Buffalo

Buffalo (pronounced buhf-uh-loh)

(1) An animal from the subtribe Bubalina, also known as true buffalos, such as the Cape buffalo, Syncerus caffer, or the water buffalo, Bubalus bubalis.

(2) A related North American animal, the American bison (zoologically incorrect but in use thus since the 1630s).

(3) An ellipsis of buffalo robe.

(4) As the buffalo fish, the Ictiobus spp.

(5) In numismatic slang, a clipping of Buffalo nickel (a copper–nickel five-cent piece struck by the US Mint 1913-1938) and still (rarely) used of nickels.

(6) In numismatic slang, a clipping of “American buffalo” (a gold bullion coin), still used by collectors.

(7) A locality name most prevalent in North America, the Lake Erie port in western New York, the best-known,

(8) A shuffling tap-dance step (associated with the popular song “Shuffle Off to Buffalo”, from the musical film 42^nd Street (1933).

(9) As “buffaloed by”, to be puzzled or baffled; to be confused or mystified.

(10) As “to buffalo”, to impress or intimidate by a display of power, importance etc.

(11) To hunt buffalo (archaic).

(12) To assault (historically, to “pistol-whip”).

1535–1545: An early Americanism (replacing buffel, from the French, noted since the 1510s), from the Spanish or Portuguese búfalo (water buffalo), from the Italian buffalo, from Late Latin būfalus (an alteration of the Classical Latin būbalus (wild ox)), from the Ancient Greek βούβαλος (boúbalos).  The Greek form was originally the name of a kind of African antelope, later used of a type of domesticated ox in southern Asia and the Mediterranean lands.  I’s a word of uncertain origin and the elements may include bous (ox, cow, from the primitive Indo-European root gwou- (ox, bull, cow) but it may be a Greek folk-etymology.  The use of “buffalo” to describe the American bison is a mistake dating from the 1630s and it has endured so long as to become institutionalized.  The other Germanic words (the Dutch buffel, the German Büffel, the Danish böffel etc) are from the French while the Russian buivolu, the Polish bujwoł and the Bulgarian bivol came from the Medieval Latin.  The “Buffalo gnat” was first recorded in 1822 while the term “Buffalo chip” (dung of the American bison used as a fuel) was in use by at least the 1840s.  The origin of the name of the city Buffalo in western New York is disputed, not least because there were never any bison in close proximity to the place.  It may have been based on the name of a native American (ie Red Indian) chief or a corruption of the French beau fleuve (beautiful river).  The use of “buffalo” as a verb meaning “alarm” was documented early in the twentieth century and is probably related to the tendency of the beasts to mass panic.  In many fields, “buffalo” is used as a modifier for many words.  The old synonym buffle is extinct.  Buffalo is a noun & verb, buffaloed & buffaloing are (informal) verbs and buffaloish (non-standard) & buffalo-like are adjectives; the noun plural is buffaloes or buffalos but if used collectively (ie of a herd) buffalo is the usual spelling.  The common collective noun for a group of buffalo is “herd” although “gang” is a recorded US regionalism and some prefer the more evocative “obstinacy”, the label gained by virtue of the beast’s well-documented quality of stubbornness.

Classy Leather’s illustration of the difference in texture between bison and buffalo leather.

The clipping “buff” also tracked a varied path.  Predictably, the word seems first to have been simply a short form of “buffalo” but by the 1560s traders were using it to describe the thick, soft leather obtained from the hides of the creatures which were being slaughtered by the million although then it was almost always spelled “buffe” (ie as “buffe leather”) from the French buffle.  Buff was by the 1780s used generally to describe a “light brownish-yellow” color, based on the hue assume by the buffalo leather in its process form and as early as circa 1600 the old association of “hide” with “skin” led to the phrase “in the buff” (naked), strengthened by buff leather and pale human skin being similar in hue.  Over time, “buff naked" emerged and this morphed into "buck naked," possibly influenced by use of the word “buck” which, in American slang, had been used to refer to male deer, Native Americans, or African-American men in certain contexts. The exact etymological connection is debated, but “buck” here may have been used to evoke an image of primal or raw naturalism.  The evolution continued and by the early nineteenth century there was also “butt naked” obviously more explicit and descriptively accessible to a modern audience, emphasizing the state of stark nudity by referencing the buttocks.  It’s now the most popular of the three slang forms.  All three are unrelated to the use of “buff” to mean “polish a metal to a high gloss”, that based on the original “buffing cloths” being off-cuts of a “buff-coat” (a military overcoat originally made from the hide).  A tool for this purpose is often still called “a buff”.  The noting of “polishing up” by “buffing” was taken up in video gaming (especially role-playing) where it meant “to make a character or an item stronger or more capable”.

Jessica Simpson.

The use of buff to mean “an enthusiast for something with a great knowledge of the topic” (eg Ferrari buff (a very devoted crew); film buff (an obsessive lot who take things very seriously); Lindsay Lohan buff (a calling for some)) was related to the color.  Since the 1820s New York City’s volunteer fire-fighters since had been issued buff-colored protective clothing and their image of daring with more than a whiff of danger in the 1890s attracted a following among young men who cherish ambitions to be firemen some day.  This manifested them rushing to the sites of fires at any time of the day or night, just so they could watch the firemen at work, fighting the fire.  There is something about fire which attracts some and in Australia, where bush firs have always been a feature of the hot, dry seasons, there have been cases of volunteer fire-fighters starting fires, apparently just so they can experience the thrill of extinguishing them; fire being fire, sometimes things end very badly.  As early as 1903 the New York Sun was referring to these enthusiasts (had it been later they might have been called “fire groupies”) as “the buffs” and from this use cam the idea of a “buff” being someone devoted to anything although there’s now more often the implication of “great knowledge of the topic).  In the UK military (mostly in plural) a “Buff” was a member of the Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment (1572-1961)) and in numismatic slang, a “buff” was a clipping of Buffalo nickel (a copper–nickel five-cent piece struck by the US Mint 1913-1938.).  In UK slang, Buff also meant “a member of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes” (which is sort of like the Freemasons but without the plotting and scheming”).  The finger food “Buffalo wings” made famous by the admirable Jessica Simpson (b 1980) gained the name because they were first served in 1964 at Frank & Teressa's Anchor Bar on Main Street, Buffalo.  Ms Simpson’s confusion about the dish (made with chicken wings) may have been caused by them often appearing on menus as “buffalo wings) with no initial capital.

The BUFF.

In USAF (US Air Force) slang, the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress (1952-1962 and still in service) is the BUFF (the acronym for Big ugly fat fellow or Big ugly fat fucker depending on who is asking).  From BUFF was derived the companion acronym for the LTV A-7 Corsair II (1965-1984, the last in active service retired in 2014) which was SLUFF (Short Little Ugly Fat Fellow or Short Little Ugly Fat Fucker).  In rail-transport, a “buff” describes the compressive coupler force that occurs during a slack bunched condition (and is related in that sense to “buffer” which is a physical barrier placed to halt the progress of a train to prevent damage to a structure).  In the slang of the dealers of street drugs, “buff” is any substance used to dilute drugs (by volume) in order to increase profits.  The noun “buffware” is not an IT term (although SysAdmins (system administrators) could probably think of a few products which should be so described); it describes pottery in a buff color. 

Highly qualified porn star Busty Buffy.

A “buffster” is someone who is “buffed” (lean, physically fit) and that use of the word emerged from gym culture during the 1980s, under the influence of buff in the sense of “polish to perfection”.  That influenced also the use of buff to mean “physically attractive; desirable” which began in MLE (Multicultural London English) before spreading to other linguistic tribes; the adverb buffly (in a buff manner; attractively or muscularly) can be used of a buffster (one who is fit and with good muscle definition).  In hospital slang, “to buff” means “to alter a medical chart, especially in a dishonest manner”, something which hints there may be something in Evelyn Waugh’s (1903-1966) warning that the greatest risk to one in hospital is “being murdered by the doctors”.  In the slang of graffiti writers (the term “graffiti artist” does now seem accepted by the art market) a “buff” is the act of remove a piece of graffiti by someone other than the creator.  Buffy is an adjective meaning “of or tending to a buff color” (the comparative buffier, the superlative buffiest) but it’s probably now most associated with the pop-culture character “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (which seems to have made it a popular name also for porn stars).  Of the color, “buffish” is the alternative adjective.

The phrase “It’ll buff out” is a joke-line in the collector car market which references attempts to downplay the extent or significance of damage.

In 2005, Lindsay Lohan went for a drive in her Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG roadster.  It didn’t end well.  Based on the R230 (2001-2011) platform, the SL 65 AMG was produced between 2004-2012, all versions rated in excess of 600 horsepower, something perhaps not a wise choice for someone with no background handling such machinery though it could have been worse, the factory building 350 of the even more powerful SL 65 Black Series, the third occasion an SL was offered without a soft-top and the second time one had been configured with a permanent fixed-roof.

Classy Leather’s “Buffalo Hunter”.

Buffalo leather isn’t suitable for all purposes but it is greatly valued because of the combination of its thickness (compared to cow or goat leather or pig skin) and the unique and different grain patterns.  It’s the thickness which adds to the durability of buffalo leather but despite that it remains soft and flexible, making it an ideal material for premium leather goods such as leather bags, leather accessories, jackets etc.  The Classy Leather operation published an informative guide to buffalo leather and included technical information including what must have be a revelation to some: Although the terms “buffalo” and “bison” tend interchangeably to be used in North America, the leathers are quite distinct and what the industry calls “buffalo leather” usually means leather derived from the Asian Water Buffalo.  Buffalo leather comes from domestic buffalos (almost always Asian Water Buffalo) which mostly are raised for milk or meat; at the end of their productive life, the hides are used to make leather and a variety of processing methods are used, designed to suit the skin structure which has large pores.

1974 Suzuki GT750: The “Water Buffalo”.  The front twin disc setup was added in 1973 and was one of the first of its kind.

The Suzuki GT750 was produced between 1971-1977 and was an interesting example of the breed of large-capacity two-stroke motorcycles which provided much excitement and not a few fatalities but which fell victim to increasingly stringent emissions standards and the remarkable improvement in the performance, reliability and refinement of the multi-cylinder four-stroke machines.  One novelty was the GT750 was water-cooled, at the time rarely seen although that meant it missed out on one of Suzuki’s many imaginative acronyms: the RAC (ram air cooling) used on the smaller capacity models.  RAC was a simple aluminum scoop which sat atop the cylinder head and was designed to optimize air-flow.  It was the water-cooling of the GT750 which attracted nicknames but, a generation before the internet, the English language tended still to evolve with regional variations so in England it was “the Kettle”, in Australia “the Water Bottle” and in North America “the Water Buffalo”.  Foreign markets also went their own way, the French favoring “la bouillotte” (the hot water bottle) and the West Germans “Wasserbüffel” (water buffalo).  Suzuki called those sold in North America the "Le Mans" while RoW (rest of the world) models were simply the "GT750".

Etiolate

Etiolate (pronounced ee-tee-uh-leyt)

(1) In botany, to cause a plant to whiten or grow pale by excluding light.

(2) To cause to become weakened or sickly; to remove vigor.

(3) To drain of color; to make pale and sickly-looking; to become pale or blanched.

(4) In literary theory (usually as “etiolated verse” or etiolated text”), to revise a text to remove fanciful or pretentious forms.

1791: The past participle of the seventeenth century French étioler (to blanch) and used to mean “to make pale, to remove a light source from plants during growth to induce them to form in a lighter hue”, presumed to be a derivative of a Norman French dialect form of with the appended -ate suffix.  The suffix -ate was a word-forming element used in forming nouns from Latin words ending in -ātus, -āta, & -ātum (such as estate, primate & senate).  Those that came to English via French often began with -at, but an -e was added in the fifteenth century or later to indicate the long vowel.  It can also mark adjectives formed from Latin perfect passive participle suffixes of first conjugation verbs -ātus, -āta, & -ātum (such as desolate, moderate & separate).  Again, often they were adopted in Middle English with an –at suffix, the -e appended after circa 1400; a doublet of –ee.  The idea in French may have been derived from the notion of “to make the color of straw” or even literally “to become like straw” and it was used in a branch of horticulture to “turn a plant white by growing it in darkness”, the attraction of white being the association with “delicacy; purity” and it was a commercial approach in market gardens to create “high priced vegetables” and was from étiolé, past participle of the seventeenth century étioler (to blanch), probably from the Norman dialect étule (a stalk) and the Old French esteule (straw, field of stubble) from the Latin stupla from stipula (straw; stubble).  Etiolate is a verb & adjective, etiolation is a noun, etiolative is a noun & adjective, etiolated is a verb & adjective, etiolating is a verb and etiolatively is an adverb; the noun plural is etiolations.

In literary theory, “to etiolate” a text is to remove or revise the “purple passages” (known just as alliteratively also as “purple prose”).  In literature, purple passages are those sections of a text which are overly elaborate, flowery, or extravagant in style, often prioritizing ornate or decorative language and the use of needlessly long words, the meaning of which is often obscure.  Such writing is thought a literary self-indulgence or a mere pretentious display of knowledge; grandiose execution at the expense of clarity, the usual critique being “style over substance”.  The phrase is almost certainly derived from the historic use of the once rare and expensive purple dye being restricted (actually by statute or edict in some places) to royalty and even when availability became wider, the association with luxury & wealth continued.  The idea has long been a tool of critics, Roman lyric poet Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65-8 BC) in his Ars Poetica (The Art of Poetry, 19 BC) referring disapprovingly to the purpureus… pannus (a purple piece of cloth), the irrelevant insertion of a grandiloquent or melodramatic passage into a work.  Horace thought this disruptive at best and absurd at worst and “purple passages” continues to be used to describe writing which is needlessly ornate, florid and usually discordantly incongruous.  Used almost always pejoratively (although there do seem to be some admirers), comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) might have called such flourishes “formalism”.  Amusingly, in an example of how idiomatic use in English must baffle those learning the language, “purple patch”, also once applied to such tortured text, would come to be used to describes any particular good period or performance (in any context), the use always wholly positive.

Pencil sketch (circa 1845) of Anne Brontë (1820–1849) by her sister Charlotte (1816–1855).

What is a purple passage is a cultural construct and in literature fashions change, some works regarded still regarded as “literary classics” written in a style which if release now would be thought absurd or a parody.  That’s because such judgments tend now to be made on the basis of the manner in which people “actually talk” and although that is highly variable and influenced by social class and regional traditions, in the age of modern media there is probably a broad (if not at the margins wholly accurate) understanding of the range and it’s to this literature need to adhere.  So, consider what Anne Brontë has the Reverend Michael Millward say in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848):

“But I have heard that, with some persons, temperance—that is, moderation—is almost impossible; and if abstinence be an evil (which some have doubted), no one will deny that excess is a greater. Some parents have entirely prohibited their children from tasting intoxicating liquors; but a parent’s authority cannot last for ever; children are naturally prone to hanker after forbidden things; and a child, in such a case, would be likely to have a strong curiosity to taste, and try the effect of what has been so lauded and enjoyed by others, so strictly forbidden to himself—which curiosity would generally be gratified on the first convenient opportunity; and the restraint once broken, serious consequences might ensue. I don’t pretend to be a judge of such matters, but it seems to me, that this plan of Mrs. Graham’s, as you describe it, Mrs. Markham, extraordinary as it may be, is not without its advantages; for here you see the child is delivered at once from temptation; he has no secret curiosity, no hankering desire; he is as well acquainted with the tempting liquors as he ever wishes to be; and is thoroughly disgusted with them, without having suffered from their effects.”

Once that text is etiolated, the parson is suggesting if one’s children are introduced to strong drink under parental supervision, they’ll be less likely to grow up as drunken philanders and sluts.  Did, in general discourse, even the most loquacious Church of England clergy of the 1840s talk in the way the author would have us believe or did novelists write in an elaborated, formalized style because that’s what their readers wanted?  It can’t be certain because there are only letters and no audio recordings; such transcripts as we have are from formal, set piece events like public addresses or debates in parliament which are hardly representative but on the basis of what was reported as the way “educated folk” spoke in court proceedings, it was with nothing like the prolixity of Ms Brontë’s reverend gentleman.  But that was the way fiction so often was written and the works of some who have contributed much to the canon must strike the modern reader as “artificially ornate” including John Milton (1608–1674), Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864), Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), Herman Melville (1819–1891) and Thomas Hardy (1840–1928).  Write now as they did now and expect to be accused of writing purple passages.

Beans, etiolated (left) and not (right).

For most of human history, the purpose in agriculture was to cultivate plants for optimal growth and productivity but in the eighteenth century the technique of deliberate etiolation emerged as a niche industry with specific goals.  What the gardeners did was at certain point in a plant’s development to deprive it of light while continuing to supply water and fertilizer.  What this cause was for the foliage to lose its natural color and tend towards being white, manifested usually in a “straw-like” coloring although some outcomes truly were white.  Additionally, many plants would grow with long, weak & slender stems, the elongation thought elegant compared with the thick, robust structures of those which remained exposed to natural light.  In biological terms, what the plants were doing was devoting all available energy to grow longer in the search for light, that essential element of photosynthesis, the process with which plants convert the energy from light (historically sunlight) into the chemical energy (notably sugars) used by their metabolism.

Delightfully etiolated: A stunningly pale Lindsay Lohan leaving the Byron & Tracey salon, Beverly Hills, California, September 2011.

Although the technique was used of seedlings which were started indoors or in a sheltered spot, encouraging early growth before being transplanted outside in the spring, etiolated plants were valued most for their aesthetic appeal, the association of white with not only delicacy & purity but also wealth because the pale complexion of the rich was a symbol of a privileged existence not spent toiling in the fields under the harsh sun which so darkened the skin of peasants.  Thus, etiolated plants, with their long, slender stems were prized for their visual appeal in gardens and floral arrangements while small, leafed vegetables in an unusually pale hue were prized by the chefs of the rich because they were so useful in making food into “plate art” a thing then as now and that such produce invariably lacked taste was just a price to be paid for the effect.  Of course etiolation tended to weaken plants so it was only ever a niche product for a high-priced market segment but, in controlled conditions, it did prove a useful technique in selective breeding for specific traits and it’s believed some of the long-stemmed plants still cultivated today are varieties which date for the era.

Natural selection means plants do tend to grow towards the light but many like also to grow vertically, something Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) had plenty of time to observe while serving in Berlin’s Spandau prison the twenty year sentence he was lucky to have been handed by the IMT (International Military Tribunal) in the first Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) for war crimes (Count three of the indictment) and crimes against humanity (Count 4).  In his clandestine prison diary (Spandauer Tagebücher (Spandau: The Secret Diaries) (1975)) he noted the mixed behaviour of the seeds he planted:

June 25, 1951: A month ago I planted peas, in groups of three, at depths of seven, fifteen, twenty-five, and forty centimeters, and watered them plentifully.  Today I undertake a cautious excavation. Even when the eye was down, the shoot turned in a sharp arc and grew vertically upward. None of the many shoots left the vertical by so much as a few degrees, not even those that germinated at a depth of forty centimeters.  Only one pea at a depth of twenty-five centimeters lost its sense of direction and grew into a confused snarl of thick threads.  In greenhouses, heating cables often keep the temperatures under the roots higher than on the surface.  So it cannot be the sun’s warmth.  A pine tree twenty meters tall growing by a shady cliff in the Black Forest does not grow toward the light, but vertically upward. Gravity, then?  It is particularly important for technology, which tries to achieve reactions similar to that of the pea, to investigate such guidance mechanisms.  New experiment.  I have dug a pit forty centimeters in depth.  At the bottom of it I lay out a row of alternating beans and peas. I close off the side toward the south with a pane of glass.  Then I fill in the pit with topsoil.  The arrangement is such that the surface of the soil is just as far from the seeds as the pane of glass.  Consequently warmth and light operate with equal intensity on both sides.  If growth is determined by one of these influences, the peas would have to grow toward the glass.  But I am still assuming that the plants have a tendency to oppose the pull of gravity.

August 22, 1951: Once again the peas have grown upward with amazing directional impulse, without reacting to the sunlight offered from the side.  Out of thirty peas, eleven have found the long way, forty centimeters, to the surface. Two peas gave up after they had grown twenty centimeters, and several others became impatient with this long distance for growing.  About eight centimeters under the surface of the soil they sent out side shoots with formed leaves.  But these peas, too, were disciplined enough to abandon these energy-consuming shoots after half a centimeter. What vital energy is displayed in these physical achievements, elaborating from a tiny round pea a tube one to one and a half millimeters in thickness and forty centimeters in length.  As I suspected, no such strong biological “instinct” can be ascribed to the beans. Out of six beans, only a single one tried to make its way to the surface, and it too gave up several centimeters before it reached its goal, while the others, obviously confused, sent shoots out in various directions from the seed.  What brings about such different behavior in such closely related plants?

Docker

Docker (pronounced dok-er)

(1) In seaport operations, a laborer on shipping docks engaged in the loading or unloading of a vessel (and sometimes “other duties as required”); known in North America also as a longshoreman or stevedore, the latter also used elsewhere in the English-speaking world (“stevedore” can also be used of corporations which run loading & unloading operations).  The general idea is of a “dock-worker”.

(2) A person who cuts off or trims the tails or (less commonly the ears) of certain animals used in agricultural production (used sometimes also of the tools they employ).

(3) In military aviation, a device used to connect (dock together) two aircraft during air-to air refueling operations.

(4) In aerospace, the assembly used to permit two space craft to “dock”, providing a port for access between the two.

(5) In engineering, any device allowing the temporary connection of two components.

(6) In commercial food preparation, as “roller docker”, a utensil resembling a small rolling pin with spikes, used to pierce dough to prevent over-rising or blistering, the device creating in food: “docker holes”.

(7) One who engages in the sexual practice of docking (where the tip of one participant's penis is inserted into the foreskin of their partner (the success of the act said to be judged by the “extent & effect” of the overlap).  It is a niche activity.

1755–1765: The construct was dock + -er.  Dock was from the Middle English dokke, from the Old English docce, from the Proto-West Germanic dokkā, from the Proto-Germanic dukkǭ (similar forms including the Old Danish dokke (water-dock), the West Flemish dokke & dokkebladeren (coltsfoot, butterbur), from the primitive Indo-European dhew (dark) (which may be compared with the Latvian duga (scum, slime on water)).  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been borrowed from the Latin –ārius where, as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  In English, the –er suffix, when added to a verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action indicated by the root verb.   The use in English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or describing the person whose occupation is the noun.  Docker is a noun, docking is a noun & verb and docked is a verb; the noun plural is dockers.

The use in agriculture (one who cuts off or trims the tails or (less commonly) ears of certain animals) dates from the early nineteenth century.  Although there are dockers who dock, in English there is no tradition of dockee (that which has been docked) which is unusual in English when referring to devices which sometimes use the male-female anatomical descriptor model.  In IT, there have been many “docks” (the best known being “docking stations” which allow something like a laptop temporarily to be tethered, gaining ports and such to allow various components and peripheral devices to be attached) but there never seem to have been “dockers”.

More than one authoritative site has rated the team song of Western Australia's Freemantle Dockers (1994) AFL (Australian Football League, which evolved from the told VFL (Victorian Football League (which apparently still own the AFL)) to become the national competition for football played under "Australian Rules") the worst of the 18 currently in use.  Some on-line polls have confirmed the view but Dockers’ fans, when offered four alternatives, opted to retain the original, presumably on the assumption opposition fans must hate hearing it played (it's a tradition to play the winning team's song at the end of each match).  The team’s name is an allusion to the docks at the Port of Freemantle.

Lindsay Lohan Leather Jacket (078LCJ) by Docker Trend, Kyiv.

The surname Docker was from the ancient Anglo-Saxon culture of the Britain Isles and was occupational, the name for a trapper of small game and translating literally as “cut the hare's tail”, derived from the Old English dokc (cut off) and hare, a very old word which meant then what it means now.  So the surname definitely predates the Norman Conquest and the oldest known instance is the parish records in what is now the county of Cumberland. However, there was also a second linguistic fork for the surname and that was not occupational but locational, traced back to two small hamlets in Westmoreland and Lancashire, both named “Docker”, the name meaning “the grazing land in the valley”, from the pre seventh century Olde Norse-Viking dokr.  Quite when the settlements were founded or named is uncertain but village in Westmoreland appears in the charters of the county for the year 1155 as Docherga, while the associated surname seems not to have been recorded before the sixteenth century and, given the high reliability of English parish records, is believed to indicate it had not previously been in use. 

Historians suggest this suggests it’s possible the village was “cleared” in the period of the Enclosure Acts (a kind of “land grab” by the ruling class, a tradition which continues to this day) which occupied parliamentary time for over three hundred years between 1450-1750.  Under these acts, tenant farmers gradually were deprived of their ancient rights to the “land held in common” for grazing & tilling, forced from their humble homes to seek shelter and employment elsewhere, often from the very beneficiaries of the “enclosure project”.  One consequence of this was those expelled often took or were given as their surname the name of their former village.  There were (not unusually) many alternative spellings of what evolved as “Docker”, the form not standardized until well into the 1800s, the alternatives including Docker, Dockwra, Dockray, Dockwray & Dockrell, some differences existing even within the one family, a not uncommon practice of “branch differentiation” in the pre-modern era.  In a phenomenon typical of the period of European colonization, as the British Empire spread around the globe, the Docker name travelled thus and is now known in Australia, the US, Canada, the West Indies, New Zealand, a number of African states and the Indian sub-continent.

The Docker Daimlers

In the slang of English divorce lawyers, chatelaine was a term for a sub-set of husband-hunting women for whom the most important criterion in their search was the quality of the house which came with the prey, the play on words based on the ancient role of the chatelaine being the "the keeper of the castle".  Applied mostly either to the impoverished gentry or aspirational young ladies seeking upward-mobility, chatelaines were famously good "housekeepers"; after the divorce they often "kept the house".  The more accessible modern form is gold-digger.  An exemplar of the type was the admirable Norah Docker (Lady Docker, formerly Callingham, formerly Collins, née Turner; 1906–1983) a dance-club hostess who was thrice-married, each husband proving more lucrative than the last.  Her most famous acquisition was Sir Bernard Docker (1896–1978), chairman of the Daimler motor company for which she helped design half a dozen cars; known as the Docker Daimlers, they were an acquired taste but certainly large and conspicuous as intended, each generating much publicity though it's doubtful they made any positive contribution to Daimler's bottom line.  Some of the more generous critics were prepared to concede some weren't as bad as the others.

1955 Daimler DK400 Golden Zebra

The last of the Docker Daimlers, the Golden Zebra was a two-door fixed head coupé (FHC) with coachwork by Hooper, built on the existing DK400 (1954-1959) chassis.  The interior was finished with an African theme, the dashboard of ivory and the upholstery in zebra-skin while external metal trim was gold-plated.  Lady Docker personally chose the zebra skin, claiming she found mink unpleasantly hot.  It was first shown at the 1955 Paris Motor Show and it's of note this stylistic mashup of pre-war motifs and mid-century modernism appeared in the same building used for the debut of the Citroën DS which, although as ancient under the skin as the Daimler, gave the crowds a vision of the future although it would be decades before some of its implications were realized.

Sir Bernard (with cigar, left) and Lady Docker (in mink) unveiling the "Golden Daimler", Earls Court Motor Show, London, 1951.

Imposing though it was, dimensionally, being DK400-based, the Golden Zebra was actually less extravagant than some previous Docker Daimlers which had been built on the even bigger DE chassis (1946-1953) which was the last car in the UK with a straight-eight engine offered for general sale, the even more exclusive Rolls-Royce Phantom IV (1950-1956) available only to crowned royalty and heads of state.  The UK in the early 1950s was still living through a period of post-war austerity but the Docker Daimlers were surprisingly well-received by the public which seemed to enjoy the splash of color they brought to the dreariness of the time when some consumer products were still rationed.  The reaction of critics generally was less kind, the “Docker Specials” decried variously as “archaic”, “irrelevant”, vulgar or that worst of English insults: “tiresome”.  It’s thought also not a coincidence that it was during Lady Docker’s supervision of the Daimler drawing boards the royal family’s automotive allegiance switched to Rolls-Royce, the association pre-dating even the royal warrant granted in 1902 by King Edward VII (1841–1910; King of the UK & Emperor of India 1901-1910), shortly after his accession to the throne, a Daimler 6hp mail phaeton delivered to Buckingham Palace on 28 March 1900, fulfilling an order place by the king while still Prince of Wales.  So the Daimlers, in the Royal Mews since the nineteenth century, began to be relegated to secondary roles and another wouldn’t be ordered until well after The Jaguar takeover of the company in 1959.

Straight-eight Docker Daimler "Blue Clover" (1952), trimmed in blue lizard skin, now on display in a museum in Seoul, RoK (Republic of Korea (South Korea)).

Lady Docker’s intention however was to achieve sensation and if some thought the cars vulgar so be it, subscribing to the axiom of both Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) & Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945): “It doesn’t matter what people are saying about us as long as they’re saying something.”.  To ensure her vision would be rendered in metal as she intended, she had her obedient husband appoint her to the board’s of Hooper’s, (the corporation’s in-house coach-builder) as a director with “special responsibility for styling matters”.  The irony was that unlike those on the Daimler board, she was quite correct in perceiving their cars had become staid and unexciting with a change of stylistic direction required; the problem was the direction she followed.  When Lady Docker’s first project, the spectacular “Golden Daimler” was unveiled at the 1951 Earls Court Motor Show, it certainly got people talking, mostly about money.  The “Golden” appellation, although not a victory designation, was well deserved, gold plate applied to the trim where chrome usually appeared, some 7000 gold stars appearing on the flanks, below the waistlines.  Quickly the press did their calculations and determined the Stg£900 of the metal used would have been enough to purchase two small cars and a motor-cycle but when asked, Lady Docker explained: “It was practically impossible to obtain chrome.”  Inside , the theme continued, the headliner and upholstery in the rear compartment had made from gold silk brocade woven on a loom, the timberwork all Australian camphor, selected for its honey-gold hue, the traditional burl walnut just too dark.  The timber fittings were fine examples of the coach-builder’s craft, a matched pair of cabinets containing a gold & crystal cocktail set to the left while in the right sat a gold and black china tea set with a gold-plated Thermos tea jug.  Built into the electrically-operated central divider were two folding picnic tables, able to be laid with the linen tablecloth and napkins kept in a natty little container while just in case a fingernail might be damaged while adjusting the gold-plated radio controls in the armrests, a vanity set (in a gold case) was provided.  Really, Lady Docker thought of everything.

Straight-eight Docker Daimler "Stardust" (1954), trimmed in hand-woven silver silk brocatelle and pale blue crocodile leather, the coachwork (left), Lady Docker "touching up" (centre) and the rear compartment (right).  

Unfortunately, the comparison which was obvious was with the new Daimler Regency (1951-1958) which also made its debut at Earls Court.  The Regency was emblematic of the very problem Lady Docker had identified: it was conservative, staid and owed more to the past than the present, let alone the future; compared with the modernist lines being seen in the US and even Europe, it looked like something which could have come from a decade earlier.  The company was aware the world was moving on without them and did embark on new projects, developing two of the best V8 engines of the post-war years (in 2.5 litre (155 cubic inch) & 4.5 litre (278 cubic inch) displacements) and even an unexpected sports car which used the smaller V8.  The car was not a success and while the drive-train attracted unqualified praise, reaction to the rest of the package was muted at best; it was an engine crying out for a car and typified the company’s piecemeal approach to things, culminating in Jaguar’s takeover in 1959.  Jaguar had some fine cars but needed V8 engines for the US market so it would have seemed logical to combine the two but, obsessed with the notion engines should have six or twelve cylinders, neglected the opportunity and made only niche use of both, retiring them in 1969.

Docker Daimler "Silver Flash" (1953).  

As a design, the Silver Flash was the most interesting of the Dockers and was a representation perhaps of what a large FHC (fixed head coupé) would have looked like circa 1946, had there been no war.  What can't be guessed is whether the design trends in the US, Europe and the UK (all with different traditions although always exchanging influences) would have tended to drift apart or begin to assume the kind of "international style" which came to architecture in the post-war years.

Satisfied however with what she had achieved in 1951, Lady Docker continued undeterred and oversaw the development of a further four “Docker Daimlers”, designed on the basis of “more of the same” (it's not known if she had in mind an old Docker family motto: Semper eadem (Always the same)), released annually, usually to a not uncritical reception but there was always the splash of publicity she craved so in that sense the designs worked.  Within the corporation though, as the 1950s dragged into middle-age, the lifestyle and spending habits (with Daimler’s money) of the Dockers was causing increasing disquiet and early in 1956, a “boardroom coup” was organized, the conspiracy culminating in May when a special meeting of the board was summoned at which Sir Bernard was voted out, his wife departing with him.  As if to exorcise the demons, the board ordered the Docker Daimlers be stripped of their expensive trimmings and sold.

Chenille

Chenille (pronounced shuh-neel)

(1) A thick soft tufty silk or worsted velvet cord or yarn used in embroidery and for trimmings and other embellishments.

(2) A fabric made with such a fringed silken thread used as the weft in combination with wool or cotton; it’s a popular fabric for garments such as sweaters.

(3) In casual use, any fabric with a protruding pile, as in certain rayon bedspreads.

(4) A deep-pile, durable, woolen carpeting with chenille weft: the most expensive of the power-loomed floor coverings in volume production.

(5) In botany, the chenille plant (Acalypha hispida), a shrub with colorful furry flowers

1738: from the French chenille (velvety cord used in embroidery, fringes etc (literally “hairy caterpillar” and a doublet of canicule)), from the Latin canīcula (which under a strict etymological breakdown suggests “little dog” but the only documented use was in the senses “shrewish woman”; “dogfish”; “the star Sirius” (canicular); the worst throw in a game of dice); it was a diminutive of canis (dog), from the from primitive indo-European root kwon- (dog).  All uses are derived from the furry look of certain caterpillars.  Chenille is a noun and chenillelike (also as chenille-like) is an adjective; the noun plural is chenilles.

Renault UE Chenillette with trailer, the combination configured as a refueling unit for the infantry, circa 1932.

The unrelated noun chenillette originally described a class of small (most not even 3 metres (10 feet) in length), armored vehicles built for the French Army during the 1930s.  Because they were tracked, they were sometimes referred to as tankettes (a noun later adopted as military slang for scaled-down tanks) but that was misleading because they were really armored utility vehicles intended to tow artillery pieces or trailers with supplies.  The earliest had provision only for a driver and were unarmed but later designs expanded both capacities.  By the standards of the time they were fast and being cheap to produce and operate were produced in large numbers and used by a number of militaries as late as the 1950s.  In the UK, the Chenille name was adopted for a tracked sidewalk tractor, especially one equipped with plough-like device for clearing snow, the name an allusion to the (vaguely) caterpillar-like appearance.  In arctic regions, snowcats (tracked, truck-like enclosed vehicles used to transport people and supplies across snow & ice) are sometimes referred to as chenillettes, the term used also for some of the machines operated by ski resorts or others in alpine areas.

The inspiration: Woolly Bear caterpillar (Pyrrharctia isabella), the caterpillar the larval stage of the Isabella tiger moth.

Chenille is a type of fabric construction available in a range of designs and valued for qualities as varied as disguising wrinkles and retaining an opulent sheen meaning it is adaptable and widely used.  The name comes from the French chenille (caterpillar) and in an allusion to the creature’s soft, fluffy appearance although this shouldn’t be taken too literally because some caterpillars have stinging hairs which can induce health problems such as itching, conjunctivitis, sore throats and various localized irritations which can in some cases lead to infections and because the hairs can even be flown off by gusts of wind, even being in close proximity can expose one to risk.  The chenille technique used to produce the fabric involves placing several short piles of yarn between two core yarns, weaving them together to create a raised (ie hairy) effect.

Lindsay Lohan in a pale pink chenille midi-dress by David Koma (b 1985), Clarins new product launch party, Los Angeles, March 2024.

Thick, durable, and water-resistant, chenille is popular with furniture manufacturers and used for upholstery and its seen often in bed sheets, rugs and linens but most photographed are the sweaters, dresses and such, the industry liking the look because it’s so easy to achieve a lustrous, opulent appearance and customers like it because the texture is such that it “absorbs” crushing, crinkling and wrinkling without obvious effect.  Quite which type of chenille should be chosen will be dictate by the appearance desired and that is a product of the materials used in the construction: cotton, silk, and wool chenille lend a soft and luxurious texture, polyester versions have a shiny, almost velvety sheen while rayon chenille is famously lush, durable valued for its shimmering iridescence.  The cost breakdown of course dictates patterns of consumption and polyester chenilles are by far the cheapest and most widely used for furniture, especially where the surface areas large or subject to high use.  Natural fibres such as wool raises the cost and demand more maintenance but no synthetic can match the softness, natural feel and desired degree of fuzziness.

Examples of chenille fabrics.

Chenilles are among the more recent fabrics, the technique coming into use in France only in the mid-eighteenth century although then it was the preserve of artisans and it wasn’t until the 1830s that industrial production began in Scotland.  Initially the fabrics were expensive because the process was broken into several stages and although mechanized, it remained labor intensive until dedicated machines were developed.  The centre of production shifted to the US and by the 1930s, despite the onset of the Great Depression, the sector emerged as a bright spot for the industry because chenilles were adaptable to purposes as diverse as floor mats, bedspreads and upholstery, the economics particularly attractive because the production process made such efficient use of the cotton crop.  Use actually declined in the post-war years but new techniques and the expansion of mass-market fashion in the 1960s & 1970s saw renewed interest in it for garments and fashion houses at all levels four it a flexible and adaptable fabric.  Not unexpectedly, as manufacturing in the 1980s shifted to South Asia and the Far East, “faux chenille” soon hit the high street.

Mullet

Mullet (pronounced muhl-it)

(1) Any of various teleost food marine or freshwater, usually gray fishes of the family Mugilidae (grey mullet (order Mugiliformes)) or Nullidae (red mullet (order Syngnathiformes)), having a nearly cylindrical body; a goatfish; a sucker, especially of the genus Moxostoma (the redhorses).

(2) A hairstyle in which the hair is short in the front and at the sides of the head, and longer in the back; called also the “hockey player haircut" and the "soccer rocker"; the most extreme form is called the skullet, replacing the earlier hockey hair.

(3) In heraldry, a star-like charge having five or six points unless a greater number is specified, used especially as the cadency (any one of several systems used to distinguish between similar coats of arms belonging to members of the same family) mark of a third son; known also as American star & Scottish star.  The alternative spelling is molet.

(4) In slang (apparently always in the plural), a reference to one’s children (two or more).

(5) In slang, a person who mindlessly follows a fad, trend or leader; a generally dim-witted person.

(6) In dress design, a design based on the hairstyle, built around the concept of things being longer at the back, tapering progressively shorter towards the sides and the front.  The name is modern, variations of the style go back centuries.

1350-1400: The use in heraldry is from the Middle English molet(te), from the Old French molete (rowel of a spur), the construct being mole (millstone (the French meule) + -ette (the diminutive suffix).  The reference to the fish species dates from 1400–50, from the late Middle English molet, mulet & melet, from the Old French mulet (red mullet), from the Medieval Latin muletus, from the Latin muletus & moletus from mullus (red mullet) from the Ancient Greek μύλλος (múllos & mýllos) (a Pontic of fish), which may be related to melos (black) but the link is speculative.

The use to describe the hairstyle is said to date from 1994, thought to be a shortening of the slang mullethead (blockhead, fool, idiot ("mull" used in the sense of "to dull or stupefy")), popularized and possibly coined by US pop-music group the Beastie Boys in their song Mullet Head (1994), acknowledged by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as the first use "in print" although the origin use is contested.  Mullethead also was a name used in the mid nineteenth century of a large, flat-headed North American freshwater fish which gained a reputation for stupidity (ie was easily caught).  As a surname, Mullet is attested in both France and England from the late thirteenth century, the French form thought related to the Old French mul (mule), the English from the Middle English molet, melet & mulet (mullet) a metonymic occupational name for a fisherman or seller of these fish although some sources do suggest a link to a nickname derived from mule (a beast with a reputation for (1) an ability to carry a heavy burden and (2) stubbornness).  The now less fashionable Australian slang form "stunned mullet" is used to imply that someone appears "especially or unusually dim-witted".

The "mullet" label casts a wide net: Red mullet (Goatfish) (left) and grey mullet (right).

In ichthyology, fish of the family Mugilidae are distinguished variously by modifiers including black mullet, bright mullet, bully mullet, callifaver mullet, grey mullet, diamond mullet, finger mullet, flathead mullet, hardgut mullet, Lebranche mullet, mangrove mullet, pearl mullet, popeye mullet, red mullet, river mullet, sea mullet, so-iuy mullet & striped mullet.  Mullet is a noun and mullety and mulletlike & mulleted are adjectives (as verbs mulleted and mulleting are non-standard as is the adjective mulletesque).  The noun plural is mullet if applied collectively to two or more species of the fish and mullets for other purposes (such as two or more fish of the same species and the curious use as a (class-associated) slang term parents use to refer to their children if there are two or more although use in the singular isn’t recorded; apparently they can have two (or more) mullets but not one mullet.

The Mullet  

Proto-mullet.

The mullet hairstyle goes back a long way.  The Great Sphinx of Giza is thought to be some four and a half thousand years old but evidence of men & women with hair cut short at the front and sides, long at the back, exists from thousands of years earlier.  It’s assumed by historians the cut would variously have been adopted for functional reasons (warmth for the neck and freedom for obstruction of the eyes & face) although aesthetics has probably always been a feature of the human character so it may also have been a preferred style.  There are many findings in the archaeological record and references to the hair style appear in the histories of many cultures.  In the West, the acceptability of longer cuts for men was one of the social changes of the 1960s and the mullet was one style to again arise; from there it’s never gone away although, as the mullet came to be treated as a class-identifier, use did become more nuanced, some claiming to wear one ironically.  The other sense in which "proto-mullet" is used is of a mulletlike hairstyle which at the back is shorter than the full-fledged mullet (such also once called the "tailgate" or "mudflap"). 

Rime of the Ancient Mullet: Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834).

Opinion remains divided and some schools have gone as far as to ban mullets because of an alleged association with anti-social or disruptive behavior.  At the other end of the spectrum there are are mullet competitions with prizes including trophies and bottles of bourbon whiskey.  It's suspected those who disapprove of the style, if asked to pick the "worst mullet", would likely choose the same contestants winning "best mullet" in their categories.  The competitions seem popular and are widely publicized, although the imagery can be disturbing for those with delicate sensibilities not often exposed to certain sub-cultures.  Such folk are perhaps more familiar with the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge but there was a time when he wore a mullet although the portraits which survive suggest his might not have been sufficiently ambitious to win any modern contests.

Emos with variegated tellums: Black & copper (left) and black, magenta, blue & grey (right).

Associated initially with that most reliable of trend-setters, the emo, the tellum (mullet spelled backwards), more helpfully described as the “reverse mullet” is, exactly as suspected, long in front and short at the back.  Definitely a thing exclusively of style because it discards the functionally which presumably was the original rationale for the mullet, emos often combine the look with one or more lurid colors, the more patient sometimes adopting a spiky look which can be enlivened with a different color for each spike.  That’s said to be quite high-maintenance.  The asymmetric tellum can be engineered to provide a dramatic look, concealing much of the face, the power of effect said to be to force the focus onto the one exposed eye.  True obsessives use colored contact lens to match whatever is the primary hue applied to the the hair. 

Martina Navratilova (b 1956) playing a backhand shot.

On a tennis court, a mullet is functional and there are headband users who wrongly have been accused of being mulleteers.  No more monolithic than any others, it’s probably absurd to think of any of the component part of the LGBTQQIAAOP as being a visually identifiable culture but there appears to have been a small lesbian sub-set in the 1980s which adopted the mullet although motives were apparently mixed, varying from (1) chauvinistic assertiveness of the lesbionic, (2) blatant signalling when advertising for a mate to (3) just another haircut.  Despite that, there's little to suggest that in isolation a mullet on a woman tends to be used as a GABOSO (general association based on single observation) to assume she's a lesbian.

Caitlyn Jenner (when identified as Bruce) with mullet at different stages of transition.

It also featured in a recent, celebrated case of gender-fluidity, Bruce Jenner (b 1949) photographed sporting a mullet shortly before beginning his transition to Caitlyn Jenner.  However, the mullet may be unrelated to the change, the photographic record confirming his long-time devotion to the cut and, since transitioning to Caitlyn, it seems to have been retired for styles more overtly traditionally feminine.

A MulletFest entrant in the Junior (14 to 17 Years category).

In Australia, the mullet is much associated with the bogan, one of sociology’s more striking cross-cultural overlaps.  The correlation is of course not 1:1 but while the perception that all mullet-wearers are bogans is probably about right, not all bogans sport a mullet and they’re even credited with at least popularizing the “skull mullet” which takes the “short at the sides” idea down almost to the skin.  At the institutional level, there’s MulletFest which tours the nation conducting “Best Mullet Competitions” at appropriate events (rodeos, agricultural shows, meetings for those displaying hotted-up cars et al) with inclusive categories including five for children (age-based), rangas (redheads), vintage (for the over 50s), grubby (the criteria unclear) and the mysterious “extreme”.  All entrants are “…judged on their haircut, overall presentation and stage presence, and the person with the “Best Mullet of them All” is crowned on the day and takes home that worthy honour.”  Proceeds from MulletFest events are donated to local charities.

The Mullet Skirt

Charles II (1630–1685; King of Scotland 1649-1651, King of Scotland, England and Ireland 1660-1685) an early adopter of the mullet style, in his coronation robes (circa 1661), oil on canvas by John Michael Wright (1617–1694 (left) and two view of Lindsay Lohan, also with much admired legs, following the example of the House of Stuart, Los Angeles, August 2012 (centre & right).  Charles II got more fun out of life than his father (Charles I (1600–1649; King of England, Scotland & Ireland 1625-1649) and possibly more even than Charles III (b 1948; King of the United Kingdom since 2022), the House of Windsor's latest monarch.  Both Charles I & Charles III also rocked the mullet look for their coronations and fashionistas can debate who wore it best.

Sewing pattern for mullet dress (left) and or the catwalk, Miranda Kerr (b 1983, left) demonstrates a pale pink high-low celebrity prom or graduation party dress, Liverpool Fashion Fest Runway, Mexico City, March 2011 (right).

The style of the mullet skirt long pre-dates the use of the name and the same concept used to be called "tail skirt", "train skirt" or "high-low circle skirt" (which in commercial use often appeared as "Hi-Lo skirt"), the terms still often used by those who find the mere mention of mullet distasteful.  The pattern for the fabric cut is deceptively simple but as in any project involving other than straight lines, it can be difficult to execute and the less volume that's desired in the garment, the harder it becomes to produce with precision.  That so many mullet dresses are bulky is probably a stylistic choice but the volume of fabric is handy for obscuring any inconsistencies.

The cheat cut mullet skirt.

Seamstresses do however have a trick which can work to convert an existing skirt into a mullet although again, it does work best if there's a lot of fabric.  Essentially, the trick is to lay the skirt perfectly flat, achieved by aligning the side seams (if there are no side seams, describe two with chalk lines); use a true, hard surface like a hardwood floor or a table to ensure no variations intrude.  Then, draw the cutting line, describing the shape to permit the extent of mulletness desired.  Unless absolutely certain, it's best to cult less, then try on the garment; if it's not enough, re-cut, repeating the process if necessary.  Because a hem will be needed, the cut should allow the loss of a ½ inch (50 mm) of fabric.

January Jones (b 1978 left) wore a blue “sea wave” piece from the Atelier Versace Spring 2010 collection to that year’s Emmy Awards ceremony and it was definitely a mullet.  Emma Stone’s (b 1988, centre left & centre right) sequined dress from Chanel's Fall 2009 haute couture collection, worn at the 2011 Vanity Fair Oscar party, was one of the season’s most admired outfits but it is not a mullet because it resembles one only when viewed at a certain angle; it should be regarded as an interpretation of the “train skirt”.  Caitlin FitzGerald (b 1983, right) appeared at the 2014 Golden Globes award ceremony in an Emilia Wickstead dress which featured an anything but straight hemline but it was not a mullet because the designer's intent was not to seek a "mullet effect"' it was a dress with a "swishy" skirt.  So, conceptually, the mullet dress is something like adding an "integrated cloak" to an outfit and the implications of that mean the result will sit somewhere on a spectrum and as with all mullets, there is a beginning, a middle and an end.