Suicide

Suicide (pronounced soo-uh-sahyd)

(1) The intentional taking of one's own life.

(2) By analogy, acts or behavior, which whether intentional or not, lead to the self-inflicted destruction of one's own interests or prospects.

(3) In automotive design, a slang term for rear doors hinged from the rear.

(4) In fast food advertising, a niche-market descriptor of high-calorie products deliberately or absurdly high in salt, sugar and fat.

(5) A trick in the game Diabolo where one of the sticks is released and allowed to rotate 360° round the Diabolo until it is caught by the hand that released it.

(6) In Queensland (Australia) political history, as suicide squad, the collective name for the additional members of the Legislative Council (upper house) appointed in 1921 solely for the purpose of voting for its abolition.

(7) In sardonic military slang, as suicide mission, a description for an operation expected to suffer a very high casualty rate.

(8) A children's game of throwing a ball against a wall and at other players, who are eliminated by being struck.

(9) Pertaining to a suicide bombing, the companion terms being suicide belt & suicide vest.

(10) In electrical power, as "suicide cable (or cord, lead etc)", a power cord with male connections each end and used to inject power from a generator into a structing wiring system (highly dangerous if incorrectly used).

(11) In drug slang, the depressive period that typically occurs midweek (reputedly mostly on Tuesdays, following weekend drug use.

(12) In US slang, a beverage combining all available flavors at a soda fountain (known also as the "graveyard" or "swamp water".

(13) As "suicide runs" or "suicide sprints", a form of high-intensity sports training consisting of a series of sprints of increasing lengths, each followed immediately by a return to the start, with no pause between one and the next.

1651: From the New Latin  suīcīdium (killing of oneself), from suīcīda and thought probably of English origin, the construct being the Latin suī (genitive singular of reflexive pronunciation of se (one’s self)) from suus (one’s own) + cīdium (the suffix forms cīda & cide) from caedere (to kill).  The primitive European root was s(u)w-o (one's own) from the earlier s(w)e and new coining displaced the native Old English selfcwalu (literally “self-slaughter”).  Suicide is a noun & verb, suicidal is a noun & adjective, suicider is a noun; the noun plural is suicides.  Pedantic scholars of Latin have never approved of the word because, technically, the construct could as well be translated as the killing of a sow but, in medieval times, purity had long deserted Latin and never existed in English.  The modern meaning dates from 1728; the term in the earlier Anglo Latin was the vaguely euphemistic felo-de-se (one guilty concerning himself).  It may be an urban myth but there was a story that a 1920s editor of the New York Times had a rule that anyone who died in a Stutz Bearcat would be granted a NYT obituary unless the death was a suicide.  Suicide is a noun & verb, suicidal is a noun & adjective, suicider, suicidology, suicidalist, suicidality, suicidalness & suicidism are nouns, suicidogenic is an adjective, suicided is a verb & adjective, suiciding is a verb and suicidally is an adverb; the noun plural is suicides.

Suicide Squads

HH Asquith (1852-1928) and his youthful friend Venetia Stanley (1887–1948).

Although few were quite as vituperative as Paul Keating (b 1944; Prime Minister of Australia 1991-1996) who once describes the members of the Australian Senate as "unrepresentative swill", governments in the twentieth century often found upper houses to be such a nuisance they schemed and plotted ways to curb their powers or, preferably, do away with them entirely.  As the electoral franchise was extended, governments were sometimes elected with what they considered a mandate to pursue liberal or progressive policies while upper houses, by virtue of their composition and tenure (some with life-time appointments) often acted as an obstruction, rejecting legislation or imposing interminable delays by sending proposed laws to be “discussed to death” in committees from which “nothing ever emerged”.  This was the situation which confronted the glittering Liberal Party cabinet of HH Asquith (1852–1928; UK prime minister 1908-1916) which in 1909 found the Lords, in defiance of long established convention, blocking passage of the budget.  The Lords was wholly unelected, its membership mostly inherited, sometimes by virtue of some service (virtuous or otherwise) by an ancestor hundreds of years before.  Successive elections didn’t resolve the crisis and Asquith resolved to pursue the only lawful mechanism available: the creation of as many peers as would be necessary (in the hundreds) to secure the passage of his legislation.

Terry Richardson's (b 1965) suicide-themed shoot with Lindsay Lohan, 2012.

That of course required royal ascent and the newly enthroned George V (1865–1936; King of the United Kingdom & Emperor of India 1910-1936), while making his reservations clear, proved a good constitutional monarch and made it known he would follow the advice of his prime-minister.  As it turned out, the “suicide squad” wasn’t required, their Lordships, while not at all approving of the government, were more appalled still at the thought of their exclusive club being swamped with “jumped-up grocers” in “bad hats” and allowed the legislation to pass.  Actually, “castration squad” might have been a more accurate description because while the Lords survived, Asquith ensured it would be less of an obstacle, substituting the road block of its power of veto with a speed-bump, a right to impose a two-year delay (in 1949 reduced to six months).  The New Labour administration (1997-2010) introduced further reforms which were designed eventually to remove from the Lords all those who held seats by virtue of descent and even the Tories later moved in that direction although the efforts have stalled and a few of the hereditary peers remain.  As things now stand, the last remaining absolute veto the Lords retain is to stop an attempt by a government to extend a parliament's life beyond five years. 

The preserved Legislative Council chamber in Queensland's Parliament House.

Some upper house assassins however truly were a suicide squad.  In Australia, the state of Queensland followed the usual convention whereby the sub-national parliaments were bicameral, the Legislative Council the upper house and like the others, it was a bastion of what might now be called "those representing the interests of the 1%" and a classic example of white privilege.  Actually, at the time, the lower houses were also places of white privilege but the Australian Labor Party (ALP) had long regarded the non-elected Legislative Council (and upper houses in general) as undemocratic and reactionary so in 1915, after securing a majority in the Legislative Assembly (the lower house) which permitted the party to form government, they sought abolition.  The Legislative Council predictably rejected the bills passed by the government in 1915 & 1916 and a referendum conducted in 1917 decisively was lost; undeterred, in 1920, the government requested the governor appoint sufficient additional ALP members to the chamber to provide an abolitionist majority.  In this, the ALP followed the example of the Liberal Party in the UK which in 1911 prevailed upon the king to appoint as many new peers as might be needed for their legislation to pass unimpeded through an otherwise unsympathetic House of Lords.  That wasn’t needed as things transpired but in Queensland, the new members of the Legislative Council duly took their places and on 26 October 1921, the upper house voted in favor of abolition, the new appointees known forever as "the suicide squad".  Despite the success, the trend didn't spread and the Commonwealth parliament and those of the other five states remain bicameral although the two recent creations, established when limited self-government was granted to the Northern Territory (NT) and Australian Capital Territory (ACT), both had unicameral assemblies.

Margot Robbie (b 1990) in costume as Harley Quinn (a comic book character created by DC Comics), Suicide Squad (2016).

Across the Tasman Sea (which locals call "the ditch"), the New Zealand upper house lasted another three decades but it’s eventual demise came about not because of conflict but because the institution was increasing viewed as comatose, rejecting nothing, contributing little and rarely inclined even to criticize.  Unlike in England and Queensland, in New Zealand the abolition movement enjoyed cross-party support, left and right (although the latter in those days were pretty leftist), united in their bored disdain.  One practical impediment was the New Zealand parliament couldn’t amend the country’s constitution because no government had ever bothered to adopt the Statute of Westminster (1931) by which the Imperial Parliament had granted effective independence to the Dominions but in 1947 this was done.  Despite that, the Labour Party didn’t act and after prevailing in the 1950 general election, it was a National Party administration which passed the Legislative Council Abolition Act, its passage assured after a twenty-member “suicide squad” was appointed and the upper house’s meeting of 1 December 1950 proved its last.  Opposition from within the chamber had actually been muted, presumably because to sweeten the deal, the government used some of the money saved to pay some generous “retirement benefits” for the displaced politicians.  New Zealand since has continued as a unitary state with a unicameral legislature.

Pineapples.

In the Far East (the practice documented in Japan, the PRC (People's Republic of China) and the renegade province of Taiwan), fruit sellers offer pineapples for sale of the basis of “Murder” (谋杀 and variants) or “Suicide” (自殺する and variants).  Ominous as it sounds, it's just commercial shorthand.  Pineapples being more difficult to handle than many fruits, fruit shops offer the “murder” service in which staff will (for a small fee) peel and chop as required.  Those prepared to do their own preparation at home can take the “suicide” option and (at a lesser cost) purchase the whole fruit, skin and all.  There are many reasons to eat pineapple.

Suicide doors

1928 Mercedes-Benz Nürburg (W08) with four rear-hinged doors.

It wasn’t until the 1950s the practice of hinging doors from the front became (almost) standardized.  Prior to that, they’d opened from the front or rear, some vehicles featuring both.  The rear-hinged doors became known as suicide doors because they were genuinely dangerous (in the pre-seat belt era), the physics of them opening while the car was at speed had the effect of dragging the passenger into the airstream.  Additionally, it was said they were more likely to injure people if struck by passing vehicles while being opened although the consequences of being struck by a car sound severe whatever the circumstances.

2021 Rolls-Royce Phantom VIII Tempus.

Still used in the 1960s by Lincoln, Ford and Rolls-Royce, they were phased out as post-Nader safety regulations began to be applied to automotive design and were thought extinct when the four door Ford Thunderbirds ceased production in 1971.  However, after being seen in a few design exercises over the decades, Rolls-Royce included them on the Phantom VII, introduced in 2003, the feature carried over to the Phantom VIII in 2017.  Like other manufacturers, Rolls-Royce has no fondness for the term suicide doors, preferring to call them coach doors; nomenclature from other marketing departments including flex doors and freestyle doors.  Engineers are less impressed by silly words, noting the correct term is rear-hinged and these days, mechanisms are included to ensure they can be opened only when the vehicle is at rest.  Encouraged by the reaction, Rolls-Royce brought back the rear-hinged door for their fixed (FHC) and drop-head (DHC) coupés although, despite the retro-touch, the factory seems now content usually to call them simply coupés and convertibles.  

1971 Ford Thunderbird Landau.

In a nod to a shifting market, when the fifth generation Thunderbird was introduced in 1967, the four-door replaced the convertible which had been a staple of the line since 1955.  Probably the only car ever visually improved by a vinyl roof, the four-door was unique to the 1967-1971 generation, its replacement offered only as a coupé.  The decision effectively to reposition the model was taken to avoid a conflict with the new Mercury Cougar, the Thunderbird moving to the "personal coupé" segment which would become so popular.  So popular in fact that within a short time Ford would find space both for the Thunderbird and the Continental Mark III, changing tastes by the 1970s meaning the Cougar would also be positioned there along with a lower-priced Thunderbird derivative, the Elite.  Such was the demand for the personal coupé that one manufacturer successfully could support four models in the space, sometimes with over-lapping price-points depending on the options.  The four-door Thunderbirds are unique in being the only car ever built where the appearance was improved by the presence of a vinyl roof, the unusual semi-integration of the rear door with the C pillar necessitating something be done to try to conceal the ungainliness, the fake "landau irons" part of the illusion.

1967 Lincoln Continental convertible.  The later cars with the longer wheelbase are popular as wedding cars because the suicide doors can make ingress & egress more elegant for brides with big dresses although those with big hair often veto the lowering of the roof until after the photos have been taken.

The combination of the suicide door, the four-door coachwork and perhaps even the association with the death of President Kennedy has long made the convertible a magnet for collectors but among American cars of the era, it is different in that although the drive-train is typical of the simple, robust engineering then used, it's packed also with what can be an intimidating array of electrical and hydraulic systems which require both expertise and equipment properly to maintain.  That need has kept a handful of specialists in business for decades, often rectifying the mistakes of others.  It was unique; after the last of the even rarer Mercedes-Benz 300d Cabriolet Ds left the line in 1962, Lincoln alone offered anything in the once well-populated niche.

LBJ's 1964 Lincoln Continental convertible.

The four-door convertible's most famous owner was Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) who would use it to drive visitors around his Texas ranch (often with opened can of Pearl beer in hand according to LBJ folklore).  While never a big seller (21,347 made over seven years and it achieved fewer than 4,000 sales even in its best year), it was the most publicized of the line and to this day remains a staple in film & television productions needing verisimilitude of the era.  The convertible was discontinued after 1967 when 2276 were built, the two-door hardtop introduced the year before out-selling it five to one.  The market had spoken; it would be the last convertible Lincoln ever produced and it's now a collectable, LBJ's 1964 model in 2024 selling at auction for US$200,000 and fully restored examples without a celebrity connection regularly trade at well into five figures, illustrating the magic of the coach-work.

A mother watching her daughter enter her 1963 Lincoln Continental, the door held open by the girl's brother.  These are two of the family's 2.66 (1964 average) children.

Ford's advertising agency rose to the occasion when producing copy for the four-door convertible.  They certainly had scope because it was unique so many superlatives and adjectives which usually were little more than "mere puffery" would in this case have been literally true.  It was though a case of making "a silk purse from a sow's ear" because Lincoln adopted the suicide doors only because the car's wheelbase was too short for conventionally (forward) hinged doors to provide a sufficiently wide gap for entry and exit.  While that may sound a strange thing to plague a new design, the 1961 Continental was built on the platform of a proposed Ford Thunderbird which would have been available only with a two-door body and despite what the advertising copy suggests, even with the use of suicide doors, access to the rear compartment was tight, something not rectified until the wheelbase (123 inches (3,124 mm) for 1961-1963 & 126 inches (3,200 mm) for 1964-1969) was extended.     

Lincoln Continental concepts, Los Angeles Motor Show, 2002 (left) and New York Motors Show 2015 (right).

The Lincoln Continental for decades remained successful after the "great des-sizing" began in 1979 and despite the perceptions of some, the generation which was least-well received was that (1982-1987) based on Ford's smaller "Fox" platform, sales rebounding when the larger eighth generation (1988-1994) made it debut and that was despite the switch to FWD (front-wheel-drive) and the lack of a V8; clearing for Lincoln buyers it was size which mattered rather than the details of what lay beneath and presumably many neither knew, could tell or cared it was FWD.  Interest by the late 1990s was however dwindling and the nameplate suffered a fourteen year hiatus between 2002-2016.  Unfortunately, the resuscitation (without suicide doors) used as its inspiration the concept car displayed at the 2015 New York International Auto Show rather than the one so admired at Los Angeles in 2002.  The LA concept might not have been original but was an elegant and accomplished design, unlike what was offered in NYC fifteen years later: a dreary mash-up which looked something like a big Hyundai or a Chinese knock-off of a Maybach.  The public response was muted.

2019 Lincoln Continental Eightieth Anniversary Edition.

The tenth generation (2017-2020) managed what were by historic standards modest sales but by 2019, it seemed clear the thing was on death-watch but Lincoln surprised the industry with a batch of eighty LWB (long wheelbase) models with suicide doors to mark the eightieth anniversary of the Continental’s introduction in 1939.  Although there were those who suggested the relatively cheap process of a stretch and a re-hinge of the back-doors was a cynical way to turn a US$72K car into one costing US$102K and was likely aimed at the Chinese market where a higher price tag and more shiny stuff is thought synonymous with good taste, the anniversary models were sold only in the home market. Although even at the high price there was enough demand to induce ford to do a run of another 150 (non-commemorative) suicide door versions for 2020, the retro gesture proved not enough to save the breed and it was announced production would end on 30 October 2020 with no replacement listed.  Not only was the announcement expected but so was the reaction; the market having long lost interest in the uninspiring twenty-first century Continentals, few expressed regret.  The name-plate however, one of the most storied in the Ford cupboard, will doubtless one day return.  What it will look like is unpredictable but few expect it will match the elegance of what was done in the 1960s.

Haile Selassie I (1892-1975; Emperor of Ethiopia 1930-1974) being received by a ceremonial guard after alighting from the 1966 Vanden Plas Princess 4 Litre (DM4) Limousine of the Governor-General of Jamaica, 21 April 1966 (left) and Vanden Plas Princess with suicide doors open (right).

Emperor Haile Selassie’s 1966 state visit to Jamaica and the Caribbean has since been celebrated by Rastafari as “Grounation Day”, the term based on the emperor declining to walk on the red carpet provided in accordance with protocol because he wished to “make contact with the soil”.  Among many of the Rastafari (a movement which emerged in the 1930s, taking its name from Ras (the emperor’s pre-imperial name Ras) Haile Selassie was worshipped as God incarnate, the messiah who deliver the peoples of Africa and the African diaspora to freedom.  The limousine had been delivered to the island some six weeks earlier for the use of Elizabeth II (1926-2022; Queen of the UK and other places, 1952-2022) during her royal tour after which, she returned to London and the car was re-allocated to Government House as the viceroy’s official vehicle.  While it looked like something left over from the pre-war years, for its intended purpose it was ideal, the rear compartment capacious, luxuriously trimmed and tall, making it suitable for those wearing even the highest plumed hats.  Into this welcoming space, occupants stepped through suicide doors which offered unparalleled ease of entry and departure.

1965 Vanden Plas Princess 4 Litre (DM4) Limousine Landaulette (left) and 1940s advertisement for Dickson automatic rear door-locks.

Based on a car which was even upon its debut in 1952 was rather old fashioned, by 1968 when production finally ended, the Vanden Plas Princess was, stylistically and technically, a true relic and it’s remarkable that complete with a split windscreen, it was a contemporary of machines like the Lincoln Continental, Jaguar XJ6 and NSU Ro80.  It was very much a case it being better to be inside a DM4 looking (and for some, waving) out than on the outside looking in.  What must seem even more remarkable was that despite picking up a nickname like “suicide doors”, governments for decades did nothing to compel manufacturers to fit the small, cheap mechanisms (available on the aftermarket for US$3.95 a pair) which would prevent the doors opening while the car was in motion.  These potentially life-saving devices were not expensive and if installed in bulk on production lines, the unit cost would not much have exceeded US$1.00.  It was another world and not until the 1960s did the rising death toll compel legislatures to take seriously the matter of automotive safety.

When used by the wedding and hire car industries, some operators took advantage of many of the English limousines from the 1950s & 1960s being fitted with version of the GM (General Motors) Hydramatic automatic transmission, installing in each centre-post a dead-bolt activated by an electrical solenoid, the system triggered by “on” by the shift lever being in drive (locking the rear doors) and “off” by moving the lever to neutral (withdrawing the bolt).  Vanden Plas did at least on some models include on the dashboard a pair of red lights which brightly would glow if the corresponding left or right door was not completely closed.  The much more expensive Rolls-Royce limousines had no such “safety lights”; passengers in those were on their own.  It was not a theoretical problem because there were many documented cases of passengers, especially those sitting (without seat belts) in the jump-seats leaning against the doors, sometimes pressing down the handle, cause the door to open.

1960 Facel Vega Excellence EX1 which featured suicide doors which were among the most potentially dangerous because of the dubious (though the look was elegant) engineering in the locking mechanisms.  Note also the "dog leg" of the A-Pillar (windscreen), a styling trend borrowed from Detroit which caused many injuries to knees and one victim was Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) who who in August, 1960 suffered a hit during his doomed campaign for that year's presidential election.  It resulted in a staphylococci infection which for two weeks confined him to bed in Walter Reed Hospital at a time when his opponent (John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) was travelling the country campaigning and for a born politician like Nixon it wouldn't have been much consolation that his bedside well-wishers included Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater (1909–1998; Republican Party nominee for the 1964 US presidential election).  One biographer suggested it happened because his team deliberately chose to use a Chevrolet rather than a "larger" Cadillac in order to project a less elitist image.  While the reason for the choice of car was true, the impact injury would anyway likely have happened because, beginning with the 1959 range, for reasons of production-line rationalization, Chevrolet & Cadillac (along with Buick, Oldsmobile & Pontiac) all shared GM's corporate C-Body platform and while between divisions there were sometimes dimensional differences (notably in wheelbases), the front doors, A-Pillars and seat mounting points were identical in all.    

If compatible (which seems improbable given the novelty of this French approach to door-latch design), the Dickson locks would have been a worthwhile addition for the Facel Vega Excellence (1956-1964) which, in a triumph of fashion over function, had no B-Pillar (ie the central one between the doors) at all, the suicide doors secured only by a locking mechanism in the door sill, something which worked well in static testing but on the road, lateral stresses induced during cornering meant the doors were apt to “fly open”.  The completely pillarless look did however look good so there was that.  Powered by a variety of Chrysler V8s, the "big" Facel Vegas (1954-1964 and mostly coupés, 156 sedans & a handful of cabriolets) were France's finest cars of the post-war years but the decision to produce a smaller range doomed the company.  The idea was sound and the market existed but the French-made four-cylinder engine proved chronically (and insolubly) unreliable and by the time a version powered by a robust Volvo unit was ready, warranty claims and the costs of the re-engineering had driven Facel Vega bankrupt.

Lure of the tragic

Evelyn McHale: "The most beautiful suicide".

Predictably, it’s the suicides of celebrities (however defined) which attract most interest but there’s a fascination also with those by young women and that’s understandable because of the lure of youthful beauty and tragedy.  The photograph remembered as “the most beautiful suicide” was taken by photography student Robert Wiles (1909-1991), some four minutes after the victim's death.  Evelyn Francis McHale (1923–1947) was a bookkeeper who threw herself to her death from the 86th-floor observation deck of New York's Empire State Building, landing on a Cadillac limousine attached to the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) which was parked on 34th street, some 200 feet (60 m) west of Fifth Ave.  The police would later find he last note which read: “I don’t want anyone in or out of my family to see any part of me. Could you destroy my body by cremation?  I beg of you and my family – don’t have any service for me or remembrance for me.  My fiance asked me to marry him in June.  I don’t think I would make a good wife for anybody. He is much better off without me.  Tell my father, I have too many of my mother’s tendencies.”  It was reported her mother suffered from “an undiagnosed and untreated depression”.

Mary Miller and the "Genesee Hotel Suicide".  Earlier postcard of the Genesse Hotel with eighth floor ledge indicated by yellow arrow (left) and Mr Sorgi's photograph (centre) of the suicide's aftermath (right).

In many parts of the world, it’s now unusual if someone is not carrying a device able instantly to capture HD (high-definition) images & video footage but until relatively recently, cameras rarely were taken from the home unless to use them at set piece events such as vacations or parties.  Not only are people now able to record what they see but within seconds, images and clips can be transmitted just about anywhere in the world, some “going viral”.  This proliferation of content has had many implications, one noted phenomenon it seeming now more likely someone will film another at imminent risk of death or injury than offer to assist; psychiatrists, sociologists and such have offered views on that but the behaviour, at least in some cases might be better explained by lawyers and economists.

In 1942 it was mostly professional photographers who routinely would have to hand a camera and the devices were not then like the instantly available “point & shoot” technology of the digital age, the process then a cocktail of loading physical film-stock, assessing the light, adjusting the aperture and maybe even swapping lens.  The photograph (the lens wide-open and the shutter was set to a 1000th of a second), of Mary Millar (1907-1942), mid-flight in her leap to death from an eighth-floor ledge of the Genesee Hotel in Buffalo, New York was a thing most unusual: an anyway rare event happening when someone stood ready to take the picture.  When published, the photograph was captioned “Suicide” or “The Genesee Hotel Suicide” but the popular press couldn’t resist embellishment, one using the title “The Despondent Divorcee” which was in the tabloid tradition of “making stuff up”; Ms Millar had never been married and not in a relationship.  She left no suicide note.

Ignatius Russell Sorgi (1912-1995) was a staff photographer on Buffalo’s Courier Express who on 7 May, 1942 happened to take a different route back to the office when he saw a police car speeding down the road, sirens blaring.  Accordingly, in the “ambulance chasing” tradition, he followed, not knowing what he’d see but knew it might be news-worthy and gain him a front-page credit: “I snatched my camera from the car and took two quick shots as she seemed to hesitate…As quickly as possible I shoved the exposed film into the case and reached for a fresh holder.  I no sooner had pulled the slide out and got set for another shot than she waved to the crowd below and pushed herself into space.  Screams and shouts burst from the horrified onlookers as her body plummeted toward the street.  I took a firm grip on myself, waited until the woman passed the second or third story, and then shot.”

Cinque

Cinque (pronounced singk)

(1) In certain games (those using cards, dice, dominoes etc), a card, die, or domino with five spots or pips.

(2) As cinquefoil (1) a potentilla (flower), (2) in heraldry, a stylized flower or leaf with five lobes and (3) in topology, a particular knot of five crossings.

1350–1400: From the Middle English cink, from the Old French cinq (five), from the Vulgar Latin cinque, from the Latin quīnque (five).  The archaic spelling cinq was from the modern French cinq, whereas the standard spelling probably emerged either under the influence of the Italian cinque or was simply a misspelling of the French.  In typically English fashion, the pronunciation “sank” is based on a hypercorrect approximation of the French pronunciation, still heard sometimes among what use to be called “the better classes”.  The alternative forms were cinq (archaic), sinque (obsolete) and sink & sank (both misspellings).  The homophones are cinq, sink, sync & synch (and sank at the best parties); the noun plural is cinques.

Cinque outposts, attested since the 1640s was a term which referred to the five senses.  The noun cinquecento (written sometimes as cinque-cento) is used in (as noun & adjective) criticism & academic works when describing sixteenth century Italian art and literature.  It dates from 1760, from the Italian cinquecento (literally “500”) and was short for mil cinquecento (1500).  The use to describe "a group of five, five units treated as one," especially at cards or dice, dates from the late fourteenth century and in English was borrowed directly from the French cinq, a dissimilation from Latin quinque (five) which in Late Latin also picked up the familiar spelling cinque.  The ultimate root was the primitive Indo-European penkwe (five).

Cinquefoil housing stained glass (leadlight) window.

In architecture, a cinquefoil is a ornament constructed with five cuspidated divisions, the use dating from the late fifteenth century, from the Old French cinqfoil, the construct being cinq (five) + foil (leaf).  The basis for the French form was the quinquefolium, the construct being quinque (five) + folium (leaf), from the primitive Indo-European root bhel- (to thrive, bloom).  In Gothic tracery, there was a wide use of circular shapes featuring a lobe tangent to the inner side of a larger arc or arch, meeting other lobes in points called cusps projecting inwards from the arch and architects defined them by the number of foils used, indicated by the prefix: trefoil (3), quatrefoil (4), cinquefoil (5), multifoil etc.  Although used as stand-alone fixtures, bands of quatrefoils were much used for enrichment during the "Perpendicular Period" (the final phase of English Gothic architecture, dated usually between circa 1350–1550; it followed the "Decorated Style" and was characterized by strong vertical lines, large windows with intricate tracery, and elaborate fan vaulting) and, when placed with the axes set diagonally, quatrefoils were called cross-quarters.

Porsche "phone-dial" wheels, clockwise from top left: 1981 911SC, 1988 924S, 1987 944S & 1985 928S.  With a myriad of variations, the cinquefoil motif was a style for wheels used by a number of manufacturers, the best known of which were the ones with which Porsche equipped the 911, 924, 944 & 928 where they were known as the “phone-dial”, a reference which may puzzle those younger than a certain age.  Because these have five rather than ten holes, they really should have picked up the nickname "cinquefoil" rather than "phone-dial" but the former was presumably too abstract or obscure so the more accessible latter prevailed.

Fiat 500 (2023), watercolor on paper by Monika Jones.  While the artist hasn't provided notes, it's tempting to imagine the inspiration was something like “Lindsay Lohan in white dress during summer in Rome, leaning on Fiat 500, painted in the tradition of Impressionism.”

A classic of the La Dolce Vita era, the rear-engined Fiat 500 was in continuous production between 1957-1975 and was the successor to the pre-war Fiat 500 Topolino, an even more diminutive machine which proved its versatility in roles ranging from race tracks to inner-city streets to operating as support vehicles used by the Italian Army in the invasion of Abyssinia (1935).  Almost 3.9 million of the post-war 500s (dubbed the Nuova Cinquecento (New 500)) were produced and as well as the two-door saloon (almost all fitted with a folding sunroof) there were three-door station wagons (the Giardiniera) & panel vans.  Although not all wore the 500 badge, in the home market, universally Italians called them the Cinquecentro.  There was also the unusual 500 Jolly, a cut down version built by Carrozzeria Ghia which featured wicker seats and a removable fabric roof in the style of the surrey tops once used on horse-drawn carriages.  The Jolly was intended as “beach car”, some carried on the yachts of the rich and although Ghia built only 650 originals, many 500s have since been converted to “Jolly Spec”, one of coach-building’s less-demanding tasks.  Being an Italian car, there were of course high-performance versions, the wildest of which was the Steyr-Puch 650 TR2 (1965-1969) which ran so hot it was necessary to prop open the engine cover while it was in use.  The Nuova 500’s successors never achieved the same success but such was the appeal of the original that in 2007 a retro-themed 500 was released although, al la Volkswagen’s “new Beetles” (1997-2019), the configuration was switched to a water-cooled front-engine with FWD (front-wheel-drive).

1985 Ferrari Testarossa “monospecchio-monodado”.

The early Testarossas were fitted with centre-lock magnesium-alloy wheels, chosen for their lightness.  Responding to feedback from the dealer network, as a running-change during 1988, these were substituted for units with a conventional five-bolt design.  The centre-lock wheels were called monodado (one nut) while the five lug-types were the cinquedado (five nut) and because of the time-line, while all the monospecchio cars are also monodado, only some of the monodaddi are monospecchi.  Monospecchi (literally "one mirror") is an unofficial designation for the early cars fitted with a single external mirror, mounted unusually high on the A-pillar, the location the product of Ferrari's interpretation of the EU's (European Union) rearward visibility regulations.  The Eurocrats later clarified things and Testarossas subsequently were fitted with two mirrors in the usual position at the base of the A-pillar. 

Plastic wheelcover for the Ford (Australia) Fairmont XE (1982-1984, left), a circa 1949 British GPO standard telephone in Bakelite (centre) (globally, the most produced handset in this style was the Model 302, which, with a thermoplastic case, was manufactured in the US by Western Electric between 1937-1955 and plastic wheelcover for the Ford (Australia) Fairmont XF (1984-1988, right).  Telephones with larger dial mechanisms usually didn't use all the available space for the finger-holes.

Probably some are annoyed at the “five-hole” wheel design coming to be known as the “phone-dial” because of course the classic rotary-dial mechanism had ten holes, one for each numeral.  Ford Australia actually stuck to the classics when designing a plastic wheel-cover for the XE Fairmont (then the next rung up in the Falcon's pecking order) because it featured the correct ten holes and it was re-allocated as a “hand-me-down” for the Falcon when the XF was introduced, the Fairmont now getting an eight-hole unit.  None of these seem ever to have been dubbed “phone-dials”, probably because plastic wheel–covers have never been a fetish like the older metal versions or aluminium wheels (often as “rims” in modern usage, a practice which also annoys some).  The XE hubcap may be thought a decemfoil (10 leaf) and the XF unit a octofoil (8 leaf).

1971 Ford (South Africa) XY Fairmont GT with the GS Pack wheel covers.

The South African Fairmont GTs were never fitted with the "five slot" wheels used in Australia, getting instead the chromed wheel cover which in Australia was part of the "GS Pack", a collection of "dress-up" options designed to provide much of the look of a GT without the additional costs to purchase or insure one.  The GS Pack wheel covers were first seen in Australia on the 1967 XR Falcon GT and came from the Mercury parts bin in the US where they'd appeared on the 1966 Mercury Comet Cyclone GT; they were designed to look like a chromed, naked wheel, the idea a tribute to the Californian hot rod community in which the motif originated.

1971 Ford (Australia) XY Falcon GT with “five slot” wheels.

Although scholars of Latin probably haven’t given much thought to the wheels Ford used in the 1960s & 1970s, their guidance would be helpful because the correct Latin form for “slot” depends on context, the words being (1) Fissura: “crack, split or narrow opening”, (2) Rima: “narrow gap or slit”, (3) Foramen: “opening, hole or perforation” and (4) Scissura “cleft or division”.  So a XY GT’s wheel would be a cinquefissura, cinquerima, cinqueforamen or cinquescissura.  The scholars would have to rule but cinquerima seems best, tied in nicely with the modern (albeit contested) use of “rim” to mean wheel.      

In production over six generations between 1965-2008 the Fairmont was a "blinged-up" version of the Australian Ford Falcon (1960-2016), a car based on the US compact (1960-1969) Ford of the same name (the one-off 1970 US Falcon an entry level model in the intermediate Torinio (formerly Fairlane) range).  Ford in the US would also use the Fairmont name for a compact (1978-1983) but the most quirky use was that between 1969-1971, Ford South Africa sold a car substantially similar to the Australian Falcon GT but badged it "Fairmont GT".  Assembled (with some local components) in South Africa from CKD (completely knocked down) packs imported from Australia, the Fairmont name was chosen because US Falcons (assembled from Canadian CKD packs) had been sold in South Africa between 1960-1963 but had gained such a bad reputation (Ford Australia had to do much rectification work after encountering the same fragility) the nameplate was decreed tainted.  In the technical sense, "Fairmont GT" would have been a more accurate name in Australia too because the Falcon GTs were, with the bling, built on the Fairmont assembly line; the choice of "Falcon GT" was just a desire by the marketing team to create a "halo" machine for the mainstream range, something which succeeded to an degree which probably surprised even those ever-optimistic types.  Ford South Africa never offered a Fairmont GTHO to match the Falcon GTHOs produced in Australia to homologate certain combinations of parts for competition.

Lamborghini has used the phone-dial since the first incarnation appeared on the Silhouette in 1976 and it likes it still, left to right: Huranan, Gallardo, Countach, Diablo and Silhouette.  With five "holes", these are true cinquefoils.

Despite being often called a "hubcap", what appeared on the South African Fairmont GTs really was a "wheel cover".  The origin of the hubcap was, fairly obviously, “a cap for hub”, something which dates from the age of horse-drawn carts.  Although they would later become something decorative, hubcaps began as a purely function fitting designed to ensure the hub mechanism was protected from dirt and moisture because removing a wheel when the hub was caked in mud with bolts “rusted on” could be a challenge.  In the twentieth century the practice was carried over to the automobile, initially without much change but as wheels evolved from the wooden-spoked to solid steel (and even in the 1920s some experimented with aluminium), the hubcaps became larger because the securing bolts were more widely spaced.  This meant they became a place to advertise so manufacturers added their name and before long, especially in the US, the humble hubcap evolved into the “wheel-cover”, enveloping the whole circle and they became a styling feature, designs ranging from the elegant to the garishly ornate and some were expensive: in 1984 a set of replacement “wire” wheel covers for a second generation Cadillac Seville (the so-called “bustle-back”, 1980-1985) listed at US$995.00 if ordered as a Cadillac part-number and then that was a lot of money.  By the late 1980s, most wheel covers were plastic pressings, other than in places like the isolated environments behind the Iron Curtain.

Beltless: Lindsay Lohan in 2004 using touch-dial wall-phone, note the hooking of the thumbs in the belt loops.

Remarkably, although touch-dial (ie buttons) handsets appeared in the consumer market as early as 1963 and soon became the standard issue, in 2024 it’s possible still to buy new, rotary-dial phones although only the user experience remains similar; internally the connections are effected with optical technology, the “sound & feel” emulated.  There’s also a market for updating the old Bakelite & Thermoplastic units (now typically between 70-90 years old) with internals compatible with modern telephony so clearly there’s some nostalgia for the retro-look, if not the exact experience.  Even after the touch-dial buttons became ubiquitous the old terminology persisted among users (and in the manufacturers' documents); when making calls users continued to "dial the number".  The same sort of linguistic legacy exists today because ending a call is still the act of "hanging up" and that dates from the very early days of telephony when the ear-piece was a large conical attachment on a cord and at a call's conclusion, it was "hung up" on a arm, the weight of the receiver lowering the arm which physically separated two copper connectors, terminating the link between the callers.  

Ms Justine Haupt with custom rotary-dial cell phone in turquoise.

Ms Justine Haupt (b 1987), an astronomy instrumentation engineer at New York’s Brookhaven National Laboratory went a step further (backwards, or perhaps sideways, some might suggest) and built a rotary-dial cell phone from scratch because of her aversion to what she describes as “smartphone culture and texting”, something to which many will relate.  In what proved a three year project, Ms Haupt used a rotary-dial mechanism from a Trimline telephone (introduced in 1965 and produced by Western Electric, the manufacturing unit of the Bell System), mounted on a case 4 x 3 x 1 inches (100 x 75 x 25 mm) in size with a noticeably protuberant aerial; it used an AT&T prepaid sim card and had a battery-life of some 24-30 hours.  Conforming to the designer’s choices of functionality, it includes two speed-dial buttons, an e-paper display and permits neither texting nor internet access.  

Designer colors: Available in black, white, turquoise, beige and the wonderful Atomic Hotline Red.  The "atomic" in the name is an allusion the hotline's origin in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962) which was all about nuclear weapons.

Although she intended the device as a one-off for her own use, Ms Haupt was surprised at the interest generated and in 2022 began selling a kit (US$170) with which others could build their own, all parts included except the rotary-dial mechanism which would need to be sourced from junk shops and such.  Unlike the larger mechanism on the traditional desk or wall-mounted telephone, the holes in the Trimline’s smaller rotary-dial used the whole circle so the ten-hole layout is symmetrical and thus the same as the XE Fairmont’s wheelcover, something doubtlessly wholly coincidental.  Unfortunately, Ms Haupt encountered many difficulties (bringing to market a device which connects to public telephony networks involves processes of greater complexity than selling mittens and such) but the project remains afoot.

The rough-fruited cinquefoil or sulphur cinquefoil (Potentilla recta).

In botany, the potentila is a genus containing some three-hundred species of annual, biennial and perennial herbaceous flowering plants in the rose (rosaceae) family.  Since the 1540s it’s been referred to as the cinquefoil (also “five fingers” or “silverweeds”), all distinguished by their compound leaves of five leaflets.

The Confederation of Cinque Ports was a group of coastal towns in Kent, Sussex and Essex, the name from the Old French which means literally “five harbors”.  The five were Hastings, Sandwich, Dover, Romney, and Hythe, all on the western shore of the English Channel, where the crossing to the continent is narrowest.  Because of (1) their importance in cross-channel trade and (2) being in the region ,most vulnerable to invasion, they were granted special privileges and concessions by the Crown in exchange for providing certain services essential for maritime defense, dating from the years prior to the formation of the Royal Navy in the fifteenth century.  The name was first used in the late twelfth century in Anglo-Latin and the late thirteenth in English.

An early version of a PPP (public-private partnership), with no permanent navy to defend it from sea-borne aggression, the crown contracted with the confederation to provide what was essentially a naval reserve to be mobilized when needed. Earlier, Edward the Confessor (circa 1003–1066; King of England 1042-1066) had contracted the five most important strategically vital Channel ports of that era to provide ships and men “for the service of the monarch” and although this was used most frequently as a “cross-Channel ferry service” and was not exclusively at the disposal of the government.  Under the Norman kings, the institution assumed the purpose of providing the communications and logistical connections essential to keeping together the two halves of the realm but after the loss of Normandy in 1205, their ships and ports suddenly became England’s first line of defense against the French.  The earliest charter still extant dates from 1278 but a royal charter of 1155 charged the ports with the corporate duty to maintain in readiness fifty-seven ships, each to be available each year for fifteen days in the service of the king, each port fulfilling a proportion of the whole duty.  In return the ports and towns received a number of tax breaks and privileges including: An exemption from tax and tolls, limited autonomy, the permission to levy tolls, certain law enforcement and judicial rights, possession of lost goods that remain unclaimed after a year and of flotsam (floating wreckage and such) & jetsam (goods thrown overboard).  Even at the time this was thought to be a good deal and the leeway afforded to the Cinque Ports and the substantial absence of supervision from London led inevitability to smuggling and corruption although in this the Cinque Ports were hardly unique.

The Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports was something like a viceroy and the office still exists today but is now purely ceremonial and, although technically relict, remains a sinecure and an honorary title, regarded as one of the higher honors bestowed by the Sovereign and a sign of special approval by the establishment which includes the entitlement to the second oldest coat of arms of England.  The prestige it confers on the holder is derived from (1) it being the gift of the sovereign, (2) it being England’s most ancient military honor and (3), the illustrious standing of at least some of the previous hundred and fifty-eight holders of the office.  It is a lifetime appointment.

William Lygon (1872-1938), seventh Earl Beauchamp, in uniform as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.

The office of lord warden has not been without the whiff of scandal.  William Lygon, who in 1891 succeeded his father as the seventh Earl Beauchamp, was at twenty-seven appointed governor of New South Wales, a place to which he would later return, happily and otherwise.  In 1913, Lord Beauchamp, well-connected in society and the ruling Liberal Party’s leader in the House of Lords, was appointed Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and, fond of pomp, ceremony and dressing-up, he enjoyed the undemanding role.  However, in 1930, he embarked on a round-the-world tour which included a two-month stint in Sydney, where he stayed, accompanied by a young valet who lived with him as his lover.  This, along with other antics, did not go unnoticed, and the Australian Star newspaper duly reported:

“The most striking feature of the vice-regal ménage is the youthfulness of its members … rosy cheeked footmen, clad in liveries of fawn, heavily ornamented in silver and red brocade, with many lanyards of the same hanging in festoons from their broad shoulders, [who] stood in the doorway, and bowed as we passed in … Lord Beauchamp deserves great credit for his taste in footmen.”

The report found its way to London when Beauchamp’s brother-in-law, the second Duke of Westminster (1879–1953), hired detectives to gather evidence, hoping to destroy him and damage the Liberal Party, the Tory duke hating both.  Evidence proved abundant and not hard to find so in 1931 Westminster publicly denounced Beauchamp as a homosexual to the king (George V 1865–1936; King of the United Kingdom & Emperor of India 1910-1936), who was appalled and responded that he “…thought men like that always shot themselves.”  Westminster insisted a warrant be issued for Beauchamp’s arrest and that forced him into exile.

Lady Beauchamp seems to have shown some confusion upon being informed of her husband’s conduct.  Although he had enjoyed many liaisons in their (admittedly large) residences (his partners including servants, socialites & local fishermen) and his proclivities were an open secret known to many in society, his wife remained oblivious and expressed some confusion about what homosexuality was.  Leading a sheltered existence, Lady Beauchamp had never been told about the mechanics of “the detestable and abominable vice of buggery” and was baffled, thinking her husband was being accused of being a bugler.  Actually, that evocative phrase from the statute of 1533 no longer existed in English law so someone must have gone into the details with her because the charge would have been “Gross Indecency contrary to Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885”.  The change had been created by the so-called Labouchere Amendment and it solved the practical problem created by the specificity of the words of the sixteenth century.  For the state, the problem was the old law had been too exact in that if the prosecution could not beyond reasonable doubt prove anal sex had happened between at least two “male persons”, a conviction couldn’t be secured.  Thus the attraction of the phrase “Gross Indecency” which covered the whole vista of “unnatural caresses” and it was under the new law Irish writer Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was tried and convicted, receiving a sentence of two years.  So it cast a wider net but was less harsh in that as late as 1861 a conviction could attract the death penalty although this was thought so onerous a punishment for what was often a consensual act that prosecutions became rare.  Despite the reforms in England, in some parts of the old British Empire, terminology like “the abominable crime of buggery” remained on the statute books until late in the twentieth century.

Once things were became clear in Lady Beauchamp's mind, she petitioned for divorce, the papers describing the respondent as: “A man of perverted sexual practices, [who] has committed acts of gross indecency with male servants and other male persons and has been guilty of sodomy … throughout the married life … the respondent habitually committed acts of gross indecency with certain of his male servants.”  Tipped-off (then as now, the establishment had a "gay network"), his lordship promptly decamped, first to Germany which then would have seemed a prudent choice because, although homosexual acts between men had been illegal since the unification of Germany in 1871, under the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), enforcement was rare and a gay culture flourished blatantly in the larger German cities, the Berlin scene famous even then, the writer Christopher Isherwood (1904–1986) describing things memorably although it wasn't until his diaries were later published one fully could "read between the lines".  After the Nazis gained power in 1933, things changed and Beauchamp contemplated satisfying George V’s assumption but was dissuaded, instead spending his time between Paris, Venice, Sydney and San Francisco, four cities with a tolerant sub-culture and certainly places where wealthy gay men usually could bribe their way out of any legal unpleasantness.

Sir Robert Menzies in uniform as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.

Sir Robert Menzies (1894–1978; prime-minister of Australia 1939-1941 & 1949-1966) was one of the more improbable appointments as lord warden.  In the office (1965-1978), he replaced Sir Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) on whom the hardly onerous duties had been imposed in 1941.  The old soldier Churchill had spent a lifetime appearing in a variety of military uniforms (his RAF (Royal Air Force) Air Commodore's outfit adorned with "pilot's wings" (aviator badge), "awarded" by the RAF on the basis of flying lessons (concluded after a non-fatal crash) he'd undertaken at the Royal Naval Flying School at Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey while serving as First Lord of the Admiralty (1911-1915)) and wore it well but the very civilian Menzies looked something like one of the characters from a Gilbert & Sullivan (Sir William Gilbert (1836–1911) & Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) comic opera.  That he was made lord warden rather than being granted a peerage was thought by some emblematic of the changing relationship between the UK and Australia.

After the death of George V, the warrant for Beauchamp’s arrest was lifted and, in July 1937, he returned to England.  What did come as a surprise to many was that soon after his arrival, invitations were issued for a Beauchamp ball, ostensibly a coming-of-age celebration for Richard Lygon (1916-1970; the youngest son) but universally regarded as an attempt at a social resurrection.  In a sign of the times, much of London society did attend although there were those who declined and made it known why.  Still, it seems to have appeared a most respectable and even successful event, Henry "Chips" Channon (1897-1958) noting in his diary it was a bit dull, the “only amusing moment when Lord Beauchamp escorted… a negress cabaret singer into supper.  People were cynically amused but I was not surprised, knowing of his secret activities in Harlem.  It is never a long step from homosexuality to black ladies.”  Lord Beauchamp didn’t long enjoy his return to society, dying within a year of the ball but the vicissitudes of his life were helpful to Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) when writing Brideshead Revisited (1945), the character of Lord Marchmain based on Beauchamp himself while the ill-fated Sebastian Flyte was inspired by Beauchamp’s son Hugh (1904-1936) who shared and (with some enthusiasm) pursued some of his father’s interests.  Despite it all, an appointment as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports is for life and Lord Beauchamp remained in office until his death.