Chic

Chic (pronounced sheek)

(1) Attractive and fashionable; style and elegance, especially in dress (particularly when applied to women).

(2) Modishness, a casual and understated style, as in dress or décor, that expresses a specified trendy lifestyle or activity.

(3) As a noun, when used with an attributive noun or adjectival modifier, a descriptor for just about any defined style (shabby chic, boho chic etc).

1856: Adopted in English with the general sense of “style in fine art, artistic skill, faculty of producing excellence rapidly and easily”, from the French chic (stylishness; elegant (the original sixteenth century meaning was "subtlety")), of unknown origin but probably from the German Schick (elegant appearance; tasteful presentation) & Geschick (tact, skill, aptness), from Middle Low German schikken (arrange appropriately), from the Middle High German schicken (to outfit oneself, fit in, arrange appropriately), causative of the Middle High German geschehen & geschēn (to happen, rush), from the Old High German giskehan (to happen), from the Proto-West Germanic skehan, from the Proto-Germanic skehaną (to run, move quickly), from the primitive Indo-European skek- (to run, jump, spring).  The Germanic forms were akin to the Dutch schielijk (hasty) & schikken (to arrange) and the Old English scēon (to happen).  The alternative etymology is a link to the French chicane, from chicanerie (trickery) which in the 1610s English picked up as chicanery (legal quibbling, sophistry, mean or petty tricks).

The meaning "Parisian elegance and stylishness combined with originality" emerged in English by 1882, used to convey the sense of a style which was tied specifically to the most identifiably elegant street wear of the ladies of Paris, the influencers of the day noting chic was "an untranslatable word, denoting an indispensable quality"; something of the je ne sais quoi then.  The use as an adjective to describe the appearance of individuals dates from 1879 in English but interestingly, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) pointed out the use of chic was nowhere near as frequent among French speakers in France although Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) in Madame Bovary (1857) used chicard (one who is chic), the then current Parisian slang for "classy" before waspishly adding that it was “bourgeoisie”, one indication of why it's as rewarding (and less time-consuming) to read Flaubert as it is Proust (Marcel Proust (1871–1922; author of the multi-volume À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time (1913-1927))).

Felicia Montealegre Bernstein (1922-1978, left), her husband the composer & conductor Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990, seated) and Black Panther Field Marshal DC (Donald Lee Cox, 1936–2011) in Bernstein’s apartment, Park Avenue, New York, January 1970.  This photograph appeared in the New York magazine article in which Tom Wolfe (1930-2018) introduced the term “radical chic”.

The phrase “radical chic” was coined in 1970 by Tom Wolfe, a writer associated with the so-called “New Journalism” (a movement that incorporated techniques and devices from various strains of literature; it was (and remains) influential but has always attracted criticism).  Wolfe’s inspiration was a benefit event given by Leonard Bernstein for the Black Panther Party (1966-1982 and the best-known of the “black power” organizations which emerged during the civil rights era; it was interesting in that as well as being concerned with the civil rights of African-Americans, it was very much in the Marxist–Leninist tradition of the US far-left but also contained a distinctive feminist element).  The term caught on and was used to describe what would later come to be called “virtue-signalling”: the rich adopting the symbols of radical political causes while maintaining a distance from the people and the conditions they purported to support.  Examples live on in upper middle-class suburbs in which BLM (black lives matter) signs might be displayed although no black families live anywhere close.  Wolfe likened radical chic to a trendy romanticizing of “primitive souls” (such as Native Americans (then called American Indians) or Chicano grapeworkers) and compared it to the nineteenth century French phenomenon denoted by the phrase nostalgie de la boue, (literally hankering after mud), coined in 1855 by the dramatist Émile Augier (1820-1899).  What Augier described was prosperous people who were somehow unhappy and, feeling “alienated” from a “natural existence”, sought to “rediscover their essence” although this was usually “temporarily experiential”, few apparently inclined to exchange financial stability for the struggles of the working class.  Wolfe’s experience at Bernstein’s Park Avenue party in 1970 was a case study Augier would have understood: “It was at this party that a Black Panther field marshal rose up beside the north piano—there was also a south piano—in Leonard Bernstein’s living room and outlined the Panthers’ ten-point program to a roomful of socialites and celebrities, who, giddy with nostalgie de la boue, entertained a vision of the future in which, after the revolution, there would no longer be any such thing as a two-story, thirteen-room apartment on Park Avenue, with twin grand pianos in the living room, for one family.”

One adjectival variation was chi-chi (extremely chic, sophisticated) which by 1908 was recorded also as a noun meaning “pretentious fussiness", from the French chichi (airs, fuss).  Etymologists think this, like frou-frou (showy or frilly ornamentation but in its original sense "the rustling of a woman's skirt as it swishes around the legs"), likely imitative.  Chic is either used invariably, in which case the spelling of the plural is chic, or has the plural chics for both the masculine and the feminine forms.  While the spelling chic is correct for the uninflected adjective, all inflected forms are nonstandard (to be correct, inflected forms must be derived from the preferred spelling schick).  The accepted homophones are sheik & sheikh, the pronunciation “chik” is non-standard except when used facetiously.

Lindsay Lohan in zettai ryouiki mode, Jingle Ball, New York City, 2013.

Chic fills a most narrowly specific niche and is thus without no exact synonym.  Words like exclusive, mod, modern, current, sharp, smart, dap, dapper, dashing, faddish, modish, natty, with it, elegant, stylish, dapper, fashionable, natty, trendy, voguish, fancy, posh or swank tend in the direction and in many cases run at least in parallel but none quite capture the sense of chic.  Nor are the likely antonyms (inelegant, unfashionable or unstylish helpful; there is unchic but is so rare as to be probably obscure and it’s unnecessary: someone or something is either chic or not.  Chic is a verb & noun, chicly an adverb, chicness a noun and chicer & chicest are adjectives.  The noun chic is very often used with an attributive noun or adjective modifier, indicating the kind of style, such as boho-chic, heroin-chic, shabby-chic, eco-chic, geek-chic, radical-chic, porno-chic, communist-chic, terrorist-chic, Ayatollah-chic, scruffy-chic, super-chic, uber-chic, goth-chic, ultra-chic, industrial-chic etc.  There were also forms designed deliberately to insult such as chav-chic (also in the form council house-chic), gypsy-chic & hillbilly-chic.  Chiconomics was a clever coining which deconstructed the ways of looking chic on a budget and très chic (very stylish) was a way to emphasize the French connection.

Heroin chic

Anjelica Huston (b 1951) photographed by Bob Richardson (1928-2005), 1971.

Heroin chic, an aesthetic characterized by a painfully thin (preferably tall) build, pale skin, dark circles under the eyes, disheveled hair and a vacuous, haunted expression, was first noted in the late 1980s before the following decade becoming prominent in the modeling industry, an allusion not only to (a not actually typical) the look of an addict but also the alleged popularity of the drug in the business.  The motif however wasn’t new, examples existing from the early twentieth century and Bob Richardson photographed Anjelica Huston very much in the mode as early as 1971.  For those who wish to perfect the look, on the internet there are tutorials detailing how to apply makeup in the appropriate way although, to avoid the thought police, the word "heroin" tends not to appear in the tags or titles; it's just not TikToker-friendly. 

When first coined, heroin chic was intended as a criticism but, in the democratic way English works, it was quickly embraced by popular culture and soon, even in the early days of the internet and long before even embryonic social media platforms, guides were soon circulating, detailing how to achieve the look which, proved so popular they were reprinted in mainstream magazines.  Had it been just a fashionable look it might not have attracted the disapprobation but, for all sorts of reasons (in part related to the symbiotic economics of drug production, distribution and enforcement regimes), the look happened at a time when heroin use in the West spiked, along with a sudden increase in overdoses and drug-related deaths.

Echoes of an earlier chic:  Models at the BCBGMAXAZIRA show, New York Fashion Week, 2012.  BCBGMAXAZIRA (bon chic, bon genre max azira) was created as a Max Azira sub-brand.  Bon chic, bon genre (literally "good style, good attitude") in this context translates as something like the philosophical statement  “dress stylishly and you'll feel self-assured and project confidence".  This slender pair may be happier than they appear.

Itself a reaction to the more voluptuous models in the 1980s, heroin chic departed the catwalks rather abruptly, 1997 noted as the end-point, induced by what was a classic moral panic, ostensibly in reaction to a general concern about heroin use and overdoses but really triggered by the drug-related deaths of a number of white pop-culture celebrities.  Although seemingly oblivious to the the death-rate among ethnic minorities and the poor, the toll of the high-profile caught the attention of the White House staff and in May 1997, Bill Clinton (b 1946; US president 1993-2001) became involved, his speech on the subject a carefully choreographed interruption to a prayer breakfast (readers should pause to imagine what goes through Bill Clinton's mind when he's at prayer) in which he condemned heroin chic, saying “You do not need to glamorize addiction to sell clothes, the glorification of heroin is not creative, it’s destructive. It’s not beautiful; it’s ugly. And this is not about art; it’s about life and death. And glorifying death is not good for any society.”

The allure: controversial but undeniable.

Still, the thought police can only suppress but not kill an idea.  Given the political pressure, the industry remains too timid to reprise the look on covers or cat-walks but there remains a counter-culture which finds irresistibly alluring the sight of a slender models walking as if in a drug-induced stupor and although it never entirely went away, impressionistically, it does appear heroin-chic is enjoying, on-line and on the street, a post-pandemic renaissance.  The pro-ana community, always supportive of forks of fashion which build on their framework, will sometimes include style-guides but does caution it’s an aesthetic which works only on the thin (you need not be statuesque; any height can work but not any weight).  So, the first goal is to be thin and pro-ana is there to help with any number of guides available and all work but only if rigidly they’re followed.  Techniques can vary but an indicative approach to the mechanics of the heroin-chic look is:

(1) Get thin.  This is the essential pre-condition.

(2) Begin the process formerly when able successfully to shop in the (US) size zero to one section.  Clothes need to be loose and baggy (if they’re not, return to step (1)).

(3) Never buy anything clingy or with a bare back.  Structurally, the core elements you’re trying to achieve are emaciation and androgyny.

(4) Never buy anything with giant polka dots or made with fabrics of bright colors.  It sounds an unimportant point but is essential; heroin-chic simply doesn’t work with vibrant colors or certain designs.  The preferred colors are black, white, grey, the darker purples and navy blue.

(5) Buy layered items or those made with fluffy fabrics.

(6) Avoid vertical lines unless the stripes are really wide and the color contrasts distinct.

(7) Wear boots wherever possible.

(8) Prime the eyelids, then use a medium to dark brown eye shadow, packing it on to the eyelids.  Unlike the conventional approach to eye-styling, using the fingers is best because it creates an inherently messy finish and the result will inevitably be asymmetric which is good.  When content, add some eye shadow under the eyes and again, strive to achieve coverage but not neatness.

(9) Wait a few minutes (which isn’t a necessity with all eye shadows but there are variations even within the ranges of the one manufacturer.  When ready, run jet-black eye shadow along the top and bottom lash-lines.  This is best done with a small eye shadow brush and, once applied, smudge as desired using the fingers.  Experienced users claim Nyx Cosmetics eyebrow cake is the best product available and for touch-ups or quick corrections, recommend Urban Decay’s 24/7 pencils.

(10) The look is convincing only with clumpy eyelashes.  Take a mascara and use the tip to stick the lashes together, forming something which looks vaguely what you imagine spider legs so treated might resemble.  What you’re after is a variation of what eyelash stylists call “the spiky” except instead of being neatly separated, the lashes are in irregular clumps.

(11) The rest of the make-up should tend to the neutral.  The aim remember is pale skin (avoid exposure to sunlight) so use just a BB cream rather than foundation, accentuated only with just a bronzer to emphasize the shape of the cheekbones.  Illamasqua’s cream pigment is highly regarded.

(12) Perhaps counter-intuitively, the hair needs to be washed and conditioned according to the normal routine (heroin-chic is a curated look, not a consequence of neglect).  The idea is to achieve a stringy, un-kept look but, again counter-intuitively, that can really be constructed only if the hair is clean and well kept and with most hair-types, it’s not difficult using nothing more exotic than inexpensive product such as spray, wax or fudge.  In most cases the styling technique is a variation of what hair-dressers call the JBF but because hair types vary, you may need to experiment.  However it’s done, heroin-chic works best with straight hair so, if you’re after the optimal look, straighten first.

(13) There’s no consensus about which color should be used on the lips or even if it should be glossy or matt.  However, unlike the eyes, lipstick should be applied with precision; it’s just a convention of use.

(14) Juxtaposition.  As a look, heroin-chic works only if, at a second glance, it's apparent everything is expensive (think of it as a sub-set of shabby chic); it's not something done with cheap clothing and needs a pair of diamond studs and a good watch to complete the effect but jewelry should be chosen with some restraint, too much and it detracts from what is a very specific construction and silver will always work better than gold.

Tattoo

Tattoo (pronounced ta-too)

(1) A signal on a drum, bugle, or trumpet at night, for soldiers or sailors to go to their quarters.

(2) A knocking or strong pulsation.

(3) In British military tradition, an outdoor military pageant or display, conducted usually at night.

(4) The act or practice of marking the skin with indelible patterns, pictures, legends, etc, by making punctures in it and inserting pigments.

(5) A pattern, picture, legend, etc so made.

1570–1580: An evolution from the earlier taptoo from the Dutch command tap toe! (in the literature also as taptoe) (literally “the tap(room) is to” (ie shut)).  Originally, the tattoo was a signal on a drum, bugle, or trumpet at night, for soldiers or sailors to go to their quarters, the musical form varying between regiments but all based on a knocking or strong pulsation; it was later it became an outdoor, usually nocturnal military pageant or display.  The usual abbreviations are tat and tatt (used most often in the plural) and the derived terms tend to be functionally deterministic (amalgam tattoo, henna tattoo, sleeve tattoo, tattoo flash, tattoo gun, tattoo tool, tattoo machine, tattoo parlor, tribal tattoo, tattoo artist, tattoo removal etc).  It's much more common for one who applies tattoos to be called a tattooist than a tattooer and tattooee (who who is tattooed) is rare to the point of being extinct.  Tattoo & tattooing are nouns & verbs, tattooist, tattooee, tattooer & tattooage are nouns, tattooed is a verb & adjective and tattoolike and tattooless are adjectives; the noun plural is tattoos.

The word was first used during the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) in the Low Countries (Belgium and the Netherlands) where the Dutch fortresses were garrisoned by a federal army containing Scottish, English, German and Swiss mercenaries commanded by a Dutch officer corps.  Drummers from the garrison were sent into the towns at 21:30 (9:30 pm) each evening to inform the soldiers that it was time to return to barracks.  The process was known as doe den tap toe (Dutch for "turn off the tap"), an instruction to innkeepers to stop serving beer and send the soldiers home for the night although the drummers continued to play until the curfew at 22:00 (10:00 pm).  Tattoo and the earlier tap-too and taptoo, are alterations of the Dutch words tap toe which have the same meaning.  Taptoo was the earlier used alteration of the phrase and a reference was found in George Washington's papers: "In future the Reveille will beat at day-break; the troop at 8 in the morning; the retreat at sunset and taptoo at nine o'clock in the evening."  Over the years, the process became more of a show and often included the playing of the first post at 21:30 and the last post at 22:00.  Bands and displays were included and shows were often conducted by floodlight or searchlight. Tattoos were commonplace in the late nineteenth century with most military and garrison towns putting on some kind of show or entertainment during the summer months.

A Lindsay Lohan tattoo; the Italian phrase la bella vita translates as "life is beautiful".

The use to describe body marking dates from 1760–1770.  Tattoo, from the Marquesan tatu or the Samaon & Tahitian tatau (to strike) coming to replace the earlier tattow from the Polynesian tatau.  It took some time for tattoo to become the standardised western spelling, the OED noting the eighteenth century currency of both tattaow and tattow.  Before the adoption of the Polynesian word, the practice of tattooing had been described in the West as painting, scarring or staining and in 1900 British anthropologist Ling Roth in documented four methods of skin marking, suggesting they be differentiated under the names tatu, moko, cicatrix and keloid.  There was, between the Dutch and the British, a minor colonial spat about which deserves the credit for importing the word to Europe and while that sounds petty, the colonial powers usually could find something about which to disagree,

A “dot tattoo” on the skin of a patient undergoing radiation therapy with a US one cent (“penny”) coin for comparison.

The US penny has a diameter of ¾ inch (19.05 mm).  On 12 November 12, 2025, after a run of some 230 years, the last penny was minted at the Philadelphia Mint, the first coin the US Treasury has discontinued since the half-cent was discontinued in 1857.  The penny (1 cent) will remain a unit in financial transactions and with billions in circulation, the physical coin will still be legal tender; being metal, some will last for centuries.  There was a time when a penny could buy many things but, over time, they became close to worthless although there were still “penny stocks” (speculative investments in the equities markets), even many of them cost a few pennies a share.  The word will remain part of idiomatic use (”pennies in the dollar”; “penny-wise, pound poor” etc) but the coins, for years a rare sight, will become a curiosity.  As recently as the 1960s it was still common to buy thing "for a penny" and candy stores would even have sweets available a "three for a penny" but the inflation which began late in the decade meant the coin soon had little practical use but one exception is the Catholic Worker newspaper, seven editions of which are each year published each year by the Catholic Worker Movement in New York; since 1933 it has sold for a penny.  While the term "legacy media" has become commonly used, the Catholic Worker truly is a relic of the pre-electronic age, being manually laid out for printing rather than digitally prepared and not available in any non-paper form; the publication has neither a website nor an E-mail address.

Because the radiation therapy used to treat cancer gains its effectiveness from precise targeting of the location of a patient’s cancer site, a small “dot tattoo” is applied to the skin so at each session the body exactly is aligned with the machinery for each session.  By “sighting” the machine using the black dot, therapists can ensure the radiation is delivered to the targeted area.  Small and permanent, the tattoos are barely distinguishable from birthmarks but some patients subsequently choose to have them removed using conventional laser techniques and advances in have made possible tattoo-free radiation therapy using technologies like SGRT (Surface Guided Radiation Therapy).  SGRT uses unremarkable cameras and infrared light to create a 3D map of a patient's skin surface, meaning the device can use internally-generated grid (from thousands of reference points) co-ordinates to handle the positioning.  In certain cases however (notably in more complex cases where multiple dots are needed), tattoos remain the preferred option and while some opt to keep them, others have no wish to be reminded of the experience and have them removed.

Tan lines.

Tan lines are visible differentiations in hue separating a “tanned” area from the paler “untanned” skin; it’s created by sun exposure or an artificial source of UV (ultra violet) radiation and is the marker between where clothing, sunscreen or shade has blocked the UV rays which radiate the exposed skin.  Because such exposure is a documented risk-factor for skin cancer, intentionally seeking to be sunburnt to create fashionable tan lines is potentially harmful and many health warnings have been issued.  While the energy from the Sun makes possible life on Earth and humans benefit for some exposure, too much definitely can be dangerous so, when exposed, the recommendation is to use coverage, either with clothing or frequent application of a sunscreen (the higher the rated SPF (sun protection factor) the more effective it should be.  Probably, there’s never been a better encapsulation of strategy than the Australian “Slip, Slop Slap” public health campaign of 1981 (slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen, and slap on a hat).  It was an effective message but while the incidence of skin cancer has fallen, between half and two thirds of the Australian population will in their lifetime suffer at least one skin cancer.  Despite the numbers, tanning (with consequent tan lines) remains a popular pastime but fortunately, modern commerce saw a gap in the market and many beauticians will now emulate tan lines using (a usually spray-on form of) tanning lotion.

A tantoo.

The portmanteau word tantoo (the construct being tan + (tat)too) describes a tan line planned deliberately in the style of a tattoo and, in the abstract, it can be thought to have the same relationship to a tattoo that a negative has with a printed photograph.  Tantoo stickers are available in a variety of shapes and the look is achieved by placing the sticker on the skin in the desired spot, then inflicting sufficient sun damage on the surrounding area until the desired tone is achieved.  At that point the sticker is removed.  Tan lines have a place in cultural history because of the relationship between pale skin being associated with wealth (ie someone not toiling in the fields) and certain forms of “selective tanning” being linked with “the leisured class”.  In the late twentieth century tan lines emerged as a genuine aesthetic in the beauty industry and rather than seeking to conceal their presence, many dressed to in a way which made them a feature.

Loleia Swimwear’s Black Friday Sale campaign, November 2025.

Most tan lines are merely circumstantial although in niches they can be a thing, some adult sites now listing “tan lines” as a category.  So, variously they can be admired or pass barely noticed but we live in very sensitive times and an Australian swimwear brand in November 2025 received criticism for “glamourising sunburn”, a conclusion drawn by those outraged by Loleia Swimwear’s Black Friday Sale campaign.  What caused the angst was Loleia’s use of a photograph of a bronze-skinned model with LOLEIA 30% OFF STOREWIDE CODE: BLACKFRIDAY digitally added to her back in a way which looked as if the characters were in un-tanned skin (ie a tantoo).  Based in the Western Australian capital Perth (the world’s most isolated city according to urban geographers), Loleia is said to have become a cult favourite in the crowded swimwear business but being targeted by the skin police will have generated a level of brand-awareness it would otherwise have taken much effort and likely millions of dollars to attain.  Wisely, the brand did not respond to multiple requests for comment, presumably advised there was little to be gained for either defending or apologizing for the use of the image whereas letting the story play out was priceless (and free) publicity.

Token gesture #1: Loleia's website is lavishly stocked with images of models in swimwear but there seems to be only one carrying a container of sunscreen and, at SPF (Sun Protection Factor) 30 it's not the most protective available.  Note the admirable shoulder blade definition.

The CCWA’s (Cancer Council of Western Australia) SunSmart manager condemned the advertisement, saying: “It’s really concerning to see images like that, particularly targeting young people who might see that image and not realise that it might be a generated image.  We don’t want people to aspire to that kind of look – tanning causes damage to your skin, and it is skin cells in trauma.  Portraying and promoting images like that in the media is really not on … we’re really disappointed to see that kind of depiction.”  That must mean the SunSmart manager believes bikini-buying young women will assume an advertising agency would pay an appropriately-stickered model to lie for hours under the sun or a sunlamp to achieve the desired tantoo rather than spend a few minutes (or maybe seconds if generative AI (artificial intelligence) is used) photoshopping a stock image.  Perth may be isolated but the young folk there know about fake images.  In fairness, the CCWA did have a good point to make because tanning remains fashionable in Australia despite the country’s skin cancer rates being among the world’s highest, the sometimes lethal melanoma one of the most common cancers in Australians aged between 15-29 (ie the prime bikini-wearing demographic).

Token gesture #2 (DEI): Although the quota seems to have been set low, the site includes a handful of MoCs (models of color).

Cultural change can be achieved but nobody seems yet to have found the formula which to make youth perceive untanned skin as desirably attractive and the bronzed look as mere “skin damage”.  Historically, that was in many places the dominant narrative but that was when a tanned skin was associated with peasants toiling in the fields and a pale complexion reflected having the wealth and social status to “stay out of the sun”.  Social and economic shifts have changed things in that in the twentieth century tans became linked with leisure which, combined with a “beach culture” (certainly in sunny Australia) made bronzed skin a marker of youthful vitality.  “We’re really trying to change the culture that Australia has around the fact that tanning is desirable because we know that it just leads to skin cancer” the SunSmart manager was quoted as saying, adding “We’d really encourage brands and advertising agencies to consider how they’re depicting those behaviours in their materials – considering that it’s young people that they’re targeting, [it’s important] to think about how they can encourage them to do the right thing, particularly with swimwear brands.  We want to see just some positive reinforcement of the messages that we’ve been talking about for generations.”

Token gesture #3 (DEI): There was also a smattering of plus-size models (at the lower end of the spectrum).  As a general principle, the plus-size community is at higher risk of sun-induced skin damage because their surface area is greater.

The manager of Skin Collective (a Perth skincare clinic) concurred, saying “…advertising sunburn in any form was dangerous.  It’s a real concern that an advertising campaign is glamourising sunburn or tanning by showing it in a pattern.  Research has shown that actually it takes only one sunburn that blisters and causes a peel to double your melanoma likelihood or risk.  I definitely think a year ago, there was a significant messaging around making it trendy or cool to create tans.  We saw even people go as far as tattooing tan lines on their bodies, which is a real concern in a country that has the highest melanoma rates.  I think we need to take responsibility and understand that our marketing campaigns genuinely do influence trends – it’s important that your messaging is about sun safety, and we can do that by creating beautiful, curated campaigns that still [have a] SunSmart message.  We’re actually changing the health of a whole generation, and it’s really important for us to be those educators.”

Mostly though, the site's photography is on theme and the compositional standard high although what was striking (especially for a swimwear retailer) was the relative paucity of blonde hair and it may be this was done deliberately to disguise the lack of diversity.

The issue with tanning in Australia is not new.  In 2024, Ad Standards (the national regulator for advertising standards) found Fox Tan had, in a TikTok video, breached the AANA’s (Australian Association of National Advertisers) code of ethics regarding health and safety (advertisers have ethics, who knew?).  That case concerned a video of a woman lying on a sun lounge, the caption reading: “When they say it’s time to get out of the sun now but your tan just started to look good.”  According to Ad Standards, noting “…skin cancer affects a very large number of Australians over their lifetime and continues to lead to a high number of deaths every year”, the panel concluded “…the audience for the advertisement is likely to be younger Australians interested in tanning and considered that the messaging in this advertisement was especially dangerous for this group of people.”  However commendable her efforts, the CCWA’s SunSmart manager may be fighting a losing battle. 

In Japanese, the word irezumi means "insertion of ink" and is applied variously to tattoos using tebori (the traditional Japanese hand method, a Western-style machine or any method of tattooing using insertion of ink.  The most common word used for traditional Japanese tattoo designs is horimono although increasingly the word tattoo is used to describe non-Japanese styles of tattooing. Etymologists found tattoo intriguing because so many languages contain similar words, some appearing to have emerged independently of the others and anthropologists agree the practice of tapping on primitive instruments as a distractive device seems to have been a widespread practice while images were being made on the skin, the conclusion being some of the variations are likely onomatopoeic:

English: tattoo
Danish: tatovering
Italian: tatuaggio
Brazilian: tatuagem
Estonian: tatoveering
Romanian: tatuaj
Norwegian: tatovering
Māori: Ta moko
Swedish: tatuering
German: tatowierung
French: tatouage
Spanish: tatuaje
Dutch: tatoeage
Finnish: tatuointi
Polish: tatuaz
Portuguese: tatuagem
Lithuanian: tatuagem
Creol: tatouaz

Bug

Bug (pronounced buhg)

(1) Any insect of the order Hemiptera, especially any of the suborder Heteroptera (a hemipteran or hemipteron; a hemipterous insect), having piercing and sucking mouthparts specialized as a beak (rostrum) and known loosely as the “true bug”.

(2) Any of various species of marine or freshwater crustaceans.

(3) In casual use, any insect or insect-like invertebrate (ie used often of spiders and such because of their supposed “bug-like” quality).

(4) In casual use, any micro-organism causing disease, applied especially to especially a virus or bacterium.

(5) An instance of a disease caused by such a micro-organism; a class of such conditions.

(6) In casual (and sometimes structured) use, a defect or imperfection, most associated with computers but applied also to many mechanical devices or processes.

(7) A craze or obsession (usually widespread or of long-standing).

(8) In slang, a person who has a great enthusiasm for such a craze or obsession (often as “one bitten by the bug”).

(9) In casual (and sometimes structured) use, a hidden microphone, camera or other electronic eavesdropping device (a clipping of bugging device) and used analogously of the small and effectively invisible (often a single-pixel image) image on a web page, installed usually for the purpose of tracking users.

(10) Any of various small mechanical or electrical gadgets, as one to influence a gambling device, give warning of an intruder, or indicate location.

(11) A mark, as an asterisk, that indicates a particular item, level, etc.

(12) In US horse racing, the five-pound (2¼ kg) weight allowance able to be claimed by an apprentice jockey and by extension (1) the asterisk used to denote an apprentice jockey's weight allowance & (2) in slang, US, a young apprentice jockey (sometimes as “bug boy” (apparently used thus also of young female jockeys, “bug girl” seemingly beyond the pale.)).

(13) A telegraph key that automatically transmits a series of dots when moved to one side and one dash when moved to the other.

(14) In the slang of poker, a joker which may be used only as an ace or as a wild card to fill a straight or a flush.

(15) In commercial printing, as “union bug”, a small label printed on certain matter to indicate it was produced by a unionized shop.

(16) In fishing, a any of various plugs resembling an insect.

(17) In slang, a clipping of bedbug (mostly UK).

(18) A bogy; hobgoblin (extinct).

(19) In slang, as “bug-eyed”, protruding eyes (the medical condition exophthalmos).

(20) A slang term for the Volkswagen Beetle (Type 1; 1938-2003 & the two retro takes; 1997-2019).

(21) In broadcasting, a small (often transparent or translucent) image placed in a corner of a television program identifying the broadcasting network or channel.

(22) In aviation, a manually positioned marker in flight instruments.

(23) In gay (male) slang in the 1980s & 1990s as “the bug”, HIV/AIDS.

(24) In the slang of paleontology, a trilobite.

(25) In gambling slang, a small piece of metal used in a slot machine to block certain winning combinations.

(26) In gambling slang, a metal clip attached to the underside of a table, etc and used to hold hidden cards (a type of cheating).

(27) As the Bug (or Western Bug), a river in Eastern Europe flows through Belarus, Poland, and Ukraine with a total length of 481 miles (774 km).  The Southern Bug (530 miles (850 km)) in south west Ukraine flows into the Dnieper estuary and is some 530 miles (850 km) long.

(28) A past tense and past participle of big (obsolete).

(29) As ISO (international standard) 639-2 & ISO 639-3, the language codes for Buginese.

(30) To install a secret listening device in a room, building etc or on a telephone or other communications device.

(31) To badger, harass, bother, annoy or pester someone.

1615–1625: The original use was to describe insects, apparently as a variant of the earlier bugge (beetle), thought to be an alteration of the Middle English budde, from the Old English -budda (beetle) but etymologists are divided on whether the phrase “bug off” (please leave) is related to the undesired presence of insects or was of a distinct origin.  Bug, bugging & debug are nouns & verbs, bugged is a verb & adjective and buggy is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is bugs.  Although “unbug” makes structural sense (ie remove a bug, as opposed to the sense of “debug”), it doesn’t exist whereas forms such as the adjectives unbugged (not bugged) and unbuggable (not able to be bugged) are regarded as standard.

Nerd humor.

The array of compound forms meaning “someone obsessed with an idea, hobby etc) produced things like “shutterbug” (amateur photographer) & firebug (arsonist) seems first to have emerged in the mid nineteenth century.  The development of this into “a craze or obsession” is thought rapidly to have accelerated in the years just before World War I (1914-1918), again based on the notion of “bitten by the bug” or “caught the bug”, thus the idea of being infected with an unusual enthusiasm for something.  The use to mean a demon, evil spirit, spectre or hobgoblin was first recorded in the mid-fourteenth century and was a clipping of the Middle English bugge (scarecrow, demon, hobgoblin) or uncertain origin although it may have come from the Middle Welsh bwg (ghost; goblin (and linked to the Welsh bwgwl (threat (and earlier “fear”) and the Middle Irish bocanách (supernatural being).  There’s also speculation it may have come from the scary tales told to children which included the idea of a bugge (beetle) at a gigantic scale.  That would have been a fearsome sight and the idea remains fruitful to this day for artists and film-makers needing something frightening in the horror or SF (science fiction) genre.  The use in this sense is long obsolete although the related forms bugbear and bugaboo survive.  Dating from the 1570s, a bugbear was in folklore a kind of “large goblin”, used to inspire fear in children (both as a literary device & for purposes of parental control) and for adults it soon came to mean “a source of dread, resentment or irritation; in modern use it's an “ongoing problem”, a recurring obstacle or adversity or one’s pet peeve.  The obsolete form bugg dates from circa 1620s and was a reference to the troublesome bedbug, the construct a conflation of the middle English bugge (scarecrow, hobgoblin) and the Middle English budde (beetle).  The colloquial sense of “a microbe or germ” dates from 1919, the emergence linked to the misleadingly-named “Spanish flu” pandemic.

Bugs: A ground beetle (left), a first generation der Käfer (the Volkswagen Beetle, 1938-2003) (centre) and an "New Beetle" (1997-2011).  Despite the appearance, the "New Beetle" was of front engine & front-wheel-drive configuration, essentially a re-bodied Volkswagen Golf.  The new car was sold purely as a retro, the price paid for the style, certain packaging inefficiencies.  Few have ever questioned why the original VW Beetle picked up the nickname “bug”.

Like the rest of us, even scientists, entomologists and zoologists generally probably say “bug” in general conversation, whether about the insects or the viruses and such which cause disease but in writing academic papers they’ll take care to be more precise.  Because to most of us “bugs” can be any of the small, creepy pests which intrude on our lives (some of which are actually helpful in that quietly and unobtrusively they dispose of the really annoying bugs which bite us), the word is casually and interchangeably applied to bees, ants, bees, millipedes, beetles, spiders and anything else resembling an insect.  That use may be reinforced by the idea of the thing “bugging” us by their very presence.  To the professionals however, insects are those organisms in the classification Insecta, a very large class of animals, the members of which have a three-part body, six legs and (usually) two pairs of wings whereas a bug is a member of the order Hemiptera (which in the taxonomic system is within the Insecta class) and includes cicadas, aphids and stink bugs; to emphasize the point, scientists often speak of those in the order Hemiptera as “true bugs”.  The true bugs are those insects with mouthparts adapted for piercing and sucking, contained usually in a beak-shaped structure, a vision agonizingly familiar to anyone who has suffered the company of bedbugs.  That’s why lice are bugs and cockroaches are not but the latter will continue to be called bugs, often with some preceding expletive.

9 September 1947: The engineer's note (with physical evidence) of electronic computing's "first bug".

In computing, where the term “bug” came to be used to describe “glitches, crashes” and such, it has evolved to apply almost exclusively to software issues and even if events are caused by hardware flaws, unless it’s something obvious (small explosions, flame & smoke etc) most users probably assume a fault in some software layer.  The very first documented bug however was an interaction recorded on 9 September 1947 between the natural world and hardware, an engineer’s examination of an early (large) computer revealing an insect had sacrificially landed on one of the circuits, shorting it out and shutting-down the machine.  As proof, the unfortunate moth was taped to the report.  On a larger scale (zoologically rather than the hardware), the problem of small rodents such as mice entering the internals of printers, there to die from various causes (impact injuries, starvation, heat etc) remains not uncommon, resulting sometimes in mechanical damage, sometimes just the implications of decaying flesh.

Revelle's Bug Bomb, 1970.

The idea of a bug as a “defect, flaw, fault or glitch” in a mechanical or electrical device was first recorded in the late 1800s as engineer’s slang, the assumption being they wished to convey the idea of “a small fault” (and thus easily fixed, as opposed to some fundamental mistake which would necessitate a re-design).  Some sources suggest the origin lies with Thomas Edison (1847-1931) who is reported as describing the consequences of an insect “getting into the works”.  Programmers deploy an array of adjectives to "bug" (major, minor, serious, critical & non-critical etc) although between themselves (and certainly when disparaging of the code of others) the most commonly heard phrase is probably “stupid bug”.  The “debugging” (also as de-bugging) process is something with a wide definition but in general it refers to any action or set of actions taken to remove errors.  The name of the debug.exe (originally debug.com) program included with a number of (almost all 16 & 32-bit) operating systems was a little misleading because in addition to fixing things, it could be used for other purposes and is fondly remembered by those who wrote Q&D (quick & dirty) work-arounds which, written in assembler, ran very fast.  The verb debug was first used in 1945 in the sense of “remove the faults from a machine” and by 1964 it appeared in field service manuals documenting the steps to be taken to “remove a concealed microphone”.  Although the origin of the use of “bug” in computing (probably the now most commonly used context) can be traced to 1947, the term wasn’t widely used beyond universities, industry and government sites before the 1960s when the public first began to interact at scale with the implications (including the bugs) of those institutions using computerized processes.  Software (or any machinery) badly afflicted by bugs can be called “buggy”, a re-purposing of the use of an adjective dating from 1714 meaning “a place infested with bugs”.

Some bugs gained notoriety.  In the late 1990s, it wasn’t uncommon for the press to refer to the potential problems of computer code using a two-numeral syntax for years as the “Y2K bug” which was an indication of how wide was the vista of the common understanding of "bug" and one quite reasonable because that was how the consequences would be understood.  A massive testing & rectification effort was undertaken by the industry (and corporations, induced by legislation and the fear of litigation) and with the coming of 1 January 2000 almost nothing strange happened and that may also have been the case had nothing been done but, on the basis of the precautionary principle, it was the right approach.  Of course switching protocols to use four-numeral years did nothing about the Y10K bug but a (possible) problem 8000 years hence would have been of little interest to politicians or corporate boards.  Actually, Ynnn~K bugs will re-occur (theoretically with decreasing frequency) whenever a digit needs to be added.  The obvious solution is trailing zeros although if one thinks in terms of infinity, it may be that, in the narrow technical sense, such a solution would just create an additional problem although perhaps one of no practical significance.  Because of the way programmers exploit the way computers work, there have since the 1950s been other date (“time” to a computer) related “bugs” and management of these and the minor problems caused has been handled well.  Within the industry the feeling is things like the “Y2038 problem” will, for most of the planet, be similarly uneventful.

The DOSShell, introduced with PC-DOS 4.0; this was as graphical as DOS got.  The text-based DOSShell was bug-free and a reasonable advance over what came before but the power users had already adopted XTree as their preferred file handler.

Bugs can also become quirky industry footnotes.  As late as 1987, IBM had intended to release the update of PC-DOS 3.3 as version 3.4, reflecting the corporation’s roadmap of DOS as something of an evolutionary dead-end, doomed ultimately to end up in washing machine controllers and such while the consumer and corporate market would shift to OS/2, the new operating system which offered pre-emptive multi-tasking and access to bigger storage and memory addressing.  However, at that point, both DOS & OS/2 were being co-developed by IBM & Microsoft and agreement was reached to release a version 4 of DOS.  DOS 4 also included a way of accessing larger storage space (through a work-around with a program called share.exe) and more memory (in a way less elegant than the OS/2 approach but it did work, albeit more slowly), both things of great interest to Microsoft because they would increase the appeal of its upcoming Windows 3.0, a graphical shell which ran on top of DOS; unlike OS/2, Windows was exclusive to Microsoft and so was the revenue stream.  Unfortunately, it transpired the PC-DOS 4.0 memory tricks were “buggy” when used with some non-IBM hardware and the OS gained a bad reputation from which it would never recover.  By the time the code was fixed, Microsoft was ready to release its own version as MS-DOS 4.0 but, noting all the bad publicity, after some cosmetic revisions, the mainstream release was MS-DOS 4.01.  In the code of the earlier, bug-afflicted bits, there seems no substantive difference between MS-DOS 4.01 the few extant copies of MS-DOS 4.0.

Herbie, the love bug

Lindsay Lohan (left) among the bugs (centre) on the red carpet for the Los Angeles premiere of Herbie Fully Loaded (a 2005 remake of The Love Bug (1968)), El Capitan Theater, Hollywood, Los Angeles, 19 June 19, 2005.  The Beetle (right) was one of the many replica “Herbies” in attendance and, on the day, Ms Lohan (using the celebrity-endorsed black Sharpie) autographed the glove-box lid, removed for the purpose. 

In idiomatic and other uses, bug has a long history.  By the early twentieth century “bugs” meant “mad; crazy" and by then “bug juice” had been in use for some thirty years, meaning both “propensity of the use of alcoholic drink to induce bad behaviour” and “bad whiskey” (in the sense of a product being of such dubious quality it was effectively a poison).  A slang dictionary from 1811 listed “bug-hunter” as “an upholsterer”, an allusion to the fondness bugs and other small creatures show for sheltering in the dark, concealed parts of furniture.  As early as the 1560s, a “bug-word” was a word or phrase which “irritated or vexed”.  The idea of “bug-eyed” was in use by the early 1870s and that’s thought either to be a humorous mispronunciation of bulge or (as is thought more likely) an allusion to the prominent, protruding eyes of creatures like frogs, the idea being they sat on the body like “a pair of bugs”.  The look became so common in the movies featuring aliens from space that by the early 1950s the acronym BEM (bug-eyed monster) had become part of industry slang.  The correct term for the medical condition of "bulging eyes" is exophthalmos.

Lindsay Lohan in promotional poster for Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005).

To “bug someone” in the sense of “to annoy or irritate” seems not to have been recorded until 1949 and while some suggest the origin of that was in swing music slang, it remains obscure.  The now rare use of “bug off” to mean “to scram, to skedaddle” is documented since 1956 and is of uncertain origin but may be linked to the Korean War (1950-1953) era US Army slang meaning “stage a precipitous retreat”, first used during a military reversal.  The ultimate source was likely the UK, Australian & New Zealand slang “bugger off” (please leave).  The “doodle-bug” was first described in 1865 and was Southern US dialect for a type of beetle.  In 1944, the popular slang for the German Vergeltungswaffen eins (the V-1 (reprisal weapon 1) which was the first cruise missile) was “flying bomb” or “buzz bomb”) but the Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots preferred “doodle-bug”.

The ultimate door-stop for aircraft hangers: Bond Bug 700.

The popularity of three wheeler cars in the UK during the post-war years was a product of cost breakdown.  They were taxed at a much lower rate than conventional four-wheel vehicles, were small and thus economical and could be operated by anyone with only a motorcycle licence.  Most were genuine (if not generous) four-seaters and thus an attractive alternative for families and, being purely utilitarian, there were few attempts to introduce elements of style.  The Bond Bug (1970-1974) was an exception in that it was designed to appeal to the youth market with a sporty-looking two-seater using the then popular “wedge-styling” and in its most powerful form it could touch 80 mph (130 km/h), faster than any other three wheeler available.  The bug was designed by Vienna-born British designer Tom Karen (1926–2022) who intended it as a “Ferrari for 16-year-olds” which may hint he knew more about cars than young males but in the 1970s such comparisons often were made, a tester in one magazine describing the diminutive Fiat 127 (1971-1983) as “the 0.9 litre Ferrari” which was journalistic licence writ large but people knew what he meant.

An infestation of Bugs.

However, the UK in 1973 introduced VAT (value-added tax, a consumption tax) and this removed many of the financial advantages three-wheelers offered (it also doomed much of the “kit-car” business in which customers could buy the parts and assemble them with their own labor).  In an era of rising prosperity, the appeal of the compromise waned and coupled with some problems in the early productions runs, in 1974, after some 2¼ thousand Bugs had been built, the zany little machine was dropped; not even the oil crisis of the time (which had doomed a good number of bigger, thirstier cars) and the nasty recession which followed could save it.  Even in its best years it was never all that successful, essentially because it was really a novelty and there were “real” cars available for less money.  Still, the survivors have a following in their niche at the lower end of the collector market and it's a machine truly like no other.

The business of spying is said to be the “second oldest profession” and even if not literally true, few doubt the synergistic callings of espionage and war are among man’s earliest and most enduring endeavors.  Although the use of “bug” to mean “equip with a concealed microphone” seems not to have been in use until 1946, bugging devices probably go back thousands of years (in a low-tech sort of way) and those known to have been used in Tudor-era England (1485-1603) are representative of the way available stuff was adapted, the most popular being tubular structures which, if pressed against a thin wall (or preferably a door’s keyhole) enabled one to listen to what was being discussed in a closed room.  Bugging began to assume its modern form when messages began to be transmitted over copper wires which could stretch for thousands of miles and the early term for a “phone bug” was “phone tap”, based upon the idea of “tapping into” the line as one might a water pipe.  Bugs (the name picked-up because many of the early devices were small, black and “bug-like”), whether as concealed microphones or phone taps, swiftly became part of the espionage inventory in diplomacy, commerce and crime and as technology evolved, so did the bugging techniques.

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr (1902–1985), US Ambassador to the UN (United Nations) at a May 1960 session of the Security Council, using the Great Seal bug to illustrate the extent of Soviet bugging.  The context was a tu quoque squabble between the Cold War protagonists, following Soviet revelations about the flight-paths of the American's U2 spy planes.  Lodge would be Richard Nixon’s (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) running mate in that year's presidential election.     

A classic bug of High Cold War was the Great Seal bug, (known to the security services as the thing), a Soviet designed and built concealed listening device which was so effective because it used passive transmission protocols for its audio signal, thereby rendering it invisible to conventional “bug-detection” techniques.  The bug was concealed inside large, carved wooden rendition of the US Great Seal which, in 1945, the Kremlin presented as a “gift of friendship” to the US Ambassador to the USSR Averell Harriman (1891-1986); in a nice touch, it was a group of Russian school children who handed over the carving.  Sitting in the ambassador’s Moscow office for some seven years, it was a masterpiece of its time because (1) being activated only when exposed to a low-energy radio signal which Soviet spies would transmit from outside, when subjected to a US “bug detection” it would appear to be a piece of wood and (2) as it needed no form of battery or other power supply (and indeed, no maintenance at all), its lifespan was indefinite.  Had it not by chance been discovered by a communications officer at the nearby British embassy who happened to be tuned to the same frequency while the Soviets were sending their signal, it may well have remained in place for decades.  Essentially, the principles of the Great Seal bug were those used in modern radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems.