Prosaic

Prosaic (pronounced proh-zey-ik)

(1) Of writing or speaking, straightforward; matter-of-fact; lacking the feeling or elegance of poetry.

(2) Something commonplace or dull; matter-of-fact or unimaginative; overly plain, simple or commonplace, to the point of being boring.

(3) Of or having the character or form of prose, the ordinary form of spoken or written language, rather than of poetry (now of technical use only).

1650-1660: From the fifteenth century Middle French prosaïque and directly from the sixteenth century Medieval Latin prōsaicus (in prose), from the Classical Latin prōsa (prose), from prorsus (straightforward, in prose), from the Old Latin provorus (straight ahead), the construct being pro- (forward) + vorsus (turned), from vertō (to turn), from the primitive Indo-European wer- (to turn, to bend).  The original meaning was technical, distinguishing text as prose rather than poetry and in this sense was usually written as prosaicus (in prose).  The first hints of literary hierarchy were first noted in French in 1746 when used to contrast the “character” of prose in contrast to the “feeling” of poetry.  The sense of describing something ordinary or mundane first seen in French in 1813, a meaning soon adopted in English.  Prosaic & prosaical are adjectives, prosify is a verb, prosified & prosifying are verbs & adjectives, prosaicness is a noun and prosaically is an adverb.

Figurative use of poetic & prosaic:  Jaguar E-Type (XK-E, 1961-1974) (left) & Jaguar XJ-S (1975-1996) (right).  "Poetry in motion" is a cliché but when the E-Type first was seen, that was the phrase some journalists chose.

Whether Enzo Ferrari (1898-1988) ever called the E-Type "the most beautiful car in the world" remains uncertain (though he certainly never issued a denial) but over the decades plenty have echoed the sentiment, sometimes using the phrase "poetry in motion".  By 1975, the world had changed and there were now rules with which to comply and although the XJ-S (later XJS) wasn't really a replacement for the E-Type, because of the timing, that was the basis on may of the early reports based at least some of their critique.  Dynamically, on about any objective measure, it was a better car than the E-Type but nobody is known to have claimed it was better looking and in some contemporary reviews, the styling was described as "prosaic".  It might have been more accurate to use the word "pragmatic" and the lines perhaps aged better than many at the time anticipated, the car in (almost) continuous production for over twenty years and the platform endured until 2006, providing the underpinnings for the first generation of Jaguar's XK8 (1996-2005) and the Aston Martin DB7 (1997-2004), both of which looked better than the XJ-S although neither matched the timeless E-Type.  Upon release, there was much comment about the styling lacking the appeal of the E-Type but the XJ-S was less a replacement than an entry into a new market segment, the anyway declining sports car segment abandoned.  Regarding its capabilities, the press were fair, one publication noting it was smooth, quiet and luxurious yet "capable of speeds that would have won a grand prix not 15 years ago".  That comparison was admittedly with Formula One's voiturette (1.5 litre, naturally aspirated) era but it was an indication that even in the troubled 1970s, there had been progress.   

1983 Jaguar XJ-S Lynx Eventer shooting brake.

What many regard as the best-looking XJS version were the "shooting brakes" (a kind of station wagon) made by specialist coach-builders, the best-known of which was the Lynx Eventer, 67 of which were made.  Critics at the time noted the rear treatment rendered a better balanced shape and much the same observation was made of the convertible (1988-1996) version (less so the SC "cabriolet" (1983-1988)).  Although the pre-war shooting brakes often were built for the HFS (hunting, fishing & shooting) set who needed space for shotguns, fishing rods, hunting hounds and such, in the 1980s they emerged in the niche of the "horsey" set although there was obviously appeal for those who liked the image even if they never sat in a saddle.  In naming the Eventer, Lynx may have had in mind the sport of "eventing", an equestrian sport in which a single horse & rider compete against others across the three disciplines of dressage, cross-country, and show jumping, the roots in the drills European armies conducted to ensure officers seeking a commission in the cavalry possessed the requisite skills.  Eventing has a reasonably impressive death toll of both riders and beasts but it continues to exert a pull with women especially drawn; that's not surprising because some girls fall in love with horses at pony club and never quite recover.

1986 "Daimler S Design Study".

The shooting brake coachwork eliminated the buttresses that were the design's most distinctive feature and interestingly, they were sacrificed also when the factory in 1986 undertook a “design-study” for a proposed "luxury version", to be sold as the “Daimler S”.  The shape was judged most pleasing, unlike the “Coupé” version of the Jensen Interceptor (1966-1976), a reputed 60 of which were built in 1975-1976.  Without the dramatically expansive rear window (nicknamed "the fishbowl"), the design didn't please many and it was later revealed that, struggling to recover from the mid-1970s recession and collapse in demand for big, thirsty cars (both a consequence of the first oil shock), the company had exhausted their supply of closed body shells so "cobbled together" a top to be attached to some of remaining convertible (1974-1976) bodies awaiting completion.  That's may account for why it looked like something of a design college project that may (generously) have been graded a "C-" but, approaching bankruptcy, Jensen was in its death throes.

The original Jensen Interceptor (1966-1976, left) "saloon" and the hastily improvised Coupé (1975-1976, right).  The vinyl glued to the roof didn't help and it was a difficult time for the dying company but Jaguar's execution of the same concept (add a roof to a convertible) on the one-off Daimler S was more accomplished.  Verging on the brutish, nobody ever called the Interceptor's lines "poetic" but the appeal has endured and even today there are companies offering "refurbishment packages" including modern power-trains and electronics.

One thing the Daimler S had in common with the unfortunate Interceptor Coupé was the project being relatively cheap to execute because much of the engineering work had already been done in creating open versions (a full convertible by Jensen; the “SC” version of the XJS with a Triumph Stag-like fixture atop).  Sales of the XJ-S SC were sufficiently encouraging for a team to be formed to produce a conventional convertible, one aspect of the project a removable hard-top (always a factory option for the smaller E-Type).  Because of the sheer size (and consequently weight) of such a structure, that proved unviable but, the styling done, the idea of a “notchback coupé” was explored, the “Daimler” brand available to enable the thing to be sold at a higher price.  The prototype Daimler S required more than welding on the aborted hard-top but not much more, the main differences the different rear-side windows and fluted fittings on the grill & trunk (boot) lid trim.  The planned interior fit-out (a more lavish use of timber veneers, carpet & leather) was never fitted to the prototype and wilder thoughts in the engineering office included AWD (all-wheel drive) but none of the speculation ever even reached the drawing boards.  The one-off Daimler S did get as far as US focus groups for "market reaction" to be assessed but it had the misfortune of being displayed with a prototype XJ-S convertible and while the response to the coupé was polite, the convertible was received with an enthusiasm matched by the US dealer network, none of whom needed a focus group to tell them where demand lay.  While the lines of neither the Lynx Eventer or Daimler S would be likely to attract the epithet "poetic", both shapes improved on the original.  

Prosaic is an example of the figurative adoption of a word with a precise technical meaning assuming such popularity that the original sense became relegated to specialists.  Once, any text not poetic was “prosaic” (ie “written in prose”), and this description denoted nothing negative; it was just a way of distinguishing between written forms, reflecting prosaic’s origins in the Latin prosa (prose).  However, by the seventeen century, poetry had come to be regarded as a most superior form of expression, considered more beautiful, imaginative, and emotional, prose relegated to the status of the mundane and procedural.  The figurative use evolved from this and prosaic came to be used to refer to anything thought ordinary or unimaginative including music, ideas, architecture, Jaguars etc.  The adjective thus transformed into a synonym for "colorless, drab, lifeless, lacklustre, humdrum, dull, pedestrian, unimaginative" etc and this resulted in phrases which once would have been thought bizarre or tautological: “prosaic poetry” & “prosaic prose”.  In its original technical sense (distinguishing the style of writing used for poetry from other literature), the word is now rarely used other than by those somewhere in the "literature business" and, even there, use can be challenging because of the implications of the modern sense(s).  Still, for those who wish to emphasise certain bad texts are worse even than others, the comparative is "more prosaic" and the superlative, "most prosaic".

Dylan Thomas (1914–1953, left) and his wife Caitlin Thomas (née Macnamara; 1913-1994, right) in the bar of Brown’s Hotel, Laugharne, Wales, 1938.

As the origin in the Latin prosa or pronersa oratio (straightforward discourse) suggests, “prose” is the language in its direct, unadorned form, flowing in the way of style(s) written or spoken in everyday life.  It differs from poetry or verse in not being restricted in rhythm, measure or rhyme although, in literary theory, there exists also “poetic prose” and the “prose poem”.  Literary theory however has, in the last sixty years-odd, constructed a large and sometimes bewildering array of technical terms and categories and the possible number of distinct prose forms may be close to limitless.  Poetic prose is prose which approximates to verse in the use of rhythm (perhaps even a kind of meter) in the elaborate and ornate use of language, and especially in the use of figurative devices like onomatopoeia, assonance and metaphor.  Except in experimental form, poetic prose usually is deployed only as a literary device, appearing in short works or in brief passages in longer pieces in order to achieve a (not always entirely clear) specific effect although the common element seems to be something like “an elevation of the emotional temperature”.  Authors interpolating passages of poetic prose have included Thomas De Quincey (1785–1859, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821)), Herman Melville (1819–1891), Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891), James Joyce (1882–1941, whose use of poetic prose wasn’t always immediately accessible), Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) and William Faulkner (1897–1962).  Classic examples of the “hybrid form” are sectionsof the narrator’s narrative in the radio play Under Milk Wood (1952) by Dylan Thomas (1914–1953).

The Collected Prose of T.S. Eliot (2024), in four volumes, edited by Archie Burnett.

A prose poem is a composition printed as prose but distinguished by elements common in poetry, such as often elaborately contrived rhythms, figures of speech, rhyme, internal rhyme, assonance, consonance and startling imagery.  In academic use, it’s the tragic and only posthumously recognized French proto-symbolist Aloysius Bertrand (pen name of Louis Jacques Napoléon Bertrand, 1807-1841) who is acknowledged as having introduced prose poetry to French writing and, more that others, it was him who (retrospectively) made it a fashionable sub-genre among the avant-garde, the seminal work being Gaspard de la Nuit-Fantaisies à la manière de Rembrandt et de Callot (Gaspard of the Night-Fantasies in the Manner of Rembrandt and Callot, 1842), a collection of fantasies in the manner of the Dutch painter Rembrandt (Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn; 1606-1669) and Jacques Callot (circa 1592–1635, a printmaker in the baroque style, born in the then independent Duchy of Lorraine).  Although it was the intricacy of the ornate and rhythmical language that contributed to the recognition of the prose poem as a literary form, upon publication, it made little impact and only later became influential though for more than a century it remained neglected in English.  When French critics finally took notice, the initial spread of the work owed much to the dazzling images, a number of which were, by the standards of the age, monumentally grotesque.  The influence on the French poet, essayist, translator and art critic Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) was obvious in his Le Spleen de Paris (Paris Spleen, 1869 and better known by its subsequent title Petits Poèmes en prose (Little Poems in Prose)), a collection of 50 short prose poems and one of the building blocks of literary modernism.  The symbolist poets and surrealists also acknowledged a debt, as did T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) although his fork of modernism was so striking it seems almost unfair much to dwell on the precursors.

Lindsay Lohan, a poem by Amber Tambling, from the collection Dark Sparkler (2015).

Actress and author Amber Tamblyn (b 1983) solved the writer's dilemma about whether to handle the subject of Lindsay Lohan in prose or poetry by using no text at all.  The publisher HarperCollins described her third collection Dark Sparkler (2015) as a “…hybrid of poetry and art exploring the lives and deaths of actresses who began their careers as child stars.”  The book, which included original artwork by a number of artists, was well received, critically and commercially.  The title was well-chosen because Dark Sparkler was a catalogue of murder and suicide but what attracted much comment was the inclusion of one living soul: Lindsay Lohan, her entry (on page 47) blank but for her name as the title.  An author’s relationship ultimately is with their readers but first it’s with their critics and the response to that one proved it’s possible to deconstruct text even when it doesn’t appear.  As the postmodernists explained, even a blank page is "text" to be deconstructed to find meaning and should the conclusion be there is "no meaning", that too is "a meaning".  Whether fashionable or not, postmodernism made a contribution to literary criticism and remains available for readers to take from it what they will.  Some of the critical reaction to Ms Tambling's Lindsay Lohan was something in vein of those who approached John Cage’s (1912–1992) 4:33 (1952) in that, without much with which to work, the only obvious question seemed to be “What did you mean?”  Ms Tamblyn did say she found it “upsetting” when, after reading several of the poems dedicated to starlets who died young, she spoke the words “Lindsay Lohan” and the audience laughed; perhaps, in the age of the TikTokers she’d not now be surprised.  The poet claimed the inclusion of the piece in its unusual form was not to say “you’re next” but explicitly to avoid writing anything about a life in progress, the idea being Ms Lohan’s life was her own story to write.  Like any work of prose or poetry, page 47 was there for people to take from it what they found but presumably, the interpretative range might be wider than for those reading something like John Keats’ (1795-1821) ode To Autumn (1820).

Prose & poetry: shifting sensibilities

Products in the marketplace, prose and poetry are as subject to the whims of fashion as cars or frocks.  Some products fail while others succeed and that success may be fleeting or endure for generations but “success” is also nuanced, some items receiving critical acclaim but few sales while other are derided by the critics yet achieve either a brief or sustained popularity.  More intriguingly, some fade into obscurity for a century or more, only to be “re-discovered” by a new generation, often to enjoy a brief revival (as happens in fashion) or even enter the canon (as happened with the music of the Italian composer of the Baroque Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) who, neglected for centuries, gained recognition in the 1920s).  The trend of “coming and going” from favour is a feature of literature, partly explained by the use of language shifting, making something once accessible seem to new generations stilted and clumsy.  A handful of authors have benefited from this, William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) texts in many places needing explanatory notes yet valued as “period pieces”, the works surviving by virtue of timeless thematic power.  Similarly, were a modern author to adopt the style of Jane Austen (1775–1817) it would seem absurd but her writings remain valued because they’re imagined as “capturing the moment of their time” (although the evidence suggests even the subset of society she documented were likely in speech not often so precise).

Frontpiece for first edition of The Faerie Queene (1590).  It's an example of one of those works essential in the study of English literature yet now hardly read (at least by choice, students may find it imposed).

Even among professional critics, opinions will be divided, the English poet & satirist Alexander Pope (1688-1744) in his last days noting approvingly of Edmund Spenser’s (circa 1552-1599) Epic poem The Faerie Queene (1590-1596; some 35,000 lines in stanzas): “…there is something Spenser that pleases one as strongly in one’s old age as it did in one’s youth. I read the Faerie Queene when I was about twelve with a vast deal of delight; and I think it gave me as much when I read it over about a year or two ago.”  Although dutifully still acknowledged as Spenser’s magnum opus, it’s now read only by students of literary history or linguistics; it’s unlikely many of them go much beyond what they need for their purposes to extract because it’s so tiresomely archaic.  Even in the nineteenth century it was thought “hard work with not enough reward”, the Whig historian Thomas Babington “T.B.” Macaulay (1800–1859) in 1831 summing up: “Spenser, though assuredly one of the greatest poets that ever lived, could not succeed in the attempt to make allegory interesting.  It was in vain that he lavished the riches of his mind on the House of Pride and the House of Temperance.  One unpardonable fault, the fault of tediousness, pervades the whole of The Faerie Queene.  We become sick of cardinal virtues and deadly sins, and long for the society of plain men and women.”  His call for modernism would within decades be answered and his view of the poem’s fate in the hands of readers would not differ greatly if written today:  Of the persons who read the first canto one in ten reaches the end of the first book, and not one in a hundred perseveres to the end of the poem.  Very few and very weary are those who are in at the death of the Blatant Beast.”  Even before TikTok, attention spans had shortened.

By the twentieth century, tastes certainly had shifted to prose that was punchier and conveyed meaning with less of the author’s display of erudition.  Writing of Gertrude Stein (1874–1946), the author and critic (Percy) Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957; best remembered for his seminal contribution to short-lived Vorticist movement that was extinguished by the blast of World War I (1914-1918)) dismissed her prose as “…a cold, black suet-pudding.  We can represent it as a cold suet roll of fabulously reptilian length.  Cut it at any point, it is the heavy, sticky, opaque mass all through and all along . . . it is mournful and monstrous composed of dead and inanimate material.”  As Vorticism demonstrated, even in artful form, Lewis knew how to make meaning clear, but Stein may have had the last laugh, he mostly forgotten while she often still is referenced although that’s more for her place in the LGBTQQIAAOP pantheon than any literary contribution.

Portrait of Virginia Woolf (circa 1917), oil on canvas by Roger Fry (1866-1934).

Still, Gertrude Stein is at least remembered for something.  In the rich field of novelists with diminished reputations there’s no example better than the Scottish author Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), among the most widely read (to the bafflement of some critics) of the nineteenth century.  His legacy endures curiously in those he inspired (notably Jane Austen) but the wordy style didn’t survive the onset of modernity, E. M. Forster (1879–1970) in Aspects of the Novel (1927) finding him prolific yet slight, saying: “He is seen to have a heavy mind and a trivial style.  He cannot construct.  He has neither artistic detachment nor passion, only a temperate heart, gentlemanly feelings and an intelligent affection for the countryside; this is not basis enough for great novels.”  The English vicar John Skinner (1772–1839) made scant contribution to theology but is remembered as one of the amateur antiquarians and archaeologists England produced in the days of empire and his writings make clear he had the qualities of patience of perseverance demanded by all his callings.  He’d have needed both to plod through Scott’s The Black Dwarf (1816 and one of the “Waverley Novels”), Skinner noting in his diary in 1830: “…strive to amuse myself by reading novels and have finished that of the Black Dwarf by Sir Walter Scott.  I must be reduced to a sad state when I feel obliged to read such nonsense for a pastime.”  While unfair to suggest any connection, some years later, Skinner committed suicide, blowing his brains out with a shotgun.  Although still sometimes the subject of academic study (it transpired Scott’s texts were rich pickings for the deconstructionists of postmodernism), Scott is now little read although, counterintuitively, Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) was a fan, in 1932 lamenting him as among the last to echo the Shakespearean style in dialogues: “We have lost the art of the poetic speech” she concluded.  When madness overtook her, Woolf chose a more romantic form of suicide.

The Tay Bridge Disaster

William Topaz McGonagall (circa 1825–1902) was a Scottish poet of Irish ancestry, now acknowledged as perhaps the worst poet ever to have been published in English, a fair achievement given the wealth of modern competition.  His best known work remains The Tay Bridge Disaster (1880), lamenting the disaster of 28 December, 1879 when, during a severe gale, the central section of Dundee's Tay Rail Bridge collapsed, sending to their deaths in the freezing water the 80-odd souls aboard the Wormit-Dundee train passing at the time.  Regarded during its brief existence as a triumph of Victorian (1837-1901) engineering, the Tay Rail Bridge was nearly two miles (3.2 km) long and then the longest in the world but it had been built with an insufficient allowance for lateral wind-load, the structure that night succumbing to the gale-force winds estimated at 80 mph (130 km/h, 70 knots).  An enquiry was conducted and the designer, Sir Thomas Bouch (1822-1880) (dubbed a Knight Bachelor at Windsor Castle on 26 June, 1879 by Victoria (1819–1901; Queen of the UK 1837-1901) in recognition of the quick and economic construction of the bridge) was found for primarily responsible for the disaster.  His health suffered as a consequence of the event and within a year of the collapse, he was dead.

The Tay Bridge after the collapse (National Library of Scotland image).

Whether the The Tay Bridge Disaster can be said to be prosaic is debatable because there are probably better adjectives but critics have long been united that it's a very bad piece of poetry and it's doubtful a re-rendering in prose would be much of an improvement, one writing of it that McGonagall was “deaf to poetic metaphor, employing inappropriate rhythms that resulted in unintentionally amusing poetry.”  Said to be wholly oblivious to the invective almost universally directed to his oeuvre of over two-hundred pieces of verse, his sheer awfulness and tenacity caused him to be remembered to this day for at least something while countless poets who were merely earnest and competent are long forgotten.  Whether The Tay Bridge Disaster is the "worst ever" poem is up to readers but the problem with poetry is that its appreciation is a specific skill-set and not all possess the skill.  Were the critics to have praised the piece as a work or rare genius and pronounced it a masterpiece, many of us would have taken their word for it.

The Tay Bridge Disaster by William McGonagall

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
 
’Twas about seven o’clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seem’d to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem’d to say-
“I’ll blow down the Bridge of Tay.”
 
When the train left Edinburgh
The passengers’ hearts were light and felt no sorrow,
But Boreas blew a terrific gale,
Which made their hearts for to quail,
And many of the passengers with fear did say-
“I hope God will send us safe across the Bridge of Tay.”
 
But when the train came near to Wormit Bay,
Boreas he did loud and angry bray,
And shook the central girders of the Bridge of Tay
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
 
So the train sped on with all its might,
And Bonnie Dundee soon hove in sight,
And the passengers’ hearts felt light,
Thinking they would enjoy themselves on the New Year,
With their friends at home they lov’d most dear,
And wish them all a happy New Year.
 
So the train mov’d slowly along the Bridge of Tay,
Until it was about midway,
Then the central girders with a crash gave way,
And down went the train and passengers into the Tay!
The Storm Fiend did loudly bray,
Because ninety lives had been taken away,
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
 
As soon as the catastrophe came to be known
The alarm from mouth to mouth was blown,
And the cry rang out all o’er the town,
Good Heavens! the Tay Bridge is blown down,
And a passenger train from Edinburgh,
Which fill’d all the peoples hearts with sorrow,
And made them for to turn pale,
Because none of the passengers were sav’d to tell the tale
How the disaster happen’d on the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
 
It must have been an awful sight,
To witness in the dusky moonlight,
While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,
Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,
Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.

Dwarf

Dwarf (pronounced dwawrf)

(1) A person of abnormally small stature owing to a pathological condition, especially one suffering from cretinism or some other disease that produces disproportion or deformation of features and limbs.  In human pathology, dwarfism is usually defined, inter-alia, as an adult height less than 1.47 m (4 ft 10 in).

(2) In zoology & botany, an animal or plant much smaller than the average of its kind or species.

(3) In European folklore, a being in the form of a small, often misshapen and ugly, man, usually having magic powers.

(4) In Norse mythology, any member of a race of beings from (especially Scandinavian and other Germanic) folklore, usually depicted as having some sort of supernatural powers and being skilled in crafting and metalworking, often as short with long beards, and sometimes as clashing with elves.

(5) In astronomy, a small version of a celestial body (planet, moon, galaxy, star etc).

(6) Of unusually small stature or size; diminutive; to become stunted or smaller.

Pre 900: From the Middle English dwerf, dwergh, dwerw & dwerȝ, from the Old English dweorh & dweorg (dwarf), replacing the Middle English dwerg and ultimately from the Proto-Germanic dwergaz.  It was cognate with the Scots dwerch, the Old High German twerg & twerc (German Zwerg), the Old Norse dvergr (Swedish dvärg), the Old Frisian dwirg (West Frisian dwerch), the Middle Low German dwerch, dwarch & twerg (German & Low German Dwarg & Dwarch) and the Middle Dutch dwerch & dworch (Dutch dwerg).  The Modern English noun has undergone complex phonetic changes. The form dwarf is the regular continuation of Old English dweorg, but the plural dweorgas gave rise to dwarrows and the oblique stem dweorge which led to dwery, forms sometimes found as the nominative singular in Middle English texts and in English dialects.  Dwarf is a noun and verb, dwarfness & dwarfishness are nouns, dwarfish & dwarflike are adjectives and dwarfishly is an adverb; the noun plural is dwarfs or dwarves.  Dwarfs was long the common plural in English but after JRR Tolkien (1892-1973) used dwarves, his influence was enough to become the standard plural form for mythological beings.  For purposes non-mythological, dwarfs remains the preferred form.

The M Word

1972 MG Midget (RWA) in BRG (British Racing Green).

Dwarf seems still to be an acceptable term to describe those with dwarfism and LPA (Little People of America), the world’s oldest and largest dwarfism support organization (which maintains an international, membership-based organization for people with dwarfism and their families) has long campaigned to abolish the use of the word “midget” in the context of short humans.  The objection to midget is associative.  It was never part of the language of medicine and was never adopted as official term to identify people with dwarfism, but was used to label used those of short stature who were on public display for curiosity and sport, most notoriously in the so-called “freak shows”.  Calling people “midgets” is thus regarded as derogatory.  Midget remains an apparently acceptable word to use in a historic context (midget submarine, MG Midget etc) or to describe machinery (midget car racing; the Midget Mustang aerobatic sports airplane) but no new adoptions have in recent years been registered years.  The LPA is also reporting some supportive gestures, noting with approval the decision of the AMS (Agricultural Marketing Service) of the USDA's (US Department of Agriculture) to revise the nomenclature used in the US standards for grades of processed raisins by removing five references to the term “midget”.  Although obviously a historically benign use of the word, its removal was a welcome display of cultural sensitivity although the practices vary on a case-by-case basis, the "deaf community" said to prefer "deaf" to any of the suggested alternatives.

An interesting outlier outlier in the "labeling wars" was "midget wrestling", a field in which the participants are said enthusiastically to support the label, citing its long traditions and the marketing value of the brand.  Although in the late twentieth century, midget wrestling’s popularity diminished, there’s been a resurgence of interest and the sport is now a noted content provider for the streaming platforms which run live and recorded footage.  Since the 1970s, midget wrestling has included styles other than the purely technical form with routines extending from choreographed parody and slapstick performances to simulated sexual assault(!).  These innovations attracted criticism and the suggestion the "sport" was returning to the freak shows of earlier centuries but audiences in the target demographic seem appreciative and, noting the success of a number of tours and operators, MLW (Major League Wrestling) in 2022 announced the creation of a midget division.

The MG Midget

Where it began: 1930 MG M-Type Midget Roadster.

The earliest cars to wear MG badge (the name originally “Morris Garages”, an operation which had the same relationship to Morris as AMG does to Mercedes-Benz (ie high-performance variants)) were tuned (and often re-bodied) editions of existing Morris models but in 1928 the 8/33 M.G Midget Sports Series M (truncated usually to “M Type”) was displayed at the 1928 London Olympia Motor Show, series production commencing the next season.  The first of a long line of tiny roadsters, 3,232 would be made between 1929-1932 and the one in the photographs above is fitted with coachwork typical of the era: an open two-seater in the fashionable “boat-tail” style, constructed by Carbodies of Coventry using construction technique which began in aviation, the panels a mix of steel and fabric-covered plywood over an ash frame.  The fabric soft-top was stored under the rear deck along its frame, tools and a spare wheel.  In the spirit of the age, a rakish two-piece windshield was fitted and there was no provision for a heater (folk then a hardier breed).  Despite the minimalist accommodation, the specification was surprisingly advanced, the four-cylinder engine using a bevel-gear-driven single overhead cam turning off the vertically mounted generator, 27 horsepower at a then impressive 5400 rpm generated from a displacement of 847 cm3 (51.68 cubic inches).  A footnote in the Midget’s history is that the first exported to the US was in 1930 bought by Edsel Ford (1893–1943; president of the Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo) 1919–1943), then titular head of his father’s (Henry Ford (1863-1947)) eponymous Motor company which, by the million, built larger vehicles.

1960 Austin-Healey Sprite Mark I (top left), 1966 MG Midget Mark II (top right), 1973 MG Midget Mark III (RWA, bottom left) and 1979 MG Midget Mark IV (bottom right).

For a new generation (1961-1979) of diminutive roadsters, MG revived the Midget name last used on the M-Type. MG was by the 1950s part of BMC (British Motor Corporation, 1952-1967) which later would be absorbed by the doomed British Leyland (1968–1990)) and a corporate companion marquee was Austin-Healey which between 1958-1961 produced the Sprite (known variously as the “bugeye” or “frogeye”), a small sports car, built on the familiar template of economy car underpinnings with a stylish body.  After the release of the MGA (1955-1962), MG no longer had a competitor in the low-price segment so BMC took the decision that the two companies would share the model, yet another example of the “badge engineering” which BMC pragmatically (and for a while lucratively) would exploit until the process descended into self-defeating absurdity.  When the Mark II Sprites were released in 1961 (without the distinctive headlights which were the source of the nicknames), simultaneously there was the debut of the Midget, the latter slightly more expensive and better equipped, although both remained basic roadsters in the old tradition, lacking fittings such as side windows and external door-handles.  The Sprite would continue in three versions (Mark II; 1961-1964, Mark III; 1964-1966, Mark IV 1966-1971) before, following the end of BMC’s contractual arrangement with Donald Healey (1898–1988), briefly it was sold as the Austin Sprite (1971-1972) before the name was retired and the segment was left to MG.  In the decade they’d been companion models, the pair significantly had been improved, gaining power, refinement and creature comforts (the overdue door handles and side windows part of the Mark II upgrades) but what never changed were the dimensions, the things always small, something the balanced styling tended to disguise, the compactness best appreciated when one was seen parked next to a more typically sized vehicle; the Sprite and Midget being dwarfed.

1962 MG Midget with Ace-Mercury wheel discs.  Although the model will of course be statuesque, the Midget (and Austin-Healey Sprite on which it was based) truly was small.  The LWD (little white dress) is a Joanna from Madeleine's Daughter's Adora collection.  Though willowy, a lithe model could fold herself into a Midget but would find the cockpit cramped and uncomfortable.

Almost 130,000 Sprites were built while Midget production (which lasted until 1980) totalled some 225,000, the most numerous being the later models (Mk III; 1966–1974: 100,246 units & 1500; 1974–1979: 81,916 units).  A decade before production ended it was already outdated but such was the charm (and lack of competition) that demand remained strong almost to the end.  The most fancied Midgets are the so-called RWA (round wheel arch) models produced between 1972-1974; these adopted the design used on the rear of the bugeyes and are considered the best looking (as well as making the use of wider rear tyres easier) but in 1974 MG had to revert to the squared-off look because the strength gain from the additional metal was necessary to support the large “rubber” bumpers added to conform with US regulations; the RWA bodywork was found to be prone to damage when the rear-impact tests were conducted.  Even before the huge bumpers unhappily had been grafted, US market cars had for some months had large rubber “buffers” bolted to the chrome bumpers, known in the US as “Dagmars” and in the UK as “Sabrinas” both names tributes to the hardly vague anatomical similarity with two pop culture figures.  Along with the big bumpers, to comply with minimum headlight height regulations in the US, the suspension height was raised by about an inch (25 mm) which raised the centre of gravity and thus affected the handling characteristics, something adjustments to the anti-roll bars only partially ameliorated.  Visually, the increased height was disguised by lowering curve of the front wheel arch.

Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin 1961 (left) and 1963 (right).  The “Berlin crisis of 1961” was a “tank standoff” lasting from 4 June to 9 November, during which, in August, the Berlin Wall was erected.  The Soviet tanks are T-54s, distinguishable from the T-55 because of the mushroom-shaped dome in front of the loader’s hatch.

During the crisis, contact between the two sides was minimized beyond what was essential (Berlin’s interconnected sewerage system, the running of Spandau Prison, air traffic control etc) and it ended with Washington and Moscow withdrawing their tanks to ensure tensions would subside.  Even though what happened in 1961 was nothing like the Cuban Missile Crisis (16-28 October, 1962) when the world did at times seem on the brink of nuclear war, people were concerned, Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) in an entry of 2 November, 1961 in his clandestine prison diary (Spandauer Tagebücher (Spandau: The Secret Diaries) (1975)) noting: “We recognized our Soviet director Andrysev in a photograph in which he is shown conducting negotiations at Checkpoint Charley (sic) with American officers; the tanks drawn up on both sides show how tense the situation is.  From the caption it is evident that he is really chief of the military police in East Berlin.  According to the declarations of all sides involved, we are almost on the brink of a war; but in the prison mess the antagonists meet every few days and toast one another.”  Two days later, he added: “Our Russian guards are anxious.  Kargin interrupted me today: ‘If war, everything kaputt! Wife kaputt, children kaputt, houses kaputt, Kargin kaputtl!”  Spitefully, he added, ‘Kennedy kaputt too, Khrushchev kaputt.  Ha, ha, ha!”  I laughed along with him.  Turning suddenly serious, he asked, ‘Why you laugh?’  I said: ‘Prison kaputt too.’”

In 1961, alarmed that some 3.5 million citizens of the GDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic; the old East Germany, 1949-1990)) had used the porous border to slip through to the FRG (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany, 1949-1990)), the governments in East Berlin and Moscow applied the brute-force approach preferred for most matters and built the Berlin Wall, delineated first with pre-fabricated barbed-wire fence sections, construction of the brick and concrete structure that would stand until 1989 beginning four days later.  Some 87 miles (143 km) long with a “no-man’s land” between the main wall and a secondary fence, it was the world’s most heavily-guarded border with more troops per km than even the Korean DMZ (Demilitarized Zone), the strip of land (intersecting the 38^th parallel north) dividing the DPRK (Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea)) from the RoK (Republic of Korea (South Korea)); those GDR troops had a “shoot to kill” order and over 140 were killed attempting to escape at the wall itself with more than a thousand more dying at the internal German border.  Despite the difficulties and dangers, thousands did make it west of the wall, three of whom did so using the improbable device of an Austin-Healy Sprite.

Not many cars were smaller than the Midget & Sprite; the Isetta was one.  In period, only a limited number of Isetta 300s received the two-tone paint scheme that continued to meet the aluminum trim along the flanks.  In the slang of the era, it was dubbed the breiter Spalt (wide cleavage).

Then aged 20, in 1963, Austrian Hans Meixner was working in West Berlin and was familiar with the already famous Checkpoint Charlie from his visits to the East on a tourist visa, something often granted (except during periods of “heightened tensions”) because of the regime’s need for “hard currency”; during one of these visits, he’d met and fallen in love with Fraulein Margarete Thurau.  Herr Meixner’s plan to bring his fiancé west was rejected by the authorities in the GDR though they did say he was welcome to join her and become a good comrade but, having seen enough of life east of the wall not to be tempted, he adopted plan B and began plotting ways to spirit her across the fortified divide.  While some succeeded using exotic means such as hot-air balloons, Herr Meixner opted for a simple approach: driving through the border without stopping.  Early in the days of the wall, that approach had sometimes worked but the guards had become more thorough in their searching, meaning the chance of discovery increased although one imaginative soul did persevere, modifying a BMW Isetta (small even by micro-car standards) by removing the air filter, heating system, spare tire, re-routing the exhaust system replacing the standard 13-litre fuel tank with a 2-liter canister- enough to make it across Checkpoint Charlie but not much further.  In the space made available behind the rear seat was installed a custom-made shell (emulating the look of a standard Isetta) with just enough room for an adult to fold themselves into.  It was cramped but, for the short distance between East & West, was manageable and between 1964 and the fall of the wall in 1989 nine ex-comrades were smuggled through Checkpoint Charlie in the little Isetta, a replica of which is now on display at the capital's Berlin Wall Museum.  Herr Meixner's task would however have been beyond even a modified Isetta's extended capacity, because complicating things, Frauline’s Thurau also wanted the escape to include her mother; while one of the attractions of getting a bride from the GDR was that it meant a mother-in-law was safely behind the wall, the fiancé insisted it was “love me, love my mother” so the plan’s intricacy increased.

Herr Meixner (with fiancée and future mother-in-law) explaining to an FRG official how it was done (left) and the intrepid trio re-creating the arrangement for a press photographer (right).

So the specification for a car in which to cross the heaving guarded border now demanded it must be able to carry two passengers sufficiently well-concealed as to not be noticed until reaching the barrier gate at which the final inspections would be undertaken.  What convinced Herr Meixner to choose a diminutive Austin-Healey Sprite was he had noticed a flaw in the final barrier: it was not a solid structure extending low to the ground one with a a gap he estimated might be as much as one metre (39 inches).  To be certain, on one visit, he pretended his scooter had stalled while next to the barrier, managing surreptitiously to measure the gap that proved to be .9525 m (37.5 inches).  That was not much and no road car then easily available would fit but some research revealed a Berlin rental-car company had on its books an Austin-Healey Sprite and it, without its soft-top erected, stood 1.225 m (48.25 inches) high.  That was by most standards low but obviously still too tall to fit.  However, all that secured the windscreen to the body was four posidrive screws, two on either side at the base of the frame; removal demanded only a couple of minutes and one suitable screwdriver.  With the screen removed, the little roadster stood at .902 m (35.5 inches), leaving a generous 50 mm (2 inches) to spare as the iron curtain was crossed.  A screenless Sprite was one of the few cars suitable for the task and even later, famously low-slung machines like the Ford GT40 (1964-1969 at 1.029 m (40.5 inches)) and Lotus Europa (1966–1975 at 1.080 m (42.5 in)) would have been too high to fit.

The right-side windscreen mounting (left), showing the ease with which the structure could be removed (as often was done for racing) and Herr Meixner re-enacting the daring escape for the press (right).

It was after midnight (the plan depended on not having to queue) on 17 May, 1963 that Herr Meixner approached passport control in his Sprite ohne Windschutzscheibed (without windscreen) with fiancée stashed under a blanket on the parcel shelf and future mother-in-law crammed into the trunk (boot), the latter afforded protection from the 7.62 mm bullets from the guards’ AK47s by the strategic placement of some bricks, something not hard to find in what was still a war-battered city.  At the passport checkpoint, the official was suspicious about someone driving a car without any protection from the elements on such a chilly evening but accepted the explanation it was just an example of Western eccentricity so waived the Sprite through.  However, instead of proceeding slowly as was required, Herr Meixner accelerated ("spritely" as it were) around the bollards and then, at full-throttle, ducking low, sped limbo-like under the barrier; it all happened too quickly for the startled guards to react.  The escape was well-publicized but remarkably, two months later, an Argentine national rented the same(!) Sprite and also managed to spirit his fiancée through the iron curtain although he deflected suspicion by keeping the windshield attached until the last possible moment.  At that point, the GDR authorities called in the welders to attach unyielding steel bars beneath the barrier, closing the barn door after one mare and two fillies had bolted.

Triumph Spitfire, also a midget-sized roadster

A midget (with a small “m”) dwarfed by two behemoths: A 1977 Triumph Spitfire between two Ford Super Duty F-450 pick-up trucks. When used for their intended purpose (carrying or towing heavy payloads) Ford’s Super Duty pick-ups perform well but such is the consumer appeal they’re a not uncommon sight used as passenger vehicles, even in cities; they can thus be both a personal and political statement, owners delighted Ford has made pick-ups great again (MPUGA).

Adopted for the range in 1999, Ford between 1958-1981 had previously used the “Super Duty” label on three large displacement (401, 477 & 534 cubic inch (6.6, 7.8 & 8.8 litre) gas (petrol) V8s, the family one of a remarkable variety of different V8s the corporation produced during the 1950s & 1960s.  Big, heavy and low-revving, the Super Duty V8 were legendarily robust and famed for their longevity but were doomed ultimately by their prodigious thirst.  They were intended only for heavy-duty, industrial use and in that very different from the Pontiac Super Duty (SD) V8s which were high-performance units, the early versions in the 1960s optimized for drag racing while the revival the next decade was the final fling of the original muscle car era (1964-1974).  The 389 & 421 cubic inch (6.4 & 6.9 litre) versions were offered between 1960-1963 while the 455 (7.5) appeared in 1973-1974 and had it not been for the 455 SD Pontiac Firebirds in those years, the muscle car era would have been regarded as having ended in 1972.  The Watergate-era 455 SD is also a footnote in the history of environmental law because Pontiac (in a preview of Volkswagen’s later “Dieselgate”) used a device to “cheat” on emission testing being undertaken as part of the certification process.  Caught re-handed, Pontiac, guilty as sin, was compelled to remove the “cheat gear” and re-submit a vehicle for testing; that’s the reason the 1973-1974 455 SD was rated at 290 horsepower (HP) rather than the 310 of the original (and more toxic) engine.

The 1961 Pontiac Bonneville was once (outside the US) dubbed a "yank tank" because it was big compared with most cars.  These days, in a typical Walmart car park, it'd look quite compact, even when parked between pick-ups not as gargantuan as some.

It’s probably unfair to use the Spitfire as a point of comparison with the modern US taste for big pick-up trucks and a better juxtaposition would be one of the original “yank tanks” between a pair of modern pick-ups.  The 1961 Pontiac Bonneville, although a little bit trimmer than the extravagances Detroit produced in 1959-1960, was a classic example of what people in places like the UK, Europe and Australia would call “yank tanks”.  Quite when the expression “yank tank” came into vogue isn’t certain but it was certainly around in the mid-1960s and may have been in oral use earlier.  The related “land yacht” came from the 1970s and they were a sub-set of the yank tank, being large machines with a focus on luxury, designed to isolate the occupants from what was outside and fitted with large engines to propel the cars effortless down freeways, as if “floating along in a yacht”.  The big PLCs (personal luxury coupe) by Cadillac, Lincoln and Imperial were the exemplars of the lost art.

1967 Excalibur Series 1 Roadster.  This is one of the early models, inspired by the Mercedes-Benz SSK, thus the "cycle fenders" and lack of side windows.

A curious footnote in the long history of the MG Midget is that its windscreen, cowl (scuttle), doors and A-pillars were a perfect size and shape for manufacturers producing neoclassical cars.  In this context, “neoclassical” never was exactly defined but generally it meant the adoption of the motifs of the sporting or luxury automobiles of the 1930s (separate fenders, flowing lines, headlights in external pods etc) atop a modern mechanical structure.  Although there was over the years a bit of mission creep as the “retro” movement gained traction the idea still is understood to me “in the style of the 1930s”.  The trend seems to have begun in 1963 with the release of the Excalibur which recalled the Mercedes-Benz SSK (W06, 1928-1932) and it proved remarkably successful with later versions closer in style to the W29 (500K, 1934-1936 & 540K 1936-1940) and despite an increasingly challenging regulatory environment, brushes with bankruptcy and changes of ownership, enough customers were found for Excalibur to survive for decades, the last not leaving the line until 1997.

1978 Clénet 120 Series 1.  The styling was more of a pastiche than that used for the Excaliburs, being a mash-up of cues from the SSK and 540K.

The best-known user of the parts donated by Midgets was Clénet, a California-based concern which in the 1970s and 1980s entered the niche created by Excalibur although its interpretation of neoclassicism was “generic 1930s” rather than a reprise of a specific model.  While the typical path of many low-volume specialists was to purchase usually “unseen” components such as engines, transmissions, sus[ension systems or even entire platforms (the business model of Excalibur, Clénet and others), it was also common to adapt many more visible parts including seats, handles, switchgear, lights and such.  Although 3D printing has lowered the development & production costs of “bits & pieces”, custom parts still often remain not attractive at low volumes; advances in technology have shifted the math of economies of scale but it still exists.  Doors were an attractive component to buy “off the shelf” because they are expensive to produce, being multi part and including ancillary parts such as windows, seals, handles, locking mechanisms and wiring.

Doors, cowl and windscreen by MG: 1978 MG Midget (left) and 1978 Clénet 120 Series 1.

Even the “most neoclassical” of all, Panther Westwinds’ De Ville (1974-1985) which (sort of) followed the lines of the glorious failure that was the Bugatti Royale (1927-1933), used the four doors seen originally on BMC’s modest 1800 (ADO 17, 1963-1975) and recycled on the Austin Maxi (1969-1981), Austin 3 Litre (1967-1971) and the Antipodean Austin X6 (Kimberley & Tasman, 1970-1972).  At least Panther Westwinds made no secret of the origin of the doors (they had no choice because upon release, their inclusion in what was then the UK’s most expensive car attracted some wry comment).  By contrast, when English coachbuilder Crayford released details of its cabriolet version of the Mercedes-Benz C123 (1977-1985), what wasn’t mentioned in the press releases or publicity material was the folding soft-tops had been salvaged by Crayford’s agents from 1973 Ford Mustang convertibles found in US wrecking yards.  Serendipitously, the Mustang’s apparatus was dimensionally perfect for the purpose whereas Panther Westwinds designed the De Ville “around the 1800’s doors”.

2005 “twin-cabin” roadster in the Clénet style.  Presumably (and hopefully) unique, two innocent MG Midgets were harmed in the making of this.  Those in the rear compartment were denied the triple windscreen wipers but their doors did have the unusual feature of an external key-lock.  A V16, V24 or V32 could have fitted under that hood (bonnet) and although the stainless steel, flexible external ducts and long side-pipes of the “exhaust system” was impressive, the whole apparatus was fake.

The neoclassical look of the Excalibur and Clénet didn’t impress all but for decades enough liked them to sustain the business model and the latter may still be available because the operation was absorbed into another concern.  Deliberately extravagant, it might have been thought the “standard” Clénet was “enough” but one customer in 2004 commissioned a “twin-cabin” version of a machine which, while not a Clénet, was in that vein and it used two sets of the Midgets doors and associated components.  Though comfortably seating only four, it was some 23 feet (7 metres) in length and built in 2004-2005 on the extended chassis of a Mercury Grand Marquis (on the Panther platform, 1979-2011) but benefited from the used of the earlier 460 cubic inch (7.5 litre) big-block V8, never offered by Ford in Panther-based cars.  The twin cabin configuration was unusual and although used in airframes, boats and specialist commercial military vehicles, even in the innovative 1930s such a thing would have been thought bizarre.  While it’s true there were a number of “twin cowl” convertibles, cabriolets & phaetons built during the inter-war years, they tended to be on the same wheelbase as the conventionally-bodied vehicles, the only distinction being a separate windscreen for the rear compartment.  The invoice price in 2005 was apparently some US$200,000 and, in the spirit of the pre-war coach-builders, both cabins were trimmed with Connolly leather, Wilton cut-pile wool carpets and timber veneer dashboard fascias.  Neither the state of tune of the 460 V8 nor power or performance figures were disclosed but the speedometer was calibrated to 120 mph (195 km/h) which might give some pause for thought.  Were it to be taken to the annual Bonneville Salt Flats SpeedWeek (at which since 1949 various categories of land speed records have been contested), the organizers might be tempted to create a new category: “Unlimited Displacement, Twin-Cabin, Neoclassical Roadsters”.

Early-build Vickers Wellesley with twin cabins.

Although (at least prior to 2005) the notion of “twin-cabin neoclassical roadster” might have been thought “the answer to the question nobody asked”, in other fields the arrangement was a functional solution.  Vickers’ first geodesic aircraft, the Wellesley, entered service in 1937 and the following year, three of them, making use of the massive fuel capacity the then novel structure made possible, flew non-stop from Ismailia in Egypt to Darwin in Australia, setting a new world record distance of 7,158 miles (11,265 km), a record that stood until broken in 1946 by a Boeing B-29 Superfortress; it remains to this day the record for a single-engined aircraft with a piston engine, and also for aircraft flying in formation.  The intriguing twin-cabin design was later in the build replaced with a single, elongated structure (although the latter are sometimes informally dubbed “Mark II”, there was only ever a single version).  A effective medium bomber and long-range reconnaissance platform, the Wellesley might have gone on to enjoy a long service life but such was the acceleration in airframe development because of the demands of war, as it was, rapidly it was rendered obsolescent with the last withdrawn from active service in 1943.  Historians of aviation acknowledge the Wellesley as an invaluable exercise in design and construction.

1967 Triumph Spitfire Mark II (left) and 1972 Triumph Spitfire Mark IV (with after-market exhaust tips, right).

The Triumph Spitfire had the same relationship to the larger TR sports cars (1952-1976) as the Midget did to the MGB.  Produced in five distinct generations between 1962-1980, like the Sprite & Midget, the Spitfire featured a stylish body atop the platform of a high-volume model and for the coachwork Triumph out-sourced the job to Italy, Giovanni Michelotti (1921–1980) producing a shape which owed nothing to the little Herald (1959-1971) on which it was based.  In continuous production in five versions (Mark I; 1962–1964, Mark II; 1965–1967, Mark III; 1967–1970, Mark IV; 1970–1974 & 1500; 1974–1980), almost 315,000 were built with the later models the most popular, the some 96,000 of the 1500s sold.  Like the Midget, the Spitfire was over the years improved although the things did at least stagnate in the post-1974 US models which became heavier, slower and uglier although in the 1970s that was a general industry trend.  The Although soon under the same corporate umbrella, the Midget & Spitfire were competitors (in the showroom and on the circuits) for almost two decades and when Road & Track magazine in their September 1967 edition published a comparison test, they couldn't decide which was best, concluding: "...whichever one the buyer chooses, he is assured of many miles of motoring pleasure in the great sports car tradition.  They're good cars, both of them.  You can't go wrong."  For the readers that may not have been a great deal of help and the phrasing must have been force of habit because the two little roadsters had always enjoyed some popularity among women.  

The photograph run in 1959 with the caption “Hark the Herald’s axles swing” (left) and a Mark I Spitfire's swing axles displaying the same behavior.

The Spitfires of the 1960s were a bit more lively but that description wasn’t always a compliment because, based on the Herald, what was inherited was the swing-axle rear suspension and swing the axles certainly could, leading to a “lively rear”.  When the British motoring press first tested the Herald they noted the behaviour of the swing axles under extreme load and had a photographer appropriately positioned: The caption “Hark the Herald’s axles swing” became famous.  None of that deterred Triumph which in 1962 introduced a more powerful version (dibbe Vitesse) powered by a 1.6 litre (97 cubic inch) straight six.  That meant a faster car which meant the behaviour of the swing axles could be experienced at a higher speed (with all that implies) but the car sold well which was encouraging so Triumph in 1966 fitted a 2.0 litre (122 cubic inch) six.  It was not until 1968 the rear suspension was revised and this curative solved the errant characteristics to a degree which impressed even the usually sceptical motoring journalists; sales remained strong until production ended in 1971.  Offered only in four-cylinder form, the revisions to the Spitfire’s rear suspension were less complex but when tested on the Mark IV in 1970, the improvement was apparent and from this point, criticism ceased of of road-holding at the limit.

1967 Triumph GT6 Mark I (also with after-market exhaust tips, left) and 1979 Triumph Spitfire 1500 (right).  With production ending in 1973, the GT6 was spared from being disfigured by the battering-ram like bumpers & dagmars imposed on the Spitfire, those on the last of the line (1979-1980) the biggest.

While the roadster never gained six-cylinder power, Triumph from 1966 offered a coupé version (with a convenient hatchback, al la the Jaguar E-Type (XKE, 1961-1974) called the GT6.  Mechanically it followed the Vitesse except it was only ever fitted with the 2.0 litre engine and didn’t receive the suspension fix until the Mark II in 1969 and that transformed things although, being relatively complex, it must have been deemed too expensive to justify on a low-volume model so, with the release of the Mark III in 1970, a version of that used on the Spitfire was substituted and it proved just as effective.  Sales of the GT6 never matched the company’s expectation and the market preferred the MGB GT (1965-1980) which used the same concept for the body.  Noting the costs which would have been incurred to make the GT6 compliant with the US regulations to take effect from 1974, production ended in late 1973.  Because the considerably more powerful (especially the fuel-injected versions sold outside the US) 2.5 litre six Triumph used in the TR5 (which, with twin carburetors, was in North America sold as the TR-250), TR6, 2.5 PI & 2500 is a relatively easy swap, quite a few GT6s have been so upgraded although some attention does need to be paid to the brakes and chassis to achieve a completely satisfactory road car.  

The short stature of Victor Emmanuel III (1869–1947; King of Italy 1900-1946) with (left to right), with Aimone of Savoy, King of Croatia (Rome, 1943), with the elongated Albert I, King of the Belgians (France, 1915), with his wife, Princess Elena of Montenegro (Rome 1937) & with Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), observing the Italian navy conduct manoeuvres, Gulf of Naples, 1938.  Note the King of Italy's sometimes DPRKesque hats.

Technically, Victor Emmanuel didn’t fit the definition of dwarfism which sets a threshold of adult height at 4 feet 10 inches (1.47 m), the king about 2 inches (50 mm) taller (or less short) and it’s thought the inbreeding not uncommon among European royalty might have been a factor, both his parents and grandparents being first cousins.  However, although not technically a dwarf, that didn’t stop his detractors in Italy’s fascist government calling him (behind his back) il nano (the dwarf), a habit soon picked up the Nazis as der Zwerg (the dwarf) (although Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945) was said to have preferred der Pygmäe (the pygmy)).  In court circles he was knows also (apparently affectionately) as la piccola sciabola (the little sabre) a nickname actually literal in origin because the royal swordsmith had to forge a ceremonial sabre with an unusually short blade for the diminutive sovereign to wear with his many military uniforms.  His French-speaking wife (Princess Elena of Montenegro (1873–1952; Queen of Italy 1900-1946)) stood a statuesque six feet (1.8 m) tall and always called him mon petit roi (my little king).  It was a long and happy marriage and genetically helpful too, his son and successor (who enjoyed only a brief reign) very much taller although his was to be a tortured existence.  Still, in his unhappiness the scion stood tall and that would have been appreciated by the late Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921–2021) who initially approved of the marriage of Lady Diana Spencer (1960-1997) to the Prince of Wales (b 1948) on the basis that she “would breed some height into the line”.

In cosmology, the word dwarf is applied to especially small versions of celestial bodies.  A dwarf galaxy is a small galaxy of between several hundred and several billion stars, (the Milky Way may have as many as billion) and astronomers have identified many sub-types of dwarf galaxies, based on shape and composition.  A dwarf planet is a small, planetary-mass object is in direct orbit of a star, smaller than any of the eight classical planets but still a world in its own right.  Best-known dwarf planet is now Pluto which used to be a planet proper but was in 2006 unfortunately down-graded by the humorless cosmic clerks at the IAU (International Astronomical Union) who are in charge of such things.  It’s hoped one day this decision will be reversed so Pluto will again be classified a planet.  Dwarf planets are of interest to planetary geologists because despite their size, they may be geologically active bodies.  The term dwarf star was coined when it was realized the reddest stars could be classified as brighter or dimmer than our sun and they were created the categories “giant star” (brighter) and dwarf star (dimmer).  As observational astronomy improved, thing further were refined.

With the development of infrared astronomy there were refinements to the model to include (1) the dwarf star (the “generic” main-sequence star), (2) the red dwarf (low-mass main-sequence star), (3) the yellow dwarfs are (main-sequence stars with masses comparable to that of the Sun, (4) the orange dwarf (between a red dwarf and yellow/white stars), (5) the controversial blue dwarf which is a hypothesized class of very-low-mass stars that increase in temperature as they near the end of their main-sequence lifetime, (6) the white dwarf which is the remains of a dead star, composed of electron-degenerate matter and thought to be the final stage in the evolution of stars not massive enough to collapse into a neutron star or black hole, (7) the black dwarf which is theorized as a white dwarf that has cooled to the point it no longer emits visible light (it’s thought the universe is not old enough for any white dwarf to have yet cooled to black and (8) the brown dwarf, a sub-stellar object not massive enough to ever fuse hydrogen into helium, but still massive enough to fuse deuterium.

Coolest dwarf of all is (9) the ultra-cool dwarf (first defined in 1997), somewhat deceptively named for non cosmologists given the effective temperature can be as high as 2,700 K (2,430°C; 4,400°F); in space, everything is relative.  Because of their slow hydrogen fusion compared to other types of low-mass stars, their life spans are estimated at several hundred billion years, with the smallest lasting for about 12 trillion years.  As the age of the universe is thought to be only 13.8 billion years, all ultra-cool dwarf stars are relatively young and models predict that at the ends of their lives the smallest of these stars will become blue dwarfs instead of expanding into red giants.

Disney's seven dwarfs; they're now cancelled.

The events towards the conclusion of the nineteenth century German fairy tale Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs make ideal reading for young children.  Her evil step-mother has apparently killed poor Snow White so the seven disappointed dwarfs lay her body in a glass coffin.  The very next day, a handsome prince happens upon the dwarfs’ house in the forest and is so captivated by her beauty he asks to take her body back to his castle.  To this the dwarfs agree but while on the journey, a slight jolt makes Snow White come to life and the prince, hopelessly in love, proposes and Snow White accepts.  Back at the palace, the prince invites to the wedding all in the land except Snow White's evil stepmother.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, even Happy looking sad.

The step-mother however crashes the wedding and discovers the beautiful Snow White is the bride.  Enraged, she again attempts murder but the prince protects her and, learning the truth from his bride, forces the step-mother to wear a pair of red-hot iron slippers and dance in them until she dies; that takes not long and once she has the decency to drop dead, the nuptials resume.  In the way things happen in fairy tales, the prince and Snow White live happily ever after.

DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion)

The condition achondroplasiaphobia describes those with a “fear of little people".  The construct is achondroplasia (the Latin a- (not) +‎ the Ancient Greek chondro- (cartilage) + the New Latin‎ -plasia (growth); the genetic disorder that causes dwarfism) + phobia (from the New Latin, from the Classical Latin, from the Ancient Greek -φοβία (-phobía) from φόβος (phóbos) (fear).  The condition, at least to the extent of being clinically significant, is thought rare and like many of the especially irrational phobias is induced either by (1) a traumatic experience, (2) depictions in popular culture or (3) reasons unknown.  Achondroplasiaphobia has never appeared in the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).  In 2006, it was reported that while dining at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles, after noticing two people of short stature had entered the restaurant, Lindsay Lohan suffered an "anxiety attack" and hyperventilated to the extent she had to take "an anti-anxiety pill" to calm down.  To her companions she repeatedly said "I’m so scared of them!"  A spokesperson for the LPA responded by suggesting Ms Lohan should "...treat her fear the same as she would a fear of any other protected minority population.  If that fails, she might find diversity training to be useful."  Almost immediately the story appeared, it was debunked by a representative for Ms Lohan who issued a statement  saying she is not achondroplasiaphobic and not in any way scared of little people, adding "Lindsay loves all people."

Prince Charming's non-consensual kiss of Snow White on her "lips red as blood".

In February 2025, Luis Rubiales (b 1977), the former president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation was found guilty of sexual assault for kissing player Jenni Hermoso (b 1990) without her consent and was fined €10,800 so, at least in some jurisdictions, the matter of consenting to a kiss is not mere legal theory.

Among critics and industry analysts, the consensus seem to be that in late 1919 when the project was approved, for Disney to allocate a budget of US$200 million (it ended up being booked at around US$250 million) to a remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) probably was a good idea.  Based on the German fairy tale Sneewittchen which first appeared in print early in the nineteenth century, Disney’s 1937 production was the first animated, full-length feature film made in the US and it was both critically acclaimed and a great commercial success, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1938; adjusted for inflation, it’s success then and since has made it one of the most profitable films ever made.

The elements in its success were (1) the quality of the studio’s work, (2) advances in the technology delivering sight and sound which made the audience's experience so vivid and (3) the threads of the story which are fairy tale classics: A wicked queen, jealous of her stepdaughter’s beauty orders her murder, only to discover she’s hiding out in a cottage with seven dwarves so she poisons her with an adulterated apple, inducing a deep sleep from which she eventually is awoken by the kiss of a handsome prince.  In 1937, had the word “problematic” then been in use, it wouldn't have been applied to anything in the plot but by the early 2020s, things had changed.  In the pre Trump 2.0 era, when DEI (diversity, equity & inclusion) was compulsory, having Snow White gaining her name because her skin was as “white as snow” and the very existence of dwarfs were both definitely “problematic” so the challenge was to keep the “Snow White” in the title while changing troublesome content as required.  That's been done before and had the 2024 US presidential election elected someone (probably anyone) other than Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025), Snow White could have appeared in cinemas to lukewarm reviews but a solid box office based on 7-11 year old girls still impressed at Meghan Markle (Meghan, Duchess of Sussex; b 1981) having proved its not only in fairy tales that princes rescue middle-class girls from dreary lives.  Only Fox News would much have bothered with a condemnation.

Times have changed.  Whether it's Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, for a man (whether or not a prince) to kiss an unresponsive female, it's now usually some sort of assault.  An unresponsive female cannot grant consent.

So for Disney, the timing of events was unfortunate but the race and cultural controversies which swirled around the earlier remakes of Mulan (2020) and The Little Mermaid (2023) should have been a warning.  Most jarring perhaps was the absence of “dwarfs” (in the historic sense of the word).  While Snow White is of course the protagonist, in casting terms there was only one of her and seven of them so the substitution of the heptad with “magical creatures” was always going to attract a critique of its own.  According to the studio, it consulted members of the dwarfism community (the so-called “little people”) “to avoid reinforcing stereotypes” before the re-casting but, given the production was, according to many, replete with cultural, sexist and chauvinist tropes, the cancelled dwarfs received less attention than might have been expected.  With reviewers using phrases like “exhaustingly awful reboot” and “tiresome pseudo-progressive additions”, expectations of success for Snow White have been lowered.