Pencil

Pencil (pronounced pen-suhl)

(1) A slender tube, usually of wood, metal or plastic containing a core or strip of graphite (still referred to as lead) or a solid coloring material, sharpened to some extent, used for writing or drawing.

(2) A stick of cosmetic coloring material for use on the eyebrows, eyelids etc.

(3) Anything shaped or used like a pencil, as a stick of medicated material.

(4) In optics (from the seventeenth century), an aggregate or collection of rays of light, especially when diverging from or converging to a point.

(5) In geometry (from the nineteenth century), a set of geometric objects with a common property, such as the set of lines that pass through a given point in a projective plane.

(6) As a verb, "to pencil in", to schedule or list tentatively, as or as if by writing down in pencil rather than in more permanent ink.

(7) In animation, as "pencil-test", a first take of pictures, historically on black and white film stock, now emulated in software; also used to describe a test which assesses (1) the viability of bralessness (Western tradition) or (2) one's attainment of "real womanhood" (Chinese use).

(8) In medicine, a small medicated bougie (from the nineteenth century and now archaic).

(9) A paintbrush (from the fourteenth century and now archaic).

1350–1400: From the Middle English pencel (an artist’s fine brush of camel hair, used for painting, manuscript illustration etc), from the Anglo-Norman and Old French pincil (artist's paintbrush) from the Old & Middle French pincel from the Medieval Latin pincellus, from the Latin pēnicillum & pēnicillus (painter's brush, hair-pencil (literally "little tail"), a diminutive of pēniculus (brush), a diminutive of penis (tail).  It’s from the old French variant pincel that Modern French gained pinceau (paintbrush).  The verb pencil emerged early in the sixteenth century as pencellen (apply (gold or silver) in manuscript illustration) and by the 1530s was being used in the sense of “to mark or sketch with a pencil-brush”, extended to work undertaken with lead pencils from the 1760s.  Despite the obvious similarity, there is no relationship with the word pen.  The spelling pensill is long obsolete.  Pencil is a noun & verb, penciler is a noun, penciled is a verb, penciled is a verb & adjective and pencillike is an adjective; the noun plural is pencils.  The additional "l" (penciller, pencilled etc) is used in traditional British spelling.

The alluring catwalk combination of a "pencil-thin" model (note the shoulder-blade definition) & polka-dots.  The industry has “solved” the problem of the perception of models being “dangerously thin” by adding a token number of “plus-size” units to their DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) roster.  However, the agencies report the fashion houses still first select the slenderest.

Pencils are produced in quite a variety and specialized types include the carpenter's pencil, the wax (or china) pencil, and the color pencil although what’s more precisely defined are the technical descriptions based on the specification of the graphite (HB, 2B etc), used to rate darkness and hardness.  A propelling pencil is one with a replaceable and mechanically extendable lead that wears away with use, designed to provide lines of constant thickness without requiring sharpening and typically featuring a small eraser at the end opposite the tip.  Pencil pouches and pencil cases are containers in which one stores ones pencils and related items (sharpener & eraser); by convention a pouch was made of a soft material while cases tended to be fashioned from some hard substance (steel, wood, plastic etc) but the terms are used loosely.  A kohl pencil (also called an eyeliner pencil) is one with a kohl core (which can be sharpened in the usual manner) used for enhancing the eyes.  The golf pencil was originally designed for golfers and was about three inches (75 mm) in length though they’re now commonly used in situations where pencil turnover is high (election booths, gambling houses etc).

Despite the careful codification, the system of grading the lead in pencils is not an ISO.

Although in general use the ubiquitous HB has long been the default choice, pencils exist with different formulations used for the graphite (ie “the lead”) and specialists choose them according to purpose and the (almost) standardized labelling is based on the range running from “H” (hard) to “B” (soft) with HB in the middle.  That “B” (counterintuitively) means “soft: is explained by the tag being a reference to “black”: the softer the graphite mix, the blacker a pencil will write and the chemistry is simple in that clay makes the lead harder while graphite makes it softer so the more graphite, the softer and blacker the mark left.

Decoding the pencil scale

H = Hard: lighter, crisper lines; less smudging

B = Black (Soft): darker, richer lines; more smudging

F = Fine point: slightly harder than HB

HB: middle ground; the standard writing pencil

Of the tasks

HB or F: A balanced tone, good for general writing, office, or school use; not too dark or inclined to smudge.

2H to 4H: Preferred by artists and architects for creating initial or conceptual sketches and for outlining, the advantage being the light, easily erasable lines which can provide a base structure.

2B to 6B: A spectrum of soft pencils fused to produce rich, dark renderings and smooth blending; the softer the pencil, the darker and more expressive the mark.

HB to 2H: Much used in architectural designs (still a thing even in the age of CAD (computer-aided design)) and technical drawing because of the clean, precise line which can still easily be erased.

H to 6H: Produces crisp, precise lines not prone to fragmentation at the edges (ie, no smudging).

8B-9B: While the 2B-6B range is the standard “utility pencil” for shading and creating shadows, it’s the 8B-9B to which artists and others turn when very dark tones are needed.

Although it resembles the standardized classification systems used for a number of products, the pencil grading system mostly is a manufacturing convention and not an ISO administered by the International Standards Organization.  Instead, the H–B scale was developed and popularized by European manufacturers during the nineteenth century, most notably by Faber-Castell.  There is an ISO standard (ISO 9177-2) but it applies only to mechanical pencil leads and it grades only hardness, not composition; within IS0 9177-2 manufacturers may still use the H-B grading system because strict physical specifications for the lead’s mix are not included and that means a 2B mechanical pencil from one manufacturer may be darker or softer than a 2B from another.  What that means is there’s no universal calibration; it’s a relative system, consistent within a brand but variable across brands.  With a long history of calligraphy, writing instruments are go great cultural significance in Japan and the Japanese domestic standard (JIS S6004) reflects the tradition of use, Japanese pencils tending to be slightly softer than their Western equivalents for the same grade.

School pencils are a useful way to convey important messages to children.

The "pencil skirt" is a close-fitting garment which classically was knee to calf length.  In explosives, a "pencil detonator" (also as "time pencil") is a timed fuse designed to be connected to a detonator or short length of safety fuse.  "Pencil-thin" is a term (historically one of admiration but of late also used negatively) for an especially slender woman but it can be applied to any thin object (synonymous with "stick-thin", thought a clipping of the earlier zoological reference "stick insect thin").  The phrase "power of the pencil" is from professional gambling and refers to an authority to charge a punter's gambling or other bills to the casino (the house).  The "lead in one's pencil" is slang which referencing the state of erection of one's penis; to "put the lead into one’s pencil" referred to some form of stimulation which induced such an erection (including presumably the sight of an attractive, pencil-thin woman).  To "pencil something in" is to make a tentative booking or arrangement (on the notion of being erasable as opposed to using ink which suggests permanence or something confirmed); the phrase has been in use only since 1942.  The derogatory slang "pencil-pusher" (office worker) dates from 1881; prior to that such folk had since 1820 been called "pen-drivers", the new form reflecting the arrival at scale of mass-produced pencils.  The derogatory "pencil neck" (weak person) was first noted in 1973 while "pencil dick" (a penis of a girth judged inadequate or a man with such an organ) is documented in US slang since 1962.

Lindsay Lohan in pencil skirts: The pencil skirt can be thought the companion product to the bandage dress; while a bandage dress ends usually above the knee (the more pleasing sometimes far above) a pencil skirt typically falls to the knee or is calf-length.  If one is in fishnet stockings, an "above-the-knee" cut seems at least desirable, if not essential. 

Technical terms for the grips with which a pencil is held.

The test pencil is a device with a small bulb or other form of illumination which lights up when an active current is detected.  Available in many voltages (the most common being 12, 24, 48 (for automotive and other low-voltage applications) and 110/120 & 220/240v), they work either by direct contact with the wire through which the current passes or (through the insulation) as a proximity device.  The "test pencil" should not be confused with the "pencil test" which is either (1) in animation, an early version of an animated scene, consisting of rough sketches that are photographed or scanned (now overtaken by technology which emulates the process in software and almost obsolete but the term is still used by graphic artists to describe conceptual sketches or rough takes), (2) in apartheid-era South Africa, a method of determining racial identity, based on how easily a pencil pushed through a person's hair could be removed and (3) a test to determine the necessity (some concede on the advisability) of wearing a bra, based on whether a pencil placed in the infra-mammary fold (ie the "underboob") stays in place with no assistance (which sounds standardized but sources vary about whether a pencil test should be performed with the arms by the side or raised, the choice sometimes affected the result.

The Pencil Test

The pencil test: In the West this photograph would be graded "fail"; in China it’s a "pass", an example of "cultural specificity".

Although it sounds a quintessentially TikTok thing and did trend in 2016, the year the Chinese version of TikTok was released, re-purposing of the pencil test by Chinese women as the “true womanhood” test actually pre-dated the platform.  Like the best trends it was quick and simple and required only the most basic piece of equipment: a pencil (although a pen or any tube with the diameter of a classic pencil would do).  The procedure was the classic pencil test used to determine the viability of going braless but, unlike the occidental original where the pencil falling to the ground was graded a “pass”, in the oriental version, that’s a “fail”, the implement having to sit securely in place to prove one is “a real woman”.  Millions of images were uploaded to Chinese social media channels as proof challenge had been passed; this presumably will assist in ensuring one doesn’t become a leftover woman.

The Flying Pencil

Prototype Dornier 17 V1, 1934.

One of terms of the Treaty of Versailles (1919), imposed on Germany after the World War I (1914-1918) was it was denied the right to military aviation.  Those familiar with the operations of sanctions in the twenty-first century will not be surprised that within a few years, there were significant developments in German civil aviation including gliding clubs which would provide the early training of many pilots who would subsequently join the Luftwaffe, even before the open secret of the organization’s existence formerly was acknowledged in 1935.  Additionally, under well-concealed arrangements with Moscow, German pilots underwent training in the Soviet Union, one of the many programmes in a remarkably flourishing industry of military exchanges undertaken even during periods of notable political tension.  In those years, the German aircraft industry also had its work-arounds, sometimes undertaking research, development and production in co-operation with manufacturers in other countries and sometime producing aircraft notionally for civil purposes but which could easily re-purposed for military roles.  An example was the Dornier Do 17, nicknamed the “flying pencil” in an allusion to the slender fuselage.

Battle of Britain era Dornier Do17 E, 1940.

In 1934, Dornier’s initial description of the Do 17 as a passenger plane raised a few eyebrows in air ministries around the continent but in an attempt to lend the ruse a (thin) veneer of truth, the company submitted the design to Deutsche Luft Hansa (which became the modern carrier Lufthansa), the airline admiring the speed and flying characteristics but rejecting the proposal on the reasonable grounds the flying pencil had hardly any room for passengers.  To all observers, the thing was obviously a prototype bomber and one of the fastest and most advanced in the world but to maintain the subterfuge, Dornier instead claimed it was now a “fast mail transport”.  That fooled few but so soon after the Great War, there was little appetite in Europe for confrontation so Dornier was able to continue to develop the Do 17 as a bomber, adding a glazed nose, provision for internal armament and an internal bomb bay.

Dornier Do 217 E, 1943.

The deployment as part of the Condor Legion in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) provided valuable information in both battle tactics and the need for enhanced defensive armaments and it was these lessons which were integrated into the upgraded versions which formed a part of the Luftwaffe’s bomber and reconnaissance forces at the start of World II.  They provided useful service in the early campaigns against Poland, Norway & the Low Countries but the limitations were exposed when squadrons were confronted by the advanced eight-gun fighters of the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the Battle of Britain (July-September 1940).  However, in the absence of a better alternative, they played an important part in the early successes Germany enjoyed in the invasion of the Soviet Union but such was the rapidity of art-time technological advances that by 1942 the Do 17 was obsolescent and withdrawn from front-line service, relegated to training and other ancillary roles.  The slim frame which had in 1934 helped provide the flying pencil with its outstanding performance now became a limitation, preventing further development even as a night-fighter, the role assigned in those years to many airframes no longer suitable for daytime operations.  Its successor, the Do 217 was notably fatter in the fuselage but even it was soon rendered obsolete and by 1944 had been withdrawn from front-line service.

Mohammed Rafieh's extraordinary Persian pencil place

A COVID-19 era Mohammed Rafieh at work in Medad Rafi, located in the vast bazaar which sits between the two mosques in Tehran's district 15.

Mohammed Rafieh opened Medad Rafi in Tehran in 1990, specializing in color pencils, a description which is no exaggeration.  Although his inventory numbers in the thousands, Mr Rafieh has no need for databases, barcodes or lists of part-numbers, having committed to memory the place of every pencil in his shop, his stock said to include every color known to be available anywhere in the world.  Medad (مداد) is Persian for pencil and Rafi the affectionate diminutive of Rafieh so in translation the shop is thus "Rafi's Pencils"; never has Mr Rafieh been accused of misleading advertising.

Mr Rafieh at work.

The essential accessory: Of the pencil sharpener

The pencil in its familiar, mass-produced form is surprisingly modern.  Quills made from bird feathers and small brushes with bristles from a variety of creatures were used long before chalk or lead pencils.  Sticks of pure graphite (commonly (if chemically inaccurately) known as "black lead") were used in England for marking writing instruments from the mid sixteenth century while the wooden enclosure was a contemporary innovation from the Continent and it seems to have been in this era the word pencil was transferred from a type of brush to the newly encapsulated "graphite writing implement".  The modern clay-graphite mix, essentially little different to that still in use, was developed in the early nineteenth century, mass-production beginning in mid century, something made possible by the availability of cheap, precision machine tools.  The inventor of the handy innovation of an eraser being attached to the end opposite the sharpened lead was granted a patent in 1858.  Some like these on pencils and some don't.

Pencil sharpeners of increasing complexity.  Unless one has specific needs, the old ways are usually the best.

The modern pencil also encouraged the development of the pencil sharpener, one of the world's most simple machines and something which really hasn't been improved upon although over the last century an extraordinary array of mechanical and electro-mechanical devices have been offered (some so wondrously complex it's suspected they existed just to flaunt the engineering although they do make fine gifts for nerds; it's likely nerds do prefer pencils to pens).  Apparently first sold commercially in 1854 (prior to than a hand-held blade of some sort would have been the usual method), some have been intriguing and imaginative designs which sometimes found their specialized niche but none sharpen a pencil better than the cheapest and most simple.  Even now, if one has paper, the creation of just about anything in theoretical physics, poetry or literature demands little equipment beyond pencil, paper, sharpener & eraser.  

The Faber-Castell production process.

The pencil as collectable relic

Lot 278: Four volumes of Roget's International Thesaurus.

Pencils can be collectables if their provenance adequately is documented.  Doyle’s in New York on 18 June 2024 conducted an auction of some items from the estate of US composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim (1930–2021), attracting dealers, collectors & Sondheim devotees and Lot 278 was indicative of the strength of bidding: four (well worn) volumes of Roget's International Thesaurus.  Although one was from the first printing (June 1946), it lacked a dust jacket and came with library markings and a “Withdrawn” stamp.  None of those offered were rarities (reflected in the pre-sale estimate of US$200-300) but the hammer fell at an impressive US$25,600.  The stationery freaks (it really is quite a thing) were also in the crowd, a signed spiral notebook selling for what one commentator called “a startling US$15,360.”

Lot 275: Three boxes of Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602 pencils.  The Blackwing was not cylindrical so, like a "carpenter's pencil", it was less prone to rolling onto the floor.  Decades after the pencils entered the market, there would be a Cadillac Blackwing V8, a notable piece of engineering doomed by its high cost. 

What was most surprising though was the fate of Lot 275: “Three boxes of vintage Blackwing 602 pencils (Circa 1940s-1950s).  Three blue boxes printed with "Eberhard Faber/Blackwing/Feathery-Smooth Pencils, two of the boxes complete with 12 pencils, one with 8 only (together 32 pencils).  Some wear to the boxes and drying of the erasers.”  Sondheim was a devoted Blackwing user, telling one interviewer: “I use Blackwing pencils. Blackwings.  They don’t make ’em any more, and luckily, I bought a lot of boxes of ’em.  They’re very soft lead.  They’re not round, so they don’t fall off the table, and they have removable erasers, which unfortunately dry out."  The pencils sold for US$6,400 against a pre-sale estimate of US$600-800.

The pencils were an example of how critical is provenance in the collectables market.  In June 2023, Bloomfield Auctions in east Belfast, Northern Ireland, held a “specialist” sale focused “militaria, police and important Irish historical items”, one entry with a pre-sale estimate of US$65,000-100,000 being Lot 148: “An engraved, silver-plated pencil, believed to have been a 52nd birthday present (20 April 1941) from Eva Braun (1912–1945) to Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945).  On the day, the pencil sold for US$6,900.

The lower than expected price may have been the result of doubts being cast on the authenticity of the item’s claimed history.  Technically, Lot 148 was a mid-20th-century mechanical pencil, of white metal (presumably one with a high nickel content) and silver-plated, engraved along one louvered side facet with the inscription: ZUM 20 APRIL 1941 HERZLICHST EVA.  That’s an abbreviated form of phrase typically used on occasions such as birthdays, the brevity necessitated by the surface area with which the engraver had to work, the pencil only some 3¼ inches (82.5 mm) long.  Deconstructed, the sentence fragment begins with the preposition “to” and a contracted, inflected article of speech, “the” expressed in the dative case.  Zum is literally “To the...”, understood as “Upon the...”.  So, the signatory (“Eva”) is marking the occasion the birthday on 20 April 1941, the inherent formality of form what one would expect in a gift to a head of state though perhaps not one from a lover.  However, the very existence of the relationship between the Führer and the woman who later briefly would be Frau Hitler was unknown beyond his court circle and it may have been even the jeweller wasn’t to be given a hint; the exact (physical) nature of their relationship remains a mystery.  However, the word herzlichst is from the root noun Herz (heart) and as an adjective or adverb, herzlich, is often used in the sense of “heartful” or “heartfelt” which at least suggests something intimate and the –st suffix operates to create a superlative, which if literally translated (“most heartful” or “most heartfelt”) sounds in English like something which might be used ironically or cynically but there’s nothing to suggest it should be understood as anything but something like: On the occasion of the 20th April, 1941, most heartfully, Eva.

The "Hitler" Pencil top.

The provenance of the pencil however proved controversial, something not helped by the anonymity of the seller and the lack of any documentary trail which might have helped confirm the veracity of the back-story.  While one could speculate any number of the life the pencil may have led over the decades, no evidence was offered.  The sale also attracted criticism which is increasingly heard when auction houses offer any of the militaria, memorabilia and ephemera connected with Hitler or the Nazis in general.  Although such objects have for decades been collectables there’s now more resistance to the notion of profits being derived from the trade in what is, in some sense, “the commemoration of evil” and the Chairman of the European Jewish Association had called for the pencil to be withdrawn from sale, issuing a statement in which he called the auction part of a “…macabre trade in items belonging to mass murderers, the motives of those buying them are unknown and may glorify the actions of the Nazis, and lastly, their trade is an insult to the millions who perished, the few survivors left, and to Jews everywhere.”  The president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews described the sale as “…distressing, disturbing and hugely disrespectful”, arguing that even if of historical significance “…these items have no place in our country other than inside the walls of a museum or other institution where they can be used to teach about the results of anti-Semitism.”

1938 Mercedes-Benz 770K (W150) Cabriolet F, a seven passenger tourer & parade car, pictured here with the folding soft-top in sedanca de ville configuration.

There is still some tolerance for the trade in items which would otherwise anyway be collectables (such as the Mercedes-Benz 770Ks (W07 (1930-1938) & W150 (1938-1943), many of which when offered are claimed (dubiously and not) to have some association with Hitler) and for anything of genuine historical significance (such as diplomatic papers) but the circulation of mere ephemera with some Nazi link is increasingly being condemned as macabre and the higher the prices paid, the more distasteful it's alleged to be.  A spokesman for Bloomfield Auctions defended the inclusion of such items in the sale, arguing they “…preserve a piece of our past and should be treated as historical objects, no matter if the history they refer to was one of the darkest and most controversial in recorded history.”, adding “We do not seek to cause hurt or distress to any one or any part of society” and that buyers typically were “legitimate collectors who have a passion for history… all items are a part of history, and we shouldn't be writing history out of books or society.”

Pencil sculpture by Russian artist Salavat Fidai (b 1972).

Dick-pic & Slot-shot

Dick-pic (pronounced dik-pik)

A picture of a human’s penis, if taken and disseminated in a certain context.

Dick became the pet-form name circa 1550 (though some etymologists suspect it had earlier been in use) for Richard via being the rhyming nickname for Rick, Richard's original affectionate diminutive.  Richard being (1) among the commonest English names and (2) exclusively male, it quickly become a synonym for "fellow; lad" and thereby a generally used word to refer to men, individually and collectively; from this connection came the use of dick as slang for that exclusively male body part.  Anything claimed to be an authoritative list of the slang senses must be viewed with scepticism because many forms are very old and the surviving written records are not a comprehensive catalogue of what was often an exclusively oral dialect so the date of origin is uncertain.  The meaning "penis" is attested from 1891 in a dictionary of farmer's slang and was said (predictably) to have been well-known British army slang but, perhaps regionally, the use could date back a century or more.  Most sources note "dick" in this context is thought now less offensive than once it was but for those still disturbed, there's a goodly number of alternatives. 

Pic of Dick Face: The Honorable Richard Face (1943-2023), former New South Wales (NSW) minister of gaming & racing (1995-2003).

The vulgar slang nouns dickhead & dickface (a stupid or contemptible person) are attested only from circa 1969 so Richard Face’s parents can't be accused of making what might now be thought an unwise choice.  Interestingly, although presumably not unaware of the linguistic possibilities his name offered, Richard Face was either indifferent or saw some political advantage in brand-name awareness because he chose to remain a Richard (and, by implication, a "Dick") despite being christened Jack Richard Face.  Whether he ran the usual focus groups to find which worded best (Dick Face or Jack Face) isn't known.  In time, he did live up to his name, in 2004 fined Aus$2500 an given a three-year good behaviour bond for lying to the NSW Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC), the magistrate's rationale for not imposing a custodial sentence being (1) he was no longer a police officer and therefore "not directly involved in the administration of justice", (2) had an "exemplary record of public service", (3) had been under stress, was depressed and a heavy drinker at the time of his lie, (4) had shown remorse and pleaded guilty, (5) had "not committed perjury" or "sworn false evidence" and (6) "did not engage in persistently false swearing over sustained periods of time."

Pic of Richard Face the cat.

Pic was first recorded circa 1885 as a shortening of picture (image, likeness, photo, etc).  Picture was from the Middle English pycture, from the Old French picture, from the Latin pictūra (the art of painting, a painting), from pingō (I paint); a doublet of pictura.  The plural is pics but pix is common in casual & commercial use so the accepted alternative plural of dick-pics would be dick-pix.  The linguistically fastidious used to be troubled by spellings which respected only the pronunciation (pix, nite, lite, luv etc) but even before the internet their use in advertising and brand names had made them so common the battle obviously was lost.  In structural linguistics, the technical term for such words is “eye dialect”, used to describe a deliberate misspelling of words to suggest a particular pronunciation, dialect, or informal tone, even though the intended pronunciation remains the same.  The use (apart from alternative spellings or misspellings which would have predated the modern practice) seems to have been popularized (and to some extent thus legitimized) in commerce for purposes of advertising or branding and from here it was picked up in casual writing where it can impart variously feelings of playfulness or the "modern".  The Ford Ka (1996–2021) and Chevrolet Cruze (2008–2023) were both named using the technique and familiar examples include Krispy Kreme, Dunkin’ Donuts and Froot Loops but it was also a literary device in fiction as early as the nineteenth century, used by Mark Twain (1835-1910) to evoke Southern American speech patterns and Charles Dickens (1812–1870) to summon the sound of what was perceived as “typical” working-class speech.  George Bernard Shaw (GBS; 1856-1950), a proponent of the internationalist Esperanto language and often (understandably) critical of English spelling rules, in Pygmalion (1913) used phonetic spellings not only to reflect variations in diction and accents but also to contrast the difference between “proper” and informal speech, a central theme of the play.  In modern use, because the forms often use fewer characters, the practice became a staple of texting (SMS; short message service) which for a certain demographic in the now distant pre-social media, pre-smartphone era became the preferred means of communication.    

Slot-shot (pronounced slot-shot)

A picture of a human female’s genitalia, if taken and disseminated in a certain context.

Slot in the sense of a "bar or bolt used to fasten a door, window etc" entered Middle English circa 1300 from the Middle Dutch or Middle Low German slot, from the Old High German sloz & German Schloss (bolt, bar, lock, castle), from the Proto-Germanic stem slut- (to close).  The anatomical use to describe the "hollow at the base of the throat above the breastbone" was a late fourteenth century adoption from the Old French esclot (hoof-print of a deer or horse) of uncertain origin, but this sense is probably obsolete except in historic references.  Slot meaning a "a narrow, elongated depression, groove, notch, slit, or aperture, especially a narrow opening for receiving or admitting something" dates from the 1520s, the idea later developed to suggest putting something "where it belongs" but this seems to have been adopted only in the mid-1960s.

Shot (in the sense of the firing of a bow (later applied to firearms etc)) was from pre-900 Middle English, from the Old English sc(e)ot & (ge)sceot and was cognate with the German Schoss & Geschoss.  It was related to the Old Norse skot and the Old High German scoz (missile).  The sense of shot as the "view from a camera" isn't attested until 1958 although it had been used in the cinematic sense since 1922 to describe the process of recording movies (mov(ing picture) + -ies) since 1922 and may thus have enjoyed earlier use.  As used to refer to individual pictures, printed usually on cardboard or special photographic paper, it dates from the late 1930s, the specialized use in law enforcement (as mugshot) began in the US in 1950.

Of context

A “Liz & Dick pic”: Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) & Grant Bowler (b 1968) during the filming of Liz & Dick (2012), a “biopic” of the famously tempestuous relationship between the actors Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) & Richard Burton (1925–1984).  The car is a Mercedes-Benz 600 (W100; 1963-1981) four-door Pullman with the vis-a-vis seating.  The flag-staffs (fitted in this instance above the front wheel arches) were usually fitted to cars used by the governments or the corps diplomatique.

The dick-pic, the practice of someone (usually male) sending another (usually female) an unsolicited picture of (what is usually their own) penis isn’t a recent invention but the extraordinary latter day spike in the numbers sent is a genuine cultural phenomenon.  It’s socially and technologically deterministic, something made possible by (1) the permissive social attitude of the participating demographic, (2) the ubiquity of their possession of high-definition cameras, (3) the removal from the process of third-parties (especially those who once developed and printed the physical images), (4) the extent of digital connectivity between members of the demographic and (5), the marginal financial cost of the transactions.  It’s an interesting development in that in the West, the history of the depiction of nudity is overwhelmingly female so “pictures of genitalia sent by phone” is a genre in the annals of the nude (technically probably the naked) untypically dominated by the male body.

Generally uncontroversial if either requested or welcomed by a recipient with whom an appropriate level of emotional capital has already been built, dick-pics are notorious for the negative emotions induced in those receiving them as something unsolicited and unwelcome.  So, unless the intention is actually to shock, offend or upset (and among the demographic, that is sometimes a thing) they’re best avoided; good rarely seems to come of them and in some jurisdictions, there are circumstances in which sending a dick-pic can be an offence which can result in the sender being placed for life on a sex-offender’s register; it depends on the context.

Dick-pic detail from Michelangelo Buonarroti’s (1475–1564) David (1501-1504), Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence.

Michelangelo’s David, a six-ton, 17-foot (5.2 m) tall symbol of divine victory over evil is art as a sculpture or in depiction and, despite the visible penis, in the West is usually thought not obscene.  In another context it can be, the erection of some inventive interior decorating required to conceal the offensive bits when a 3D-printed replica was displayed at the 2021 Dubai Expo.  It happens in the West too.  In the nineteenth century the Grand Duke of Tuscany presented Queen Victoria with a full-sized replica of the original which she found so confronting that hurriedly a proportionally accurate fig leaf was crafted, kept in readiness for any royal visits to be hung from two strategically placed hooks.  Even in the twenty-first century, replicas have attracted complaints, the argument being the context of a museum which people choose to visit being different for places where encounters may happen by chance.  Obscenity and offensiveness thus are situational constructs and a dick-pic exchanged between consenting adults is different from discovered in other circumstances; it depends on the context.

The SSSSS: Svakom Siime Sex Selfie Stick.

It’s assumed because there are few reports of women sending pics of their genitalia that the practice is notably less common than the dick-pic and while that’s not an accepted way to draw a definitive conclusion from two data sets, few doubt it’s true.  There are surely many reasons that’s the case and the paucity of examples is probably the reason a standardized female equivalent of “dick-pic” seems not to have evolved.  Suggestions have included “gash-flash”, “trap-snap” and “clamagram” but the most phonetically pleasing are probably “pussy-portrait” and “slot-shot”, the latter a metaphor which references the slot on a machine which is a perfect fit for coins of a certain denomination.  For women who find artistically limiting the idea of a static slot-shot, for US$149, there’s the Svakom Siime Sex Selfie Stick (SSSSS), a USB-rechargeable video-recorder-vibrator which offers, especially for those with basic video-editing skills, the chance to create a clip of an organism from the inside.  Thus the "clit-clip", a bit of digital one-upmanship (that may not be quite the right noun) on any "dick-pic".  

Available in violet, khaki & black, she can be connected to the USB port of a PC or Mac and there's a downloadable app for MacOS, Windows (XP SP2 onwards), iOS and Android.  The camera is a seemingly modest .3 megapixel unit but given the environment in which she'll be operating, that's more than adequate; videos are saved in the familiar mp4 format, the product & software manuals are both downloadable and there's an instructional video on the Svakom website.  Whisper-quiet to ensure privacy, battery-life is said to be around two hours of "continuous use" so one can understand why women might prefer such a device to most men.  The manufacturer refers to the SSSSS as "she" rather than "he" (or even "it"), an interesting assignment of notional gender given the anatomical emulation.

L'Origine du monde (The Origin of the World (1866)), oil on canvas by Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

The recumbent female has, off and on, been a staple of Western art since Antiquity but there was something about French artist’s Gustave Courbet’s L'Origine du monde which was so provocative that publicly, it wasn’t exhibited for 120 years.  A slot-shot writ large, it’s still a work which many institutions avoid, even those sanguine about female nudity (and nakedness) in artistic and other contexts, one columnist noting recently the painting “… if indeed it can be called erotic…” was “…still unsuitable for publication in a paper with a general readership.”  Perhaps it’s because it so differs from the long traditions of the nude, a study more gynecological than artistic or maybe it’s the lush and untended growth of pubic hair, something which seems often to disturb though it may be anatomically accurate: One Russian gynecologist was asked whether the model was a virgin and, after casting his professional eye, answered with an emphatic “Nyet”.  There’s also the objectification, the decapitation of the subject reducing the work somehow to a slot-shottish case-study for the male gaze, a reductionism which has for decades attracted criticism from feminists.  When depictions of L'Origine du monde have appeared in bookshops and galleries, there’s often been controversy, sometimes requiring the summoning of the gendarmerie although the Musée d'Orsay reports the work appears on one of their gift-shop’s best-selling post-cards so there's that.

The head presumptive (publicized in 2013).

Commissioned by Ottoman-Egyptian diplomat Halil Şerif Pasha (Khalil Bey 1831-1879) as an addition to his famous collection of erotica, ever since first it was seen, historians of art have debated among themselves the identity of the model, their short-list with some glee referred to as Les suspects habituels de Gustave (Gustave’s usual suspects).  No conclusion has ever been agreed although the factions promote their theories, one based on an analysis of the joining edges of the respective canvases, an allegedly matching upper-section displayed in 2013.  The Musée d'Orsay issued a statement saying L'Origine du monde is, as it exists, a complete work and not part of a larger whole.  The mystery continues.

Highlight of Coastal Carolina University vs East Carolina University, Clark-LeClair Stadium, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, 8 March, 2025. 

There are also “butt pics”.  In March 2025 a user posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) a clip from ESPN’s coverage of a baseball game between Coastal Carolina University and East Carolina University (Coastal Carolina won 9-11-1 to 1-6-0) which showed two women, one snapping what quickly was described as a “butt-pic” of the other.  Almost instantly viral, the tweet gained more than 10 million views, numbers the ESPN programmers doubtless wish college baseball could generate.  The two protagonists were said to be “not identified” but presumably promotional opportunities on Instagram and TikTok beckon and there may soon be OnlyFans accounts.

Facade

Facade (pronounced fuh-sahd or fa-sahd)

(1) In architecture, the front of a building, especially an imposing or decorative one; any side of a building facing a public way or space and finished accordingly.

(2) By extension, the face or front (most visible side) of any other thing.

(3) Figuratively, a superficial appearance or illusion of something; a deceptive or insincere outward appearance; a front.

(4) In computing (object-oriented programming), a structural design pattern that provides an object that is a simplified interface to a larger body of code, such as a class library.

1650–1660: From the sixteenth century French façade, from the Italian facciata (the front of a building), from the Upper Italian faciada & facciata, derivations of faccia (front; face), from the Vulgar Latin facia from the Classical Latin facies (face).  The French façade, appears still to be an accepted alternative spelling and one popular with architects.  The figurative use dates from 1845.  Facade, facadectomy and facadism are nouns and facadal is an adjective; the noun plural is facades.

Neoclassicism in eighteenth century architecture

Neoclassicism (new classicism (from the Latin classicus (highest; best)), refers to an eighteenth and early-nineteenth century movement which took inspiration from Greece between the eighth and fourth centuries BC and Rome between the fifth and first.  The revival was expressed in art, literature, philosophy, history, music, and, most memorably, architecture.  Neoclassicism could not exactly replicate the works of antiquity.  Because only fragments remained, either as ruins or (perhaps not entirely reliable) depictions of what was built by the earlier civilizations, the world imagined was a construct, an idea of what once was.  This did mean neoclassicism tended often to adopt the few, most dramatic motifs which survived either in the representational record or as crumbling remains, a movement, at least initially, driven more by idealism than reality.  It was another example of the West’s enduring reverence for the ancient world and its supposed sublimity of form, neoclassicism serving what was perhaps the myth of classical perfection.

Facade of Chiswick House (1729), London, a villa built and designed by Richard Boyle (third Earl of Burlington (1694-1753)) in the Neo-Palladian style (a European school which followed the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580).

Classical revivalism actually began during the Renaissance, some four centuries earlier, renaissance (rebirth) translating historically as the rebirth in Europe of the spirit of Ancient Greece and Rome.  However, eighteenth century Europe saw the Age of Enlightenment, transforming philosophy, politics, society & culture and the new science of archaeological excavation which led to astonishing discoveries such as the largely intact Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, buried after a volcanic eruption in 79 AD.  From these ruins, it was found the societies of antiquity were technologically more sophisticated and their art more extraordinary than once thought and the discoveries sparked renewed interest and as part of the research effort, a less idealized view of the past evolved.

A McMansion which features at least one element a architect would describe as a facade and (possibly) a sub-facade.  However, being a McMansion, it may appear on the plan as a "Demi-Façade".

With the rise of Romanticism in the nineteenth century, neoclassicism fell from fashion but it didn’t die and elements continue to be interpolated into modern architecture although, the borrowing of aspects usually rendered on large scale and applying them to relatively small-scale suburban houses is unfortunate though many critics think it no worse that the mash-up of motifs, neoclassical and otherwise, which appear on McMansions.  The noun facadism is a technical term from architecture and structural engineering which describes (1) the practice of retaining only the facade of an old building when redeveloping a site (something often required by heritage legislation) and (2) in building construction, a technique where the facade is designed to be constructed independently of the rest of the building (a modular approach which not only can mean a cheaper build but also one which permits a much easier “updating” or “refreshing” of the appearance, conceptually (though not structurally) analogous with a surgical facelift.  The noun facadectomy probably began as humorous in-house slang among architects and builders but is now accepted as a standard word, something doubtlessly assisted by the frequency with which facadectomies are latterly performed.  On the model of appendectomy (The surgical procedure for the removal of the vermiform appendix) etc, it describes either (1) the removal (and sometimes replacement) of a building's facade or (2) the retention of a building's facade behind which a new structure is built after the original building is demolished.

Lindsay Lohan in front of the Louvre, Paris, March, 2015.

Architects point out that regardless of the way dictionaries tend to describe the things, a facade is not simply "the front or outward facing surface of a structure" and that to be defined as such one must in some way be separate from the structure in that were it to be removed, the building would still stand.  That might deprive the building of it aesthetic appeal and even let in the wind and rain but it would remain standing.  In that, the architects' precision is closely aligned also with the way the word is used figuratively of people or institutions.  Depending on how one deconstructs, the Louvre has a facade, a multi-piece facade or a number of facades whereas the Louvre Pyramid has none at all; it is a unitary structure.  Like the Eiffel Tower which in the years immediately after its erection was much derided (especially by Parisians), the pyramid was much criticized but opinion seems to be softening; either the disapproving are dying off or they're coming at least to tolerate it.