paleface (and never stopped trying) while Philip Roth (1933–2018) was such a paleface he never quite mastered the “redskin mode” despite the occasional heroic attempt.  John Updike (1932–2009) was a paleface but the problem inherent in assigning writers with a hefty oeuvre to polarized categories is that at the margins their writing can “straddle” and sometimes those margins are wide.  That’s why plausible cases can be made arguing both Bernard Malamud (1914–1986) and Saul Bellow (1915–2005) at times at least “tended” to either pole.  What Rahv would have made of Faulkner in 1949 and Bellow in 1976 being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature while Updike and Roth were ignored (despite the latter engaging in self-promotion not far short of Donald Trump’s (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) auto-advocacy to be the Peace Prize laureate) would be interesting to know but safely can it be imagined he’d have thought the entire Nobel Committee redskins after in 2016 they conferred the honor in literature on musician Bob Dylan (b 1941).  Maybe it was women of the Swedish Academy (the body that chooses the Literature laureates) who vetoed Roth; in all he wrote of women (and it was a lot), Roth revealed much about himself but little about them, despite the usually elegant internal logic.  Rahv was anyway appalled literature appeared to exist in such a dichotomy and, being an old Trotskyite who never quite stopped taking seriously Karl Marx’s (1818-1883) politics, longed for a world where folk wrote like Marcel Proust (1871-1922) or Thomas Mann (1875–1955), the latter at least acknowledged in 1929 by the Nobel Committee.

1958 Studebaker Scotsman advertisement.

There was in 1957 nothing unusual or offensive in Studebaker naming a car “Scotsman” and it would have been well-understood as a reference to the car’s low purchase price and (alleged) TCO (total cost of ownership).  Scotsman buyers could even save a little more were they prepared to forgo the extravagance of chrome bumpers and choose the "delete option" of painted units; Mercedes-Benz also once offered that on taxi versions of a number of utilitarian sedans, the most produced the W115s (1968-1976). Other manufacturers used the same concept as Studebaker: Citroën ID vs DS, Cadillac Calais vs de Ville etc, some including fewer features and simpler trim, some also changing the mechanical specification but the principle was always: same size, less stuff, lower price.  The name "Scotsman" was picking up on the reputation of the Scots for frugality and it would have been thought something neutral at worst and more likely positive, thriftiness in the early post-war US still generally thought a virtue despite the best attempts of capitalism to encourage consumer gluttony; as fat overtook the land, things would change.  Technically, such use would now fulfil the criteria of a “microaggression” even if deployed in a way making clear it’s being intended as a compliment.  Scots can of course use the trope of themselves and even if used by others, as race-based microaggressions go, it’s probably at the "lower range" of offensiveness, those applied to “white people”, rarely noticed and certainly not grounds for cancellation.  Still, by the 2020s, it’s highly unlikely a car company would now name a car a “Scotsman” and certainly not if it was a “stripper” (ie a low-cost model with minimal standard equipment).

The “Scotsman’s supercar”: 1968 Plymouth Road Runner, Car Life magazine, May 1968.

Quite when the term "stripper" (in that context) vanished from commercial use can’t be certain but it would have occurred later in the twentieth century and certainly after 1968 when Car Life magazine, reviewing the new Plymouth Road Runner, called the stripped-down, low-priced muscle car: “a sort of Scotsman’s supercar”.  As well as a relic of linguistic use, Car Life’s test was interesting because unlike many of its contemporaries that often conducted tests using vehicles tweaked by manufacturers or dealers for optimal performance, they used the genuine, stock-standard articles, bought from the showroom floor, that being a more realistic path to discovering if thing did "what it said on the tin".  What Car Life revealed was the Road Runner (when equipped with the standard 383 cubic inch (6.3 litre) V8)) was quicker than a typical 383 powered car using the same body (as would be expected given the lower weight and modifications to the 383 used in the model) but was unable to match the sub-15 second ¼-mile (402 metre) runs reported by many.  The basic Road Runner was actually representative of the performance of most of the era’s “muscle car ecosystem” while the storied cars that “out of the box” were able consistently to log ¼-mile ETs (elapsed time) in the 13 or 14 second bracket were relatively rare and a tiny sliver of what came to be classified as "muscle cars", some of which just "looked the part" although that did prove a lucrative market.  Of course, to solve any perception of inadequacy, a buyer could tick the box for the optional 426 (7.0) Street Hemi V8 and while that was expensive, as well a fixing any performance deficit, putting one in a Road Runner was the cheapest path to Hemi ownership, a compelling case at a time when a thousand dollars was a lot of money.

Channeling her inner Scotsperson: Lindsay Lohan in Royal Stewart tartan, Freaky Friday (2003), costume test photo (Walt Disney Pictures).

Despite the perception of many (encouraged bydepictions in popular culture), tartan in the sense of specific color & pattern combinations attached to specific clans is something of recent origin.  Tartan (breacan (pɾʲɛxkən) in Scots Gaelic) is a patterned cloth consisting of criss-crossed, horizontal and vertical bands in multiple colours.  The word plaid is now often used interchangeably with tartan (particularly in North America and when not associated with anything Scottish (especially kilts)), but technically (and always in Scotland), a plaid is a large piece of tartan cloth, worn as a type of kilt or large shawl although it’s used also to describe a blanket.  During the disputes between England and Scotland, the wearing of tartan became a political expression and the Dress Act (1746) was part of the campaign to suppress the warrior clans north of the border; it banned tartan and other aspects of Gaelic culture. The law was repealed in 1782 and tartan was soon adopted as both the symbolic national dress of Scotland and in imagery more generally.

The Royal Stewart was the personal tartan of Elizabeth II (1926-2022; Queen of the UK and other places, 1952-2022) and although historically associated with the royal house of Stewart (or Stuart), it has become one of the most widely used in commercial fashion and in that sense appears in parallel with the clan affiliation.  Commonly worn to formal events such as weddings, ceilidhs (social gatherings, the nature of which casts a wide net) or Burns Night (celebrating the life of Robert "Rabbie" Burns (1759–1796 and still in popular imagination Scotland's "national poet")), the modern trend is to pair a kilt with a Prince Charlie or Argyll jacket, traditionalists adding a Sporran (pouch), Hose (kilt socks) & flashes, Ghillie brogues (traditional shoes) and even a Sgian dubh (a small dagger tucked in the sock) although carrying the last item may be unlawful in some jurisdictions.  Lindsay Lohan in her screen test wore the dress in something of the way in the 1970s it became part of the punk sub-culture but for more conventional types there are also scarves, ties, sashes and such.  Remarkably, in the age of identity politics and sensitivity to cultural appropriation, the etiquette guides note there is no objection to non-Scots folk wearing their tartan of choice except when an event is clan-specific in which case only those in the lineage should don the fabric.  That said, even then, the consequence of a tartan faux pas will likely be less severe than wearing a Rangers shirt in a Glasgow pub filled with Celtic’s hoops.  Still, deployed with sufficient cultural insensitivity, improper use of tartan could be a microaggression.

Microaggression in Progress: A Mean Girls (2004) "mall scene".

Mean Girls was replete with instances of microaggressiveness.  We’re still (mostly) allowed (quietly) to be amused by some of these, but, a quarter-century on, there’s now a more hostile critique of subtle verbal or behavioural slights that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to marginalized groups, even if genuinely often unintentional; what seems subtle to some may to others be blatant insensitivity.  In satire, there's still some tolerance for such depictions although audiences are now expected to be as appalled as they are amused and, of course, as a satire of the gut-wrenching ecosystem that is high school social dynamics, subtle forms of relational aggression and passive-aggressive exclusion were not hard to find and can be categorized:

(1) Racial and Geographic Microaggressions: The line: “If you're from Africa, why are you white?” was an invalidation of an individual’s cultural identity on the basis of not according with another’s geographic & racial assumptions & expectations.  The school map of “the cafeteria cliques” includes “Cool Asians”, the labelling reducing individuals to their ethnicity and when paired with what is nominally a most positive teen modifier (cool), that operates as a racial micro-insult implying (1) most individuals of that ethnicity are “not cool” and (2) non-white students are in a sense monolithic and acknowledged as “acceptable sub-groups” only if they in some way adhere to “white people constructs” of “white normative standards”.  “Black hotties” operates at the same level, although “hot” (a type of “coolness”!) usually is positive, the implication here is that “hotness” inherently is a quality of certain white girls and a black girl can be deemed “hot” only compared to other black girls; she cannot, in the absolute sense, merely be a “hottie”, that descriptor operating only on white girls.  The surprised response “Oh you speak English?” when someone is introduced to a black student thought to be from Africa reveals the cultural assumption such an individual would likely lack proficiency in the language; it’s a classic micro-invalidation.

Microaggression weaponized ironically.

(2) Gender and Academic Microaggressions: When Cady expresses interest in joining the school math team, she’s told it’s “social suicide”, a pushback reinforcing gendered and social stereotypes that young women cannot be simultaneously be popular, attractive and intellectually gifted, thus the trope of intentionally failing math to gain a boy's attention.  The “I’m too pretty to do math” T-shirt plays with this and works well if worn by a pretty math nerd although, it'd be really subversive on a "not-pretty" girl.

(3) Backhanded compliments disguised as “niceness”: Such things can be the least objectionable of all microaggressions especially if there’s some equivalency in the power-relationship and the quip is witty, subtle and (ideally retrospectively) understood.  It can also be done “by proxy” such as when saying to one student “I love your skirt, where did you get it?”, only to wait until she’s out of earshot before turning to another and saying “That is the ugliest effing skirt I've ever seen.”  What this does is make an individual realize they may not be able to find sincere or truthful anything they’re told.

Aggression rather than microaggression: “Fetch” anyway likely never would have “happened”.  Although a convenient clipping of “fetching” (often in the form “quite fetching” or “most fetching” and meaning “charming; captivating; compelling” etc), by the early twenty-first century “fetching” in those senses had long since descended into the category of “dated”; it was an “old people” word, use thus “social suicide”.

(4) Image and fat-shaming: Because the social identity of the “Plastics” was so tied to rigid “beauty standards” (some group-imposed, some the prevailing norms), by use of the “Kalteen Bars manipulation” it was possible to induce weight-gain in Regina, an act of sabotage opening the possibility of subjecting her to micro-insults and non-verbal cues (staring at her body or pointing out strict dress-code rules that really can’t be adhered to by someone gaining weight) to signal there’s been a violation of group standards, requiring exclusion.  In that, the techniques are different from something like: “Gretchen, stop trying to make 'fetch' happen.”; that is pure aggression: A group’s hegemon maintaining control by suppressing another member’s attempt to assert their personal identity through something as seemingly innocuous as the introduction of a new slang term.  It was a type of linguistic imperialism, similar to the attitude of Spanish nationalist troops who occupied Catalonia and the Basque country after their victory in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).  Harshly they would tell those they heard talking in regional dialects: “Speak the language of the Empire, don’t bark like dogs!”  

Dart

Dart (pronounced dahrt)

(1) A small, slender missile, sharply pointed at one end, typically feathered (or with the shape emulated in plastic) at the other and (1) propelled by hand, as in the game of darts (2) by a blowgun when used as a weapon or (3) by some form of mechanical device such as a dart-gun.

(2) Something similar in function to such a missile.

(3) In zoology, a slender pointed structure, as in snails for aiding copulation or in nematodes for penetrating the host's tissues; used generally to describe the stinging members of insects.

(4) Any of various tropical and semitropical fish, notably the dace (Leuciscus leuciscus).

(5) Any of various species of the hesperiid butterfly notably the dingy dart (of the species Suniana lascivia, endemic to Australia).

(6) In the plural (as darts (used with a singular verb), a game in which darts are thrown at a target usually marked with concentric circles divided into segments and with a bull's-eye in the center.

(7) In tailoring, a tapered seam of fabric for adjusting the fit of a garment (a tapered tuck).

(8) In military use, a dart-shaped target towed behind an aircraft to train shooters (a specific shape of what was once called a target drone).

(9) An act of darting; a sudden swift movement; swiftly to move; to thrust, spring or start suddenly and run swiftly.

(10) To shoot with a dart, especially a tranquilizer dart.

(11) To throw with a sudden effort or thrust; to hurl or launch.

(12) To send forth suddenly or rapidly; to emit; to shoot.

(13) In genetics, as the acronym DarT, Diversity arrays Technology (a genetic marker technique).

(14) Figuratively, words which wound or hurt feelings.

(15) In slang, a cigarette (Canada & Australia; dated).  The idea was a “lung dart”.

(16) In slang, a plan, plot or scheme (Australia, obsolete).

(17) In disaster management, as the acronym DART, variously: Disaster Assistance Response Team, Disaster Animal Response Team, Disaster Area Response Team, Disaster Assistance & Rescue Team and Disaster Response Team

1275–1325: From the Middle English dart & darce, from the Anglo-French & Old French dart & dard (dart), from the Late Latin dardus (dart, javelin), from the Old Low Franconian darōþu (dart, spear), from the Proto-Germanic darōþuz (dart, spear), from the primitive Indo-European dherh- (to leap, spring);.  It was related to the Old English daroth (spear), daroþ & dearod (javelin, spear, dart), the Swedish dart (dart, dagger), the Icelandic darraður, darr & dör (dart, spear), the Old High German tart (dart) and the Old Norse darrathr (spear, lance).  The Italian and Spanish dardo are believed to be of Germanic origin via Old Provençal.  The word dart can be quite specific but depending on context the synonyms can include arrow or barb (noun), dash, bolt or shoot (verb) or cigarette (slang).  Dart & darting are nouns & verbs, darted & dartle are verbs, darter is a noun, verb & adjective, dartingness is a noun, darty is a verb & adjective, dartingly is an adverb; the noun plural is darts.

Between the eyeballs: Crooked Hillary Clinton dart board.

The late fourteenth century darten (to pierce with a dart) was from the noun and is long obsolete while the sense of “throw with a sudden thrust" dates from the 1570s.  The intransitive meaning “to move swiftly” emerged in the 1610s, as did that of “spring or start suddenly and run or move quickly” (ie “as a dart does”).  The name was first applied to the small European freshwater fish in the mid-fifteenth century, based on the creature’s rapid, sudden (darting) movements (other names included dars, dase & dare, from the Old French darz (a dace), the nominative or plural of dart, all uses based on the fish’s swiftness.  The alternative etymology in this context was a link with the Medieval Latin darsus (a dart), said to be of Gaulish origin.

The previously obscure Didymos.

As an acronym, there are dozens of “Darts & DARTS” but the most intriguing was NASA’s (the US National Aeronautics & Space Administration) Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission, launched from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base on 23 November, 2021 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.  A kamikaze vehicle, DART’s targets were the Asteroid Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos, impact achieved on 26 September, 2022.  In cosmic terms, a fragment of dust, Dimorphos has a diameter of some 160 metres (530 feet) while Didymos around which it orbits spans 780 metres (2,560-foot).  However, although miniscule given the scale of the (known) universe, even a lump the size of Dimorphos could cause carnage & destruction if it struck earth and DART’s purpose was an investigation of the efficacy using kinetic impact to change an asteroid’s motion in space (ie altering the object’s trajectory so it misses rather than hits Earth).  Neither Dimorphos nor Didymos posed a threat but their size and physical characteristics made them for NASA’s purposes an ideal benchmarking target.  The test produced a wealth of data and proved the concept was viable, one finding being the escaping impact ejecta (ie chunks of matter dislodged by the impact) transferred substantially more momentum the actual impact; that consequence which would have pleased the chaos theorists.  DART proved the method worked although it wasn’t as spectacular as the nuclear explosions preferred by Hollywood.

The name dart is now also used of various (similar or related) various tropical and semitropical fish.  It was in Middle English Cupid's love-arrows were first referred to as Cupid's dart (Catananche caerulea).  The modern dart-board was unknown until 1901 although similar games (the idea of archery with hand-thrown arrows) long predated this.  In zoology, the marvelously named “dart sac” describes a sac connected with the reproductive organs of certain land snails; it contains the “love dart” the synonyms of which are bursa telae & stylophore.  In archaeology, the term “fairy dart” describes a prehistoric stone arrowhead (an elf arrow).  A “poison dart” may be fired either from a dart gun or a blow-pipe (the term “dart-pipe” seems never to have been current) while a tranquilizer dart (often used in the management of large or dangerous animals) is always loaded into a dart gun.  The terms “javelin dart”, “lawn jart”, “jart” & “yard dart” are terms which refer to the large darts used in certain lawn games.  In the hobby of model aircraft, a “lawn dart” is an airframe with a noted propensity to crash (although it’s noted “pilot error” is sometimes a factor in this).  In military history, the “rope dart” was a weapon from ancient China which consisted of a long rope with a metal dart at the end, used to attack targets from long-range.

Lindsay Lohan enjoying the odd dart.  Inhaling a known carcinogen is of course not recommended but undeniably, Lindsay Lohan could make smoking look sexy.

The Dodge Dart

The original Dodge Dart was one of Chrysler's show cars which debuted in 1956, an era in which Detroit's designers were encouraged to let their imaginations wander among supersonic aircraft, rockets and the spaceships SF (science fiction) authors speculated would be used for the interplanetary travel some tried to convince their readers was not far in the future.  When first shown, the Dart featured a retractable hard-top (something Ford would soon offer in a production car) but when the that year's show season was over, it was shipped back to Carrozzeria Ghia in Turin to be fitted with a more conventional, folding soft-top.  After a return trans-Atlantic crossing, when the 1957 show circuit concluded (during which it was dubbed "Dart II"), it was again updated by Ghia and re-named Diablo (from the Spanish diablo (devil)).

1957 Dodge Diablo, the third and final version of the 1956 Dodge Dart show car.

Although a length of 218 inches (5.5 m) probably now sounds extravagant, by the standards of US designs in the 1950s it fitted in and among the weird and wonderful designs of the time (the regular production models as well as the show cars) the lines and detailing were really quite restrained and compared with many, the design has aged well, some of the styling motifs re-surfacing in subsequent decades, notably the wedge-look.  Underneath, the Diablo’s mechanicals were familiar, a 392 cubic inch (6.4 litre) Chrysler Hemi V8 with dual four-barrel carburetors delivering power to the rear wheels through a push-button TorqueFlite automatic transmission.  Rated at 375 horsepower, the Hemi ensured the performance matched the looks, something aided by the exceptional aerodynamic efficiency, the claimed C_d (coefficient of drag) of 0.17 state of the art even in 2026.  Some engineers doubt it would return such a low number using modern wind-tunnel techniques but, by the standards of the age, doubtlessly it was slippery and (with less hyperbole than usual), Chrysler promoted the Diablo as the “Hydroplane on Wheels”,  During Chrysler’s ownership of Lamborghini (1987-1994), the name was revived for the Lamborghini Diablo 1990-2001 which replaced the Countach (1974-1990).  Visually, both the Italian cars own something of a debt to the Darts of the 1950s but neither represented quite the advance in aerodynamics Chrysler achieved all those years ago although the Lamborghini was good enough finally to achieve 200 mph (320 km/h), something which in the 1970s & 1980s, the Countach and the contemporary Ferrari 365 GT4 BB (Berlinetta Boxer, 1973-1984) never quite managed, disappointing some.  The 1970s was a time of many disappointed expectations.

The memorable 1957 Chrysler 300C (left) showed the influence of the Diablo but a more rococo sensibility had afflicted the corporation which the 1960 Dart Phoenix D500 Convertible (right) illustrates.  Things would get worse. 

Dodge began production of the Dart in late 1959 as a lower-priced full-sized car, something necessitated by a corporate decision to withdraw the availability of Plymouths from Dodge dealerships.  Dodge benefited from this more than Plymouth but the model ranges of both were adjusted, along with those sold as Chryslers, resulting in the companion DeSoto brand (notionally positioned between Dodge & Chrysler) being squeezed to death; the last DeSotos left the factory in 1960 and the division shuttered.  Unlike its namesake from the show circuit, the 1959 Dodge Dart was hardly exceptional and it would barely have been noticed by the press had it not been for an unexpected corporate squabble between Chrysler and Daimler, a low volume English manufacturer of luxury vehicles (leather, burl walnut and all that) that was branching out into the sports car market.  Daimler planned to call their little roadster the "Dart".

Using one of his trademark outdoor settings, Norman Parkinson (1913-1990) photographed model Suzanne Kinnear (b 1935) adorning a Daimler Dart (SP250), wearing a Kashmoor coat and Otto Lucas beret with jewels by Cartier.  The image was published on the cover of Vogue's UK edition in November 1959.

With great expectations, Daimler displayed their Dart at the 1959 New York Motor Show and there the problems began.  Aware the little sports car was quite a departure from the luxurious but rather staid choice Daimler had for years offered (it was trying to forget the unpleasantness of the “Docker Daimlers” which were certainly not staid), the company had chosen the pleasingly alliterative “Dart” as its name, hoping it would convey the sense of something agile and fast (fast, genuinely it was, powered by a jewel-like 2.5 litre (155 cubic inch) V8 which generated an exhaust note of rare quality).  Unfortunately for them, Chrysler’s lawyers were faster still, objecting that they had already registered Dart as the name for a full-sized Dodge so Daimler needed a new name and quickly; the big Dodge would never be confused with the little Daimler but the lawyers insisted.  Imagination apparently exhausted, Daimler’s management reverted to the engineering project name and thus the car became the SP250 which was innocuous enough even for Chrysler's attorneys and it could have been worse.  Dodge had submitted their proposal for the Dart to the board but while the car found favor, the name did not and the marketing department was told to conduct research and come up with something the public would like.  From this the marketing types gleaned that “Dodge Zipp” would be popular and to be fair, dart and zip(p) can imply much the same thing but ultimately, the original was preferred.

Things get worse: The 1962 Dodge Dart (the single-season “second generation”) looked truly bizarre; things would sometimes be stranger than this but not often.

Dodge’s stylists (they weren’t yet called “designers”) were responsible for the appearance of the second generation Dart (something they could as they wish think of as proud boast or admission of guilt) but the reduced dimensions of it and the companion Polara were a consequence of corporate industrial espionage.  One of Chrysler’s spies (they had euphemistic job titles) had discovered Chevrolet’s new range would be smaller and this information was vital because, as the market’s highest volume manufacturer, where Chevrolet went, so the rest of the industry was compelled to follow so Chrysler made the decision to anticipate the future and downsize.  However, while the intelligence was correct, the analysis was flawed because what Chevrolet was developing was a new range, slotted between the large cars and the relatively new “compacts”, introduced in 1959-1960; the new concept were the “intermediates”, dimensionally between the compacts and what would come to be called the “full-size” lines.  Amusingly, the intermediates were about the size the standard US automobile had been as recently as the mid 1950s before rising prosperity saw it grown to a size many thought absurd; as fat overtook the land, so it did what rolled off Detroit’s production lines.

1962 Dodge Dart.

The intermediates proved a great success but Dodge’s problem in 1962 was it was selling a Dart it called “full-size” while obviously it no longer was.  In the US, there’s always been a sizeable part of the population that subscribes to the “bigger is always better” school of thought and it was them who maintained strong demand for the full-size machines, something the Dart’s redesign meant Dodge no longer could put in their showrooms.  To bandage over this self-inflicted injury, hastily was conjured the Dodge Custom 880, created by bolting the 1961 Dodge Polara front end to the larger 1962 Chrysler Newport (Chrysler’s “entry-level” model which had been the final nail in DeSoto’s coffin).  However, one silver lining in having available the smaller, lighter Dart was that when fitted with the potent (rated at a realistic 415 HP (309 kW)) 413 cubic inch (6.8 litre) “Ramcharger” V8, it was highly competitive in drag racing, where it established a number of records.

Dodge got it right with the 1967-1976 Darts which could be criticized for blandness but the design was simple, balanced and enjoyed international appeal.  Two versions by Chrysler Australia are pictured, a 1971 VG VIP sedan (left) and a 1970 VG Regal 770 Hardtop (right), both fitted with the 318 cubic inch (5.2 litre) LA V8.  

If Daimler had their problems with the Dart (which turned out to go beyond the nomenclature), so did Dodge.  After the misinterpretation of their spy's good work, Dodge's sales suffered because it was perceived to be offering “less metal for the money” which was true.  The Q&D (quick & dirty) solution of the disguised Newport papered over the crack until a permanent solution could be produced but not until the next model cycle (which began in the 1965 season) was Dodge's full-size line truly re-aligned.  However, one long-lasting benefit was the decision to take advantage of the public perception “Dart” now meant something smaller and Dodge in 1963 shifted the name to its compact line which for years would in many places be a success.  It was the generation built for a decade between 1967-1976 which was most lucrative for the corporation, the cheap-to-produce platform providing the basis for vehicles as diverse as taxi-cabs, pick-ups, convertibles, remarkably effective muscle cars and even some crazy machines almost ready for the drag strip.  Being a compact-sized car in the US, the Dart also proved a handy export to markets where it could be sold as a “big” car and the Dart (sometimes locally assembled or wholly or partially manufactured) was sold in Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Europe, East Asia, South Africa and South America.  In a form little different from the original, the “compact” Dart lasted until 1980 in South America and in Australia until 1981 although there the body-shape had in 1971 switched to the “fuselage” style with the platform carried over.

How a Dodge Hemi Dart would have appeared in 1968 (left) and Hemi Darts ready for collection or dispatch in the yard of the Detroit production facility.

The most highly regarded of the 1967-1976 US Darts were those fitted with the 340 cubic inch (5.6 litre) small-block (LA) V8 which created a much better all-round package than those using the 383 (6.3) and 7.2 (7.2) big-block V8s which tended to be inferior in just about every way unless travelling in a straight line on a very smooth surface (preferably over a distance of about a ¼ mile (400 m) and even there the 340 over-delivered.  The wildest of all the Darts were the 80 (built in 1968) equipped with a version of the 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) Hemi V8 tuned to a specification closer to race-ready than that used in the “Street Hemi” which was the corporation’s highest-performance option.  Listed as option code LO23, the Hemi Darts were the corporate stablemate for the 50 Hemi Barracudas (option code BO29) Plymouth that year built.  Except for the drive-train, the Hemi Darts were an extreme example of what the industry called a “strippers”: cars “stripped” of all but the essentials.  There was thus no radio and no carpeting, common enough in strippers but the Hemi Darts lacked even armrests, external rear-view mirrors, window-winding mechanisms or even a back seat.  Nor was the appearance of these shockingly single-purpose machines anything like what was usually seen in a showroom, most of the body painted only in primer while the hood (bonnet) and front fenders, rendered in lightweight black fibreglass, were left unpainted.

The warning: What not to do, lest one's grape block should turn to wine.  In the same vein, seeking to avoid tiresome legal difficulties, Dodge had purchasers sign an addendum to the sales contract acknowledging Hemi Darts were not intended not as road cars but for use in “supervised acceleration trials” (ie drag racing).  Despite that, these were the last days that in the US one could find a jurisdiction prepared to register such things for street use and some owners did that, apparently taking Dodge’s disclaimer about as seriously as those in the prohibition era (1920-1933) observed the warning on packets of “concentrated grape blocks” not add certain things to the mix, “otherwise fermentation sets in”.

The Dendrobates tinctorius “Giant Orange”.  The common name (Dyeing Poison Dart Frog) was derived from reports by European explorers that in regions where it was endemic, indigenous inhabitants used brightly colored frogs to dye feathers & fabrics.  The collective noun for frogs is a group of frogs is army, colony or knot.

Described by retailers as a “great beginner frog” (the reason for that presumably understood by collectors) and “best kept in pairs”, a typical RRP (recommended retail price) in the US seems to range between US$79-99.  The adjective tinctorious (from the noun tincture) dates from the late eighteenth century and appears first to have been used of colorful plants.  Even in horticulture it has become rare but an echo survives in the Dendrobates Tinctorius, a frog much prized by collectors and photographers for its striking colors and patterns.  Unsurprisingly referred to by the standard abbreviation “tincs”, Dendrobates Tinctorius is one of the largest species of poison dart frogs, although in global terms still hardly large, the largest some 2 inches (50 mm) length. They are native to the rainforests of South America and appear in dramatic color combinations including hues of blue, black, yellow and orange but safely can be kept by hobbyists because in captivity they're not poisonous, the toxicity in the wild by virtue of their preferred diet of small invertebrates, not consumed in a captive environment.  Prices of adults in the most desired color mixes can exceed US$200.

Although prized by batrachophiles (frog enthusiasts) and giggers (those who collect or hunt wild frogs (by hand for those wanting live specimens; others resorting usually to a pronged spear), the Dart frog mostly had been obscure amphibians until in February 2026 a collective statement by the intelligence agencies of four European nations (France, Germany the Netherlands, Sweden & the UK) released the results of an inquiry which found Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny (1976-2024) had been murdered by use of a deadly toxin found in the skin of Ecuadorian dart frogs (epibatidine).  The investigators concluded the murder was committed by an agent or agents of the Russian state, Mr Navalny dying while imprisoned in a remote Arctic penal colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence; tissue samples from his body were secured prior to his burial and it was these which were analysed in Western laboratories.  A statement from the British government added that as well as the “barbaric” assassination, the use of a toxin was a “…flagrant violation by Russia of the CWC” (chemical weapons convention) and it would be lodging a report with the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons).

Alexei Navalny (standing, centre) in a screen capture from CCTV footage of a court session, IK-2 penal colony, Vladimir region, Russia, February, 2022.

Stating what was, given Mr Navalny’s incarceration in the arctic, the obvious, the statement made the point: “Only the Russian state had the means, motive and opportunity to deploy this lethal toxin to target Navalny during his imprisonment in a Russian penal colony in Siberia, and we hold it responsible for his death.  Epibatidine can be found naturally in dart frogs in the wild in South America.  Dart frogs in captivity do not produce this toxin and it is not found naturally in Russia.  There is no innocent explanation for its presence in Navalny’s body.”  Additionally, it was noted each little frog had in its skin little more than a microgram of the toxin and a laboratory would need to have harvested hundreds of them to extract the volume sufficient to produce a deliverable dose of sufficient potency to kill a healthy, adult human.  Even had Mr Navalny been permitted to keep in his cell a colony of a dozen Dart frogs which he force-fed with small invertebrates, they’d not have posed a danger.  Although the KGB (including its precursor organizations and various franchises within the Warsaw Pact) once favored traditional murder weapons (clubs, bullets, ice axes, daggers, bare hands etc), of late they’ve gone more “high tech” and as well frog toxins, use has extended to (1) ricin (a highly toxic protein derived from castor beans) delivered by a dart gun (disguised as a umbrella!) which was used to kill dissident author Georgi Markov (1929-1978), (2) radioactive polonium served (in a cup of tea!) to defector Alexander Litvinenko (1962-2006) and (3) the Russian-developed Novichok (nerve agent) although former KGB spy Sergei Skripal (b 1951) survived that attempt on his life.  All three of those incidents occurred in London, the KGB liking to remind dissidents, defectors and other trouble-makers that they’re safe nowhere.  Despite the history, the Kremlin continued to maintain Mr Navalny died from “natural causes” and claimed the allegations were just: “A planted story and attempt by Western governments to distract attention from their many problems.”  The denial from Moscow was treated by western analysts as a tacit admission of guilt on the basis of the Cold War dictum: “Something cannot be thought proven true until the Kremlin denies it.”

Replica of “Umbrella gun” produced by the KGB’s Moscow laboratory, 1978, International museum of spying.  One of the most commonly carried accessories in London, a “special” umbrella was an ideal murder weapon in that city, able to be “hidden in plain sight” whereas an an ice axe might be conspicuous.  This is one of the best-known dart guns.    

Russians famously enjoy dark humor but it’s not known if they chose to deliver the Dart Frog toxin with a dart gun although that would have been a fitting nod to “special umbrella” used in 1978 to target Georgi Markov as crossed the Thames, walking across Waterloo Bridge; there was a time when the notion of “dart frog juice in a dart gun” would much have pleased those in the Lubyanka but perhaps things are now more corporatized.  However it was done, the death of Alexei Navalny is one chapter in the long (and still growing) list of assassinations by the Russian or Soviet State and, as a piece of applied statecraft, the practice dates from at least Russia's early monarchical era which began in the 860s.  It was however under comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) that state-sanctioned murder was undertaken on an industrial scale (indeed, so large was the death toll most historians estimate the body-count only by rounding (usually up) to the closest million) and of the many victims, the most celebrated remains comrade Leon Trotsky (1879-1940; founder of the Fourth International), once one of Stalin’s fellow Bolshevik revolutionaries.

Comrade Stalin (left), an ice axe (centre) and comrade Trotsky (right).  The standard-length ice axe is ideal for its intended purpose but to large easily to be concealed under clothing and too cumbersome to comfortably to wield in a confined space.  

Even by the standards of political assassinations (a long tale of the brutal and bizarre), the events surrounding Trotsky’s death were unusual.  Although, living in exile in Mexico, comrade Trotsky’s influence on those in the Soviet Union (or anywhere else) was negligible, not only was comrade Stalin a great hater who nursed his many grudges until circumstances permitted a good opportunity for vengeance but he also thought ahead; concerned Trotsky and his heretical writings might one day be a real threat, years before the assassin’s visit, he’d decided his erstwhile associate must die.  The NKVD had already succeeded in killing Trotsky’s son (imaginatively disguised as “medical misadventure” during a routine appendectomy) and, more dramatically, had decapitated his secretary in his Paris apartment but operations beyond Europe were more complex and the agent allocated the task was the Moscow-trained Spanish communist Ramón Mercader (1913–1978), then also living in exile in Mexico City under the pseudonym Frank Jacson.  Diligently watching his residence and researching the habits of his target, comrade Mercader posed as the lover of Trotsky's courier and was convincing enough to be welcomed into the impressively fortified villa on the city’s outskirts.  Either the NKVD’s training in such matters was first-rate or Mercader had a flair for the business because, after bringing Trotsky’s grandchildren presents and playing games with them in the garden, over the course of weeks, he became a valued house-guest, often engaging his intended victim in earnest discussions about politics and international affairs, careful always to ensure his host could assume the role of wise oracle.

Early on Tuesday, 20 August 1940, on the pretext of asking if an article he’d drafted was ready for publication, the assassin handed over the manuscript which Trotsky took to his desk and began reading, his back to the author.  Although also carrying a dagger and revolver, Mercader choose as the murder weapon the ice axe he’d be able to conceal under his raincoat by shortening it (sawing off half the wooden handle), his reasonable rationale being (1) it should be more effective than the knife and (2) it would be quieter than discharging the gun.  In seconds, Mercader drove the pick into the back of Trotsky’s skull and although the injury would prove mortal, it was not instantly fatal, the immediate aftermath described by the killer during a subsequent police interview: “[He] screamed in such a way that I will never forget it as long as I live. His scream was Aaaaa . . . very long, infinitely long and it still seems to me as if that scream were piercing my brain. I saw Trotsky get up like a madman.  He threw himself at me and bit my hand…”  Mercader would likely have been beaten to death by Trotsky’s bodyguards but was saved by the dying man ordering them to stop because he wanted to have him admit his evil deed had been done on the orders of comrade Stalin.  The next day, in hospital, he succumbed to a traumatic brain injury but not before cursing Stalin as his killer.

Ten years after: rootless cosmopolitan comrade Trotsky (left) talking to comrade Stalin (right), Moscow, 1930 (left) and Mexican police showing the "sawn-off" ice axe used in the murder (right).

By the standards of NKVD “wet operations” (clandestine, “authorized” executions) the “Mexico business” was messy with (1) the assassin arrested, (2) the murder weapon taken as evidence, (3) the body not disposed of and (4) the cause of death certainly not able to be classed as “an accident”, “misadventure” or “natural causes”.  The suspect however did not implicate the NKVD, initially claiming he’d killed Trotsky over a dispute they were having on a doctrinal matter relating to Marxist interpretation and later changing the story to allege it was over something more personal; this he maintained while serving his 20 year sentence in a Mexico prison; Moscow denied having anything to do the matter, even expressing condolences to the family.  That was of course is an MRDA in the spirit of: “Something cannot be thought proven true until the Kremlin denies it” which, as the Alexei Navalny affair suggests, is a dictum which remains valid still in this century.  Still, analysts today conclude comrade Stalin may not have been wholly unhappy at the “botched” operation because (1) he had “plausible deniability” of involvement and (2) the murder made headlines around the word so those likely to be “trouble-makers” would know NKVD agents were capable of liquidating high-level, well-protected targets, well beyond the borders of the Soviet Union.  So there was a silver lining, unlike the later “botched” dispatch of dissident Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi (1958-2018) in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Türkiye.

Unannounced and for decades not revealed, comrade Stalin decorated comrade Mercader in absentia, presumably for “services to the state” although publicly he denounced him as a “dangerous Trotskyist”, disavowing any involvement in the crime.  After serving nearly all his sentence, Mercader was released, in 1961 returning to the Soviet Union after a brief sojourn in Cuba, then under new management following comrade Fidel Castro’s (1926–2016; prime-minister or president of Cuba 1959-2008) communist revolution.  In Moscow, the KGB presented him with the nation’s highest awards (Hero of the Soviet Union & the Order of Lenin), after which he enjoyed two decades odd of comfortable semi-retirement in a number of sinecures in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  It was only after dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 when, for a brief few years the state’s archives were open to Western researchers, that documents were discovered confirming the assassination had been a NKVD operation authorized “at the highest level in Moscow” (ie comrade Stalin signed the death warrant, his hand well-practiced at such things).