Buffalo

Buffalo (pronounced buhf-uh-loh)

(1) An animal from the subtribe Bubalina, also known as true buffalos, such as the Cape buffalo, Syncerus caffer, or the water buffalo, Bubalus bubalis.

(2) A related North American animal, the American bison (zoologically incorrect but in use thus since the 1630s).

(3) An ellipsis of buffalo robe.

(4) As the buffalo fish, the Ictiobus spp.

(5) In numismatic slang, a clipping of Buffalo nickel (a copper–nickel five-cent piece struck by the US Mint 1913-1938) and still (rarely) used of nickels.

(6) In numismatic slang, a clipping of “American buffalo” (a gold bullion coin), still used by collectors.

(7) A locality name most prevalent in North America, the Lake Erie port in western New York, the best-known,

(8) A shuffling tap-dance step (associated with the popular song “Shuffle Off to Buffalo”, from the musical film 42^nd Street (1933).

(9) As “buffaloed by”, to be puzzled or baffled; to be confused or mystified.

(10) As “to buffalo”, to impress or intimidate by a display of power, importance etc.

(11) To hunt buffalo (archaic).

(12) To assault (historically, to “pistol-whip”).

1535–1545: An early Americanism (replacing buffel, from the French, noted since the 1510s), from the Spanish or Portuguese búfalo (water buffalo), from the Italian buffalo, from Late Latin būfalus (an alteration of the Classical Latin būbalus (wild ox)), from the Ancient Greek βούβαλος (boúbalos).  The Greek form was originally the name of a kind of African antelope, later used of a type of domesticated ox in southern Asia and the Mediterranean lands.  I’s a word of uncertain origin and the elements may include bous (ox, cow, from the primitive Indo-European root gwou- (ox, bull, cow) but it may be a Greek folk-etymology.  The use of “buffalo” to describe the American bison is a mistake dating from the 1630s and it has endured so long as to become institutionalized.  The other Germanic words (the Dutch buffel, the German Büffel, the Danish böffel etc) are from the French while the Russian buivolu, the Polish bujwoł and the Bulgarian bivol came from the Medieval Latin.  The “Buffalo gnat” was first recorded in 1822 while the term “Buffalo chip” (dung of the American bison used as a fuel) was in use by at least the 1840s.  The origin of the name of the city Buffalo in western New York is disputed, not least because there were never any bison in close proximity to the place.  It may have been based on the name of a native American (ie Red Indian) chief or a corruption of the French beau fleuve (beautiful river).  The use of “buffalo” as a verb meaning “alarm” was documented early in the twentieth century and is probably related to the tendency of the beasts to mass panic.  In many fields, “buffalo” is used as a modifier for many words.  The old synonym buffle is extinct.  Buffalo is a noun & verb, buffaloed & buffaloing are (informal) verbs and buffaloish (non-standard) & buffalo-like are adjectives; the noun plural is buffaloes or buffalos but if used collectively (ie of a herd) buffalo is the usual spelling.  The common collective noun for a group of buffalo is “herd” although “gang” is a recorded US regionalism and some prefer the more evocative “obstinacy”, the label gained by virtue of the beast’s well-documented quality of stubbornness.

Classy Leather’s illustration of the difference in texture between bison and buffalo leather.

The clipping “buff” also tracked a varied path.  Predictably, the word seems first to have been simply a short form of “buffalo” but by the 1560s traders were using it to describe the thick, soft leather obtained from the hides of the creatures which were being slaughtered by the million although then it was almost always spelled “buffe” (ie as “buffe leather”) from the French buffle.  Buff was by the 1780s used generally to describe a “light brownish-yellow” color, based on the hue assume by the buffalo leather in its process form and as early as circa 1600 the old association of “hide” with “skin” led to the phrase “in the buff” (naked), strengthened by buff leather and pale human skin being similar in hue.  Over time, “buff naked" emerged and this morphed into "buck naked," possibly influenced by use of the word “buck” which, in American slang, had been used to refer to male deer, Native Americans, or African-American men in certain contexts. The exact etymological connection is debated, but “buck” here may have been used to evoke an image of primal or raw naturalism.  The evolution continued and by the early nineteenth century there was also “butt naked” obviously more explicit and descriptively accessible to a modern audience, emphasizing the state of stark nudity by referencing the buttocks.  It’s now the most popular of the three slang forms.  All three are unrelated to the use of “buff” to mean “polish a metal to a high gloss”, that based on the original “buffing cloths” being off-cuts of a “buff-coat” (a military overcoat originally made from the hide).  A tool for this purpose is often still called “a buff”.  The noting of “polishing up” by “buffing” was taken up in video gaming (especially role-playing) where it meant “to make a character or an item stronger or more capable”.

Jessica Simpson.

The use of buff to mean “an enthusiast for something with a great knowledge of the topic” (eg Ferrari buff (a very devoted crew); film buff (an obsessive lot who take things very seriously); Lindsay Lohan buff (a calling for some)) was related to the color.  Since the 1820s New York City’s volunteer fire-fighters since had been issued buff-colored protective clothing and their image of daring with more than a whiff of danger in the 1890s attracted a following among young men who cherish ambitions to be firemen some day.  This manifested them rushing to the sites of fires at any time of the day or night, just so they could watch the firemen at work, fighting the fire.  There is something about fire which attracts some and in Australia, where bush firs have always been a feature of the hot, dry seasons, there have been cases of volunteer fire-fighters starting fires, apparently just so they can experience the thrill of extinguishing them; fire being fire, sometimes things end very badly.  As early as 1903 the New York Sun was referring to these enthusiasts (had it been later they might have been called “fire groupies”) as “the buffs” and from this use cam the idea of a “buff” being someone devoted to anything although there’s now more often the implication of “great knowledge of the topic).  In the UK military (mostly in plural) a “Buff” was a member of the Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment (1572-1961)) and in numismatic slang, a “buff” was a clipping of Buffalo nickel (a copper–nickel five-cent piece struck by the US Mint 1913-1938.).  In UK slang, Buff also meant “a member of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes” (which is sort of like the Freemasons but without the plotting and scheming”).  The finger food “Buffalo wings” made famous by the admirable Jessica Simpson (b 1980) gained the name because they were first served in 1964 at Frank & Teressa's Anchor Bar on Main Street, Buffalo.  Ms Simpson’s confusion about the dish (made with chicken wings) may have been caused by them often appearing on menus as “buffalo wings) with no initial capital.

The BUFF.

In USAF (US Air Force) slang, the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress (1952-1962 and still in service) is the BUFF (the acronym for Big ugly fat fellow or Big ugly fat fucker depending on who is asking).  From BUFF was derived the companion acronym for the LTV A-7 Corsair II (1965-1984, the last in active service retired in 2014) which was SLUFF (Short Little Ugly Fat Fellow or Short Little Ugly Fat Fucker).  In rail-transport, a “buff” describes the compressive coupler force that occurs during a slack bunched condition (and is related in that sense to “buffer” which is a physical barrier placed to halt the progress of a train to prevent damage to a structure).  In the slang of the dealers of street drugs, “buff” is any substance used to dilute drugs (by volume) in order to increase profits.  The noun “buffware” is not an IT term (although SysAdmins (system administrators) could probably think of a few products which should be so described); it describes pottery in a buff color. 

Highly qualified porn star Busty Buffy.

A “buffster” is someone who is “buffed” (lean, physically fit) and that use of the word emerged from gym culture during the 1980s, under the influence of buff in the sense of “polish to perfection”.  That influenced also the use of buff to mean “physically attractive; desirable” which began in MLE (Multicultural London English) before spreading to other linguistic tribes; the adverb buffly (in a buff manner; attractively or muscularly) can be used of a buffster (one who is fit and with good muscle definition).  In hospital slang, “to buff” means “to alter a medical chart, especially in a dishonest manner”, something which hints there may be something in Evelyn Waugh’s (1903-1966) warning that the greatest risk to one in hospital is “being murdered by the doctors”.  In the slang of graffiti writers (the term “graffiti artist” does now seem accepted by the art market) a “buff” is the act of remove a piece of graffiti by someone other than the creator.  Buffy is an adjective meaning “of or tending to a buff color” (the comparative buffier, the superlative buffiest) but it’s probably now most associated with the pop-culture character “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (which seems to have made it a popular name also for porn stars).  Of the color, “buffish” is the alternative adjective.

The phrase “It’ll buff out” is a joke-line in the collector car market which references attempts to downplay the extent or significance of damage.

In 2005, Lindsay Lohan went for a drive in her Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG roadster.  It didn’t end well.  Based on the R230 (2001-2011) platform, the SL 65 AMG was produced between 2004-2012, all versions rated in excess of 600 horsepower, something perhaps not a wise choice for someone with no background handling such machinery though it could have been worse, the factory building 350 of the even more powerful SL 65 Black Series, the third occasion an SL was offered without a soft-top and the second time one had been configured with a permanent fixed-roof.

Classy Leather’s “Buffalo Hunter”.

Buffalo leather isn’t suitable for all purposes but it is greatly valued because of the combination of its thickness (compared to cow or goat leather or pig skin) and the unique and different grain patterns.  It’s the thickness which adds to the durability of buffalo leather but despite that it remains soft and flexible, making it an ideal material for premium leather goods such as leather bags, leather accessories, jackets etc.  The Classy Leather operation published an informative guide to buffalo leather and included technical information including what must have be a revelation to some: Although the terms “buffalo” and “bison” tend interchangeably to be used in North America, the leathers are quite distinct and what the industry calls “buffalo leather” usually means leather derived from the Asian Water Buffalo.  Buffalo leather comes from domestic buffalos (almost always Asian Water Buffalo) which mostly are raised for milk or meat; at the end of their productive life, the hides are used to make leather and a variety of processing methods are used, designed to suit the skin structure which has large pores.

The “Water Buffalo”: 1974 Suzuki GT750.  The front twin disc setup was added in 1973 and was one of the first of its kind.

The Suzuki GT750 was produced between 1971-1977 and was an interesting example of the breed of large-capacity two-stroke motorcycles which provided much excitement and not a few fatalities but which fell victim to increasingly stringent emissions standards and the remarkable improvement in the performance, reliability and refinement of the multi-cylinder four-stroke machines of which the Honda CB750 (1969-2008) and Kawasaki Z1 900 (1972-1975) were the exemplars.  Something of a novelty was the GT750's water-cooling, at the time rarely seen although that meant it missed out on one of Suzuki’s many imaginative acronyms: the RAC (ram air cooling) used on the smaller capacity models.  RAC was a simple aluminium scoop which sat atop the cylinder head and was designed to optimize air-flow.  It was the water-cooling of the GT750 which attracted nicknames but, a generation before the internet, the English language tended still to evolve with regional variations so in England it was “the Kettle”, in Australia “the Water Bottle” and in North America “the Water Buffalo”.  Foreign markets also went their own way, the French favoring “la bouillotte” (the hot water bottle) and the West Germans “Wasserbüffel” (water buffalo).  Suzuki called those sold in North America the "Le Mans" while RoW (rest of the world) models were simply the "GT750".

Detail of the unusual 4-3 system: The early version with the ECTS (left), the bifurcation apparatus for the central cylinder's header (centre) and the later version (1974-1977) without the ECTS (right).  Motorcyclists have long had a fascination with exhaust systems. 

The GT750 shared with the other three-cylinder Suzukis (GT380 & GT550) the novelty of an unusual 4-into-3 exhaust system (the centre exhaust header was bifurcated (sometimes referred to as "saimesed")), the early versions of which featured the additional complexity of what the factory called the Exhaust Coupler Tube System (ECTS; a connecting tube between the left & right pipes), designed to improve low-speed torque.  The 4-into-3 existed apparently for no reason other than to match the four-pipe appearance on the contemporary four stroke, four cylinder Hondas and Kawasakis, an emulation of the asymmetric ducting used on Kawasaki's dangerously charismatic two-strokes perhaps dismissed as "too derivative".

Kettle

Kettle (pronounced ket-l)

(1) A container (historically and still usually made of metal) used to boil liquids or cook foods; a specialized kind of pot with a handle & spout and thus optimized for pouring (in some markets known variously as teakettles, jugs, electric jugs etc).

(2) By extension, a large metal vessel designed to withstand high temperatures, used in various industrial processes such as refining, distilling & brewing (also sometimes referred to as boilers, steamers, vats, vessels or cauldrons).

(3) In geology, as kettle hole, a steep, bowl-shaped hollow in ground once covered by a glacier.  Kettles are believed to form when a block of ice left by a glacier becomes covered by sediments and later melts, leaving a hollow.  They are usually dozens of meters deep and can be dozens of kilometers in diameter, often containing surface water.

(4) In percussion, as kettledrum (or kettle-drum), a large hemispherical brass percussion instrument (one of the timpani) with a drumhead that can be tuned by adjusting its tension.  There was also the now obsolete use of kettledrum to mean “an informal social party at which a light collation is offered, held in the afternoon or early evening”.

(5) In crowd control, a system of UK origin using an enclosed area into which demonstrators or protesters are herded for containment by authorities (usually taking advantage of aspects of the natural or built environment).

(6) To surround and contain demonstrators or protesters in a kettle.

(7) In weightlifting, as kettlebell, a weight consisting of a cast iron ball with a single handle for gripping the weight during exercise.

(8) In ornithology, a group of raptors riding a thermal, especially when migrating.

(9) In the slang of railroads, a steam locomotive

Pre 900: From the Middle English ketel & chetel, from the Old English cetel & ċietel (kettle, cauldron), and possibly influenced by the Old Norse ketill, both from the Proto-Germanic katilaz (kettle, bucket, vessel), of uncertain origin although etymologists find most persuasive the notion of it being a borrowing of the Late Latin catīllus (a small pot), a diminutive of the Classical Latin catinus (a large pot, a vessel for cooking up or serving food”), from the Proto-Italic katino but acknowledge the word may be a Germanic form which became confused with the Latin dring the early Medieval period..  It should thus be compared with the Old English cete (cooking pot), the Old High German chezzi (a kettle, dish, bowl) and the Icelandic kati & ketla (a small boat).  It was cognate with the West Frisian tsjettel (kettle), the Dutch ketel (kettle), the German Kessel (kettle), the Swedish kittel (cauldron) & kittel (kettle), the Gothic katils (kettle) and the Finnish kattila.  There may also be some link with the Russian котёл (kotjól) (boiler, cauldron).  Probably few activities are a common to human cultures as the boiling of water and as the British Empire spread, the word kettle travelled with the colonial administrators, picked up variously by the Brunei Malay (kitil), the Hindi केतली (ketlī), the Gujarati કીટલી (kīṭlī), the Irish citeal, the Maltese kitla and the Zulu igedlela.  Beyond the Empire, the Turks adopted it unaltered (although it appeared also as ketil).  Kettle is a noun & verb, kettled is a verb & adjective and kettling is a verb; the noun plural is plural kettles.

The boiling of water for all sorts of purposes is an activity common to all human societies for thousands of years so the number of sound-formations which referred to pots and urns used for this purpose would have proliferated, thus the uncertainty about some of the development.  The Latin catinus has been linked by some with Ancient Greek forms such as kotylē (bowl, dish) but this remains uncertain and words for many types of vessels were often loanwords.  The fourteenth century adoption in Middle English of an initial “k” is thought perhaps to indicate the influence of the Old Norse cognate ketill and the familiar modern form “tea-kettle” was used as early as 1705.  In percussion, the kettledrum was described as in the 1540s (based wholly on the shape) and in geology the kettlehole (often clipped to “kettle) was first used in 1866 to refer to “a deep circular hollow in a river bed or other eroded area, pothole>, hence “kettle moraine” dating from 1883 and used to describe one characterized by such features.

Lindsay Lohan cooking pasta in London, October 2014.  One hint this is London rather than Los Angeles is the electric kettle to her left, a standard item in a UK kitchen but less common in the US.

In most of the English-speaking world, kettle refers usually to a vessel or appliance used to boil water, the exception being the US where the device never caught on to the same extent and in Australia and New Zealand, it’s common to refer to the electric versions as “jugs”.  Americans do use kettles, but they’re not as widely used as they are in Australia, New Zealand & the UK where their presence in a kitchen is virtually de rigueur.  One reason is said to be that in the US coffee makers & instant hot water dispensers were historically more common, as was the use of tea bags rather than loose-leaves to make tea.  Those Americans who have a kettle actually usually call it a “kettle” although (and there seems to be little specific regionalism associated with this) it may also be called a “hot pot”, “tea kettle” or “water boiler”.

In idiomatic use, the phrase “a watched kettle never boils” has the same meaning as when used with “watched pot” and is a commentary on (1) one’s time management and (2) one’s perception of time under certain circumstances.  The phrase “pot calling the kettle black” is understood only if it’s realized both receptacles used to be heated over open flames and their metal thus became discolored and ultimately blackened by the soot & smoke.  It’s used to convey an accusation of hypocrisy, implying that an accuser is of the same behavior or trait they are criticizing in others.  The now common sense of “a different kettle of fish” is that of something different that to which it erroneously being compared but the original “kettle of fish” dated from circa 1715 and referred to “a complicated and bungled affair” and etymologists note it’s not actually based on fish being cooked in a kettle (although there was a culinary implement called a “fish kettle” for exactly that purpose but there’s no evidence it was used prior to 1790) but is thought to refer to “kettle” as a variant of kittle & kiddle (weir or fence with nets set in rivers or along seacoasts for catching fish), a use dating from the late twelfth century (it appears in the Magna Charta (1215) as the Anglo-Latin kidellus), from the Old French quidel, probably from the Breton kidel (a net at the mouth of a stream).

1974 Suzuki GT750 “Kettle”.  The front twin disc setup was added in 1973 and was one of the first of its kind.

The Suzuki GT750 was produced between 1971-1977 and was an interesting example of the breed of large-capacity two-stroke motorcycles which provided much excitement and not a few fatalities but which fell victim to increasingly stringent emissions standards and the remarkable improvement in the performance, reliability and refinement of the multi-cylinder four-stroke machines of which the Honda CB750 (1969-2008) and Kawasaki Z1 900 (1972-1975) were the exemplars.  Something of a novelty was the GT750's water-cooling, at the time rarely seen although that meant it missed out on one of Suzuki’s many imaginative acronyms: the RAC (ram air cooling) used on the smaller capacity models.  RAC was a simple aluminum scoop which sat atop the cylinder head and was designed to optimize air-flow.  It was the water-cooling of the GT750 which attracted nicknames but, a generation before the internet, the English language tended still to evolve with regional variations so in England it was “the Kettle”, in Australia “the Water Bottle” and in North America “the Water Buffalo”.  Foreign markets also went their own way, the French favoring “la bouillotte” (the hot water bottle) and the West Germans “Wasserbüffel” (water buffalo).  Suzuki called those sold in North America the "Le Mans" while RoW (rest of the world) models were simply the "GT750".

Detail of the unusual 4-3 system: The early version with the ECTS (left), the bifurcation apparatus for the central cylinder's header (centre) and the later version (1974-1977) without the ECTS (right).  Motorcyclists have long had a fascination with exhaust systems. 

The GT750 shared with the other three-cylinder Suzukis (GT380 & GT550) the novelty of an unusual 4-into-3 exhaust system (the centre exhaust header was bifurcated (sometimes referred to as "saimesed")), the early versions of which featured the additional complexity of what the factory called the Exhaust Coupler Tube System (ECTS; a connecting tube between the left & right pipes), designed to improve low-speed torque.  The 4-into-3 existed apparently for no reason other than to match the four-pipe appearance on the contemporary four stroke, four cylinder Hondas and Kawasakis, an emulation of the asymmetric ducting used on Kawasaki's dangerously charismatic two-strokes perhaps dismissed as "too derivative".

Kettling is now familiar as a method of large-scale crowd control in which the authorities assemble large cordons of police officers which move to contain protesters within a small, contained space, one often chosen because it makes use of the natural or built environment.  Once contained, demonstrators can selectively be detained, released or arrested.  It’s effective but has been controversial because innocent bystanders can be caught in its net and there have been injuries and even deaths.  Despite that, although courts have in some jurisdictions imposed some restrictions on the practice, as a general principle it remains lawful to use in the West.  The idea is essentially the same as the military concept of “pocketing”, the object of which was, rather than to engage the enemy, instead to confine them to a define area in which the only route of escape was under the control of the opposing force.  The Imperial Russian Army actually called this the котёл (kotyol or kotyel) which translated as cauldron or kettle, the idea being that (like a kettle), it was “hot” space with only a narrow aperture (like a spout) through which the pressure could be relieved.

David Low’s (1891-1963) cartoon (Daily Express, 31 July 1936) commenting on one of the many uncertain aspects of British foreign policy in the 1930s; Left to right: Thomas Inskip (1876–1947), John Simon (1873–1954), Philip Cunliffe-Lister (1884–1972), Duff Cooper (1890–1954), Samuel Hoare (1880–1959), Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940; UK prime-minister 1937-1940), Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947; UK prime-minister 1923-1924, 1924-1929 & 1935-1937) & Anthony Eden (1897-1977; UK prime-minister 1955-1957).

Low attached “trademarks” to some of those he drew.  Baldwin was often depicted with a sticking plaster over his lips, an allusion to one of his more infamous statements to the House of Commons in which he said “…my lips are sealed”.  Sir John Simon on this occasion had a kettle boiling on his head, a fair indication of his state of mind at the time.

About to explode: Low’s techniques have on occasion been borrowed and some cartoonist might one day be tempted to put a boiling kettle on the often hot-looking head of Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022).  Malcolm Turnbull (b 1954; prime-minister of Australia 2015-2018), a student of etymology, was as fond as those at The Sun of alliteration and when writing his memoir (A Bigger Picture (2020)) he included a short chapter entitled "Barnaby and the bonk ban".  As well as the events which lent the text it's title, the chapter was memorable for his inclusion of perhaps the most vivid thumbnail sketch of Barnaby Joyce yet penned:

"Barnaby is a complex, intense, furious personality.  Red-faced, in full flight he gives the impression he's about to explode.  He's highly intelligent, often good-humoured but also has a dark and almost menacing side - not unlike Abbott (Tony Abbott (b 1957; prime-minister of Australia 2013-2015)) - that seems to indicate he wrestles with inner troubles and torments."

Kettle logic

The term “Kettle logic” (originally in the French: la logique du chaudron) was coined by French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), one of the major figures in the history of post-modernist thought, remembered especially for his work on deconstructionism.  Kettle logic is category of rhetoric in which multiple arguments are deployed to defend a point, all with some element of internal inconsistency, some actually contradictory.  Derrida drew the title from the “kettle-story” which appeared in two works by the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939): The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) & Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905).  In his analysis of “Irma's dream”, Freud recounted the three arguments offered by the man who returned in damaged condition a kettle he’d borrowed.

(1) That the kettle had been returned undamaged.

(2) That the kettle was already damaged when borrowed.

(3) That the kettle had never been borrowed.

The three arguments are inconsistent or contradictory but only one need be found true for the man not to be guilty of causing the damage.  Kettle logic was used by Freud to illustrate the way it’s not unusual for contradictory opposites simultaneously to appear in dreams and be experienced as “natural” in a way would obviously wouldn’t happen in a conscious state.  The idea is also analogous with the “alternative plea” strategy used in legal proceedings.

In US law, “alternative pleading” is the legal strategy in which multiple claims or defenses (that may be mutually exclusive, inconsistent or contradictory) may be filed.  Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, at the point of filing the rule is absolute and untested; a party may thus file a claim or defense which defies the laws of physics or is in some other way technically impossible.  The four key aspects of alternative pleading are:

(1) Cover All Bases: Whatever possible basis might be available in a statement of claim or defence should be invoked to ensure that if a reliance on one legal precept or theory fails, others remain available.  Just because a particular claim or defense has been filed, there is no obligation on counsel to pursue each.

(2) Multiple Legal Fields: A party can plead different areas of law are at play, even if they would be contradictory if considered together.  A plaintiff might allege a defendant is liable under both breach of contract and, alternatively, unjust enrichment if no contract is found afoot.

(3) Flexibility: Alternative pleading interacts with the “discovery process” (ie going through each other’s filing cabinets and digital storage) in that it makes maximum flexibility in litigation, parties able to take advantage of previously unknown information.  Thus, pleadings should be structured not only on the basis of “known knowns” but also “unknown unknowns”, “known unknowns” and even the mysterious “unknown knowns”.  He may have been evil but for some of his reductionist thoughts, we should be grateful to Donald Rumsfeld (1932–2021: US defense secretary 1975-1977 & 2001-2006).

(4) No Admission of Facts: By pleading in the alternative, a party does not admit that any of the factual allegations are true but are, in effect, asserting if one set of facts is found to be true, then one legal theory applies while if another set is found to be true, another applies.  This is another aspect of flexibility which permits counsel fully to present a case without, at the initial stages of litigation, being forced to commit to a single version of the facts or a single legal theory.

In the US, alternative pleading (typically wordy (there was a time when in some places lawyers charged “per word” in documents), lawyers prefer “pleading in the alternative”) generally is permitted in criminal cases, it can manifest as a defendant simultaneously claiming (1) they did not commit alleged act, (2) at the time the committed the act they were afflicted by insanity they are, as a matter of law, not criminally responsible, (3) that at the time they committed the act they were intoxicated and thus the extent of their guilt is diminished or (4) the act committed way justified by some reason such as provocation or self defense.  Lawyers however are careful in the way the tactic is used because judges and juries can be suspicious of defendants claiming the benefits of both an alibi and self defense.

Basketweave

Basketweave (pronounced bah-skit-weev (U) or bas-kit-weev (non-U))

(1) A plain woven pattern with two or more groups of warp and weft threads are interlaced to render a checkerboard appearance resembling that of a woven basket; historically applied especially (in garment & fabric production) to wool & linen items and (in furniture, flooring etc), fibres such as cane, bamboo etc.

(2) Any constructed item assembled in this pattern.

(4) In the natural environment, any structure (animal, vegetable or mineral) in this pattern.

(5) In automotive use, a stylized wheel, constructed usually in an alloy predominately of aluminum and designed loosely in emulation of the older spooked (wire) wheels.   

1920–1925: The construct was basket + weave (and used variously as basketweave, basket-weave & basket weave depending on industry, product, material etc).  Basket was from the thirteenth century Middle English basket (vessel made of thin strips of wood, or other flexible materials, interwoven in a great variety of forms, and used for many purposes), from the Anglo-Norman bascat, of obscure origin.  Bascat has attracted much interest from etymologists but despite generations of research, its source has remained elusive.  One theory is it’s from the Late Latin bascauda (kettle, table-vessel), from the Proto-Brythonic (in Breton baskodenn), from the Proto-Celtic baskis (bundle, load), from the primitive Indo-European bhask- (bundle) and presumably related to the Latin fascis (bundle, faggot, package, load) and a doublet of fasces.  In ancient Rome, the bundle was a material symbol of a Roman magistrate's full civil and military power, known as imperium and it was adopted as the symbol of National Fascist Party in Italy; it’s thus the source of the term “fascism”.  Not all are convinced, the authoritative Oxford English Dictionary (OED) noting there is no evidence of such a word in Celtic unless later words in Irish and Welsh (sometimes counted as borrowings from English) are original.  However, if the theory is accepted, the implication is the original meaning was something like “wicker basket”, wicker one of the oldest known methods of construction.  The word was first used to mean “a goal in the game of basketball” in 1892, the use extended to “a score in basketball” by 1898.  In the 1980s, as operating systems evolved, programmers would have had the choice of “basket” or “bucket” to describe the concept of a “place where files are stored or reference prior to processing” and they choose the latter, thus creating the “download bucket”, “handler bucket” etc.  On what basis the choice was made isn’t known but it may be that baskets, being often woven, are prone to leak while non-porous buckets are not.  Programmers hate leaks.

A classic basketweave pattern.

Weave was from the Middle English weven (to weave), from the Old English wefan (to weave), from the Proto-West Germanic weban, from the Proto-Germanic webaną, from the primitive Indo-European webh (to weave, braid).  The sense of weave as “to wander around; not travel in a straight line” was also in the early fourteenth century absorbed by the Middle English weven and was probably from the Old Norse veifa (move around, wave), related to the Latin vibrare, from vibrō (to vibrate, to rattle, to twang; to deliver or deal (a blow)), from the  Proto-Italic wibrāō, denominative of wibros, from the primitive Indo-European weyp- (to oscillate, swing) or weyb-.  The root-final consonant has never been clear and reflexes of both are found across Indo-European languages.  The verb sense of “something woven” dates from the 1580s while the meaning “method or pattern of weaving” was from 1888.  The notion of “to move from one place to another” has been traced to the twelfth century and was presumably derived from the movements involved in the act of weaving and while it’s uncertain quite how the meaning evolved, it’s documented from early fourteenth century as conveying “move to and fro” and in the 1590s as “move side to side”,  In pugilism it would have been a natural technique from the moment the first punch was thrown but formally it entered the language of boxing (as “duck & weave”) in 1918, often as weaved or weaving.  By analogy, the phrase “duck & weave” came to be used of politicians attempting to avoid answering questions.  In the military, weave was also used to describe evasive maneuvers undertaken on land or in the air but not at sea, the Admiralty preferring zig-zag, as the pattern would appear on charts.  The fencing method known as teenage is a kind of basketweave.  Basketweave is a noun & adjective and (in irregular use) a verb and basketweaver is a noun; the noun plural is basketweaves.

Attentive basketweavers: Students in a lecture  (B.A. (Peace Studies)) at Whitworth University, Spokane, Washington, USA.

A basketweaver is of course “one who weaves baskets” but in idiomatic use, basketweaver is used also to mean “one whose skills have been rendered redundant by automation or other changes in technology”.  The term “underwater basketweaving” is used of university course thought useless (in the sense of not being directly applicable to anything vocational) and is applied especially to the “studies” genre (gender studies, peace studies, women’s studies et al).  Beyond education, it can be used of anything thought “lame, pointless, useless, worthless, a waste of time etc”.  Basketweaving is also a descriptor of a long and interlinked narrative of lies, distinguished from an ad-hoc lie in that in a basketweave of lies, there are dependencies between the untruths and, done with sufficient care, each can act to reinforce another, enabling an entire persona to be constructed.  It’s the most elaborate version of a “basket of lies” and can work but, like a woven basket, if one strand becomes lose and separates from the structure, under stress, the entire basket can unravel, spilling asunder the contents.

Official portrait of Representative the honorable George Santos.

A classic basketweaver is George Anthony Devolder Santos (b 1988) who, in the 2022 mid-term elections for the US Congress, was elected as a representative (Republican) for New York's 3rd congressional district.  Although he seems to have passed untroubled through the Republican Party’s candidate vetting process, after his election a number of media outlets investigated and found his public persona was almost wholly untrue and contained many dubious or blatantly false claims about, inter-alia, his mother, personal biography, education, criminal record, work history, financial status, ancestry, ethnicity, sexual orientation & religion.  When confronted, Mr Santos did admit to lying about certain matters, was vague about some and ducked and weaved to avoid discussing others, especially the fraud charges in Brazil he avoided by fleeing the country.  Although a life-long Roman Catholic, Mr Santos on a number of occasions claimed to be Jewish, even fabricating stories about his family suffering losses during the Holocaust.  Later, after the lies were exposed, he told a newspaper “I never claimed to be Jewish.  I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was ‘Jew-ish.”  In the right circumstances, delivered on-stage by a Jewish comedian, it might have been a good punch-line.

Few are laughing however and Mr Santos is under investigation by both Brazilian and US authorities.  However, despite many calls (from Republicans and Democrats alike) that he resign from Congress, Mr Santos has refused and the Republican house leadership, working with an unexpectedly paper-thin majority, has shown no enthusiasm to pursue the matter.  What Mr Santos has done is expose the limitations of the basketweaving technique.  While a carefully built construct can work, it relies on no loose threads being exposed and while this can be manageable for those not public figures, for anyone exposed to investigation, in the twenty-first century such deceptions are probably close to impossible to achieve and Mr Santos was probably lured into excessive self-confidence because, in relative anonymity, he had for years managed to deceive, fooling many including the Republican Party and perhaps even himself.  In retrospect, he might one day ponder how he ever thought he’s get away with it.  One thing that remains unclear is how he should be addressed.  Members of the House of Representatives typically are addressed as "the honorable" in formal use but this is merely a courtesy title and is not a requirement.  The use is left to individual members and as far as is known, Mr Santos has not yet indicated whether he wishes people to address him as “the honorable George Santos”.

Borrani wire wheels on 1972 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 (Daytona) coupé (far left), “Hotwire” wheels on 1974 Holden Torana SL/R 5000 (centre left), “Basketweave” wheels on 1990 Jaguar XJS coupé (centre right) & 1986 Holden Piazza (far right).

Basketweave wheels remain popular (although some feelings may be strained when it comes time to clean the things) but the use of “basketweave” to describe the construction was a bit of a stretch and some prefer “lattice” which seems architecturally closer.  Were the motif of the classic basketweave to be applied to a wheel it would look something those used on the Holden Piazza, briefly (1986-1989) available on the Australian market.  Because it’s not easy successfully to integrate something inherently square or rectangular into a small, circular object, such designs never caught on although variations were tried.  The “basketweave” wheels which did endure owed little to the classic basketweave patters although there are identifiable hints in the construction so people understand the connection and rather than thought of as a continuation of the design elements drawn from the traditions of weaving, the wheels really established a fork of the meaning.  As a design, they were an evolution of the “hotwire” style popular in the 1970s when was a deliberate attempt to echo the style of the classic spoked (wire) wheels which, being lighter and offering better brake cooling properties than steel disk wheels, were for decades the wheel of choice for high performance vehicles.  That changed in the 1960s as speeds & vehicle weight rose and tyres became wider and stickier, a combination of factors which meant wire wheels were no longer strong enough to endure the rising stresses.  Additionally, the wire wheel was labor intensive to make in an era when that beginning to matter, wheels cast from an alloy predominately of aluminum were cheaper to produce as well as stronger.

Lindsay Lohan in Miami, clothes by Amiparism, Interview Magazine, December 2022.  The car is a Jaguar XJS convertible with the factory-fitted basketweave (or lattice) wheels.

1988 Porsche 911 (930) Turbo Cabriolet (left) and Hans Stuck (1900–1978) in Auto Union Type C (6.0 litre V16), Shelsley Walsh hill climb, Worcestershire, England, June 1936 (right).

The Porsche is fitted with three-piece, 15 inch BBS RS basketweave wheels with satin lips: The rear units are 11 inches in width (running 345/35 tyres) while at the front the wheels are 9 inches wide (mounted with 225/50 tyres).  Although advances in electronics since 1988 have made the behaviour of the most powerful rear-engined Porsches easier to tame, in 1988, the best way to ameliorate the inherent idiosyncrasies of the configuration was to fit wider wheels, increasing the rubber’s contact area with the road.  The idea was not new, both the straight-eight Mercedes-Benz W125 and the V16 Type C Auto-Union Grand Prix cars of 1937 using twin rear tyres when run in hill climbs.  The Porsche 930 (1975-1989) quickly gained the nickname “widow maker” but the Auto Union, which combined 520 horsepower and a notable rearward weight bias with tyres narrower than are these days used on delivery vans, deserved the moniker more.  Fitting the second set of rear wheels did help but the handling characteristics could never be made wholly benign and it wasn’t until the late 1950s that mid-engined Grand Prix cars became manageable and notably, they had about half the power of the German machines of the 1930s.

Copper

Copper (pronounced kop-er)

(1) A malleable, ductile, metallic element having a characteristic reddish-brown color, occurring as the free metal, copper glance, and copper pyrites: used as an electrical and thermal conductor and in such alloys as brass and bronze.

(2) As a color, a metallic, reddish brown.

(3) A slang term for a coin (usually of a smaller denomination) composed of copper, bronze etc.

(4) A slang term for a hedge (archaic).

(5) A slang term for a police or other law-enforcement officer, now usually as the shortened “cop”.

(6) In lepidopterology, any of several butterflies of the family Lycaenidae, as Lycaena hypophleas (American copper), having copper-colored wings spotted and edged with black.

(7) In slang and informal use, a tool or any of the various specialized items made from copper, where the use of copper is either traditional or vital to the function of the item.

(8) In historic UK & Commonwealth use, a large kettle (now usually made of cast iron), used for cooking or to boil the laundry (archaic and functionally extinct); a once popular term for any container made of copper.

(9) To cover, coat, or sheathe with copper.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English coper & copper, from the Old English coper & copor, from the Late Latin cuprum (copper), from the Latin aes Cyprium (literally “Cyprian brass” (ie metal from the island of Cyprus)), from the Ancient Greek Κύπρος (Kúpros) (Cyprus).  It was cognate with the Dutch koper (copper), the Old Norse koparr (copper), the German Kupfer (copper) and the Icelandic kopar (copper).  The alternative spelling coper (a hangover from the Middle English) is obsolete.  Copper & are nouns, verbs & adjectives, copperas is a noun, coppered & coppering are verbs & adjectives and coppery, cupric, cupreous & cuprous are adjectives; the noun plural is coppers.

In the Ancient Greek there was khalkos (ore, copper, bronze), a direct borrowing of the primitive Indo-European word meaning "ore, copper, bronze" and familiar in the Sanskrit ayah and the Latin aes.  In Classical Latin aes originally was used of copper but as technology evolved, this was extended to bronze (its alloy with tin) and because bronze was used much more than pure copper, the word's primary sense shifted to the alloy and a new word evolved for "copper," from the Latin form of the name of the island of Cyprus, where the copper mines were located.  Cyprus being the birthplace of Aphrodite (Venus), this led (in the way mythology adapted to the times) to the association of by alchemists of Aphrodite with copper.  Aes passed into the proto-Germanic where originally no linguistic distinction existed between copper from its alloys while in English it became “ore”.  In Latin vernacular, aes was used also to mean “cash, coin, debt, wages” in many figurative expressions. The chemical symbol Cu is from cuprum, from the Ancient Greek Κύπρος (Kúpros) (Cyprus).

The use to describe coins made of (or appearing to be made of) copper dates from the 1580s while to refer to vessels (jars, tubs, pots etc) made from the metal it came into use in the 1660s, the adjective cupreous (consisting of or containing copper (from the Late Latin cupreus (of copper), from cuprum (an, alternative form of cyprum (copper)) emerging in parallel.   The adjectival use in the sense of “made from or resembling copper” emerged in the 1570, a development from the verb, in use since the 1520s.  The alloy copper-nickel was first used to mint coins in 1728.  The trade of coppersmithing, practiced by the coppersmith (artisan who works in copper), was a creation of the early fourteenth century and was, as was practice at the time, soon used as a surname.  The noun copperplate (also copper-plate) described a "plate of polished copper, engraved and etched" dates from the 1660s and was later used figuratively to describe designs (wallpaper, woodcuts, carvings, carpet etc) with some resemblance to the styled metal.  Perhaps surprisingly, the adjectival sense in the sense of an allusion to the reddish-brown color isn’t documented until the turn of the nineteenth century (“cupric” used thus in 1799 and "copper-colored" after 1804) although it may earlier have been part of one or more oral traditions.

Symbol: Cu.
Atomic number: 29.
Atomic weight: 63.546.
Valency: 1 or 2.
Relative density: 8.96.
Specific gravity: 8.92 at 20°C.
Melting point: 1084.87±+0.2°C.
Boiling point: 2563°C

In an example of the way English must seem strange to speakers of more apparently logically languages, the use of “cop” as a slang term for “police or other law-enforcement officer” is a shortening of “copper” but that is etymologically unrelated to the metal, the use of “copper” to describe policemen (at a time all were men” derived from the English “cop”.  The construct was cop (to take, capture, seize) +‎ -er (the agent suffix).  Cop is of uncertain origin but the most likely link is with the Middle English coppen & copen, from the Old English copian (to plunder; pillage; steal) although some etymologists have also suggested the Middle French caper (to capture), from the Latin capiō (to seize, grasp) or the Dutch kapen (to seize, hijack), from the Old Frisian kāpia (to buy), source of the Saterland Frisian koopje and the North Frisian koope.  A perhaps related form was the Middle English copen (to buy), from the Middle Dutch copen.

New York's Statute of Liberty with the copper skin colored as it would have appeared in France, prior to being shipped to the US for erection in  in 1886 (left) and as it appeared decades later, the metal showing the effects of oxidization (right).  

The expression “to cop” was thus used in the sense of “to steal” but also (as a transitive verb) “to (be forced to) take; to receive; to shoulder; to bear, especially blame or punishment for a particular instance of wrongdoing”, hence the expressed notions of “cop the blame”, “cop an injury” etc.  It was the association with crime and violence which in the nineteenth century saw "copper" (one who cops (apprehends) the criminal) adopted in the UK (first documented in 1846) to describe what were then the still relatively novel (in the sense of a structured, publicly-funded force) policemen and as “cop”, the world spread world-wide.  Cop also had a mono-syllabic appeal to many sub-cultures who took up the sense of “to obtain; acquire; purchase”; it was used (1) by drug users to express acquisition of narcotics, (2) among anoraks (train-spotters, plane-spotters, bird-watchers etc) to mark the observation and recording of something unique or at least rare and (3) by those living off immoral earnings (pimps), to speak of the recruitment of a prostitute to the lineup.  There was also the alleged slang form “fair cop”, said to be used by criminals (to cops) when admitting guilt although whether this was as common in real life as it was in the imaginations of crime writers isn’t known although “bent copper” (a corrupt police officer) still enjoys some currency.

JTC Roofing in the UK provided a chart using the Statute of Liberty to illustrate the natural process by which copper gradually changes in color from the original reddish-brown to green, a chemical reaction between the metal and the oxygen in the atmosphere, something known as oxidation.  In an aesthetic sense, the transition to green is part of copper’s charming patina but it’s also functional, providing a protective coating which protects surface deterioration and in this it differs from a ferrous metal like iron which, under oxidation, becomes rusted, the rust eating into the material.  The result can be seen in the light bluish-green copper facades which adorn many copper rooftops and structures and the pallette evolves over years before the familiar green tint achieves a final hue, something influenced also by atmospheric and climatic conditions.

The patination of copper induced by oxidation can be emulated in hair colors: Lindsay Lohan demonstrates. 

Helpfully, World of Chemicals has explained the chemistry.  When in 1886 the Statute of Liberty was assembled and erected after being shipped from France, it was a quite dull brown, reflecting the process of oxidation which had already taken from the metal the shininess which the coppersmiths and engineers would have seen when first working on the pates in Paris and it would take another 30-odd years of weathering before the now familiar color settled.  This patination is fine if a structure for decades remains untouched but in some uses in architecture (especially roofs which are vulnerable to damage), it’s sometimes necessary to replace copper panels which can result in an unsightly patchwork of colors.  For this reason, the industry has developed processes of pre-patination which can render copper panels with specific degrees of patination to match a sample of the damaged item, thus providing a close color-match.

Because of its location and the era in which it has stood, the particular path to verdigris (from the French vert-de-gris (literally “green of Greece”)) assumed by the Statute of Liberty was influenced by the unique environmental conditions.  Although the process is linguistically encapsulated as “oxidation”, it's not a simple single reaction between copper and oxygen because the generated green oxide continues to react to make copper carbonates, copper sulphide, and copper sulphate.  Initially, the copper reacts with oxygen from the air in a redox reaction, the metal donating electrons to oxygen, which oxidises the copper and reduces the oxygen, the copper oxide continuing to react with oxygen to form copper oxide.  However, for many of the decades in which the statute stood, the atmosphere contained much sulphur from the burning of coal and this induced another reaction which produced copper sulphide (black) which reacts with atmospheric carbon dioxide and hydroxide ions from water vapour, forming three compounds all of which exist in shades of blue or green.  The speed at which the patina develops and evolution of the colour depends on factors like temperature, humidity and air pollution, not just the presence of oxygen and carbon dioxide and, in another time, in another place, things would have unfolded differently.

Statue of Liberty (1962), silkscreen print by Andy Warhol. 

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) produced a few depictions of the Statute of Liberty, mostly variations of the familiar theme made famous by his prints of Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) but one with a touch of something original was a silkscreen rendering in 1962 of multiple tiled images in 3D.  At auction by Christies (New York) in 2012, it sold for US$43.8 million, part of a collection of contemporary art that realized an encouraging US$412.3 million, regarded at the time as a sign the market was recovering from the shock of the global financial crisis (GFC); the US Federal Reserve (The Fed) must have been pleased to see all that quantitative easing being spent wisely.  Even so, it didn’t set a record for a Warhol, Eight Elvises sold in a private sale 2008 for a reputed US$100 million although the auction house did throw in a pair of 3D glasses with the catalogue so there was that.  In 2013, another Warhol from 1963 set a pop-art record which stands today, Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) selling at auction for US$105.4 million.