Deglutition

Deglutition (pronounced dee-gloo-tish-uh)

In physiology, the act or process of swallowing, regarded in modern mdeicine as a three-part process.

1640-1650: From the sixteenth century French déglutition (act or power of swallowing) or the Late Latin dēglūtītiō, the construct the Classical Latin dēglūtīre & dēgluttīre + -tiō (the suffix forming nouns relating to actions or the results of actions).  Dēgluttīre was from dēgluttiō (to swallow down), the construct being dē- (the prefix meaning “from, off”) + gluttiō (to gulp down, swallow) from the primitive Indo-European gwel (throat).  The Classical Latin deglutitionem (nominative deglutitio) was a noun of action from the past-participle stem of deglutare (to swallow down), the construct being ," from de- (the prefix used here in the sense of "down" + glutire "to swallow".  The old synonym glutition is obsolete although in medical texts it persisted well into the twentieth century and the French spelling déglutition appears in some medical publications.  Deglutition is a noun, deglutitive, deglutitious, deglutitory & deglutible are adjectives; the noun plural is deglutitions.  It seems forms like deglutiting, deglutited, deglutitively et al don't exist.

The mechanism of deglutition.

The process of deglutition (swallowing) may in humans begin to develop in utero as early as 15 weeks gestation and the conventional wisdom now is that it happens in three stages: (1) Oral Phase, in which there’s a preparatory stage, liquids sealed in the oral cavity by the tongue & hard palate bolus (the mass of something, especially of chewed food in the mouth while solids are masticated and a propulsion stage in which the tongue moves the bolus (the mass of chewed food towards the pharynx (the opening to the canal and the back of the mouth), (2) Pharyngeal Phase, which is triggered by receptors sending messages to the brainstem’s swallowing centre, this initiating a sequence of actions which prevent preventing aspiration and pushing the bolus down into the esophagus (the pathway between pharynx & stomach) and (3) Esophageal Phase in which the bolus enters the esophagus to be moved toward the stomach by rhythmic contractions of the esophageal muscles, the final wave of which relaxes the lower sphincter (a body-part with a valve-like function) to allow the bolus to enter the stomach.

The verb swallow was from the Middle English swolowen, swolwen, swolȝen, swelwen & swelȝen, from the Old English swelgan, from the Proto-West Germanic swelgan, from the Proto-Germanic swelganą (to swallow, revel, devour), from the primitive Indo-European swelk- (to gulp).  It was cognate with the Dutch zwelgen (to revel, carouse, guzzle), the German schwelgen (to delight, indulge), the Swedish svälja (to swallow, gulp), the Icelandic svelgja (to swallow) and the Old English swillan & swilian (to swill, wash out, gargle).  The noun swallow was from the Middle English swelwe & swolwe, from the Old English swelh & swelg (gulf, chasm) and ġeswelge (gulf, chasm, abyss, whirlpool), both from the Proto-West Germanic swelg & swalgi, from the Proto-Germanic swelgaz & swalgiz. It was cognate with the Old English swiliġe (pit), the Scots swelch, swellie & swallie (an abyss in the sea, a whirlpool), the Middle Low German swelch (whirlpool, eddy), the Dutch zwelg (gorge, chasm, gullet, throat) and the Old Norse svelgr (whirlpool, current, stream).  The spellings swalow & swolow are long obsolete. Swallow & swallowing are nouns & verbs, swallower is a noun and swallowed is a verb; the noun plural is swallows.

Impending deglutition: Lindsay Lohan swallowing yogurt.

The familiar sense is “to cause (food, drink, medicine etc) to pass from the mouth into the stomach (ie to take into the stomach via the throat) emerged as early as the eleventh century.  The figurative use includes geopolitics (“to swallow another territory or population (usually by annexation or aggression) based on the thirteenth century use to mean “to take (something) in so that it disappears; to consume, to absorb” and gullibility (To accept easily or without questions; inclined to believe) which was in use by the sixteenth century.  The idiomatic uses include “bitter (or difficult) pill to swallow” (something unpleasant or unwanted which must be accepted or endured), “swallow one’s pride” (To set aside one's feelings and adopt an alternative stance for pragmatic or other reasons), “swallow one’s words” (to be forced to retract a prior statement after it has been proved wrong or inappropriate; to take back what one has said) and “swallowed a dictionary (or thesaurus) (to speak or write using long or obscure words)

A swallow in flight.

In ornithology, the swallow is a small, migratory bird of the Hirundinidae family with long, pointed, moon-shaped wings and a forked tail; it feeds on the wing by catching insects and is best known for the phrase “one swallow does not a summer make”, the idea being that just because there are sightings of the migratory swallows arriving in their summer home, it does not guarantee summer weather from that point on.  The bird’s name was from the Middle English swalwe, swalewe & swalowe, from the Old English swealwe, from the Proto-West Germanic swalwā, from the Proto-Germanic swalwǭ.  It was cognate with the Danish & Norwegian svale, the Dutch zwaluw, the German Schwalbe and the Swedish svala.  In all languages, the name is believed to be onomatopoeic, imitating the bird's twittering and chattering calls.

The Swallow Sidecar company was an English firm set up in the early inter-war years and. As the name implies, its business was building the sidecars which could be attached to a motorcycle to enable a passenger to be carried.  The “Swallow” name was chosen because the company made a conscious attempt to style their sidecars with elegant lines and they hoped buyers would associate them with the agile, graceful bird.  The business flourished but in the 1920s so did the British economy as a prosperity spread, so did the demand for motor cars and Swallow Sidecar entered this growing market, their template being to purchase relatively inexpensive chassis from mainstream manufacturers and cloak them with rakish bodies.  Because a stylish body cost about the same to produce as something more prosaic, profits were good even though Swallow Sidecars sold their machines at very attractive prices.  To reflect the new business model, the company had by 1927 changed its name to Swallow Sidecar and Coachbuilding Company but with the cars rapidly coming to absorb most of the manufacturing capacity, by 1930 it was known as Swallow Coachbuilding.

1938 SS 100 Jaguar 3½-litre roadster.

Unlike many small coach-builders, this structure survived the Great Depression and became SS Cars Limited in 1934 and the “SS” may have been (1) an allusion to the original Swallow Sidecar or (2) just an attractive pair of letters for a car manufacturer (“S” by then already associated by many with high-performance) but it had come to be widely reported as a reference to “Standard Swallow” because most of the chassis them being used were supplied by the Standard company.  It was on an SS car that the “Jaguar” name was in 1935 first used, speedy or sleek animals becoming a popular choice of name in the 1930s and it’s the SS Jaguar 100 (referred to usually as the SS 100) which is the best remembered although very few were built (198 with the 2½ litre straight-six & 116 with a 3½-litre version).  The SS 100 provided the template which in the post-war years Jaguar would use to build their reputation: speed, rakish lines and value for money.  Like Shelby American’s take on the AC Cobra, there are now many more replica SS 100s than ever were built by the factory.

In 1945, as part of the planning for the resumption of production for vehicles for the civilian market, SS Cars changed its name to Jaguar Cars Limited but despite much subsequent speculation, there seems to be nothing to suggest it had anything to do with avoiding the common used name of the Nazi Schutzstaffel (the SS (ᛋᛋ in Armanen runes) 1925-1945) which was originally a party squad to provide security at public meetings (then often rowdy and violet affairs) which evolved into a personal bodyguard for Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) before becoming first a paramilitary formation and finally a kind of parallel army (the Waffen-SS) hundreds of thousands strong).  Instead, it seems to have been that the market response to the Jaguar name had been positive and was in its field unique and would therefore not be confused with anything else.

Degrees of authenticity: 2017 Jaguar XKSS (continuation series)

In 1957, the "SS" moniker was revived for what was planned to be a run of 25 XKSSs, road-going conversions of the Le Mans-winning D-type (1954-1956); such things were possible in those happier, less regulated times.  However, nine of the cars earmarked for export to North America were lost in fire so only 16 were ever completed.  In 2016 Jaguar displayed the first of nine XKSS "continuation" models and these nine, using the serial numbers allocated in 1957 are regarded as a "continuation of the original run" to completion, Jaguar insisting it is not "cloning itself".  The project was well-received and the factory subsequently announced it would also continue the production run of the lightweight E-Types, again using the allocated but never absorbed ID numbers.  Other manufacturers, including Aston Martin, have embarked on their own continuation programmes and at a unit cost in excess of US$1 million, it's a lucrative business.  I 

Parasol & Umbrella

Parasol (pronounced par-uh-sawl or par-uh-sol)

(1) A type of lightweight umbrella used, especially by women, as protection from the sun.

(2) In architecture, a roof or covering of a structure designed to provide cover from wind, rain, or sun.

(3) In bar-tending, a miniature paper umbrella used as a decoration in tropical-themed cocktails.

(4) In aviation, as parasol wing, a wing not directly attached to the fuselage but held above it, supported by either cabane struts or a pylon.  Additional bracing may be provided by struts or wires extending from the fuselage sides.

(5) As permanent or movable features, a sun-shade (usually in an umbrella-like shape) used in gardens and mounted on a stand (the shaft sometimes passing through a hole in a table; these can be foldable and demountable.

(6) In entomology, any of various Asian species of libellulid dragonfly of the genus Neurothemis.

(7) The parasol mushroom, Macrolepiota procera

1610–1620: From the French & Middle French parasol from the Italian parasole, the construct being para- (to shield) + sole (sun); the Italian sole being derived from the Classical Latin sōl (sun).  The rarely used adjectival form is parasoled.  A curious and long extinct Americanism from the late nineteenth century was bumbershoot.  Parasol is a noun & verb; the noun plural is parasols.

Umbrella (pronounced uhm-brel-uh)

(1) A portable, usually circular cover for protection from rain or sun, consisting of a fabric held on a collapsible frame of thin ribs radiating from the top of a carrying stick or handle.

(2) Anything providing protection (usually figuratively).

(3) In marine biology, flattened cone-shaped contractile, contractile, gelatinous body of a jellyfish or other medusa.

(4) In military jargon, something that covers or protects from above such as aircraft safeguarding surface forces.

(5) In geopolitics, as the "nuclear umbrella", a description of the arrangement under which a nuclear-armed state extends its use (either by formal alliance or perception) to non-nuclear states.

(6) Something covering a wide range of concepts, purposes, groups, organizational structures etc.

(7) In zoology, the main body of a jellyfish (the gelatinous material), excluding the tentacles.

(8) In photography (static and moving), an umbrella-shaped reflector with a white or silvery inner surface, used to diffuse or direct light.

1600–1610: From the Italian ombrella and umbrella (parasol, sunshade), diminutive of ombra (shade), an earlier variant of ombrello from the Late Latin umbrella, an alteration (under the influence of the Latin umbra (shade or shadow)) of the Latin umbella (sunshade).  In both Latin and Italian, the –ella suffix was used with female nouns to form diminutives and was the feminine equivalent of –ello.  The slang terms for the umbrella vary: In the US there was "bumbershoot" & "umbershoot" (now less common) while elsewhere in the English-speaking world it's almost always "brolly" (which is never spelled "brollie" although the plural is "brollies"); the old British terms "gamp", "rain napper" & rainshade are all archaic.  The alternative spellings humbrella, ombrella & umbrello are listed by dictionaries variously as obsolete & archaic but all are effectively extinct.  Umbrella is a noun and umbrellaed is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is umbrellas.

Of Sun and Rain

Lindsay Lohan: Tyler Shields (b 1982) photo shoot, 2010.

Although structurally, essentially identical, the convention of use is that a parasol protects from the sun and an umbrella, rain.  In French this is formalised with parapluie (umbrella), the construct being para (to shield) + pluie (rain), pluie from the Latin pluvia (rain) whereas parasol is para + sol (sun).  Quite what Lindsay Lohan's photographer has in mind is not immediately obvious but in tunnels, parasols obviously are never used for their intended purpose and, given they are, by definition, shielded from the rain, unfurled umbrellas are also an uncommon sight.  However, in many of the tunnels used in mining, construction or for non-public access, they would be handy because such tunnels are often damp places and drips are constant.  In mining especially, hydrological management is a significant aspect of site management and many resources are devoted variously (and sometimes concurrently) to (1) getting water into tunnels, (2) keeping water out of tunnels and (3) getting water out of tunnels.

Osculation through gritted teeth: Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017, left) and crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) providing a photo opportunity, Washington DC, 2012.

The car is the official presidential limousine, the nickname "the beast" (dating it's said from the administration of George W Bush (George XLIII, b 1946; US president 2001-2009) most popular with the public although to the Secret Service it's believed still to be code-named "stagecoach", a moniker adopted in 1981 because of the agents' association of one-time film-star Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989) with "cowboy western" movies.  Details of the construction of the modern presidential limousines are classified as secret but it's believed the things are built on a General Motors (GM) light truck chassis, the body a kind of "generic rendition" of a 1980s Cadillac (the last time they were close to the classic "full-sized" cars of the 1960s & 1970s), powered by large-displacement diesel or gas (petrol) V8 engines and fitted with some contemporary components (such as the headlamp assembly) to maintain a relationship with the Cadillacs available in showrooms.  Essentially a disguised armored car with extensive internal life-support systems, they're doubtless as safe an environment as is possible but they certainly lack the elegance of the classic presidential Lincoln Continentals of the 1960s, the platform which gained infamy after the assassination in Dallas of John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963).

The Nuclear Umbrella

In geopolitics, the term “nuclear umbrella” describes the arrangement in which a nuclear-armed state extends the coverage of its nuclear arsenal to the defense of non-nuclear states.  Depending on the relationship or what’s politically possible, that can be by means either of a formal alliance or the “manufacturing” of a perception.  The obvious examples of formal alliances include the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, 1949) and Warsaw Pact (1955-1991), the treaties under which the US and Soviet Union respectively undertook to apply the same threat of nuclear retaliation to an attack on signatory states as was applied to the homelands.  Although not something much discussed at the time of NATO’s formation, the nuclear umbrella later became a significant element in the attempts to limit nuclear proliferation, something which emerged as an issue in the early 1960s when it was feared that within a decade there would be dozens of states with nuclear-equipped military forces.

Members of the FFF (former first family) each maintain their own umbrella.

In situations where nominally allied states don’t have faith in the assurances of their partners, each can feel compelled to maintain their own nuclear umbrella; the term for this is the “independent nuclear deterrent” (IND).  It was the concern that rapidly there would be a growth in the number of nuclear-weapon states that led to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (the NPT, 1970) being negotiated during the late 1960s and the US nuclear umbrella strategy underpins its effectiveness.

For its effectiveness to be maintained, the nuclear umbrella relies on its credibility and in this there are two aspects: (1) the states enjoying the umbrella’s protection must believe that if attacked, they could rely on their protector using their using the nuclear arsenal for their defense and (2) all potential adversaries must share this perception.  Since 1949, the “adversary” states have either believed this or not been prepared to take a risk by embarking on military action against those under the umbrella but among allies, there has been less certainty.  While there tensions within the Warsaw Pact, these were related to ideology rather than anything to do with military matters, within the US alliance systems such have been the concerns, very much because the perception of threat from Moscow and Beijing was much greater.

By contrast, the earlier British development of an independent nuclear deterrent was a special case in unique circumstances.  The British regarded the development of the original atomic bombs as a co-operative venture with the US (albeit it one in which their contribution rapidly diminished) and were miffed when US co-operation abruptly was withdrawn after 1945 and, understanding the implications of the new weapon, believed that their ongoing status as a world power depended upon its possession.  Although it wouldn't be until 1989 the musician Frank Zappa (1940-1993) published The Real Frank Zappa Book, His Majesty’s government in the 1940s would have agreed with the passage which read “…that to be a real country, you need to have a beer and an airline.  It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.”

France also adopted an IND, not because of any premonition of Zapparian theory but because Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970; President of France 1959-1969) wasn’t certain a US president would order a nuclear strike if squadrons of Soviet tanks were spearheading 200 Red Army divisions rolling Western Europe or, as he put it: “Would the White House risk New York to save Paris?”, the same sentiment which would later compel him to withdraw France from NATO’s unified command.  The same unease is said also to be increasing east of Suez and in both Seoul and Tokyo there are murmurings of the need for an IND in an increasingly tense region, concerns heightened by some recent comments by Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021).  Both Japan (In Japanese, the figurative noun “nuclear umbrella” is 核の傘) and South Korea (the Republic of Korea (RoK)) have for decades prospered under the US umbrella and for either country to seek to adopt their own would introduce a new dynamic with unpredictable consequences.  Many years ago, the Chinese foreign ministry organized some “leaks” which made clear that were Japan to seek an IND (something all agree it has the technical and industrial capacity to achieve within months), they could expect a preventative strike.  Whether or not that’s literally true, just the possibility of what would be unleashed does terrify.

Inkhorn

Inkhorn (pronounced ingk-hawrn)

A small container of horn or other material (the early version would literally have been hollowed-out horns from animals), formerly used to hold writing ink.

1350-1400: From the Middle English ynkhorn & inkehorn (small portable vessel, originally made of horn, used to hold ink), the construct being ink +‎ horn.  It displaced the Old English blæchorn, which had the same literal meaning but used the native term for “ink”.  It was used attributively from the 1540s as an adjective for things (especially vocabulary) supposed to be beloved by scribblers, pedants, bookworms and the “excessively educated”).  Inkhorn, inkhornery & inkhornism are nouns, inkhornish & inkhornesque are adjectives and inkhornize is a verb; the noun plural is inkhorns.

Ink was from the Middle English ynke, from the Old French enque, from the Latin encaustum (purple ink used by Roman emperors to sign documents), from the Ancient Greek ἔγκαυστον (énkauston) (burned-in”), the construct being ἐν (en) (in) + καίω (kaíō) (burn). In this sense, the word displaced the native Old English blæc (ink (literally “black” because while not all inks were black, most tended to be).  Ink came ultimately from a Greek form meaning “branding iron”, one of the devices which should make us grateful for modern medicine.  Because, in addition to using the kauterion to cauterize (seal wounds with heat), essentially the same process was used to seal fast the colors used in paintings.  Then, the standard method was to use wax colors fixed with heat (encauston (burned in)) and in Latin this became encaustum which came to be used to describe the purple ink with which Roman emperors would sign official documents.  In the Old French, encaustum became enque which English picked up as enke & inke which via ynk & ynke, became the modern “ink”.  Horn was from the Middle English horn & horne, from the Old English horn, from the Proto-West Germanic horn, from the Proto-Germanic hurną; it was related to the West Frisian hoarn, the Dutch hoorn, the Low German Hoorn, horn, the German, Danish & Swedish horn and the Gothic haurn.  It was ultimately from the primitive Indo-European ḱr̥h-nó-m, from ḱerh- (head, horn) and should be compared with the Breton kern (horn), the Latin cornū, the Ancient Greek κέρας (kéras), the Proto-Slavic sьrna, the Old Church Slavonic сьрна (sĭrna) (roedeer), the Hittite surna (horn), the Persian سر (sar) and the Sanskrit शृङ्ग (śṛṅga) (horn

Inkhorn terms & inkhorn words

The phrase “inkhorn term” days from the 1530s and was used to criticize the use of language in an obscure or way difficult for most to understand, usually by an affected or ostentatiously erudite borrowing from another language, especially Latin or Greek.  The companion term “inkhorn word” was used of such individual words and in modern linguistics the whole field is covered by such phrases as “lexiphanic term”, “pedantic term” & “scholarly term”, all presumably necessary now inkhorns are rarely seen.  Etymologists are divided on the original idea behind the meaning of “inkhorn term” & “inkhorn word”.  One faction holds that because the offending words tended to be long or at least multi-syllabic, a scribe would need more than once to dip their nib into the horn in order completely write things down while the alternative view is that because the inkhorn users were, by definition, literate, they were viewed sometimes with scepticism, one suspicion they used obscure or foreign words to confuse or deceive the less educated.  The derived forms are among the more delightful in English and include inkhornism, inkhornish, inkhornery inkhornesque & inkhornize.  The companion word is sesquipedalianism (a marginal propensity to use humongous words).

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

Inkhorn words were in the fourteenth & fifteenth centuries known also as “gallipot words”, derived from the use of such words on apothecaries' jars, the construct being galli(s) + pot.  Gallis was from the Latin gallus (rooster or cock (male chicken)), from the Proto-Italic galsos, an enlargement of gl̥s-o-, zero-grade of the primitive Indo-European gols-o-, from gelh- (to call); it can be compared with the Proto-Balto-Slavic galsas (voice), the Proto-Germanic kalzōną (to call), the Albanian gjuhë (tongue; language), and (although this is contested) the Welsh galw (call).  Appearing usually in the plural a gallipot word was something long, hard to pronounce, obscure or otherwise mysterious, the implication being it was being deployed gratuitously to convey the impression of being learned.  The companion insult was “you talk like an apothecary” and “apothecary's Latin” was a version of the tongue spoken badly or brutishly (synonymous with “bog Latin” or “dog Latin” but different from “schoolboy Latin” & “barracks Latin”, the latter two being humorous constructions, the creators proud of their deliberate errors).  The curious route which led to “gallipot” referencing big words was via the rooster being the symbol used by apothecaries in medieval and Renaissance Europe, appearing on their shop signs, jars & pots.  That was adopted by the profession because the rooster symbolized vigilance, crowing (hopefully) at dawn, signaling the beginning of the day and thus the need for attentiveness and care.  Apothecaries, responsible for preparing and dispensing medicinal remedies, were expected to be vigilant and attentive to detail in their work to ensure the health and well-being of their patients who relied on their skill to provided them the potions to “get them up every morning” in sound health.  Not all historians are impressing by the tale and say a more convincing link is that in Greek mythology, the rooster was sacred to Asclepius (Aesdulapius in the Latin), the god of medicine, and was often depicted in association with him.  In some tales, Asclepius had what was, even by the standards of the myths of Antiquity, a difficult birth and troubled childhood.

The quest for the use of “plain English” is not new.  The English diplomat and judge Thomas Wilson (1524–1581) wrote The Arte of Rhetorique (1553), remembered as the “the first complete works on logic and rhetoric in English” and in it he observed the first lesson to be learned was never to affect “any straunge ynkhorne termes, but to speak as is commonly received.”  Wring a decade earlier, the English bishop John Bale (1495–1563) had already lent an ecclesiastical imprimatur to the task, condemning one needlessly elaborate text with: “Soche are your Ynkehorne termes” and that may be the first appearance of the term in writing.  A religious reformer of some note, he was nicknamed “bilious Bale”, a moniker which politicians must since have been tempted to apply to many reverend & right-reverend gentlemen.  A half millennium on, the goal of persuading all to use “plain English” is not yet achieved and a fine practitioner of the art was Dr Kevin Rudd (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2007-2010 & 2013): from no one else would one be likely to hear the phrase “detailed programmatic specificity” and to really impress he made sure he spoke it to an audience largely of those for whom English was not a first language.

An inkhorn attributed to Qes Felege, a scribe and craftsman.

Animal horns were for millennia re-purposed for all sorts of uses including as drinking vessels, gunpowder stores & loaders, musical instruments and military decoration and in that last role they’ve evolved into a political fashion statement, Jacob Chansley (b 1988; the “QAnon Shaman”) remembered for the horned headdress worn during the attack on the United States Capitol building in Washington DC on 6 January 2021.  Inkhorns tended variously to be made from the horns of sheep or oxen, storing the ink when not as use and ideal as a receptacle into which the nib of a quill or pen could be dipped.  Given the impurities likely then to exist a small stick or nail was left in the horn to stir away any surface film which might disrupts a nib’s ability to take in free-flowing ink, most of which were not pre-packaged products by mixed by the user from a small solid “cake” of the base substance in the desired color, put into the horn with a measure starchy water and left overnight to dissolve.  The sharp point of a horn allowed it to be driven into the ground because the many scribes were not desk-bound and actually travelled from place to place to do their writing, quill and inkhorn their tools of trade.

A mid-Victorian (1837-1901) silver plated three-vat inkwell by George Richards Elkington (1801–1865) of Birmingham, England.

The cast frame is of a rounded rectangular form with outset corners, leaf and cabuchons, leaf scroll handle and conforming pen rest.  The dealer offering this piece described the vats as being of "Vaseline" glass with fruit cast lids and in the Elkington factory archives, this is registered, 8 Victoria Chap 17. No. 899, 1 November 1841.  “Vaseline glass” is a term describing certain glasses in a transparent yellow to yellow-green color attained by virtue of a uranium content.  It's an often used descriptor in the antique business because some find the word “uranium” off-putting although inherently the substance is safe, the only danger coming from being scratched by a broken shard.  Also, some of the most vivid shades of green are achieved by the addition of a colorant (usually iron) and these the cognoscenti insist should be styled “Depression Glass” a term which has little appeal to antique dealers.  The term “Vaseline glass” wasn’t used prior to the 1950s (after the detonation of the first A-bombs in 1945, there emerged an aversion to being close to uranium) and what's used in this inkwell may actually be custard glass or Burmese glass which is opaque whereas Vaseline glass is transparent.  Canary glass was first used in the 1840s as the trade name for Vaseline glass, a term which would have been unknown to George Richards Elkington.

English silver plate horn and dolphin inkwell (circa 1909) with bell, double inkwell on wood base with plaque dated 1909.  This is an inkwell made using horns; it is not an inkhorn.

So inkhorns were for those on the move while those which sat on desks were called “ink wells” or “ink pots” and these could range from simple “pots” to elaborate constructions in silver or gold.  There are many ink wells which use horns as part of their construction but they are not inkhorns, the dead animal parts there just as decorative forms of structure.

Dr Rudolf Steiner’s biodynamic cow horn fertilizer.

Horns are also a part of the “biodynamic” approach to agriculture founded by the Austrian occultist & mystic Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), an interesting figure regarded variously as a “visionary”, a “nutcase” and much between.  The technique involves filling cow horns with cow manure which are buried during the six coldest months so the mixture will ferment; upon being dug up, it will be a sort of humus which has lost the foul smell of the manure and taken on a scent of undergrowth.  It may then be used to increase the yield generated from the soil.  It’s used by being diluted with water and sprayed over the ground.  Dr Steiner believed the forces penetrating the digestive organ of cows through the horn influence the composition of their manure and when returned to the environment, it is enriched with spiritual forces that make the soil more fertile and positively affect it.  As he explained: “The cow has horns to send within itself the etheric-astral productive forces, which, by pressing inward, have the purpose of penetrating directly into the digestive organ. It is precisely through the radiation from horns and hooves that a lot of work develops within the digestive organ itself.  So in the horns, we have something well-adapted, by its nature, to radiate the vital and astral properties in the inner life.”  Now we know.

Vantage

Vantage (pronounced van-tij or vahn-tij)

(1) A position, condition, or place affording some advantage or a commanding view, expressed usually as "vantage point".

(2) An advantage or superiority (almost obsolete except when used by Aston-Martin).

(3) In lawn tennis, short for advantage, a "vantage game" the first game played after the set is deuce (40-40) (now thought rare as deliberate use but "advantage" is often heard that way although some umpires may well prefer the clipping).

1250-1300: From the Middle English, from the Anglo-French, by apheresis from the Old French avantage (advantage or profit).  The English advantage was from the early fourteenth century Middle English avantage & avauntage (position of being in advance of another), from the twelfth century Old French avantage (advantage, profit; superiority), from avant (before), either via an unrecorded Late or Medieval Latin abantaticum or from the Latin abante (in front; before), from the primitive Indo-European root ant (front, forehead).  The spelling with a "d" was one of those mistakes which endured to become "correct English", the “a-”, being supposed to be from the Latin ad-(from the preposition ad (to, towards), from the Proto-Italic ad, from the primitive Indo-European héd (near, at).  The meaning “any condition favorable to success, a favoring circumstance” (ie the opposite of “a disadvantage”) emerged in the late fifteenth century while the use in the scoring in tennis is documented from the 1640s.  The familiar modern phrase take advantage of was in used by the late fourteenth century in the sense of (“avail oneself of” & “impose oneself upon” while the meaning “to have the advantage of (someone) (ie have superiority over) dates from the 1560s.  The phrase "vantage point" was first noted in 1865, a variation of the earlier "vantage ground" which was in military & hunting use by the early seventeenth century.  The early English alternative vauntage, soon faded from use and the derived forms, vantages (third-person singular simple present) vantaging (present participle) and vantaged (simple past and past participle) are now wholly obsolete. Vantahe is a noun & verb; the noun plural is vantages.

The phrase “coigne of vantage” (a good position for observation, judgment, criticism, action etc) was from Act 1, Scene 6 in William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) Macbeth (circa 1605) in which King Duncan and his cohort ride up to Macbeth's castle.

DUNCAN

This castle hath a pleasant seat. The air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.

BANQUO

This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
By his loved mansionry, that the heaven’s breath
Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle.
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed,
The air is delicate.

Coigne was a variant of quoin, from coin and has been used variously to mean (1) a projecting corner or angle; a cornerstone, (2) the keystone of an arch, (3) a wedge used in typesetting, (4) in crystallography, a corner of a crystal formed by the intersection of three or more faces at a point and (5) in geology, an original angular elevation of land around which continental growth has taken place.

Vantage points: Traditionally, the best way to secure a vantage point is to seek a degree of elevation to achieve the desired "line of sight" (Lindsay Lohan (photo shoot for Vogue (Spanish edition) August 2009, left) but the functionality of just about any spot can usually be enhanced by the use of a telescope, binoculars, opera glasses of any appropriate form of magnification (Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011, right).

DB2 Vantage DHC

The word Vantage was first used by Aston Martin in 1950 on the DB2.  The title indicated an uprated engine specification: a pair of larger carburetors and a higher compression ratio which added 20bhp to the standard DB2’s 105.  Almost 250 were built with both saloon (AM’s term for a two door coupé) and drophead coupé (DHC, the term then often used by English manufacturers to refer to "formal convertibles (which some call cabriolets)" (as opposed to the more performance-oriented roadsters)) coachwork.

DB4 Vantage Saloon

Strangely, although the Vantage moniker caught on with aficionados, it wouldn’t be again used by the factory for almost a decade.  The DB4 Vantage was released with the Series IV cars in 1961, now with triple carburetors and a higher compression ratio, the cylinder head was also revised with bigger valves, the package yielding 266bhp, some ten per cent more than a standard DB4.  The Vantage this time was visibly distinct as well as technically upgraded, gaining the faired-in headlights and bright aluminum trim from the earlier DB4 GT.

DB5 Vantage Saloon

While mechanically almost identical to the Series IV, the more spacious Series V Vantage of 1962, the last in the DB4 line, was stylistically different, being essentially a prototype for the upcoming DB5.  The two are virtually indistinguishable; indeed one Series V DB4 Vantage was used alongside a DB5 in the filming of the James Bond film Goldfinger (1964).  Of the 141 built, the rarest and most desirable were the half-dozen with the optional DB4 GT engine.

DB5 Vantage DHC

The Vantage option remained on the books when the DB5 was released in 1965.  Now with triple Weber carburetors, the factory rated the Vantage at 325bhp, a jump of 40 over the standard engine and only 68 of the 887 saloons were built to the Vantage specification.  More rare still was the DB5 Vantage convertible, a mere eight of the 123 built although, over the decades, a great many of both have be upgraded to the Vantage standard.

DB6 Vantage Saloon

Introduced in 1965 and made in two series, the now Kham-tailed DB6 remained in production until 1970.  The DB6 Vantage was mechanically identical to its predecessor but there were detail changes.  Retained was the Vantage badge introduced with the DB5, but the nomenclature was now added as a discreet script on the side strakes and much attention was devoted to improving passenger comfort.  At this point, while coupés continued to be labelled saloons, convertibles were now styled Volantes (a derivation of the Italian word for "flying").  Spread between two series, out of a total DB6 production of 1739, 405 Saloons and 42 Vantage Volantes were built.

DBS Vantage Saloon

By the mid 1960s, the market in which Aston Martin competed, although larger, was more contested than even a decade earlier.  As early as 1961, Jaguar’s E-Type had, at a fraction of the cost, matched the DBs in style and performance, if not quality and their V12 project was known to be well-advanced.  The Italian thoroughbreds, Ferrari, Maserati and Lamboghini, all with eight and twelve cylinder engines, were setting new standards and there was now an array of trans-Atlantic hybrids which combined exquisite European coachwork with cheap, effortless and reliableAmerican V8 power.  Aston Martin’s six cylinder engine, Vantage tweaked or not, was starting to look technologically bankrupt.  Accordingly, the factory developed both a new car, the DBS, and their own V8.  For a variety of reasons, the V8 wasn’t ready by the time the DBS, a typical Aston Martin mix of traditional and modern, was released in 1967 so the familiar six, again available in Standard or Vantage form was carried over from the DB6 although, to counter increased weight, the Vantage version boasted revised camshafts.

Vantage Saloon

The DBS and DB6 were produced in parallel until 1970, the last few DB6s built after the DBS V8’s release the previous year.  The last of the six cylinder DBSs came in a run of seventy named simply Vantage, all with the revised twin-headlight coachwork introduced in 1972 which would serve the line essentially unchanged until 1989.  Historically, the final seventy were then a unique anomaly, the first time a Vantage was not the most but the company's least potent offering.  After the last was built in 1973, there would not for twenty years be another six-cylinder Aston Martin.

V8 Vantage Volante

That historical quirk was certainly rectified after the Vantage’s half-decade hiatus, during which the first oil crisis of the early 1970s had transformed the market.  Most of the trans-Atlantic hybrids had been driven extinct, Jaguar had moved in a different direction, Mercedes-Benz had chosen not to compete, Lamborghini, Aston Martin and Maserati all had their own brushes with bankruptcy, Porsche were moving up-market to become a competitor and governments were imposing more and more regulations.  The 1977 Aston Martin Vantage took a different approach to the mid-engined Italian or turbo-charged German opposition.  Although there was much attention to aerodynamics and chassis dynamics, mostly it was about simple brute force, the additional power over the standard V8 gained by the traditional methods used in Vantages past and it proved effective, able to run with the Lamborghini Countach, the Ferrari BB and even the Porsche 911 Turbo of the time.  This time, the factory didn’t release a claimed power output, describing it instead as “adequate”.  Introduced in 1969, by the time production ended in 1989, the V8 range was regarded as "a glorious anachronism".

V8 Vantage Zagato Saloon

The Vantage, as both saloon and volante, remained in production until 1989 and served as the basis of the shorter, radical, and very rare, V8 Vantage Zagato coupé & convertible (presumably in deference to the Italian contribution, the tags "saloon" & "volante" were never used).  Zagato's coachwork during the 1950s had been sometimes quirky (the double-bubble roof a signature) but they tended to the orthodoxy of the era, exemplified by the DB4 GT Zagato coupé, twenty of which were built between 1960-1963.  As the century unfolded however, Zagato's lines became increasingly rectilinear and "interestingly unique" were sometimes described as "not conventionally beautiful" and the Vantage Zagato (1986-1990) was one of the less confronting.  Still, Zatago survives to this day while many European coachbuilders did not and the business has been in continuous operation since 1919, some half-dozen years after the formation of Aston Martin.

Virage Vantage V550 Saloon

High-priced brute force remained a gap in the market and Aston Martin continued its commitment with a Virage-based supercharged Vantage in 1993 which, by 1998, was running twin superchargers, its 600bhp making it then the most powerful production powerplant in the world, making the Vantage capable of close to 200 mph (320 km/h) and for those who wanted even more power there was a run of forty V8 Vantage Le Mans" versions, built to mark the fortieth anniversary of the victory in the 24 hour endurance classic of Carroll Shelby (1923–2012) & Roy Salvadori (1922–2012) in an Aston Martin DBR1/300; Shelby would go on to found Shelby American and produce the AC Cobra, the mid century's benchmark in brute force.  Virage production ended in 2000 and for a platform which started life in 1969 it endured remarkably well.  By the year 2000, some of the competition were objectively "better cars" but there was nothing else like the big Aston Martins left and its retirement was regretted by many.

DB7 Vantage Saloon

The DB7, first shown at the now defunct Geneva Motor Show in 1993, was the first six-cylinder Aston Martin in twenty years.  It was conservatively styled but the lines were greeted with acclaim and it proved an immediate success.  In 1999, a Vantage version was released and with the company now under the Ford corporate umbrella, it used a 5.9 litre (362 cubic inch) V12 engine developed in co-operation with Cosworth Technology.  It was the first time a Vantage wasn’t a development of the standard engine, the straight six in the DB7 being a different configuration and remarkably, by historic standards, the DB7 Vantage verged on mass-production: over four-thousand built were built over a four and a half year run which ended in 2003.

VH V8 Vantage Coupé

Ford were pleased by the sales and in 2003, again at the Geneva Motor Show, unveiled on the VH platform the AMV8 Vantage Concept, so well-received the order books were bulging by the time the production version was released in 2005.  It proved to be the most successful car in Aston Martin’s history and this time it really was mass-produced, necessitating construction of a second production line; eventually more than fifteen thousand would leave the factory.  Less brute force than before, the new V8 Vantage relied on technology to exceed the performance of most of its predecessors.  For those attracted by more performance or more exclusivity, in 2009, Aston Martin unveiled the V12 Vantage, weighing little more than its V8 sibling but boasting an additional hundred-odd horsepower and able to reach 190 mph (305 km/h).  In 2012, the V12 Vantage Zagato was added to the books.

V12 Vantage S

However, after the GFC (Global Financial Crisis), the expansion of the money supply (essentially governments giving cash to the rich) at the upper end of the market meant there was increasing taste for conspicuous consumption.  Like other manufacturers anxious to meet demand with supply, Aston Martin responded with a bespoke programme, offering degrees of customisation to the point of one-off creations but also, new product lines, hence the 2013 V12 Vantage S.  It joined the new generation of machines now able routinely to attain the 200mph (320 km/h) speeds first promised by the Italians in the early 1970s but not realised because of the means available at the time to defeat the formidable opposition of physics.  At a tested 205mph (330 km/h), the terminal velocity of the V12 Vantage S made it the fastest Aston Martin ever and, in a nicely nostalgic touch, in 2016, even a manual gearbox was offered.

Vantage Roadster

The times were changing and there was an end-of-an-era feel when the new Vantage was released in 2018.  Fitted with a Mercedes-Benz-AMG four litre V8 (with fuel consumption and emissions generation numbers which even half a decade earlier would have been thought unfeasibly low), it didn't quite match the top-end performance of the V12 but was judged by reviewers to be a more practical day-to-day proposition to own while being less environmentally thuggish.  There was some regret that things were not quite the way things used to be done but to the surprise of many, the factory late in 2021 announced there would be one, last V12 Vantage and it was released the following March, 333 of the 700 horsepower machines produced, a convertible version announced some months later in a run limited to 249.  For 2024 and beyond, the 4.0 litre V8 Vantage will continue and advances in electronics and aerodynamics now guarantee each will top 200 mph.  The commendable reductions in emissions notwithstanding, Aston Martin will not have been struck from any of Greta Thunberg’s (b 2003) lists so those who can are advised to enjoy a V8 or V12 Vantage while they can.

Aston Martin Vantage Production Numbers

DB2 Vantage: 248 saloon and DHC

DB4 Vantage: 135 (plus 6 DB4 GT Vantages)

DB5 Vantage: 68 saloon (plus 8 DHCs)

DB6 Vantage: 335 saloon (plus 29 Volantes)

DB6 Vantage MkII: 70 saloon (plus 13 Volantes)

DBS Vantage:290 saloons

Vantage 70 saloons

V8 Vantage: 372 saloon (plus 194 Volantes)

V8 Vantage Zagato: 52 coupés (plus 37 convertibles)

Vantage/V8 Vantage: 273 saloon (plus 40 specials)

DB7 V12 Vantage: 2,086 coupe (plus 2,056 Volantes)

V8 Vantage (VH): 15,458 coupe (plus 6,231 Roadsters)

V12 Vantage: 2,957 (all types including V12 Vantage S)

V12 Vantage (2021-2022) (333 coupés plus 249 convertibles)