Japan

Japan (pronounced juh-pan)

(1) A constitutional monarchy (the sovereign still styled as an emperor although the empire was dissolved in 1945) on an archipelago of islands off the east coast of Asia.  It's known also as Nihon or Nippon (initial upper case)

(2) As Sea of Japan, the part of the Pacific Ocean between Japan and mainland Asia (initial upper case).

(3) Any of various hard, durable, black varnishes, originally from Japan and used for coating wood, metal, or other surfaces; work varnished and figured in the Japanese manner; the liquid used for this purpose and within the class lacquerware.

(4) As Japans, a variety of decorative motifs or patterns derived from Asian sources, used on English porcelain of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (initial upper case).

(5) Of or relating to Japan, Japans or japanning.

1570s: From the Portuguese Japão, acquired in Malacca from Malay (Austronesian) Japang & Jepang, from Chinese jih pun (literally "sunrise" and equivalent to the Japanese Nippon), the construct being jih (sun) + pun (origin).  The connection to “sunrise” is in Japan lying to the east of China and the sun rising in the east.  The earliest forms in Europe were Marco Polo's Chipangu & Cipangu, variants of some form of synonymous Sinitic (日本國) (nation of Japan).  The verb japan (to coat with lacquer or varnish in the manner of Japanese lacquer-work) dates from the 1680s and immediately begat the noun japanning and the verb and adjective japanned.  The noun japonaiserie (art objects made in the Japanese style) was borrowed in 1896 from the French, which came to be described as japonism (an influence of Japanese art and culture on European art and design).  Although the lacquers used weren't exclusively black, it was the most widely-used finish and in the West "japanned" took on the slang sense of "ordained into the priesthood".  Japan (used with initial capital) is a proper noun, japan is a noun & verb, japannery, japanware & japanner are nouns, japanning is a noun & verb, japanned & Japanize are verbs and Japanesque, Japanesey, Japanesish & Japanish are adjectives; the noun plural is japans.  

In botany, the noun japonica was a species name from the New Latin and described a number of plants originally native to Japan, notably a species of camellia (Camellia japonica) and a sub-species of the rice Oryza sativa.  The Latin form was a feminine of japonicus (Japanese, of Japan), from Japon, a variant of Japan with a vowel closer to the Japanese name.  The adjective Japanese (Iapones) was known in the 1580s and by circa 1600 was a noun, the meaning extending to "the Japanese language" by 1828.  The remarkably destructive Japanese beetle was documented in 1919, the species accidentally introduced to the US in larval stage in a shipment of Japanese iris unloaded in the port of Los Angeles in 1916.  Japlish (unidiomatic English in Japan) dates from 1960s and describes the often ad-hoc linguistic code-switching on the model of Spanglish.

English Queen Anne japanned writing bureau desk with claw & ball feet, circa 1793.

The sense of the process of “costing with lacquer or varnish" in the manner of Japanese lacquer-work, is from the 1680s, the derived forms being japanned & japanning, hence also the French creation of japonaiserie (1896), adopted also, japanned furniture being almost always black, in the slang sense of "ordained into the priesthood".  The association in Europe of black being the color of the the garb of the lower orders of Roman Catholic clergy wasn’t universal but sufficiently prevalent for it to be the general motif in the depiction of the breed.  Adolf Hitler, a lapsed Catholic who extended the Church a grudging admiration as an institution which had lasted two-thousand odd years and still exerted a pull over many aspects of people's lives with which the Nazi Party couldn’t compete, called priests “those black crows”, adding “I know them very well” 

French Louis XVI japanned & ormolu Sevres porcelain writing desk, circa 1860.

The adjective Japanesque is attested from 1853.  It developed on both sides of the Atlantic to refer both to the aesthetic inspired by Japanese influence and (a little superfluously) original items from Japan.  The greater awareness after 1853 followed US Navy Commodore Matthew Perry (1794–1858) sailing that year to Japan to secure the opening to American trade, by negotiation if possible and through gunboat diplomacy if not.  The aim of US policy was to end the 250-odd years of national seclusion by Japan; without access to Japan and its markets, the US penetration into east-Asia really wasn’t possible.  The motives of the US were a mixture of commercial hunger and the missionary instincts of those anxious to bring (ie impose) the influences of Christianity and the western way of life; since 1853, that project has played-out with ups and downs for both sides.  The notion of the Japanesque was applied to a variety of objects including ceramics, lace, painting, carving and metalwork and was not of necessity associated with the lacquering process.  Japanese was noted as an adjective in the 1580s though may have been used earlier, in parallel with “Japan”.  As a noun, the first use seems to have been in 1828 in the context of “the Japanese language”.  Japlish, the noun meaning “unidiomatic English in Japan" was first noted in 1960 reflecting (1) the intrusion of US English words and phrases into the language proper and (2) a hybridised form of the language combining both although, despite the post-war years of US occupation, the English influence on Japanese was less than on many languages.  One obscure curiosity from 1819 was camellia, a Modern Latin feminised variant of japonicus (Japanese, of Japan), from Japon, a variant of Japan with a vowel closer to the Japanese name.

Lindsay Lohan, Japanese-edition magazine covers.

Giapan was first attested in English in Richard Willes's The History of Travayle in the West and East Indies (1577) in which was mentioned a translation of a letter written in 1565 which spoke of the “Ilande of Giapan”.  Like the modern Japan, Japonia was derived from the Portuguese Japão, from the Malay Jepang, from the Sinitic (日本), probably from an earlier stage of the modern Cantonese 日本 (Jat6-bun2) or Min Nan (日本) (Ji̍t-pún), from the Middle Chinese 日本 (Nyit-pwón, literally “origin of the sun”).  Related were the Mandarin 日本 (Rìběn), the Japanese 日本 (Nippon, Nihon), the Korean 일본 (Ilbon) and the Vietnamese Nhật Bản.

These notes are very much an Eurocentric scratch of the etymological surface. Japan is the exonym (an external name for a place, people or language used by foreigners instead of the native-language version) familiar to most and exonyms are not uncommon but the history of the names used to describe the construct of Japan is longer and with more forks than most.  Indeed, even within Japan, the debate about the use of Nippon, Nihon and Japan is multi-faceted and tied to influences social, political and historical, the arguments sometimes part of debates about the role of nationalism.

JAL Logo.

Japan has two airlines operating on both domestic and international routes and while that's hardly unusual, word nerds might be tempted to wonder if there’s any cultural or political significance in one being called ANA (All Nippon Airways) and one JAL (Japan Airlines).  JAL was created in 1951 as one of the state-backed national enterprises the Japanese government formed as part of the project of “kick-starting” the economy in the post-war years.  In a sense it was something like what would now be called a PPP (public-private partnership) but in 1953 JAL was wholly nationalized, becoming a “national carrier” on the model many countries in the era used for their “flag carrier” airlines.  Commencing operations in 1953 after having been founded as a private company the previous year, ANA traded initially as JHA (Japan Helicopter and Aeroplane) before in 1958 adopting the name ANA.  In the way things were then done (witness the cozy domestic duopoly the Australian government maintained between TAA (Trans-Australian Airlines) and Ansett), for decades the Japanese government effectively divided the market with JAL flying most international routes while ANA focused on domestic services, a historical division that to this day still colors perceptions of their nature.

ANA logo.

It appears dubious the choice of “Japan” and “Nippon” in the names of airlines had any significance beyond the usual processes with which brand names are chosen although, drawing a long bow, one can see why such a theory might have emerged.  “Japan” was the English exonym (the name for the country in international English) and JAL was the predominant international carrier so, it could be concluded, because “Japan Airlines” internationally was legible, JAL was “outward-facing”.  “Nippon” (日本, Nippon or Nihon) was the native Japanese name (literally “origin of the sun” or “sun source”), thus the popular use “Land of the Rising Sun.”  Still drawing on the bow, because ANA’s Japanese name was Zen Nippon Kūyu (全日本空輸) (literally “All Nippon Air Transport”), that could be interpreted as ANA being rooted in domestic culture and thus more explicitly Japanese in identity.

1961 Jaguar Mark 2 3.8.

The truth unfortunately seems be more prosaic.  According to the company history (publication of such things a Japanese tradition), the suggestion to use “All Japan Airways” had reached the JHA board but, understandably, it was judged too similar to “Japan Airlines” so “All Nippon Airways” was instead adopted.  Such an origin story is not unknown in commerce.  In the UK, when Jaguar introduced the Mark VII (1950-1956), it replaced the Mark V (1948-1951), there being no Mark VI because the company wanted to avoid marketplace confusion with the then current Bentley Mark VI (1946-1952).  As an aside, Jaguar’s use of “Mark this and that” was a tangled business.  The Mark IV was named thus only after the release of the Mark V; prior to that the range (1936-1940 by SS Cars (from the original Standard Swallow)) & 1945-1949 (as Jaguar)) had been badged and marketed as the 1½ litre, 2½ litre & 3½ litre.  There was never a Mark I, II or III and whether the company ever contemplated retrospectively applying the designations to earlier iterations seems not documented.  Anyway, it never was done but Jaguar wasn’t done with Marks.  Their smaller saloon was sold between 1955-1959 and named “2.4” & “3.8” (the larger engine introduced in 1957) but when this model was revised for a 1959 release, it was designated Mark 2 (the Roman numerals never used) and, in one form or another, these were sold until 1969.  Because that car had been dubbed “Mark 2”), the original 2.4 & 3.4 came to be styled “Mark 1” but although widely used, this was never adopted by the factory.  Concurrent with all that, the Mark VII was updated as the Mark VIII (1956-1958) & Mark IX (1958-1961) before being replaced by the radically different Mark X (1961-1966).  In 1966, Jaguar gave up, use of “Mark” abandoned with the revised Mark X becoming the 420G (1966-1970).  Beginning in 1968, subsequent model revisions were denoted by “Series” (S1, S2 etc) rather then “Mark”.

2005-2009 second-generation Mitsuoka Viewt.

The second generation Viewt was based on the Nissan Micra/March K12 platform.  In production since 1993, the Viewt is Mitsuoka's take on the Jaguar Mark 2 and is probably the best known of the company's many “retro re-imaginings” of JDM (Japanese domestic market) vehicles.  Other Mitsuoka have (loosely) be based on British machines from the 1950s & 1960s by Bentley and Vanden Plas but there are also been ventures referencing Japanese models and cars from the US including the Dodge Challenger and Chevrolet's Blazer & Corvette. 

There seems no historic or sociological significance to the use of either “Mark or “Series”, both terms remaining widely used by the car industry but use of “Nippon” seems more nuanced.  In Japanese use, Nihon is said to be the more common everyday pronunciation while Nippon is heard more in ceremonial or institutional use, the latter frequently applied to national sports teams, stamps, banknotes and corporations (Nippon Steel, Nippon Denso, NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone) etc.  According to surveys of passengers (a very well studied cohort), both ANA and JAL are rated among the world’s best airlines for comfort, service, food, reliability and such with the former said to be “slightly more understated, meticulous with an “obviously” “Japanese” service culture” while JAL, although still “distinctively Japanese”, is closer in its in-flight practices to international conventions.  As a final, minor linguistic note, native Japanese tend not to refer to the airlines as JAL or ANA in their English pronunciation, but by abbreviations derived from the Japanese names: JAL Nikkō (日航) & ANA Zennikkū (全日空).

On the tarmac.

In 2021 the Japanese government tried to nudge JAL & ANA to merge, citing the difficulties the airlines were enduring as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.  In truth, the economic rationalists in the Japanese Treasury had for some time wished the two would combine operations and the virus was just convenient cover.  What the bureaucrats knew was it was only a matter of time before there would be a crisis in the industry which would be cured in the way which has become a tradition in modern Japan: The government would give the airlines money.  By mid 2026, Japan’s national debt had reached some US$10 trillion which is around 235% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product), the highest ratio among developed nations.  That sounds a serious problem but the argument is Japan is a “special case” because some 88% of the debt is denominated in Yen, the Bank of Japan holding nearly half.  Whether or not that’s true remains to be seen but thus far, it remains business as usual.  By contrast the US national debt stands at US$38 trillion-odd (in excess of 124% of GDP (gross domestic product), compared with the 113% reached in 1946 after borrowing to fund much of the allied effort in World War II (1939-1945)) and despite predictions in the past there may be “psychological thresholds” (US$10 trillion, US$20 trillion etc), things continued and it may be a debt number of US$50 or US$100 trillion attracts a similar reaction.  There was a time when a US$38 trillion national debt would have been thought at least a “problem” and probably a “crisis” but now it seems accepted as the “new normal” and as well as the US, the whole world economy now depends on this method of operation, the rationale apparently that, if need be, the US Treasury could mint a single US$40 trillion coin and declare a “net debt-free” status.  Economists seem divided on the implications of such a minting but the lawyers are at one in declaring it constitutional so, there too the “borrow & spend” model remains business as usual.

Flute

Flute (pronounced floot)

(1) A woodwind instrument consisting of a tube with a row of finger-holes (or keys) which produce sound through vibrations caused by air blown across the edge of the holes, often tuned by plugging one or more holes with a finger; the Western concert flute, a transverse side-blown flute of European origin (in colloquial use, a recorder, also a woodwind instrument).

(2) An organ stop with wide flue pipes, having a flutelike tone.

(3) In architecture or engineering (particularly the manufacture of firearms), a semi-cylindrical vertical channel, groove or furrow, as on the shaft of a column, in a pillar, in plaited cloth, or in a rifle barrel to cut down the weight.

(4) Any groove or furrow, as in a ruffle of cloth or on a piecrust.

(5) One of the helical grooves of a twist drill.

(6) A slender, footed wineglass with a tall, conical bowl.

(7) A similar stemmed glass, used especially for champagne and often styled as "champagne flute".

(8) In steel fabrication, to kink or break in bending.

(9) In various fields of design, to form longitudinal flutes or furrows.

(10) A long bread roll of French origin; a baguette.

(11) In weaving, tapestry etc, a shuttle.

(12) To play on a flute; to make or utter a flutelike sound. 

(13) To form flutes or channels in (as in a column, a ruffle etc); to cut a semi-cylindrical vertical groove in (as in a pillar etc).

1350-1400; From the Middle English floute, floute & flote, from the Middle French flaüte, flahute & fleüte, from the twelfth century Old French flaute (musical), from the Old Provençal flaüt (thought an alteration of flaujol or flauja) of uncertain origin but may be either (1) a blend of the Provencal flaut or  flaujol (flageolet) + laut (lute) or (2) from the Classical Latin flātus (blowing), from flāre (to blow) although there is support among etymologists for the notion of it being a doublet of flauta & fluyt.  In other languages, the variations include the Irish fliúit and the Welsh ffliwt.  The form in Vulgar Latin has been cited as flabeolum but evidence is scant and all forms are thought imitative of the Classical Latin flāre and other Germanic words (eg flöte) are borrowings from French. 

Portrait of Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria (later Queen Marie Antoinette of France (1774-1792)), circa 1768, oil on canvas by Martin van Meytens  (1695–1770).

Fluted & fluting both date from the 1610s while the verb (in the sense of "to play upon a flute") seems to bave been in use as early as the late fourteenth century.  The use to describe grooves in metalwork emerged in the 1570s and was applied to the tall, slender wine glass almost a century later although the term "champagne flute" didn't enter popular use until the 1950s.  The champagne flute is preferred by many to the coupé (or saucer) even though it lacks the (since unfortunately debunked) legend the shape of the latter was modelled on Marie Antoinette’s (1754-1793) left breast (historians gleefully recounting the tale all agree it definitely was the left).  Elegant though it is, the advantages of the flute are entirely functional, the design providing for less spillage than a coupé, something which comes to be more valued as lunch progresses to the third uncorking and the slender, tapered shape is claimed better to preserve the integrity of the bubbles, the smaller surface area and thus reduced oxygen-to-wine ratio longer maintaining aroma and taste.

Grand Cru's guide to the shape of champagne glasses.

Among musical instruments, there are a dozen or more distinct types of flute.  Early French flutes differed greatly from modern instruments in having a separate mouthpiece and were called flûte-a-bec (literally "flute with a beak").  The ancient devices were played directly, blown straight through a mouthpiece but held away from the player's mouth, the modern transverse (or "German") flute not appearing until the eighteenth century and the familiar modern design and key system of the concert flute were perfected 1834 by Bavarian court musician & virtuoso flautist Theobald Boehm (1794–1881), the fingering system known to this day as "Boehm system".  The architectural sense of "furrow in a pillar" dates from the mid-seventeenth century and was derived from the vague resemblance to the inside of a flute split down the middle.

Solidarity: Gay men supporting lesbians at the first “Dyke March”, Washington DC, April 1993.  The sign held by the protester at the far left uses the compound word for which the euphemism “playing the skin flute” was coined.

One imaginative linguistic re-purposing was the use in the 1940s (apparently first in the US) of “playing the skin flute” to mean “to perform fellatio” and while still in that sense used in certain LGBTQQIAAOP circles, in general use the meaning has shifted, no describing “a male engaged in the act of masturbation”.  Use shifted to fruit, either by virtue of use at the time being almost exclusively oral rather than written (linguistically, that’s classified as an example of an imperfect echoic) or because "fruit" was then in use as a gay slur.   The nouns flute-player, fluter & flutist can be used of flute players but the preferred term is flautist.  Presumably, someone employed to add flutes to an object could be designated “the fluter” but it’s doubtful such as specialist job-description has ever been written.  Flute is a noun & verb, flutiness, flautist, flutist & fluter are nouns, fluted is a verb & adjective, fluting is a noun, verb & adjective, flutelike is an adjective; the noun plural is flutes.  

Fluted grill on 1972 Series 1, 4.2 Litre Daimler Sovereign.

In British use, one who plays the flute is a flautist (pronounced flaw-tist (U) or flou-tist (non-U)), from the Italian flautista, the construct being flauto (flute) +‎ -ista.  The -ist suffix was from the Middle English -ist & -iste, from the Old French -iste and the Latin -ista, from the Ancient Greek -ιστής (-istḗs), from -ίζω (-ízō) (the -ize & -ise verbal suffix) and -τής (-tḗs) (the agent-noun suffix).  It was added to nouns to denote various senses of association such as (1) a person who studies or practices a particular discipline, (2), one who uses a device of some kind, (3) one who engages in a particular type of activity, (4) one who suffers from a specific condition or syndrome, (5) one who subscribes to a particular theological doctrine or religious denomination, (6) one who has a certain ideology or set of beliefs, (7) one who owns or manages something and (8), a person who holds very particular views (often applied to those thought most offensive).  The alternative forms are the unimaginative (though descriptive) flute-player and the clumsy pair fluter although the odd historian or music critic will use aulete, from the Ancient Greek αὐλητής (aulētḗs), from αὐλέω (auléō) (I play the flute), from αὐλός (aulós) (flute).  The spelling flutist is preferred in the US and it's actually an old form, dating from circa 1600 and probably from the French flûtiste and it replaced the early thirteenth century Middle English flouter (from the Old French flauteor).

Daimler, the flutes and US trademark law

1972 Daimler Double-Six Vanden Plas.

Originally Belgium-based and noted for both the sporty and large bodies built for the chassis of Rolls-Royce, Lagondas, Daimlers, Bentleys and such, the coach-building house Vanden Plas was in 1946 acquired by Austin and through the British industry’s M&As (mergers and acquisitions) in the following decades, by the early 1970s it was British Leyland’s in-house coach-builder, one of its projects being to add still more luxurious appointments to the anyway lavish Daimler Double-Six.  Vanden Plas completed only 342 of the Series 1 (1972-1973) Daimler Double Sixes, the later S2 (1973-1979) & S3 (1979-1992) cars much more numerous and, in deference to the oil crisis which was the prime economic force in the decade, the S2 & S3 were available with the 4.2 litre (258 cubic inch) XK-six as were as the heroically thirsty 5.3 litre (326 cubic inch) V12.  The flutes atop the grill dated from the early twentieth-century and were originally a functional addition to the radiator to enhance heat-dissipation but later became a merely decorative embellishment.  Although some sources claim there were 351 of the Series 1 Double-Six Vanden Plas, the factory insists the total was 342.  British Leyland and its successor companies would continue to use the Vanden Plas name for some of the more highly-specified Daimlers but applied it also to Jaguars because in some markets the trademark to the Daimler name came to be held by Daimler-Benz AG (since 2022 Mercedes-Benz Group AG), a legacy from the earliest days of motor-car manufacturing and despite the English middle class often pronouncing the name as van-dem-plarr, it should said as van-dem-plass.  It's an error with the same origin as that suffered by Moët & Chandon: to English speaking ears, mow-eh sounds "more French" than mow-et. 

1976 Daimler Double-Six Vanden Plas two door.

The rarest Double-Six Vanden Plas was a genuine one-off, a two door built reputedly using one of the early prototypes, a regular production version contemplated but cancelled after the first was built.  Jaguar would once have called such things a FHC (fixed head coupé) but labelled the XJ derivatives as "two door saloons" and always referred to them thus, presumably as a point of differentiation with the XJ-S (later XJS) coupé produced at the same time.  Despite the corporate linguistic nudge, everybody seems always to have called the two-door XJs "coupés".  Why the project was cancelled isn't known but it was for the company a time of industrial and financial turmoil and distractions, however minor, may have been thought unwelcome.  Although fully-finished, apart from the VDP-specific trim, it includes also some detail mechanical differences from the regular production two-door Double-Six but both use the distinctive fluted finish on the grill and trunk (boot) lid trim; the car still exists.  The two-door XJs (1975-1978) rank with the earliest versions (1961-1967) of the E-Type (XKE; 1961-1974) as the finest styling Jaguar ever achieved and were it not for the unfortunate vinyl roof visually, it would be as close to perfect as any machine ever made.

1975 Jaguar XJC: The design perfected.  Even Jaguar's usually uncompromising originality police seem to approve.

The orthodoxy is the gluing-on of the vinyl was a necessity imposed by the inability of the paint of the era to cope with the slight flexing of the roof.  As a two-door hardtop, there was no B-pillar so the expanse of un-supported metal was larger than that of the sedans and thus more subject to higher stress-loads, resulting in the paint being subject to crazing.  Modern chemistry means suitable paints have long been available and many owners have taken the opportunity to fix the cars one visual flaw.  However, not all accept the “flexing roof” theory and claim the vinyl was a deliberate aesthetic choice, noting the 1972 Double-Six Vanden Plas (which appeared in 1972, three years before the two-door XJ went on sale) was fitted as standard with a vinyl roof, despite obviously there been no paint-related imperative.  Possibly it may have been a way of reducing interior noise but some argue it appeared just because the covering was then undeniably fashionable.  The inexcusable lapse in taste had been seen (then using leather) as early as the 1920s but it was in the US in the mid-1960s the motif hit the mass-market to attract those who wanted “a convertible’s rakish vibe” but needed something more practical; things soon got out of hand, the trend spreading to the UK and Australia.  For up-market models, the Australians even emulated the US practice of the “padded vinyl roof” which was a bad idea made worse the closer one got to the tropics, the foam in the “vinyl-metal sandwich” trapping moisture and leading quickly to rust.  The Europeans proved commendably resistant and by the 1980s the moment had passed in the UK and Australia but the Americans doubled-down and, until the mid-1990s, Detroit’s designers devoted much energy to styling elaborate variations on the theme, the marketing department doing its usual bit by labelling them with fanciful names.

Using one of his trademark outdoor settings, Norman Parkinson (1913-1990) photographed model Suzanne Kinnear (b 1935) adorning a Daimler SP250, wearing a Kashmoor coat and Otto Lucas beret with jewels by Cartier.  The image was published on the cover of Vogue's UK edition in November 1959.

Although Daimlers had, in small numbers, been imported into US for decades, after Jaguar purchased the company in 1960, there was renewed interest and the first model used to test the market was the small, fibreglass-bodied roadster, probably the most improbable Daimler ever and one destined to fail, doomed by (1) the quirky styling and (2) the lack of product development.  It was a shame because what made it truly unique was the hemi-head 2.5 litre (155 cubic inch) V8 which was one of the best engines of the era and remembered still for the intoxicating exhaust note.  The SP250 was first shown to the public at the 1959 New York Motor Show and there the problems began.  Aware the small sports car was quite a departure from the luxurious but rather staid line-up Daimler had for years offered, the company had chosen the pleasingly alliterative “Dart” as its name, hoping it would convey the sense of something agile and fast.  Unfortunately, Chrysler’s lawyers were faster still, objecting that they had already registered Dart as the name for a full-sized Dodge so Daimler needed a new name and quickly; the big Dodge would never be confused with the little Daimler but the lawyers insisted.  Imagination apparently exhausted, Daimler’s management reverted to the engineering project name and thus the car became the SP250 which was innocuous enough even for Chrysler's attorneys and it could have been worse.  Dodge had submitted their Dart proposal to Chrysler for approval and while the car found favor, the name did not and the marketing department was told to conduct research and come up with something the public would like.  From this the marketing types gleaned that “Dodge Zipp” would be popular and to be fair, dart and zip(p) do imply much the same thing but ultimately the original was preferred and Darts remained in Dodge’s line-up until 1976, for most of that time one of the corporation's best-selling and most profitable lines.  The name was revived between 2012-2016 for an unsuccessful and unlamented small sedan.

Leaper, growler and flutes on US market 1999 Jaguar Vanden Plas (X308).  The retractable, solid-timber picnic tables in the back of the front seats were much admired.

Decades later, US trademark law would again intrude, this time on Jaguar’s low-volume business of selling Daimlers in the US.  There, the company had after 1967 ceased offering the Daimler because, it being clear the trickle of safety & emission regulations was soon to be a flood, with capital scarce, it was decided resources needed to be devoted to compliance and one form of economy was to re-allocate the funds absorbed by maintaining Daimler as a separate brand, most of which were spent on advertising.  In Stuttgart, the Daimler-Benz lawyers took note and decided to reclaim the name, eventually managing to secure registration of the trademark and Daimlers have not since been available in the US.  However, there was still clearly demand for an up-market Jaguar and so the Sovereign name (used on Daimlers between 1966-1983) was applied to Jaguar XJ sedans which, although mechanically unchanged, were equipped with more elaborate appointments.

Lindsay Lohan with stainless steel Rolex Datejust (Roman numeral dial) with fluted white gold bezel.  Note the blue eyes; it's not known if the effect was achieved with colored contact lens or digital editing.

Sales of the up-market Sovereign were good and the profit margins fatter so the US market also received some even more luxurious Vanden Plas models and during the XJ’s X308 model run (1997-2003), the VDP cars were fitted with the fluted grill and trunk-lid trim as an additional means of product differentiation; it would be the last appearance of the flutes in North America and the only occasion on which the leaper and growler were used in conjunction with them.  Although some might dismiss the interior fittings of the Vanden Plas models as “bling”, there were nice touches.  The ones based on the X308 featured the fold-down picnic-tables once so beloved by English coach-builders (the affection in the 1960s trickling down to the middle-class as they began to appear on blinged-up mass-market vehicles) but, rather than the usual burl walnut veneer, the pieces were of solid timber.  The factory seems never to have discussed the rationale but it may be it was cheaper to do it that way, the veneering process being labor-intensive.

Pim Fortuyn in his chauffeur-driven Daimler Super V8, February 2002 (left), paramedics attending to him at the scene of his assassination (centre) a few paces from the Daimler, 6 May, 2002 (he died at the scene) and the car when on sale, Amsterdam, June 2018 (right).  His assassin, memorably, was described in press reports “deranged vegetarian”; perhaps it was the sight of meneer Fortuyn sprawled across those Connolly Leather hides which was triggering.

Jaguar became aware the allure of the flutes was real when it discovered a small but profitable industry had emerged in the wake of the company ceasing to use the Daimler name in European markets (by the 1990s, it was only in the UK, Japan, Australia & New Zealand they could be bought off the showroom floor).  Entrepreneurial types, armed with nothing more than a list of Jaguar part-numbers, had created kits containing the fluted trim pieces and Daimler-specific badges, these shipped to dealers or private buyers on the continent so Jaguar XJs could become “Daimlers”.  Being factory-supplied parts of no mechanical significance, their use did not affect warranties or insurance rates (though owners were required to inform registration authorities the badgework had changed) so, unlike many after-market modifications, administratively, it was a hassle-free process.  Jaguar took note of this uptick in the Daimler-demand curve and decided to meet it with supply, re-introducing the marque to Europe.  Because the company was, in effect, doing only what was being done by those buying the kits, it proved one of the industry's cheapest and quickest brand resurrections, Germany and the Netherlands especially receptive.  One notable owner of a real LWB (long wheelbase) Daimler Super V8 (X308) was the Dutch academic and politician Pim Fortuyn (1948-2002), assassinated by a left-wing environmentalist and animal rights activist during the 2002 national election campaign.

Literal

Literal (pronounced lit-er-uhl)

(1) In accordance with, involving, or being the primary or strict meaning of the word or words; not figurative or metaphorical.

(2) Following the words of the original exactly.

(3) True to fact; not exaggerated; actual or factual; being actually such, without exaggeration or inaccuracy.

(4) Of, persons, tending to construe words in the strict sense or in an unimaginative way; matter-of-fact; prosaic.

(5) Of or relating to the letters of the alphabet (obsolete except for historic, technical or academic use); of or pertaining to the nature of letters.

(6) In language translation, as "literal translation", the precise meaning of a word or phrase as opposed to the actual meaning conveyed when used in another language.

(7) A typographical error, especially involving a single letter (in technical use only).

(8) In English (and other common law jurisdictions) law, one of the rules of statutory construction and interpretation (also called the plain meaning rule).

(9) In computer science, a notation for representing a fixed value in source code.

(10) In mathematics, containing or using coefficients and constants represented by letters.

1350-1400: From the Middle English from the Late Latin literalis & litteralis (of or belonging to letters or writing) from the Classical Latin litera & littera (letter, alphabetic sign; literature, books).  The meaning "taking words in their natural meaning" (originally in reference to Scripture and opposed to mystical or allegorical), is from the Old French literal (again borrowed from the Latin literalis & litteralis).  In English, the original late fourteenth meaning was "taking words in their natural meaning" and was used in reference to the understanding of text in Scripture, distinguishing certain passages from those held to be mystical or allegorical.  The meaning "of or pertaining to the letters of the alphabet " emerged in English only in the late fifteenth century although that was the meaning of the root from antiquity, a fork of that sense being " verbally exact, according to the letter of verbal expression, attested from the 1590s and it evolved in conjunction with “the primary sense of a word or passage”.  The phrase “literal-minded” which can be loaded with negative, neutral or positive connotations, is noted from 1791.  Literal is a noun & adjective, literalize is a verb, literalistic is an adjective, literalist, literalization & literalism are nouns and literally is an adverb; the noun plural is literals.

The meaning "concerned with letters and learning, learned, scholarly" was known since the mid-fifteenth century but survives now only literary criticism and the small number of universities still using “letters” in the description of degree programmes.  The Bachelor of Letters (BLitt or LittB) was derived from the Latin Baccalaureus Litterarum or Litterarum Baccalaureus and historically was a second undergraduate degree (as opposed to a Masters or other post-graduate course) which students pursued to study a specialized field or some aspect of something of particular interest.  Once common, these degrees are now rare in the English-speaking world.  It was between 1895-1977 offered by the University of Oxford and was undertaken by many Rhodes Scholars, sometimes as an adjunct course, but has now been replaced by the MLitt (Master of Letters) which has a minimal coursework component.  When the BLitt was still on the books, Oxford would sometimes confer it as a sort of consolation prize, offering DPhil candidates whose submission had proved inadequate the option of taking a BLitt if the prospect of re-writing their thesis held no appeal.  Among the dons supervising the candidates, the verb "to BLitt" emerged, the classic form being: “he was BLitt-ed you know".

Oxford BLitt in light-blue hood, circa 1907, prior to the reallocation of the shades of blue during the 1920s.

Oxford's colorful academic gowns are a footnote in the history of fashion although influences either way are difficult to detect.  The regulations of 1895 required the new BLitt and the BSc (Bachelor of Science) were to wear the same dress as the existing B.C.L (Bachelor of Civil Law) and the BM (Bachelor of Medicine) and if there was a difference between the blues used for the BCL and the BM in 1895, the implicit "respectively" (actually then its Latin equivalent) would seem to suggest the BLitt was to use the same color hood as the BCL and the BSc to use the shade of the BM and that's certainly how it appears on many contemporary depictions.  Although in the surviving record the hues of blue would in the following decades vary somewhat (and the colors were formerly re-allocated during the 1920s, the BLitt moving to a more vivid rendition of light-blue), the BLitt, BSc and BCL hoods tended always to be brighter and the BM darker.  Whether it was artistic license or an aesthetic nudge, one painter in 1927 mixed something much lighter for the BLitt, a shade more neutral and hinting at a French grey but no other artist seems to have followed.  By 1957, the BLitt and BSc gowns had returned to the colors of the 1895 decree while the BCL and BM were now in mid-blue and that remained unchanged until 1977 when the BLitt and BSc were superseded by masters’ degrees, the new MSc and MLitt given a blue hood lined with the grey of the DLitt & DSc.

Oxford BM in mid-blue hood, circa 1905.

Quite how much the work of the artist can be regarding as an accurate record of a color as it appeared is of course dubious, influenced as it is the painter’s eye, ambient light and the angle at which it was observed.  Even the descriptions used by the artists in their notes suggest there was either some variation over the years (and that would not be unexpected given the differences in the dying processes between manufacturers) or the terms for colors meant different things to different painters: The Oxford BMus hood was noted as blue (1882 & 1934), mauve (1920), lilac (1923, 1924, 1927, 1935 & 1957), dark lilac (1948) and dark purple (1926).  With improvements in photographic reproduction and the greater standardization in the industrial processes used in dying, the post-war photographic record is more reliable and lilac seems a good description for the BM and “light blue” for the BLitt.

In modern (social media) use, "literal" often is used as term of emphasis meaning something like "an exemplar of".  Although the purists will never approve, in that context, it may come to be regarded as a genuine additional meaning, although unlike a word like decimate, it wont be a meaning shift replacing the original.   

In March 2023, after the announcement of her daughter's pregnancy, Lindsay Lohan's mother (Dina Lohan (b 1962)) was quoted as saying: “I’m literally over the moon. I’m so happy, I can’t stop smiling”.  The proneness to exaggeration seems to be a family trait because Lindsay Lohan did once admit some of her youthful antics made her mother “hit the roof” which, hopefully, she didn't mean to be taken literally (although, who knows?).  The now seemingly endemic misuse of literal is not new, Henry Watson Fowler (1858–1933) in his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) noting errors in general use from as early as the 1820s and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has cited literary examples from the seventeenth century.  Interestingly, it appears objections emerged at scale only in the early twentieth century which does suggest an additional meaning may have existed or at least been evolving before the grammar Nazis imposed their censorious ways.  So endemic in English has the (mis)use become and genuine confusion so rare the pedants really should give up their carping; after all, some illustrious names have sinned:

Scrooge McDuck, literally "rolling in wealth" in his famous money bin. 

“…literally rolling in wealth…”: (Mark Twain (1835-1910), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)).  In fairness to Twain, it can be done.  While Donald Trump (as far as is known) does it only figuratively, Walt Disney (1901–1966) had Scrooge McDuck (created 1947) literally roll-around in the huge volumes of cash he stashed in his "money bin" (a reputed 3 cubic acres (257,440 m³; 772.321 megalitres)) but that wouldn't have been what Twain had in mind.

“The land literally flowed with milk and honey.”: (Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888), Little Women (1868-1869)).  That one may be at least a gray area because milk and honey do literally "flow" (though their varies viscosities mean the flow-rates do differ) and "the land" can be used in the sense of the country and its people rather than "the soil".   

“…Gatsby literally glowed” [after reuniting with Daisy at his house]: (F Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940), The Great Gatsby (1925)).  Women (when pregnant or as new mothers) often are said "to be glowing" in the sense of their happiness being such it seems "to radiate" from them and this may be what Fitzgerald wished to suggest but even then it was untypical to apply the phrase to men.  However, at least debatably, some time ago, popular use reached the threshold where to describe a new mother as “glowing” could be regarded as literal because the word has become so vested with that sense.  Indeed, in January 2026, when announcing her long-standing feud with Lindsay Lohan had moved from a state of détente to a kind of entente cordiale, Paris Hilton (b 1981) told her audience: “We plan on getting the kids together.  I'm so happy for her.  She is glowing. We love being moms.”  So, that literalism of “glowing” has her imprimatur and, as is well-known, where Paris Hilton goes, the English language follows.  

The literal rule in statutory interpretation in the UK & Commonwealth

Statute law is that set in place by a body vested with appropriate authority (typically a legislature) and maintained in written form.  In providing rulings involving these laws, courts in the common-law world (although in the US the evolution has been a little different) have developed a number of principles of statutory interpretation, the most fundamental of which is “the literal rule” (sometimes called the “plain meaning rule”).  It’s the basis of all court decisions involving statues, the judge looking just to the words written down, relying on their literal meaning without any attempt to impute or interpret meaning.  The process should ensure laws are made exclusively by legislators alone; those elected for the purpose, the basis of the constitutional theory being that it’s this which grants laws their legitimacy and thus the consent of those upon they’re imposed.  However, an application of the literal rule can result in consequences which are nonsensical, immoral or unjust but the theory is that will induce the legislature to correct whatever error in drafting was the cause; it not being the task of the court to alter a duly passed law; the judiciary must interpret and not attempt to remedy the law.

A judge in 1980 observed the British constitution “…is firmly based upon the separation of powers; parliament makes the laws, the judiciary interpret them.  When Parliament legislates to remedy what the majority of its members at the time perceive to be a defect… the role of the judiciary is confined to ascertaining from the words that parliament has approved as expressing its intention what that intention was, and to giving effect to it. Where the meaning of the statutory words is plain and unambiguous it is not for the judges to invent fancied ambiguities as an excuse for failing to give effect to its plain meaning because they themselves consider that the consequences of doing so would be inexpedient, or even unjust or immoral.”  So a judge should not depart from the literal meaning of words even if the outcome is unjust.  If they do, the will of parliament is contradicted.

However, some things were so absurd even the most black-letter-law judges (of which there were not a few) could see the problem.  What emerged was “the golden rule”, the operation of which a judge in 1857 explained by saying the “…grammatical and ordinary sense of the words is to be adhered to unless that would lead to some absurdity or some repugnance or inconsistency with the rest of the instrument in which case the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words may be modified so as to avoid the absurdity and inconsistency, but no farther.”  The golden rule thus operates to avoid an absurdity which an application of the literal rule might produce.

The golden rule was though deliberately limited in scope, able to be used only in examples of absurdity so extreme it would be a greater absurdity not to rectify.  Thus “the mischief rule” which with judges exercised rather more discretion within four principles, first mentioned in 1584 at a time when much new legislation was beginning to emerge to supersede the old common law which had evolved over centuries of customary practice.  Given the novelty of codified national law replacing what previously been administered with differences between regions, the need for some debugging was not unexpected, hence the four principles of the mischief rule: (1) What was the common law before this law?, (2) What was the mischief and defect for which the common law did not provide and thus necessitate this law?, (3) What remedy for the mischief and defect is in this law”, & (4) The role of the judge is to make such construction as shall suppress the mischief and advance the remedy.  The rule was intended to determine what mischief a statute was intended to correct and interpret the statute justly to avoid any mischief.

The mischief rule closes loopholes in the law while allowing them to evolve in what may be a changing environment but does permit an element of the retrospective and depends on the opinion and prejudices of the judge: an obvious infringement on the separation of powers protected by the strict application of literal rule.  So it is a trade-off, the literal rule the basic tool of statutory interpretation which should be deviated from only in those exceptional cases where its application would create an absurdity or something manifestly unjust.  This the golden rule allows while the mischief rule extends judicial discretion, dangerously some have said, permitting the refinement of law at the cost of increasing the role of the judges, a group where views and prejudices do vary.  From all this has evolved the debate about judicial activism.

Colonel Theodore Roosevelt (TR, 1858–1919; VPOTUS 1901, POTUS 1901-1909) with the 1^st US Volunteer Cavalry and troopers of the 10th Cavalry after the capture of Kettle Hill during the Battle of San Juan Hill, July 1898.

Fought between April-August 1898, the Spanish–American War followed the warship USS Maine (an “armoured cruiser” best thought of as one of the smaller “pre-Dreadnought” battleships) in February blowing up and sinking while anchored in Cuba’s Havana Harbor; 261 of the ship’s complement of 355 were killed.  Based on the early reports and available evidence, the US Navy’s explosives experts suggested the blast appeared to have been caused by a spontaneous coal bunker fire but Roosevelt, then serving as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, pushed back, labelling that conclusion “premature” and insisted sabotage was possible, telling colleagues: “the Maine was sunk by an act of dirty treachery on the part of the Spaniards.”  That might have sounded strange to those who have read the press reports of courteous Spaniards having welcomed her arrival in Havana with the presentation to the captain of a case of Jerez sherry and William McKinley (1843–1901; US president 1897-1901) the next evening, hosting his first diplomatic dinner in the White House, having the Spanish minister sit next to him, despite almost a dozen other envoys enjoying precedence.  Roosevelt however had his war-paint on and he had the enthusiastic support of William Randolph Hearst’s (1863–1951) New York newspaper the Journal, something of the FoxNews of its day and an early example of “yellow journalism”.

Unconvinced after having learned the Maine had been “a floating bomb, its forecastle packed with gunpowder and its magazines laced with shortable wires”, McKinley ordered an investigation, saying: “I don’t propose to be swept off my feet by the catastrophe.  I have been through one war [the US Civil War 1861-1865] and I have seen the dead piled up, and I do not want to see another.”   He called for an investigation, which dragged on for months.  While McKinley’s enquiry percolated, Hearst had the Journal print fanciful diagrams showing how the Spanish “Infernal Machine” had hit the hull while Roosevelt, taking advantage of the temporary absence of the Secretary of the Navy, ordered the Pacific squadron to sea, put the European and South Atlantic stations on alert, demanded of Congress the immediate authorization of the unlimited recruitment of seamen and ordered large quantities of guns and ammunition.  By the time McKinley's investigation reported the cause of the sinking as an “external explosion”, Roosevelt and Hearst had honed public opinion and, the die cast, a reluctant McKinley took his country to war.

A stylized image of the explosion which sank the USS Maine, published in 1898 by Kurz and Allison (a Chicago-based publisher of chromolithographs), Nautical History Gallery and Museum.

In a move that would wholly be unfamiliar to bloodthirsty, non-combatant modern politicians who prefer to sit at a safe distance to watch other people’s children fight their wars, Roosevelt’s view was: “I have done all I could to bring on the war, because it is a just war, and the sooner we meet it the better.  Now that it has come, I have no business to ask others to do the fighting and stay home myself.”  He resigned from the administration and headed for Cuba with his “Rough Riders” (a collection of “cowboys, idealists. Veteran soldiers, Native Americans and adventurers”), assembled as the 1^st US Volunteer Cavalry, a formation John Hay (1838-1905; US Secretary of State 1898-1905) thought “ideally suited” to what be labelled a “splendid little war.”  Although brief, the conflict was of great significance because it was at this point the US became an imperial power, its defeat of Spain resulting in the acquisition of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, while Cuba would until 1902 remain a US protectorate.  By the late twentieth century a consensus had emerged that the explosion was most likely caused by an "internal event" and not a Spanish mine but much had since happened and "what's done is done and can't be undone".

The Rough Riders were one of several units formed ad hoc which were dissolved with the end of the war and while the notion of what were quasi-private militias operating in concert with regular forces may seem curious, before World War I (1914-1918) changed the public perception of war, for some men, the lure of combat still had a romantic aura.  While the contribution of the Rough Riders strategically was slight, it was real and it was the action of 1 July which became the war’s most famous engagement.  On that day, in a combined assault with regular army troops, Roosevelt on horseback led the Rough Riders in charges up Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill; there over a thousand casualties with some 200 killed.  He returned to the US as a national hero and in November 1898 was elected governor of New York before being "persuaded" to run as McKinley’s running mate on the Republican ticket for the 1900 presidential election.  Roosevelt would have been familiar with the nineteenth century there was a joke about two brothers: “One ran off to sea and the other became vice-president; neither were ever heard of again” and may have anticipated the view of John Nance Garner III (1868–1967, VPOTUS 1933-1941 so thus a reasonable judge of these things), that being VPOTUS was “...not worth a bucket of warm piss” (which is polite company usually is sanitized as “...bucket of warm spit”).  Accordingly, he was diffident about seeking the nomination which in his day was not thought a stepping stone to higher things.  That’s changed and a number of VPOTUSs have become POTUS; on a few occasions that has worked well but of late the record has not been encouraging, the presidencies of Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; VPOTUS 1961-1963, POTUS 1963-1968), Richard Nixon (1913-1994; VPOTUS 1953-1961, POTUS 1969-1974), George H. W. Bush (George XLI, 1924-2018; VPOTUS 1981-1989, POTUS 1989-1993) and Joe Biden (b 1942; VPOTUS 2008-2017, POTUS 2021-2025) 1963-1968, all ending badly, in despair, disgrace, defeat and decrepitude respectively.  Roosevelt in 1900 told friends he’d rather “…be anything else, say, a professor of history” but finally decided he could make it a solid platform for a run for the presidency in 1904.

His path to the nomination for VPOTUS was made somewhat smoother by the party bosses in New York wanting him out because although popular with the voters, for the machine men used to running things, he was a loose cannon and one they’d sooner have sitting in an inconsequential office in Washington DC than making trouble in New York where he exercised real power.  Mark Hanna (1837-1904), the great Republican boss, called him “that damned cowboy” (which, in many ways, could be read literally) and Mark Twain disapproved, saying he was “clearly insane… and insanest upon war and its supreme glories.”  Hanna was of course aware of the danger for a VPOTUS is first in the line of succession and he’d tried to stop the nomination, imploring the delegates to “see reason”, telling them: “Don’t any of you realize that there’s only one life between that madman and the presidency?”  It was to no avail and in 1900 the McKinley/Roosevelt ticket prevailed, prompting Hanna to tell McKinley: “Your sacred duty for the next four years is to stay alive” and the president did his best but, through no fault of his own, was within months cut down by the gunfire of an anarchist and “that damned cowboy” was sworn in as Chief Magistrate of the United States.  In what must now seem an extraordinary example of judicial alacrity, within six weeks of McKinley’s death, the anarchist assassin had been tried, convicted and executed in New York’s Auburn Prison, dispatched by the New York State Electrician.

A full-page advertisement taken out by Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) in the New York Daily News (1 May 1989).  When he said "BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY", he meant it literally.

“New York State Electrician” really was the title of the state’s chief executioner and the title was derived from the use of the electric chair.  The first appointment was made in 1890 and despite New York staging its last execution in 1963, the position was not disestablished until the Nixon-era decision by the USSC (US Supreme Court) in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), which had the effect of imposing a national moratorium on the use of the death penalty until 1976 when it was held certain states successfully had re-written their statutes in conformity with the US constitution.  Intriguingly, between 1890-1963 the fee received by the State Electrician was never changed from the original US$150 (with a bonus US$50 paid for additional executions performed on the same day).  That was despite substantial inflation (and the related decrease in the purchasing power of the US$): By 1963, the equivalent value of 1890’s US$150 was calculated at US$504.40 and by 2026 the number was US$5,342.67.  Mr Trump ran his advertisement in four New York City newspapers at a total cost of US$85,000 so, had the New York State Electrician still be plying his specialized trade, what was paid to the papers would have covered some 567 executions but if the fee had been adjusted in line with inflation (the value of 1990’s US$150 by 1989 having risen to US$2,043.96), it would have paid for fewer than 42 to “get the chair”.

Movements in the value of the US$ (inflation & purchasing power), 1890-2026.

Roosevelt’s military exploits in what came to be called the Battle of San Juan Heights made him a national celebrity, a role he was well-equipped to exploit and when late in 1898 he's returned to the US, his mind turned to politics and his goal was the White House; for that he needed a stepping stone.  New York’s Republican Party establishment preferred to endorse candidates who were (1) sane and (2) dependent on the machine and thus compliant so were thus not enamoured with the leader of the Rough Riders but above all they needed someone likely to win an election, a quality Roosevelt appeared to possess, unlike the alternatives.  So, reluctantly, the New York Republicans adopted them as their candidate in the 1898 gubernatorial election and Roosevelt stormed into the campaign with the same enthusiasm he'd a few months earlier displayed on horseback while leading charges against the Spanish.  With a sense for publicity which never deserted him, he had Sergeant Buck Taylor (who’d charged with him in Cuba) speak at an election rally where he told the assembled crowd: “…and when it came to the great day he led us up San Juan Hill like sheep to the slaughter and so he will lead you.”  Roosevelt won the election, winning the popular vote 49.02% to 47.70% so clearly not too many New Yorkers took Sergeant Taylor’s words literally.