Eidetic

Eidetic (pronounced ahy-det-ik)

(1) Of, relating to or constituting visual imagery vividly experienced and readily reproducible with great accuracy and in great detail.

(2) In anthropology, political science, sociology etc, of or relating to eidos (the formal content of a culture, encompassing its system of ideas, criteria for interpreting experience, etc).

(3) In psychiatry and neuroscience (as eidetic memory), of visual (or sometimes auditory) images, exceptionally vivid and allowing detailed recall of something previously perceived (most common in young children, the capacity appearing to diminish as language develops).

(4) Relating to or subject to such imagery.

(5) The (1) essence or (2) perfect, vision of an object or concept.

(6) In psychoanalysis (of dreams), as “eidetic memory”, a dream that can be “seen in the mind” so vividly it appears to be “movie-like”.

(7) In philosophy and phenomenology (as “eidetics”), the study of eidetic reduction (a technique used to help identify the essential components of a phenomenon by attempting to reduce it into its necessary essences).

(8) In literary criticism, writing sufficient evocative as to create in a reader’s imagination a “photo-realistic image” of what’s being described or discussed.

(9) In visual art (painting), a technique used to produce a work close to indistinguishable from a photograph (literally possible before advances in photography and photographic reproduction); the work so painted.

1924: From the from German eidetisch (pertaining to the faculty of projecting images), from the Ancient Greek εἰδητικός (eidētikós) (pertaining to images and used also in the sense of “pertaining to knowledge”), from eidesis (knowledge), the construct being εἶδος (eîd(os)) (form, shape) + -etic.  The -etic suffix was from the Ancient Greek -ητικός (-ētikós), from -έω (-éō) + -τικός (-tikós).  It was used to form adjectives meaning “pertaining to”, derived from nouns, most of which end in -esis and -esy.  Most English words formed with the suffix were from words formed in other languages (sometimes mixed), including Old, Middle and Modern French, Italian, Latin, and Ancient Greek.  Eidetisch was in 1924 coined by German psychologist Professor Erich Jaensch (1883-1940).  The back-formation dyseidetic refers to an individual found to be dyslexic (with regard to the visual aspect of written words) while the adjective “noneidetic” (not eidetic) seems one of English’s most significantly pointless words but presumably it’s useful for clinicians making case notes.  The now obsolete alternative spelling was edetic.  Eidetic is an adjevtive, eidetiker is a noun and eidetically is an adverb; the noun plural is eidetikers.  The special case of eidetics (in philosophy the study of eidetic reduction) is an example of a noun plural existing without a base noun

The term “eidetic memory” is used as a synonym of the popular “photographic memory” and an individual possessing the characteristic can in clinical use be described as an “eidetiker” (one with an “eidetic memory”); the medical literature however makes clear there is no evidence of any subject ever having exhibited a true “photographic memory” in the way the condition of “total recall” has been depicted in fiction and elsewhere in popular culture.  Sometimes, a subject may seem to have a “photographic memory” but, upon investigation, it has always been found to be something less impressive.  In the 1980s, one US television comedy had the governor of a state astonished by his secretary’s memory:

Secretary: “I’ve memorized the telephone numbers of the entire US Senate.”

Governor: “What?  All of them?”

Secretary: “Well, there are only two.”

That worked also as a “blonde joke”, a breed now proscribed under threat of cancellation.  In general use, what “photographic memory” usually indicates is “an exceptionally good memory” but often this manifests in specialized fields of learning rather than general experience.  As something more generalized, it’s most common in young children who have, by definition, a limited length of memory from which to draw and the capacity appears usually to diminish as language develops.  In adults, it definitely is a spectrum condition so the adjectival senses (the comparative “more eidetic”, the superlative “most eidetic”) can be used and in neuroscience publications “semi-eidetic (partly or partially eidetic) does appear.  That said, in the literature, there are cases of patients who suffer from being “unable to forget”, a genuinely disturbing condition for those with memories of traumatic events.  Even then however, that is an instance not of “total recall” but rather the recollected events being ones they’d prefer to forget but cannot. 

The legacy: Zur Eidetik und Integrationstypologie: Arbeiten aus dem Institut für psychologische Anthropologie an der Universität Marburg/Lahn (On eidetics and integration typology: Works from the Institute for Psychological Anthropology at the University of Marburg/Lahn, 1941) by Professor Rudolf Jaensch, Barth, Leipzig, Germany.

Although at times one of the most cited and influential psychologists of the inter-war era (1919-1939), Rudolf Jaensch is now remembered only for his work on eidetic analysis, his “eidetic hypothesis formation” still one of the standard models in psychology.  His other work in the theories of constitutional types are now little studied, largely because his reputation was sullied by his enthusiastic commitment to and prosecution of the National Socialist Gleichschaltung (coordination) and restructuring of professional & academic life in Germany after the Nazi Party gained power in 1933.  Although Jaensch joined the party only some months after Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) was appointed chancellor (the oft-quoted reference to the Nazis “seizing power” is misleading, the political & military elite miscalculating in thinking having Hitler as head of a government in which the Nazis were in a minority would leaving him “manageable” and thus “handed him” the office)) and was thus susceptible to being derided by the “old fighters” as one who joined the movement only for career advancement, he’d been affiliated with a number of the party’s organs since mid-1932.  However, he certainly made up for lost time and in March 1933 was one of several hundred professors to sign a declaration of support for the new regime but unlike many of them who genuinely were seeking only to protect their careers and families, Jaensch was an activist, denouncing those who dissented from the party’s new orthodoxies and was particularly interested in excluding Jews from academic life, seeking not only to secure their dismissal but also discredit their work.  That of course resulted in the migration of many Jewish and engineers and scientists, something that at least partially realized Hitler’s core ideological obsession but greatly would come to disadvantage Germany during World War II (1939-1945).  Hitler may have disdained “Jewish physics” but the British and Americans did not as the Irish-born UK journalist & politician Brendan Bracken (1901–1958) would later (and not wholly facetiously) explain: “We won the war because our German scientists were better than their German scientists”.

Portrait of Martin Heidegger (2017) by Mathieu Laca (b 1982).  A painter can use a retreat from photorealism for reasons that may be artistic or political.

Jaensch's involvement with the Nazis so tainted to his reputation that in the post-war years only his seminal work in eidetic theory remained “acceptable” although the “guilt by association” paradigm was never much of a feature of post Nazi Germany and that he wrote a forward to the published version of Hans Bender’s (1907-1991) revised doctoral dissertation Zur Experimentalpsychologie des Unterbewußten und der außersinnlichen Wahrnehmung (On the Experimental Psychology of the Subconscious and Extrasensory Perception) seems not to have affected Dr Bender’s flourishing career in the 1950s.  There may also been some appeal in the English-speaking world, it being hard to think of a better name then “Bender” for a psychologist working in the field of extrasensory perception.  Unfortunately, in Germanic use, while the name “Bender” was from the Middle High German benden (to bend; to twist), use was typically occupational and applied to (1) a cooper (barrel-maker), with Bender a clipping of Fassbinder or Fassbender (a cooper (ie someone who builds and repairs wooden barrels or casks by bending staves) or (2) a craftsman or metalworker (the artisans and smiths who shaped materials like wood or metal using techniques of bending and curving.  Less commonly, it could be topographic (someone who lived near a sharp curve or bend in a river or a road).  Whether, had Professor Jaensch lived to undergo the de-Nazification process of the post-war years, had he apologized for his conduct, he’d have been “sort of forgiven” in the mood of selective generosity that has seen figures like conductor Herbert von Karajan (1908–1989) and philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) to one degree or another rehabilitated is unlikely; Karajan’s association with the regime was pure careerism while Heidegger’s flirtation was brief and soon abandoned whereas Jaensch died an unrepentant Nazi and his only legacy is eidetic theory.

Eidetic memory has never appeared in the APA's (American Psychiatric Association) DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), either as a diagnostic term or disorder, presumably because it’s regarded as a natural variation in the human condition.  Although an acknowledged psychological phenomenon, the DSM does not regard an exceptional memory (however described) as pathological, even when discussing the functioning of memory in the context of neuro-cognitive or dissociative disorders.  Despite, that, the term “eidetic” is far from unknown in the psychiatric & psychological literature (professional & popular) but many publications cast a much wider net than the DSM that focuses on the diagnosis of metal disorders rather than reviewing the range of “normal” human characteristics.  So, while there are books devoted to discussing eidetic memory (and related topics) and the “self-help” shelves in bookshops often have volumes on “improving memory” or “developing a photographic memory”, that’s very different from “eidetic memory”.  For example, psychiatric teaching material describes eidetic images as visual memories of almost hallucinatory vividness but the DSM’s editors applied the same rationale when not including Aphantasia (an inability voluntarily to recall or form mental images) in their editions, the DSM being concerned primarily with phenomena insofar as they constitute clinically significant dysfunction or form part of a recognized disorder.  The eidetic memory spectrum does though remain a recognized psychological phenomenon and for clinicians that’s helpful because of the need to differentiate instances from hallucinations, a very different symptom.

In painting, there is a long “eidetic” tradition of works so photorealistic that, unless closely examined (and certainly when reproduced photographically) can be assumed to be photographs, some artists in recent years even adopting the technique as a signature.  Those still able to view art for pleasure can enjoy the perceptual ambiguity (and maybe even enjoy being fooled) but art critics know paintings are there to be criticized and while the sheer technical prowess of the artist can be acknowledged, photorealistic painting often has been treated with hostility.  It wasn’t always so because photorealism predated photography as some artists sought to achieve what would later come to be called the “hyper-realistic” and, in a nice linguistic paradox, it would be decades (well into the twentieth century) before technology had improved to the point at which a developed photograph could match the “realism” achieved by the most skilled artists, a group working not only in paint but also with pencils and, remarkably, even charcoal, a substance uniquely suitable for emulating monochromatic images.  The objection of latter-day critics was not only the predictable: “Why not just take a photograph?” but also it being known many artists actually took photographs and copied these to create their paintings.  To many critics, that meant it was less “art” than “drafting”.

Telephone Booths (1967), acrylic on Masonite by Richard Estes (b 1932), Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, Madrid, Spain.

The classic exponent of the technique was US artist Richard Estes and Telephone Booths is his best-known work in this vein.  At the technical level, the piece was most accomplished because for a painter, intrinsically, a tree in a park is a less challenging subject than some Manhattan telephone booths in their surrounds, the work demanding the rendering on a two dimensional surface, glass, shiny metal, reflections and transparencies, a grab of multiple overlapping optical images of simultaneous movement.  Now on permanent display at the Thyssen-Bornemisza, the exhibit’s curatorial notes detail the production process, the composition beginning with several photographs taken of a row of telephone booths at the intersection of Broadway, Sixth Avenue, and 34^th Street, subsequently combined as a montage.  The hyperrealism inherent in emulating photography owes something to the tradition of trompe l'oeil (deceives the eye) in that the works often were a deliberate attempt “…to confuse and disorient the viewer.  Despite depicting a recognizable scene, the complexity of the framing and the blurring of reflections require an additional effort of concentration, since nothing can be grasped at a single glance.”  The choice of setting does though hint at the way artists are selective to make the effect work, glass having the necessary characteristics to create ambiguities, the stuff simultaneously reflective and transparent.  What Estes did was use the accumulation of reflections as a “device of distortion”, some images sharply defined on the glass while others appearing on metallic surfaces slightly were warped while still allowing concurrent recognition of the booths before the eye and the buildings “behind us”, cues such as the signs of the Macy's and Woolworth there as markers of familiarity.  Making a painting from a photograph may sound simple (for those with the skill and time) but what Estes did was not mere transcription for he took his montage and rearranged it, Telephone Booths depicting a scene no single photograph recorded.  That didn’t exactly mean “montage beget collage” but it was an interesting take on “appropriating and reconstructing reality”.  For those who like the idea of telephone booths as subjects there are now fewer from which to choose but in many cities there are survivors (some re-purposed as Wi-Fi hotspots) and in Australia, one that provided vital communications when cellular (mobile) services were disabled by bushfires has been granted “Protected Heritage” status.

Central Savings (1975), oil on canvas by Richard Estes.  Reflected images were a feature of the photorealists, the scenes providing a useful layer of “pre-distortion”.

Tellingly, while Estes usually left his cityscapes devoid of human presence, in Telephone Booths there were four figures, each partially visible in the temporary sanctuary of their booth, backs to the viewer.  As a trick on the path to photorealism that was a wise choice because the almost flat expanses of a trench coat’s fabric makes the effect easier to achieve than the contours and colours of a human face.  However, for professional critic and ultracrepidarian alike, the meaning beneath (or perhaps “beyond”) is there for the viewer to take from it what they will, those better-versed in critical theory, tending sometimes to impart meaning, seeking to “know the mind of the artist”.  The Italian art critic Sandro Parmiggiani (b 1946) described those “on the phones” as “metaphors for broken voices and a faceless humanity, remaining unknowable within those impenetrable spaces, to which the stains that border their metallic edges allude as a visual rhyme, increasing the mystery and the visual bewilderment.”  Now we know.  The author John Updike (1932–2009) was no less a deconstructionist, declaring: “We know nothing about the two people on the far right, nothing except that their clothing is light-colored; we know even less about the couple on the left—they seem transparent in their oblique reflections. Thanks to the label of metropolitan crowd, these people have been reduced to mere signifiers affixed to telephone booths; like bytes.  The sounds of a computer or the strokes of a typewriter take their place and convey information. The emptiness of this information contrasts with the visual richness that the painter has imparted without sparing any effort, constructing a profoundly tender artistic irony.”  It was the Anglo-Irish satirist & Anglican cleric Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) who in the poem On Poetry: a Rhapsody (1733) included the lines:

Or else perhaps he may invent
A better than the poet meant;
As learned commentators view
In Homer more than Homer knew.

That pair of couplets became famous as a critique of overly obsessive literary critics & scholars anxious to find in texts hidden meanings and profundity, the objective perhaps not to inflate the esteem in which the author was held but enhance their own reputations; wisdom displayed by pointing out what the professor down the corridor failed to notice.  Swift may have made a famous point but mostly he was ignored and has of late been steamrollered by the post-modernists & deconstructionists able to construct “meanings in the meanings” although, unfortunately, so jargon-laden are some of their texts the meanings these formalist's documents sometimes barely are decipherable to all but fellow semioticians.  The industry has of course moved on from Homer and the words of figures like Bob Dylan (b 1941) and Jonathan Swift’s now more famous namesake (Taylor Swift (b 1989)) have been analysed as closely as any theologian has studied the Scriptures.  Dylan presumably was on occasions amused by finding out what “he really meant” and was modest, telling one interviewer he was “just a song & dance man” and another that those who “…called his lyrics poetry, probably hadn’t read much poetry”.  Still the critics clearly prevailed because in 2016 the Swedish Academy awarded Dylan the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him one of the more publicized laureates of recent decades.  Of Ms Swift’s oeuvre, meaning may be easier to find: she’s of her generation so the songs are “all about her”.

Hot Fudge Sundae (1972), oil on canvas by Ralph Goings.

The US painter Ralph Goings is sometimes said to have made photorealism “his signature” but it seems to have been more “his calling”, drawn to the technique because of a genuine “aesthetic objection” to the way pop-art artists of the 1960s were tending to expressionism (and even mannerism) in their depictions of simple, mundane objects.  Those approaches were of course “just another path to meaning” but for his bank buildings, diners (condiment sets very much a theme) and pick-up trucks, Goings emulated the camera’s objectivity although, without the original photographs, it’s not known if some licence was taken although almost certainly that happened.  While a dent in the tailgate of a parked pick-up truck is unexceptional, maybe it was added for some optical verisimilitude.  Estes’s Telephone Booths was admitted not to be a “pure” piece of eidetic imagery but a compositional piece that was a construct of what such an image might have been; Goings by contrast claimed always to be “true to the original”.

That should be treated as a statement of intent but Goings never exhibited the 35mm color slides that were his “intermediate tool” but he admitted going “beyond the photographs” in tweaking details such as light and color saturation or adjusting an inconvenient shadow.  That he used slides was also of significance because frequently, in a darkened room, he would project the images onto a primed, blank canvas, enabling him to bypass freehand drawing, instead with a pencil “tracing the grid”, meticulously rendering every the edge of every shape, contour or shadow.  That done, what’d he’d have was a kind of “paint-by-numbers” set, the canvas now an assembly of outlined shapes awaiting paint, the original photograph a legend of the color scheme.  So it could be called “craft” and the much skill and patience was demanded but whether that meant it should be called  “art” divided critics.  However, an artist’s relationship with the critics is just one aspect of life and there’s also the relationship with the auction houses and the customers; the current record sale price for a painting by Goings was some US$700,000 and his stuff definitely is now part of the “art market”.

Airstream (1970), oil on Molino by Ralph Goings (1928-2016), Mumok (Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (Museum of modern art, Ludwig Foundation), Museumsquartier in Vienna, Austria.  Molino is a fabric-based support, often a plain-weave or un-primed textile material akin to the specialized canvas or heavy cotton & linen weaves used in Europe.  It's known also as “cotton duck canvas” but that has nothing to do with Anatidae feathers, "duck" from the Dutch doek (cloth). 

More eye-catching still was Airstream.  Still in production after 90 years, vintage Airstreams are a collectable, distinguished by their polished aluminium skins, a dramatic look that has at times been controversial because, on sunny days, the reflections from the large surface area were thought to be “distracting” for other road users.  Some owners of latter-day Shelby American Cobras (the originals (1962-1967) all painted) who opted for the expensive option of polished aluminum bodywork also came to rue the decision, the seductive curves showing every fingerprint.  The big Airstreams did however make a great photograph and, as Ralph Goings knew, a great photo had the potential to be a great painting though in his genre, it had to be the right photo.  Airstream was one of his favourites because he thought it best represented the possibilities in his technique and although what he did was in a sense “mechanical”, it could also be exacting, a few square inches of canvas sometimes taking days to complete.  For Goings, the paintings are best thought of as his “love affair with America”.

Lindsay Lohan rendered in the style of nineteenth century Impressionism (right) by Gemini.ai.  The digital version was based on a photograph (left) of her in a Jill Sander (b 1943) gown in light chartreuse from the Spring 2023 collection (with a Tyler Ellis (b 1984) Clutch, Joseph Saidian & Sons Vintage Marquise & Baguette Cut Diamond, Anabela Chan Orchid Diamond Cascade Earrings and Piferi Fade Sandals by Alfredo Pīferi (b 1987)) while attending the Disney Legends Awards ceremony, Anaheim, California, August, 2024.  On the day, although the environment was not optimized for photography, the light and breeze cooperated, the gown’s fabric swishing in a way the Impressionists would have painted, even had the air been still.  In the 2010s, as video cards became more powerful, software emerged to allow users to take photographs and re-create them in a wide variety of modes including pencil sketches, water colors, oils and even styles such as cubism.  This was the opposite process from that used by hyperrealists such as Estes and Goings; now generative AI makes possible just about anything able to be displayed on a screen.

The paradox of course was that Airstream was the exemplar of a painting functionally indistinguishable from a photograph thus illustrating the usual critique: What’s the point?  Why not just produce prints of the photograph, something able to be done in limitless quantities and at marginal cost?  That’s a classic utilitarian question and one that ignores a concept like l'art pour l'art (art for art's sake) but then, other than as generators or economic value, utilitarians likely thought society gained little benefit from movements such as vorticism, cubism, abstraction, expressionism and such.  There was also elitism in the disdain; photorealism associated with craft, folk-art, advertising, ordinary consumer objects and other fields tainted by commercialism (although the art-mafia was untroubled by their business being focused on money like few others).  Still, contemporary conceptual and abstract art was thought intellectually sophisticated in a way “copying photographs” could never match, the technical virtuosity less valued than the imagination of the “true artist”.  Despite all that, photorealism did find a niche and is now an accepted part of the industry.

The Hay Wain (1821), oil on canvas by John Constable (1776–1837), National Gallery, London (left) and Flatford Mill from a Lock on the Stour (circa 1811), oil on canvas by John Constable, Royal Academy of Arts, London (right).

John Constable was among the last generation of painters to live before the age of photography and although now regarded as one of the greatest of Britain’s landscape artists, in his lifetime he enjoyed only modest commercial success; not until the age of 52 was he elected to the RA (Royal Academy of Arts).  The two paintings above are examples of the different ways he painted, the high Romantic Flatford Mill from a Lock on the Stour noticeably less “realistic” than The Hay Wain, a work among his most elegiac.  Viewed retrospectively, as the technology of photography improved, there would have been times when each of these paintings could be deemed photorealistic (if, for purposes of comparison, rendered in gray-scale or sepia) but that was not the dominant artistic measure of the era.  It’s not known when Constable made his remark: “My pictures will never be popular for they have no handling, but I do not see handling in nature” (the quote appearing (undated) in Memoirs of the Life of John Constable, Esq (1843) by the UK-based US genre painter Charles Robert Leslie RA (1794–1859)) but it’s tempting to think it might have been before painting Flatford Mill, a work executed with notable “handling”.  Constable used “handling” (then trade jargon among the critics) to describe the painter’s visible manner of applying paint, the brushwork, facture, finish and characteristic “touch” by which a viewer could see how the artist worked their brush.  The comparison was something like the difference between watchmakers who took care to conceal their creations’ movements and those who made visible the wheels & cogs, Constable in effect saying “nature shows no painterly technique, so why should an artist?”  Time of course doesn’t display the mechanism of how it works any more than do the clouds in the sky: both just are.  The critics though were society’s opinion-makers (especially among those who actually paid arts for their work) and in Constable's time, an academic landscape painter of renown was expected to demonstrate skilful, controlled brushwork that made visible the mechanics of the action.  Not all did it in the same way but the most commercially successful had their ways of making obvious how the oil was blended and modulated, clouds, rocks, foliage and all the elements of landscape rendered through established conventions.  As well as the beauty of what was being depicted, the artist's execution was there to be admired.

The Opening of Waterloo Bridge seen from Whitehall Stairs, 18 June, 1817 (circa 1832), oil on canvas by John Constable, Tate Britain, London.  In the industry’s classification system, Constable is listed as a painter of landscapes, in the Romantic tradition but as much as anything, he was a painter of skies and cloudscapes.

Constable made no secret he thought these conspicuous displays of artistic virtuosity as “bravura”, preferring to be what he called a “natural painter” depicting the “natural environment”.  Discarding, the bravura taught during his student years, he eschewed “showing off” and let nature do the talking; nature having no brushstrokes and trees, clouds and sunlight without “handling”, manifesting only as optical phenomena.  That was what Constable wanted to paint.  He was though a realist and in some of his work there is much of his signature “handling”, rough, broken, apparently (though doubtlessly not) spontaneous brushwork applied in flecks, dabs, flecks, streaks and thick impasto (paint applied thickly to create a topography of peaks and crests that, in physically extending from the surface, lends something of a 3D (three-dimensional) effect), sometimes obviously using paint unmixed and straight “from the tube”.  Constable didn’t change his view that he wanted viewers to focus on the painting rather than the independent performance of the painter but whether “Constable 2.0” was an evolving artist or one adapting to commercial reality in “surrendering art to artifice” can be debated but what no historians dispute is that the later impressionists owed a debt to this exemplar of the Romantic movement.  Constable now is more highly regarded than ever he was in his lifetime.

Poison & Venom

Poison (pronounced poi-zuhn)

(1) A substance with an inherent property that can impair function, cause structural damage, or otherwise injure or destroy life or impair health.

(2) Something harmful or pernicious, as to happiness or well-being.

(3) A slang term for alcoholic liquor.

(4) To administer poison (to something living).

(5) To ruin, vitiate, or corrupt.

(6) In chemistry, a substance that retards a chemical reaction or destroys or inhibits the activity of a catalyst or enzyme.

(7) In nuclear physics, a substance that absorbs neutrons in a nuclear reactor and thus slows down the reaction.  It may be added deliberately or formed during fission.

(8) Variously in computing (often as "poison message"), a routine or instruction able to stop processes; the "poison queue" is a place to which these are diverted to prevent them running (a similar concept to a "quarantine zone").

1200-1250: From the Middle English poisoun, poyson, poysone, puyson & puisun (a deadly potion or substance (and figuratively, "spiritually corrupting ideas; evil intentions,"), from the twelfth century Old French poison & puison (drink, especially a "medical drink" (later "a (magic) potion; a poisonous drink"), from the Latin potionem (nominative potio) (a drinking, a drink) (and also "a poisonous drink"), from potare (to drink), from the primitive Indo-European root poi- & po- (to drink).  The earliest Lastin forms were pōtiōn (drink, a draught, a poisonous draught, a potion), from pōtō (I drink) & pōtāre (to drink).   The Middle English forms displaced the native Old English ator.  The Latin pōtiōn is the stem of pōtiō, the derive forms being pōtio & pōtiōnis.  The adjective poisonsome is obsolete and poisonous is used for all purposes.  Poison is a noun & verb, poisonousness & poisoner are nouns, empoison is a verb, poisoning is a noun & verb, poisoned is a verb & adjective, poisonous, poisonlike & poisonless are adjectives and poisonously is an adverb; the noun plural is poisons. 

Dry Cooder, Ronald Reagan, Can of Poison Meat.  The edited recording was sampled from a long interview conducted by US journalist Bill Moyers (1934–2025; White House Press Secretary 1965-1967) on 14 May 1979, some months before Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; POTUS 1981-1989) had declared his candidacy for POTUS. In the transcript the phrase is written as "can of poison meat" but the recording does suggest Mr Reagan (correctly) said "can of poisoned meat".

The evolution from Latin to French followed the pattern of other words (eg raison from rationem), the Latin word also the source of Old Spanish pozon, the Italian pozione and the Spanish pocion.  The modern and more typical Indo-European word for this is represented in English by "virus" and the slang sense of "alcoholic drink" is an Americanism dating from 1805 (the sense evolution was from "drink" to "deadly drink") although the bartender's phrase "what's your poison" (ie, what drink do you wish to order?) picked up on this in a sardonic way.  Potus as a past-participle adjective in Latin meant "drunken".  Figurative use was first noted in the late fifteenth century although it appears not to have been applied to persons until 1910 but entmologists caution this reflects on the extant written record and earlier oral use was likely.  It was used as an adjective from the 1520s; with plant names appearing from the mid eighteenth century, poison ivy first in recorded 1784, following poison oak in 1743.  Poison-pen (the trolling of the time), was popularized in 1913 by a notorious criminal case in Pennsylvania although the phrase dates from 1898, including as a description of the blackmailer's letter (a form of extortion that earned from the Duke of Wellington (1769-1852) the famous reply: "Publish and be damned!".  In some Germanic languages "poison" is aligned with the English gift (eg the Old High German gift, the German Gift, the Danish & Swedish gift and the Dutch gift & vergift).  This shift may have been partly euphemistic and partly the influence of the Greek dosis (a portion prescribed (literally "a giving")), used by Greek physicians to mean "a quantum of medicine".  Of persons detested or regarded as exerting baleful influence, poison and poisonous were in use by 1910.  The verb in the sense of "to poison, to give poison to" dates from the circa 1300 poisonen, from the Old French poisonner (to give to drink) and directly from the noun poison.  The figurative use in the sense of "to corrupt" emerged in the late fourteenth century.

Three portraits of Lindsay Lohan as Poison Ivy by Alex Ross.  Poison Ivy is a comic book character in works published by US company DC Comics.  Poison Ivy is one of Batman's many enemies.

In idiomatic use, the phrase “poisoned chalice” (a large drinking cup) refers to something that at first glance seems desirable but later is revealed to be disadvantageous or harmful.  It’s now used often in politics to describe the situation in which the leadership of a party is offered to someone when it is obvious to all prospects of success are slight and defeat looms (accounting for the phenomenon of women being appointed leaders during the dying days ("fag-end") of  administrations).  This is a modern variant on the original sense in which things initially seemed benign, only later to cause harm or even death.  A famous use was by William Shakespeare (1564–1616) in The Tragedy of Macbeth (Macbeth, circa 1606) in the speech in which Macbeth flinches from the prospective murder of King Duncan.  “Poisoned compliment” is synonym of “asterism” or “left-handed compliment”; an insult disguised as a compliment or a compliment which can be interpreted as an insult; “damning with faint praise” can be used in the same way.  A “poisonmonger” was “one who peddles poison” and while that could be literal (ie a merchant who trades in poisons), it’s more often used figuratively of those who speak with a “poison tongue” or who wield a “poison pen”.  A “taste of one's own poison” was synonymous with “taste of one's own medicine” and referred to harsh treatment inflicted on one who previously made other suffer the treatment.  To “pick (or “choose”) one’s poison” was to be compelled to choose between two unappealing options.  During periods of “liberal” rule within the Ottoman Empire (1299-1922), foreign diplomats visiting Constantinople (Istanbul in the modern-day Republic of Türkiye (Turkey)) often were relieved to discover alcoholic beverages readily were available, despite the prophet in the Holy Qur'an declaring the stuff haram (forbidden); usually with a smile, their sophisticated Ottoman counterparts would tell them: "It's thought a man should choose his own poison."  That was good for Ottoman commerce and, of course, of limited theological significance because infidels were anyway destined for the depths of Hell.  To say “one man’s meat is another’s poison” is to admit people have differing tastes; what pleases one person may displease another. 

“Well poisoning” still is practiced and means literally “to make the water supply undrinkable by means of adulteration” (not necessarily with “poison” in the narrow technical sense).  A wartime technique known since at least antiquity, it was used both as an offensive weapon (a terror tactic to disrupt and depopulate a target area) and defensively (as a scorched earth tactic to deny an invading army sources of clean water). Historically, rotting corpses (animal and human) were thrown down wells, making it an early example of biological warfare and that was an especially potent technique because corpses known to have died from transmissible diseases (common during the "age of epidemics" that was the Medieval period) such as bubonic plague or tuberculosis often were available to be "weaponized".  Figuratively, “to poison the well” was pre-emptively to raise ad hominem arguments in order to discredit someone, the concept thus a type of informal fallacy where adverse information about a target is presented to an audience with the intention of devaluing what they’re about to say.  That makes it a certain type of argumentum ad hominem and the phrase was first in this sense used by convert Roman Catholic theologian Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890) in Apologia Pro Vita Sua (A defence of one's own life, 1864).  The proverb “The damage that a substance causes is determined more by its quantity than by its essence” is from toxicology and references the phenomenon that while some substances may for life be beneficial or even essential, in certain quantities they can be damaging or even fatal; for humans, ingesting even pure water can prove lethal if enough is consumed in a certain period, toxicity for healthy adults reached with as little as 20 litres (4.4 imperial gallons, 5.3 US gallons) taken over a few hours.

Venom (pronounced ven-uhm)

(1) The poisonous fluid that some animals, as certain snakes and spiders, secrete and introduce into the bodies of their victims by biting, stinging etc.

(2) Something resembling or suggesting poison in its effect; spite; malice.

(3) Poison in general (inaccurate, now archaic).

(4) To make venomous; envenom (archaic).

(5) Malice, spite.

1175–1225: A variant of the Middle English venim & venym (poison secreted by some animals and transferred by biting) from the Anglo-Norman & Old French venim, venin (poison; malice), from the Vulgar Latin venīmen (source also of the Italian veleno and the Spanish veneno), from the Latin venēnum (magical herb or potion, poison (and in pre-Classical times "drug, medical potion" also "charm, seduction" probably originally "love potion")).  The root was the Proto-Italic weneznom (lust, desire), from the primitive Indo-European wenh (to strive, wish, love) from wen (to desire; to strive for) and related forms included the Sanskrit वनति (vanati) (gain, wish, erotic lust) and the Latin Venus.   The various deformations in post-Latin languages happened apparently by process of dissimilation with the modern spelling in English more or less standardized by the late fourteenth century.  In figurative use, to have "venom in one's voice" was to express thoughts or feelings marked by spite or malice (vitriolic talk); that of course has been common in human discourse since even before structured language developed but the use of "venom" or "venomous" as a descriptor has been in use since at least the late twelfth century.  The adjective venomosalivary (relating to venom and saliva) is now rare and appears only in historic references while the adjective venonsome is obsolete and venomous is used for all purposes.  Venom is a noun, verb & adjective, venomousness, venomization & venomosity are nouns, venomless, venomlike, venomosalivary, venomsome, venomous & venomic are adjectives, venomize, venoming & envenomate are verbs, venomed is a verb & adjective and venomously is an adverb; the noun plural is venoms.

Sometimes similar consequences but linguistically not interchangeable

A venomous white-lipped pit viper (Trimeresurus insularis), ready to strike; the lovely blue ones are rare; most are green.  That may be an example of survival of the fittest given the environments in which they dwell tend more to be green than blue.  As a footnote, the phrase “survival of the fittest” often is attributed to Charles Darwin (1809-1882) but nowhere does in appear in his epoch-making On the Origin of Species (1859); it was coined by English polymath Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) and first used in his Principles of Biology (1864).  Sometimes misunderstood, “fittest” means “best fitted to the environment or able to adapt to change”, not “strongest, fastest, or most physically fit”.  In other words, organisms most likely to survive as a species are those best adapted to their niche or able to adapt to changing circumstances.

Poison and venom often are used interchangeably because, once in the body, the chemicals can do similar damage, attacking the heart, brain or other vital organs but the meanings are different.  That said, there are many venoms able to be ingested without ill-effect because they are dangerous only if entering the bloodstream although that can happen through a minor cut in the mouth so the practice is not without risk.  Typically, venomous creatures bite, sting or stab their victims whereas for poisonous substances to affect the living, entry typically is by means of ingestion, inhalation or touch.  The venomous thus need a way in, like fangs or teeth whereas a poison in some cases need only come in contact with bare skin.  The useful rule is: If one bites something and one dies, what one bit contained poison; if something bites one and one dies, one was bitten by something venomous.  Of course, one is just as dead whether the cause was ingesting poison, the bite of a venomous snake or being murdered by the Freemasons but the distinction is of significance for pathologists performing post mortems (autopsies) or those signing death certificates.  More critically, it matters greatly to medical staff performing a diagnosis; because the symptoms induced by the presence of poison and venom can overlap, determining which can be a matter of life and death.

Lindsay Lohan in pink orchid veavage swimsuit next to potted pink orchid, Phuket, Thailand, December 2017.  It was during this mini-break the wire service story was syndicated with the headline: “Lindsay Lohan bitten by snake on holiday in Thailand” and almost instantly the grammar Nazis tweeted on X (then known as Twitter) demanding proof the snake really was taking a vacation; standards have fallen since sub-editors went extinct but errors like this may vanish as AI (artificial intelligence) bots replace flesh & blood journalists.  Ms Lohan made a full-recovery; there was no word on the fate of the (presumably non-venomous) serpent.

Protuberant

Protuberant (pronounced proh-too-ber-uhnt, proh-tyoo-ber-uhnt, or pruh-too-ber-uhnt)

Bulging out beyond the surrounding surface; protruding; projecting; swelling from the surrounding surface; bulging.

1640–1650: From the sixteenth century French protubérant (prominent beyond the surrounding surface), from the Late Latin protuberantem (nominative protuberans), present participle of prōtūberāre (to swell, bulge, grow forth), the construct being pro- (forward) + tuber (lump, swelling) from the primitive Indo-European root teue- (to swell).  The most common form in the Late Latin was prōtūberāre (to swell).  The verb protuberate (bulge out, swell beyond the adjacent surface) dates from the 1570s, from Late Latin protuberatus, past participle of prōtūberāre.  Protuberant is an adjective, protuberate is a verb, protuberance & protuberancy are nouns and protuberantly is an adverb; the noun plural is protuberances.

Patting the protuberance of pregnancy: Ali Lohan (b 1993, left) photographed with her pregnant sister Lindsay Lohan (b 1986, right) wearing Sandal-Malvina Fringe Tank Dress in (unattributed) Dodge Yorange (left).  The shoes are Alexandre Birmen Clarita Platforms and may have been worn just for the photo-shoot; usually, pregnant people prefer something more sensible.

Artwork not by PM&C.

In Australia, PM&C (Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet) in 2022 released a new logo for the “Women’s Network”.  To the left of the construct was a cursive "W", the right stroke (the vertical diagonal line in a letter) adorned with a swash (a fancy or decorative replacement for a terminal or serif in an upper-case capital letter (although this w may be lower case (it’s hard to tell) in which case it would be a "flourish").  To the right was a capsular (technically a geometric stadium) protuberance which had been bitten into by the stylized W.  The logo’s graphical elements were rendered in a darkish purple which lightened as the shape extended right, the text below in two different sans serif fonts, one line in bold black, the other grey.  The design and placement of the text, though not obviously thoughtful, did at least add meaning to the graphic which might otherwise have been thought something to do with aubergines (eggplant).

Innocent interpretation: The aubergine (eggplant).

The logo proved to have a short life, withdrawn from circulation in response to complaints it resembled male genitalia; on Twitter, #logonono quickly trended.  Almost immediately the furor erupted, PM&C issued a statement saying the logo had been “removed” from its website “pending consultation with staff”.  Noting the phallic creation was part of a rebrand of staff DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) networks “to establish a consistent look and feel” between the logos used for various groups, PM&C added “the Women’s Network logo retained a ‘W’ icon which staff had been using for a number of years” which seemed an unnecessary clarification given nobody had objected to the W.  Anxious to assure the country that whatever controversy might have been induced by the purple protuberance, PM&C announced the “…rebrand was completed internally, using existing resources, and designs were consulted on widely.  No external providers were engaged for this work… (and that) the prime minister and the prime minister’s office were not part of this logo design.”  Well that cleared that up.

Graphic designers do seem sometimes unaware of the levels of anatomical comparison their work offers.  Of course, on the basis that "no publicity is bad publicity" there may be the odd "intentional inadvertence", there being much to be gained from a good handling of a controversy. 

The errors cut across cultures.  Here technical advice from an architect would have helped, more historically correct additional minarets should have been added and only a single dome depicted.

The attitude of critics was exemplified by the NOWN (National Older Women’s Network), which issued a statement describing the logo as “either thoughtless or an insult” although as a re-branding exercise, the project had to be labeled a success, most of the country now aware of the existence of the Women’s Network, a mysterious body previously familiar probably only to a handful of souls devoted to it causes.  A discussion of what it does or whether it fulfils any useful purpose wasn’t stimulated by the outcry over the offending logo so whatever the Women’s Network was doing before, it presumably continues to do.  One thing it achieved was to flush out the competition; it seems there are in the country a number of organizations with "Women's Network" in their title but whether there are demarcation disputes or all work together is collective feminist harmony seems not to have made the news.

Logo developed in 1973 by Gerry Kano Design on a commission from Roman Catholic Church's Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Designed for the Archdiocesan Commission of Catholic Youth, remarkably as it may now seem, the imaginative creation won an "Excellence in Design" award from the Art Director's Club of Los Angeles.  An example of how things have changed, it was a time when what priests did behind closed doors tended to be "hushed up" with bishops "solving the problem" by shifting the perpetrator to another parish when he would find new victims against whom to visit his sins.

Perhaps the men involved in the “Women’s Network” design didn’t notice the shape of the protuberance because they were focused on the color, anxious to avoid what might once have been the obvious choice: pink.  That would of course have been condescending and gender-stereotyping so the staff at PM&C deserve some praise in this aspect of a matter in which they weren’t involved.  Pink stuff for products aimed at the female market may be less of a thing than once it was but for men wanting a gift with a difference for women, it seems more of a thing than ever, pink tool kits popular gifts with sales spiking reliably in the run up to Christmas and even Valentine’s Day.  In truth, whatever the color, it's probably a good idea for the modern young spinster to have her own tool kit because as many of them will attest, men just can't be relied upon.  However, while working well for novelties like hammers and screwdrivers, pink doesn’t always have a good record as a marketing device writ large, failure exemplified by the Dodge La Femme.

Chrysler show cars, 1954:  Chrysler Le Comte (his, top) & Chrysler La Comtesse (hers, bottom).

Chrysler offered the La Femme package in 1955 and 1956 on the Custom Royal Lancer (the division's top trim line), the creation not a stylistic whim but a response to sociological changes in an unexpectedly affluent post-war US society in which women were found to be exerting a greater influence on the allocation of their family’s rising disposable income and of most interest to Chrysler was that those increasingly suburban families were buying second cars, women getting their own.  Adventurous color schemes were nothing new for Detroit, the cars of the art deco era noted for their two-tone combos but shades had been more subdued in the years immediately after World War II (1939-1945).  That changed with the exuberance of 1950s experimentation when three and four-tone renderings hit the showrooms though for the La Femme concept which had been previewed in the La Comtesse, two were judged enough.  The Le Comte & La Comtesse show cars in 1954 attracted most attention for their clear Perspex roofs (a craze at the time which didn’t last long as buyers found themselves slowly being cooked) but, following the grammatical conventions of their French definite articles, they were very much a “his & hers” brace, the darker (black & bronze) Le Comte with a “masculine” image and the La Comtesse, painted in  "Dusty Rose" & "Pigeon Grey", a softer and more “feminine” look.

1955 Dodge La Femme by Chrysler (left), accessories by by Evans of Chicago (right).

The public and critical response to La Comtesse must have been positive enought to encourage production and for the 1955 model year, the La Femme option was offered on the Dodge Custom Royal Lancer two-door hardtop, finished in a two-tone combination of "Heather Rose" (a shade of pink) & "Sapphire White", highlighted with gold-colored "La Femme" badges in a display script but if the exterior was (almost) subdued, the interior, a sea of pink, was femininity laid on with a trowel.  Trimmed in a tapestry fabric unique to the La Femme which wove pink rosebuds on a silver-pink background in pastel-pink vinyl, confronting those who sat there was a dashboard painted in bright-pink lacquer.  In case nobody sitting inside got the message, there was another La Femme badge in anodized gold-tone making explicit this was "a car for women". 

In the pink: Dodge La Femme (1955-1956).

In a marketing ploy which turned out to be years ahead of its time, the La Femme also came with coordinated accessories, the centrepiece a pink calfskin handbag that fitted neatly into a storage compartment built into the back of the passenger’s seat, the shape of which included a scallop which meant the handbag’s escutcheon plate was visible, Dodge’s press-kits noting the brushed-metal was designed to permit the owner’s name to be engraved.  The handbag contained a compact, lipstick case, cigarette case, comb, cigarette lighter, and change purse, all made variously with faux-tortoiseshell or pink calfskin, both combined with yet more anodized gold-tone metal.  In a matching compartment on the back of the driver’s seat was a rain coat, rain-cap and umbrella, all made with a vinyl patterned to match the rosebud interior fabric.  The design and production was by Evans of Chicago, a furrier and maker of fine accessories, famous for the display of "Black Diamond" mink coats in their flagship store at 36 South State Street.  Evans later would fall victim to the anti-fur movement which would lay waste to an industry on which many regional economies had been built.

The advertising message which at the time seemed a good idea.

In toned-down form, the La Femme option re-appeared in 1956.  The external color combination was changed to a "Misty Orchid" & "Regal Orchid" scheme and the interior finish was simplified, the previous year’s tapestry fabric proving challenging to produce in volume.  The revised upholstery used a heavy white cloth with random patterns of short lavender (purple's most "feminine" hue) and purple loops, matching the loop-pile carpeting and the accessories were limited, restricted in 1956 to just the rain coat, rain cap and umbrella.  Over the two seasons, fewer than 2,500 buyers chose the US$143 option and it didn’t re-appear for 1957.

Dodge in 1955-1956 had advertising for men (HP (horsepower), speed and V8 engines, left) and for women (everything pink, the paint, the rosebuds on the upholstery, the handbag, compact, lipstick case, cigarette case, comb, cigarette lighter, change purse, rain coat, rain-cap and umbrella, right).  In an interesting (though unverified) juxtaposition of men's perceptions, several sources suggest at least three La Femme buyers chose the most powerful engine on the option list, Dodge’s D-500 (a 315 cubic inch (5.2 litre) V8 with hemi heads and a four barrel carburetor, rated at a then most masculine 285 HP); perhaps not all clung to 1950s gender stereotyping.

Dodge La Femme advertising copy (1955, left) and pony-tail friendly headrest (right).  The men at Dodge were not wrong in concluding the “discriminating, modern woman” existed in commercially significant numbers and that she might buy a car but didn't grasp that functional features would have more appeal than pink paint. Ironically, the evidence does suggest men at the time were rather more susceptible to being drawn to a car because it was marketed as “masculine” than were women to something cynically and superficially “feminized”.

Other manufacturers did dabble with feminine-themed cars in a similar vein including GM's (General Motors) 1958 Chevrolet Impala Martinique and Cadillac Eldorado Seville Baroness but neither reached series-production.  The special detailing on GM’s 1958 show cars was the work of two of the seven women hired by the corporation's then head of styling, Harley Earl (1893–1969) and within the studios, the septep were known as the “Damsels of Design”, Jeanette Linder working on the Impala Martinique convertible and Suzanne Vanderbilt on the Eldorado Seville Baroness.  Had their presence continued Detroit’s design language in the 1960s might at least subtly have followed a different path but, upon Earl’s retirement in 1958, he was succeeded by Bill Mitchell (1912–1988; head of design at GM 1958–1977) whose world view was different: “No women are going to stand next to my male senior designers”.  Under the Mitchell regime, the damsels departed although probably he’d approved of their work at GM’s Frigidaire division designing the 1955 “Frigidaire Kitchen of Tomorrow” which genuinely was influential.  While doubtlessly Mr Mitchell opened a fridge only to get himself a beer when no woman was on hand to fetch one for him, he’d have thought women just the people to design how fridges should look.  Much later, there would be innovations in car design which women found genuinely helpful such as a hook on which a handbag could hang while remaining conveniently accessible and headrests which comfortably would accommodate a ponytail.

Six and the Single Girl, 1966.  Describing the Mustang's politely behaved six-cylinder engine as a "husky brute" might seem a stretch but it was rugged and dependable so maybe a case could be made.

What in the US did find a receptive audience among women was the new generation of smaller (the "compacts", "pony cars" & "intermediates") automobiles introduced in the early 1960s, women sensibly drawn to something smaller than the standard-size machine which after 1957 grew to an absurdly inefficient size (to which men would continue to be attracted until economic reality bit in the 1970s).  FoMoCo (Ford Motor Company) in 1966 took advantage of the shift in the tastes of some with its “Six and the Single Girl” campaign, promoting to a suddenly numerous sub-set of the female demographic the virtues of the six cylinder version of its Mustang which wildly had been successful since introduction in 1964.  That subset was “the young white women of the baby boom”; many had jobs which meant they had either the capital or credit rating required to buy a new car and the Mustang, stylish, small (in US terms) and affordable could have been designed with them in mind which, to some extent, it was.  Coincidently, at the time, FoMoCo was struggling to meet demand for V8-powered Mustangs but had the capacity to produce more sixes so in 1966 the planets aligned nicely and “Six and the Single Girl” played a part in stimulating demand, the fitment rate of the "six-pot" engine at times approaching 50%, the same phenomenon experienced by the main competition, the Chevrolet Camaro, introduced that year.  Because the survival rate of the era’s six-cylinder pony cars is so low, the general perception of the breed overwhelmingly is of V8-powered, tyre-smoking muscle cars but many were built as modest commuters (the so-called “secretary’s car”) purchased by those more interested a car’s gas (petrol) consumption than its ET (elapsed time) over a drag strip’s ¼ mile (400 metres).

Sex and the Single Girl: The first edition hardback published by Bernard Geis (1909–2001) had a plain cover with just the title in text (the “S1NGLE” was a gimmick) but after huge sales, the re-print rights were on-sold and some editions (including the 1963 paperback by Cardnal) featured pink-themed artwork.

In a form of “ambush marketing”, FoMoCo picked up “Six and the Single Girl” from the title of Sex and the Single Girl by Helen Gurley Brown (1922–2012), a book which sold by the million (more quickly than even the Mustang managed) and spent more than a year on the NYT (New York Times) best seller list.  In a sense, Sex and the Single Girl was a product of pharmacological determinism, published as it was some two years after the first oral contraceptive pill (even then famously known as “the pill”) was approved for prescription use in the US by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration).  Without women gaining some degree of autonomous control over their fertility, the premise of the book would have been absurd because as well as arguing the importance of them being financially independent of men, she advocated pre-marital sex, if need be with multiple partners and, obviously, without benefit of marriage.  Women with their own money was an idea subversive enough but the notion of unrestrained promiscuity upset the priests and politicians even more and although in the era a number of books (including Rachel Carson’s (1907–1964) Silent Spring (1962), Anthony Burgess’s (1917–1993) A Clockwork Orange (1962), William S. Burroughs’ (1914-1997) Naked Lunch (1962), Edward Albee’s (1928–2016) Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1962), Betty Friedan’s (1921–2006) The Feminine Mystique (1963) and James Baldwin’s (1924–1987) Another Country (1963)) appeared which appalled many in the conservative establishment, there was something about S&theSG which seemed especially threatening.  The protests of course made it a succès de scandale (from the French and literally “success from scandal”) which is the literary or artistic term encapsulating the dictum Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945; Nazi Minister for Propaganda and Public Enlightenment 1933-1945) followed when dealing with the press in the difficult years before the party was handed power (like the consequences of Benito Mussolini's (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & Prime-Minister of Italy 1922-1943) "March on Rome" the Nazi's "seizure" of the state is something of a myth): “Let them abuse us and let them damn us but let them say something about us”, a variant of Oscar Wilde’s (1854–1900): “It doesn’t matter what people are saying about you as long as they’re saying something”.  Goebbels truly was evil but his point was well made and among a prolix crowd, he was succinct, the acerbic thumbnail sketches of his Nazi colleagues he noted in his diaries in some ways reveal in a few words as much about them as their inch-thick biographies.

Tussy Cosmetics promotion, 1966.

The Tussy Cosmetics company in 1966 offered three 1967 Mustangs as prizes for contest winners, each finished in a shade of pink which matched the lipsticks Racy Pink (“A pale pink”), Shimmery Racy Pink Frosted (“Shimmers with pearl”) & Defroster (“Pours on melting beige lights when you wear it alone, or as a convertible top to another lip color”).  The fate of the cars is unknown but nerds might note the three prizes were 1967 models while the model (as in the Mustang) in the advertisement was from the 1966 range.  That's because the advertising copy had to be made available before the embargo had been lifted on photographs of the 1967 range.  The men on Madison Avenue presumably dismissed the suggestions that might be what would now be called “deceptive and misleading” content with the familiar “she'll never know”.  Ten years on from Dodge’s La Femme debacle, old habits were dying hard.

Single girl Sydney Sweeney (b 1997) amply filling the cover of Cosmopolitan's “Love Edition”, January 2026.

When in 1965 of Helen Gurley Brown was appointed editor of the glossy women’s magazine Cosmopolitan, the title switched focus to a publication aimed almost exclusively at the emerging and growing demographic with disposable income in which FoMoCo would become interested.  In what proved a perfect conjunction: a target market with (1) economic independence, (2) social freedom, (3) an embryonic feminist awareness and (4) the birth control pill, the magazine thrived, surviving even the rush of imitators its success spawned.  It’s a bit of a long bow to suggest Cosmopolitan for decades reproduced variations of 1962’s best seller advice manual in a monthly, glossy package but clearly, there was a gap in the market and there were more similarities than differences.  The approach was a success but there was criticism.  Conservatives disliked the choices in photography and the ideas young women were receiving.  Second wave feminists were divided, some approved but others thought the themes regressive, a retreat from the overtly political agenda of the early movement into something too focused on fun and fashion, reducing women yet again to objects seeking male approbation.  FoMoCo, neutral on the squabbles, sold women six-cylinder Mustangs by the truckload, feminism's S&theSG and capitalism's 6&theSG proving symbiotic.