Pith

Pith (pronounced pith)

(1) In botany, the soft, spongy central cylinder of parenchymatous tissue in the stems of dicotyledonous plants such as the soft, albedo, fibrous tissue lining the inside of the rind in fruits such as orange and grapefruit (also called medulla or marrow although both are now rare).

(2) In zoology (by extension), the soft tissue inside a human or animal body or one of their organs; specifically, the spongy interior substance of a hair, a horn or the shaft of a feather (also called medulla).

(3) In pathology, the spinal cord or bone marrow (archaic).

(4) In the veterinary sciences, the soft tissue inside a spinal cord; the spinal marrow; also, the spinal cord itself (also called medulla).

(5) A synonym of diploe (the thin layer of soft, spongy, or cancellate tissue between the bone plates which constitute the skull) (obsolete).

(6) The soft tissue of the brain (so rare some dictionaries site it as having “never come into technical use” and now in this context extinct).

(7) The soft inner portion of a loaf of bread (a regionalism associated with Ireland, Southern England and the West Country).

(8) As pith hat or pith helmet, a type of headgear made from the fibre sholapith, worn by during the nineteenth century by European explorers and imperial administrators in Africa, Asia and the Middle East before being adopted by military officers, rapidly becoming a symbol of status or rank, latterly re-defined as a symbol of oppression, especially because of their association with the British Raj in the Indian sub-continent.

(9) In mathematics, the ordinal form of the number pi (3.14159…) (the pith root of pi is 1.439…).

(10) By analogy, the important or essential part; essence; core; heart (synonymous with crux, gist, heart and soul, inwardness, kernel, marrow, meat, medulla, nitty-gritty, nub, quintessence, soul, spirit, substance etc).

(11) By analogy, significant weight; substance; solidity (now rare).

(12) Figuratively, physical power, might, strength, force, or vigor; mettle (archaic).

(13) Figuratively, a quality of courage and endurance; backbone, mettle, spine.

(14) In the veterinary sciences, to sever or destroy the spinal cord of a vertebrate animal, usually by inserting a needle into the vertebral canal.

(15) To extract the pith from (something or (figurative) someone).

Pre 900: From the Middle English pith & pithe (soft interior; pith, pulp) from the Old English piþa or pitha from the Proto-Germanic piþô, cognate with the West Frisian piid (pulp, kernel), the Dutch peen (carrot) & pitt and the Low German peddik or pedik (pulp, core).  All were derived from the earlier piþō (oblique pittan), a doublet of pit (in the sense of “seed or stone inside a fruit”).  Both the Old English piþa (pith of plants) and the Germanic variations enjoyed the same meaning but the figurative sense (most important part(s) of something) existed only in the English form.  The pith helmet dates from 1889, replacing the earlier pith hat (first recorded in 1884), both so called because they were made from the dried pith of the Bengal spongewood.  The verb meaning from the veterinary sciences (to kill by cutting or piercing the spinal cord) was first documented in the technical literature in 1805 but in livestock management it was an ancient practice.  The Middle English verb pethen (to give courage or strength) was derived from the noun pith but did not make the transition to modern English.  Pith is a noun, verb & adjective and pithlike, pithy, pithing & pithed are verbs and pithful & pithless are adjectives; the noun plural is piths.

The Pith Helmet

Headwear from the Raj.

The pith helmet, known also as the sun helmet, safari helmet, topi, topee, or sola topee was a lightweight cloth-covered piece of headgear made of the pith of the sola or shola (Indian spongewood) plant, covered with white cotton and faced with cloth (usually white, cream, biege or green).  Topee (pith helmet) was from the Hindi टोपी (ṭopī) (hat) and the Urdu ٹوپی‎ (ṭōpī) (hat).  The form has some linguistic overlap, the long -e phonetic suffix (variously and inconsistently as -e, -ie, -ee) often appended to create slang forms, affectionate diminutives or to indicate something was a smaller version of an original.  In Indian English for example, a coatee was a hook upon which one hangs one's coat, something unrelated to the original use in English where a coatee was a coat with short flaps, a mid-eighteenth century Americanism, the formation modeled on goatee, a style of beard at the time especially popular south of the Mason-Dixon Line.  Among the colonists and colonial administrators, by the early twentieth century, the most popular word to use was the Hindu topi. 

Symbols of the Raj, the pith helmet and the G&T (gin & tonic).  G&T was a great contribution to civilized life.

Most associated with the military and civil services of the European powers during the colonial period of the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century, pith helmets routinely were issued to or chosen by those going to hot climates.  As a general principle, the army used dark colours and civilians light (even white) helmets but under modern conditions, the military found them not suitable for the battlefield; the British Army withdrawing them from active use in 1948 although they continue to be worn on some ceremonial occasions (the famous plumed helmets are now seen less often).  Widely popular now only in Vietnam where it’s a remnant of French influence, its niche now is in the nostalgia-fashion industry although, as a symbol of white colonialism, use can be controversial.

The Emperor and his viceroy in topis: George V (1865–1936; King of the United Kingdom & Emperor of India 1910-1936) with Lord Hardinge (1858–1944; Viceroy of India 1910-1916), Government House, Calcutta, 1911.

Of fashions under the Raj, the fictional depictions on screen in which white linen suits often predominate can be misleading; pith helmets, especially during the cooler months, were paired with any daywear.  Until December 1911, Calcutta (now Kolkata) was the capital of British India but since the nineteenth century it had emerged as a hotbed of nationalist movements opposed to British rule, the response of Lord Curzon (1859–1925; Viceroy of India 1899-1905 & UK foreign secretary 1919-1924) being the partition of Bengal which made things worse, a massive upsurge in political and religious activity ensuing.  Had that manifested as letters to the editor or even "passive resistance" the British might have been sanguine but what happened was a boycott of British products and institutions and a spike in the assassinations of Calcutta-based officials.  The British rescinded Curzon's act of partition and relocated the colonial government to New Delhi, designating the city the new capital.

Over millennia, there have been many empires and the Raj and other European colonial ventures were just unusually large examples of a long tradition.  While no two empires exactly were alike, nobody has better distilled their (almost always) unstated rationale than George Orwell (1903-1950) who settled on: "theft" [of other peoples' lands, resources, treasure, women etc] and in the history of the Raj, there are a number of inflection points which, in retrospect, came to be seen as markers on the road to "end of empire".  The viceroy's retreat to New Delhi was one such moment and in the 35 years left to the Raj there were others so while the cumulative effects of the two World Wars (1914-1918 & 1939-1945) certainly rendered control of India (and much of the rest of the empire) financially unsustainable for the British, they were merely the Raj's death knell; what would come to be called the "winds of change" had for some time been blowing.

Sir Philip Mitchell (1890–1964) in plumed pith helmet while Governor of Kenya, with African tribal elders, awaiting the arrival of an aircraft during the 1952 royal tour, RAF Eastleigh Aerodrome (Now Moi Air Base), Nairobi, Kenya, February 1952.  

It was during this tour George VI (1895–1952; King of the United Kingdom 1936-1952) would die and his eldest daughter would be recalled from Kenya to London as Elizabeth II (1926-2022; Queen of the UK and other places, 1952-2022).  George VI had been the last Emperor of India, the imperial style a bauble dreamed up in 1876 by Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881, later First Earl of Beaconsfield; UK prime-minister Feb-Dec 1868 & 1874-1880), ostensibly as a means of cementing rule in India and emphasising the British Empire was a notch or two above the others in the geopolitical pecking order but also as a way of flattering Queen Victoria (1819–1901; Queen of the UK 1837-1901), a form of "monarch management" at which old Disraeli was most adept; his technique with royalty he described as "laying it on with a trowel".  Serving earlier as Governor of Uganda (1935–1940) and Governor of Fiji (1942–1944), Sir Philip Mitchell was a classic peripatetic administrator of the type for decades sent here and there by the Colonial Office and plumed pith helmets were one of the symbols of viceroys, governors-general and governors, those with a military background tending to wear them more assuredly.

Lord Lytton (Edward Robert Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1831–1891, Viceroy of India 1876-1880).  As well as pith helmets, under the Raj, there was much dressing up.

By the time World War II ended, few doubted Indian independence would soon be granted; it was a matter just of working out the timing and the mechanism(s).  Intriguingly, even then the pith helmet was understood as something emblematic of colonial oppression and they had become unfashionable, their relegation to a soon to be needed suitcase sometimes a wise precaution, the archives of the India Office (1858-1947) in London including reports of officials wearing them being abused in the streets and even assaulted.  The sociological significance of the pith helmet was discussed in The Wrong Topi: Personal Narratives, Ritual, and the Sun Helmet as a Symbol (1984) by academic folklorists Frank de Caro (1943–2020) and Rosan Jordan (1939–2025) one anecdote illustrating how things had changed.  The language skills of Indian-born General Hastings “Pug” Ismay (1887–1965) and other officers in the British Army who had served in India proved useful during the evacuation from France as they were able to communicate in Hindi over open radio channels without fear of eavesdropping Germans knowing what was being said.  Ismay had left India in 1936 to take up an appointment with the CID (Committee of Imperial Defence) but when he returned in 1947 to become chief of staff to Lord Louis Mountbatten (1900–1979; last viceroy and first governor-general of India 1947-1948) he found it a changed place:

“Ismay was met at New Delhi airport by his old friend, Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck (1884–1981), then commander-in-chief of the Indian Army.  As Ismay stepped down from the plane, he was horrified to see what Auchinleck was wearing on his head: a beret.  Deeply shaken, the only words Ismay could stammer were: ‘My God, Claude!  Where your topi?’  When Ismay, years earlier, had last been in India, the topi had been more than a mere hat.  It had been a veritable icon.  During its heyday from the late nineteenth century to the late 1930s, no European would have thought of being abroad in the noonday sun without a topi squarely planted upon his head, and to have neglected to put one on would have been deemed both improper and unsafe.  All of that had changed by the time of Ismay's return, but the story testifies to the respect that was once accorded to this obligatory headgear.”

Sir Arthur Porritt (1900-1994; Governor-General of New Zealand, 1967-1972), Government House, Wellington, New Zealand, November 1970.

Although New Zealand was not a place of oppressive heat and harsh sunshine, there too, there was a time when governors-general appeared in plumed pith helmets.  A wartime military surgeon, Sir Arthur was a kind of transitional figure as the British Empire became a "Commonwealth of Nations", being New Zealand-born but resident in the UK, he was the country's first first locally born governor-general as all subsequent appointees have been.  In another sign of changing times, Sir Arthur was the last governor-general to wear the full civil uniform and, upon retirement, was raised to the peerage, in 1973 taking his seat in the House of Lords as Baron Porritt of Wanganui and Hampstead.

The exchange between Ismay and Auchinleck was a but footnote in the history of the Raj but seldom has such a brief, insignificant incident so well encapsulated a change so profound and it struck many including the historian Leonard Mosley (1913–1992) who discussed the implications in The Last Days of the British Raj (1961).  Interestingly in Lord Ismay’s own memoirs (1960) the old soldier focused on more the practical aspects of imperial fashion: “Having been brought up in the belief that anyone who failed to wear a pith helmet while the Indian sun was still in the sky was a lunatic, I blurted out, ‘Have you gone mad, Claude?  Where is your topee?’  He replied that, on the contrary, we had all been mad for a hundred years or more to wear such an un-comfortable and unnecessary form of head-gear.”  The shift in sentiment did though appear in a passage in The Jewel in the Crown (1966), the first part of the Raj Quartet (1966-1975) by Paul Scott (1920-1978), set in India during the last years of the Raj.  In the book, there’s a post-war scene in which an officer shocks his more politically aware colleagues by continuing to be attended by a young India manservant, the man blissfully unaware India has moved on while he has not.

Although in Hindi topi meant simply “hat”, by the end of the eighteenth century it had been re-purposed as a synecdoche, Europeans in India habitually referred to by the native inhabitants as “topi-wallahs” (ie wearers of hats rather than turbans).  From there, the term became more specialized and by the mid-1800s, almost exclusively it had become associated with a particular type of hat, the sun helmet which, with its relatively high crown and a wider brim, became so emblematic of European colonialism it was used in advertising and illustrations for many purposes.  Not only that but in India it became for the colonial administrators and many settlers a kind of uniform and a form of cultural assertion, one recounting: “The topi was a fetish; it was a tribal symbol. If you did not wear a topi you were not merely silly, you were a cad. You were a traitor.  You had gone native.”

Lindsay Lohan in pith helmet with riding crop, rendered as a line drawing by Vovsoft.

That attitude illustrates the role of the pith helmet in a way a structural functionalist would understand and may have more efficacy that Lord Ismay’s view of it as an essential tool of sun protection.  Even in the earlier days of the old East India Company, the staff physicians had argued sunstroke was the result of a rise in general body temperature and not necessarily from direct exposure to the sun, some even arguing the head was not especially susceptible to heat; they noted Indian adult males got along quite well with a different type of head protection and Indian women and children generally wore little or none.  While the pith helmet was not exclusive to India, it had not widely been adopted in other hot parts of the British Empire (such as outback Australia, the Americas or parts of Africa) and historians have speculated the real importance was psychological, a reassuring symbol of continuity.  Certainly, recent research has shown hats with wider brims provide much better protection from the sun but there was a ritualism associated with the things, diaries of travellers noting how passengers on ships routinely would put on their pith helmet after passing through the Suez Canal on their way to India and barely taking it off until entering the Mediterranean on the voyage home.  In short, it was a badge of Anglo-Indian identity.

In other words, it was an assertion of Britishness or “whiteness” in that it was a type of headgear worn by Europeans and very seldom by Indians.  Tellingly, those of mixed European and Indian ancestry, wore topis with even more enthusiasm than the English themselves; with the zeal of the convert as it were.  Jokes about Eurasians wearing pith helmets at inappropriate times (such as with pyjamas, in the bath or during moments of intimacy) became legion.  One often neglected aspect of the pith helmet shifting during the last days of the Raj from a symbol of authority to one of shame was that the nature of the British presence in India changed dramatically during the war as a consequence of the sub-continent’s strategic significance to the Far East Theatre.  During the conflict, a huge number arrived from the UK (military and civilian) and they often were of a different social class than those who had for a century made up the Anglo-Indian community, the overwhelming majority of them of type who would in pre-war conditions never have contemplated even a visit.  Putting a pith helmet on them did not a topi-wallah make and the old establishment knew the end was nigh, the demise of the hat not a cause but a harbinger of a change which had begun long before “the stroke of the midnight hour”.

Topi-wallah Melania Trump (b 1970; FLOTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) in pith helmet, on safari, Kenya, October, 2018.

In common with the more stylish FLOTUSes, Melania Trump’s choice of clothing pften has been analysed in search of political meaning, a deconstruction her husband escaped except for the commentary about the length he chose to allow his ties to hang and those observations were more personal than political.  Mrs Trump, doubtless well aware of the media's interest, wore a pith helmet while on safari near Nairobi, Kenya, attracting from the left criticism for donning a symbol of white colonial rule while from the right, approvingly it was observed a pith helmet had never looked so good.

Presumably, even if unaware she was courting controversy (which is unlikely), the White House would have spelled out the implications so the pith helmet must have been worn to be provocative and the reaction wouldn’t have been unexpected because a few weeks earlier, while visiting a migrant child detention centre, she choose a Zara jacket (US$39) emblazoned across the back with the words “I REALLY DON'T CARE, DO U?”  Clearly a garment for a photo-opportunity, it was worn not while in the presence of the children but only when entering the aircraft and helicopter used for the trip.  The press of course sought comment which elicited from the White House the expected contradictory responses which from day one has typified the media-management of the Trump administration.

Melania Trump in Zara jacket from the spring/summer 2016 collection, 2018.

The feeling among the press was that whatever the origins of the approach, the “confected confusion” was a deliberate strategy, unlike what prevailed under the previous administration of Joe Biden (b 1942; US president 2021-2025) which was merely “confused”.  Regarding the Zara jacket, the POTUS said the message was there for the “fake news media” while the FLOTAS’s communications chief insisted it was “just a jacket” and there was “no hidden message”.  Mrs Trump herself later (sort of) clarified things, telling ABC News the jacket “…was a kind of message, yes”, adding it was obvious she “…didn't wear the jacket for the children” and it was donned only “…to go on the plane and off the plane.... It was for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticizing me.  I want to show them I don't care.  You could criticize whatever you want to say.  But it will not stop me to do what I feel is right.”  Mrs Trump went on to reiterate her own critique of the media for being “obsessed” with what she wears, noting it was only the jacket which attracted attention rather than any matters to do with child detention or immigration more broadly: “I would prefer they would focus on what I do and on my initiatives than what I wear.”  It might seem curious a former model would express surprise at interest being taken in the clothes a woman wears but, well aware nothing can be done about that, she has proved more adept at weaponizing messages than most White House staff have managed.

Pit

Pit (pronounced pit)

(1) A naturally formed or excavated hole or cavity in the ground.

(2) A covered or concealed excavation in the ground, serving as a trap for animals.

(3) In extractive mining, an excavation made in exploring for or removing a mineral deposit (also known (at scale) as “open-cut” as opposed to “underground” (although in casual use sometime used also of the mineshafts used in underground operations.  It can in mining slang also refer to an entire mine site, regardless of the mode of extraction.

(4) The stone of a fruit (cherry, peach, plum etc) and technically, the hard, inner layer (the endocarp) of certain drupes.

(5) The abode of evil spirits and lost souls; hell; the depths of Hades.

(6) In slang (as “the pits”) an extremely unpleasant, boring, or depressing place, condition, person, etc; the absolute worst (used also as a clipping of armpits).

(7) A hollow or indentation in a surface (in substances like glass or when referring to surfaces (paint, varnish etc), treated usually as an imperfection).

(8) In physiology, natural hollow or depression in the body, organ, structure or part; fossa (used most often of the small of the back).

(9) In medicine, a small, indented scar, as one of at the site of a former pustule after smallpox, chicken pox or similar diseases; a pockmark.

(10) In music, a section of the marching band containing mallet percussion instruments and other large percussion instruments too large to march, such as the tam tam; the area on the side-lines where these instruments are placed.

(11) In botany, any of various small areas in a plant cell wall that remain un-thickened when the rest of the cell becomes lignified (used especially of the vascular tissue).

(12) In archaeology, a hole or trench in the ground, excavated according to grid coordinates, so that the provenance of any feature observed and any specimen or artefact revealed may be established by precise measurement.

(13) An enclosure, usually below the level of the spectators, as for staging fights between dogs, cocks, or, formerly, bears (as cockpit later extended to aircraft, cars, boats etc).

(14) In physical markets (such as a commodity exchange), a part of the floor of the exchange where trading is conducted (known in some places as “as open outcry pits” because transactions were done by traders shouting offers & acceptances at each other).

(15) In architecture, all that part of the main floor of a theatre behind the musicians (in UK use also the main floor of a theatre behind the stalls); sometimes used as “orchestra pit” (the area that is occupied by the orchestra in a theatre, located in front of the stage)

(16) In a hoist-way, a space below the level of the lowest floor served.

(17) In motorsport, an area at the side of a track, for servicing and refueling the cars (the use later adopted by cycle racing).

(18) In ten-pin bowling, the sunken area of a bowling alley behind the pins, for the placement or recovery of pins that have been knocked down.

(19) In track athletics,  the area forward of the take-off point in a jumping event, as the broad jump or pole vault, that is filled with sawdust or soft earth to lessen the force of the jumper's landing.

(20) In casinos, the area or room containing gambling tables.

(21) In aviation, the part of the aircraft (usually the bottom of the fuselage) given over to freight; a luggage hold.

(22) In American football, the centre of the line.

(23) In hospital slang, the emergency department.

(24) Literally, the bottom part (lowest point) of something; figuratively an undesirable location (especially if dirty, dangerous etc).

(25) In military slang, a bed (some evidence also of civilian (presumably ex-military) use).

(26) In nuclear physics, the core of an implosion nuclear weapon, consisting of the fissile material and any neutron reflector or tamper bonded to it.

(27) To mark or indent with pits or depressions.

(28) In medicine, to scar with pockmarks.

(29) In physiology (of body tissue) temporarily to retain a mark of pressure, as by a finger, instrument, etc.

(30) To place or bury something in a pit, as for storage.

(31) To set in opposition or combat, as one against another (usually in the forms “pit against” or “pitted against”).

(32) In motorsport, to exit from the track, entering the pits, to permit the pit-crew to effect a pit-stop.

(33) To remove the stone of a fruit (cherry, peach, or plum), sometimes with the use of a pitter (if something done vocationally, by a pitter, usually with the use of a pitter).

Pre 900: From the Middle English noun pit, pittle, pite, pute, put & putte, from the Old English pytt (natural or man-made depression in the ground, water hole, well; grave (the Kentish variation was “pet”), from the Proto-West Germanic puti, from the Proto-Germanic putt- (pool, puddle) which was the source also of the Old Frisian pet, the Old Saxon putti, the Old Norse pyttr, the Middle Dutch putte, the Dutch put, the Old High German pfuzza and the German Pfütze (pool, puddle), an early borrowing from Latin puteus (pit, trench, shaft) (etymologists noting the phonetic difficulties which exist also in the speculated relationship between puteus and the primitive Indo-European root pau- (to cut, strike, stamp).  Because the short u makes it unlikely puteus was from paviō (to strike), it might instead be linked to putāre (to prune) but the distance between the meanings makes etymologists just as sceptical and some suggest puteus may be a loanword though the spelling might be mysterious.  The use in the context of stone fruit was an Americanism dating from 1841, from the Dutch pet (kernel, seed, marrow), from the Middle Dutch pitte & pit (kernel, core (and cognate with pith)), from the Proto-Germanic pittan (the dialectal German Pfitze (pimple) was an oblique of the Proto-Germanic piþō), from the Proto-Germanic pithan- (source of pith).  Like the use in other contexts, each instance of the verb was derivative of the noun.  Pit is a noun & verb, pitter is a noun and pitted & pitting are verbs; the noun plural is pits.

Ford GT40 pit-stop, Sebring 12 Hours, International Championship for Makes, Sebring, March 1966.

The meaning “abode of evil spirits, hell” dates from the late twelfth century, one of the many means in the medieval world of referring to hell.  The meaning “very small depression or dent in the surface of an object” was in use by the early 1400s, the anatomical sense of “natural depression or hollow in some part of the body” from more than a century earlier.  The “pit of the stomach” was in the literature by the 1650s and it was so-called from the slight depression there between the ribs; the earlier terms used by doctors were the late fourteenth century breast-pit and heart-pit from circa 1300.  The meaning “part of a theatre on the floor of the house, lower than the stage” was known by the 1640s while in market trading, the sense of “that part of the floor of an exchange where business is carried on” was first documented in 1903 as a coining in US English.

One of the high-water marks of the analog era: cockpit of the Anglo-French Concorde.

The phrase money-pit in the sense of “an edifice or project requiring constant outlay of cash with little to show for it” is quite modern, dating only from 1986 and assumed derived from the popular movie of the same name of the same name released that year (though it’s not impossible it had earlier been in regional use).  The prior use had been in the 1930s when it was used of the shaft on Oak Island, Nova Scotia which legend suggested would lead one to treasure buried by Captain Kidd or some other pirate.  Popular Mechanics magazine in September noted wryly the term might better refer to the millions spent trying to get the treasure out than the hoard of gold itself and in 2022, entrepreneurial engineer Elon Musk (b 1971) produced a variation, describing the factories in Europe building the electric Tesla cars as “money furnaces”.  The ash-pit (repository for ashes, especially the lower part of a furnace) dates from 1797 and it replaced the earlier (1640s) ash-hole, reflecting the implications of industrialization as forges and furnaces grew larger.  The venomous snake the pit-viper was so-named in 1872 because of the characteristic depression between the eyes and nose.  In commercial forestry, the pit-saw was first described in the 1670s, referring to a large saw operated by two men, one (the pit-sawyer) standing in the pit below the log being sawed, the other (the top-sawyer) standing atop.  Pitman was one of a wealth of vocationally-derived surnames which began to appear late in the twelfth century and it referred to one who dwelled literally “in or by a pit or hollow”, the use to describe someone who “works in a pit or mine” not documented until 1761.  Pitman shorthand, a popular form of hand-written transcription of spoken-word text which could later be read by a typist (often the “shorthand-taker) came into use in the 1860s, having been devised by English teacher & publisher (and devoted vegetarian) Sir Isaac Pitman (1813-1897) in 1837.  The phrase “flea-pit” dates from the 1920s and was used of cinemas, an allusion to the seats being infested with fleas or other bugs.

A Lindsay Lohan pit-stop from the blooper tape, Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005).

The noun armpit was a mid-fourteenth century description of the “hollow place under the shoulder” and it ran in parallel with the earlier arm-hole although the latter use faded as it came to be used of clothing and as an anatomical descriptor it was obsolete by the mid seventeenth century.  There was also the early fifteenth century asselle, from the Old French asselle, from the Latin axilla but armpit prevailed.  The colloquial phrase “armpit of the nation” was used as a term of derision for any place thought ugly and disgusting and it’s not clear when it emerged but it was well-documented from the early 1960s.  The general term “the pits” was a variation and from late in the twentieth century applied to anything or anyone thought the worse possible of their type (ie based on something hairy, smelly and ugly).  Infamously, it was used by the US tennis player John McEnroe (b 1959) who at Wimbledon in 1981 called an umpire “the pits of the world” during one of their discussions.  The noun pitter (curved instrument for removing stones from cherries and other fruit” appeared in 1868 when pitters were made available as a commercial product (doubtlessly they had for centuries been improvised or adapted from other utensils) and where they were used vocationally, the user was also called a pitter, the same linguistic process which produced the dual use of shucker in the oyster business (the termed adopted also by others).  Pit-a-pat & pitter-pat, being imitative, are wholly unrelated and date from the 1520s, the noun emerging in 1580.

Boeing 787 Dreamliner cockpit.

The original cockpits were first described in the 1580s and were a “pit or enclosed space for fighting cocks”, the use soon extended to any space in which animals were set to fight to the death, the audience betting on the outcome.  From this came the verb use “to pit against” which meant “to put or set in or into a pit” and this soon extended to boxing; by the eighteenth century in figurative use it was used on any conflict, argument or rivalry.  The general verb use (make pits in; form a small pit or hollow) had been in used (as pit, pitted & pitting) by the late fifteenth century.  The dog breed pit-bull dates from 1922 and was short for pit-bull terrier (first registered in 1912), a type noted for its aggression a fighting abilities.  Cockpit was used of ships early in the eighteenth century of midshipmen's compartment below decks and in some cases was later applied also to the enclosed cabins located towards the centre of the deck began to replace the steerage systems at the stern (later universally known as the “bridge”).  It was picked up for the pilot’s compartment in aircraft in 1914 and (by extension) was used in racing cars in the 1930s.  The word cesspit was created in the 1860s because advances in plumbing meant something was needed to distinguish more modern systems handling sewerage from the earlier cesspool, in use since the 1670s.  The mid fourteenth century pitfall (concealed hole into which a person or animal may fall unawares) was a description of a physical danger which came into figurative in the early 1600s to refer to “any hidden danger or concealed source of disaster.  In mining, a pitfall could also be literally a collapse of the internal structure of a mineshaft, sometime because of the catastrophic failure of pit-props (the timbers which provided the structural integrity of a shaft).  Sometimes a mile or more deep, pitfalls frequently were fatal and the death-toll among miners was high, the phrase “pit-hell” often heard.

The original pits at the Indianapolis Speedway, 1913. 

It was difficult and expensive (and often impossible) to lift heavy machinery to allow mechanics to work on engines or other components so, where possible, it was better to construct a pit underneath from which people could work.  The concept was well documented in workshops by 1839 and the term was by 1912 picked up in motorsport to describe the “area at the side of a track where cars are serviced and repaired” and the early pits were often holes in the ground with waist-high surrounds in which the crew could stand.  They were used also to store spare tyres, parts lubricants etc.  As the sport boomed, the pits quickly became fully enclosed service areas and even garages, built along pit-lane.  When a driver brought his car into the pits (located on the stretch of track called pit-straight), they were said to be pitting to be worked on by the pit crew who might during the pit-stop make repairs, re-fuel or change tyres, either in front of or behind the pit-wall.  Pit crew became a popular term beyond the tracks, used of airline baggage handlers, sea-port staff etc.

The pit-babes from the era of (obvious) sponsorship by tobacco companies: Coming or going, they always looked good.

In motorsport, a pit-babe is an attractive young lady who is in the pits for some reason, not necessarily directly related to the competition.  The companion term was Grid-Girl, equally attractive specimens with the role of (1) looking good and (2) appearing on the grid while the cars were assembled prior to the start, shielding the driver from the elements with a large umbrella, festooned with corporate logos.  It was nice work if you could get it but the Grid Girls are now rarely seen in Formula 1.  In 2017, Liberty Media (owners of Formula 1) announced that with the coming of the 2018 season, the Grid Girls would be replaced by “Grid Kids” (boys and girls competing in junior and “entry level” categories such as karting, the explanation being the practice of using Grid Girls was “not aligned with modern societal norms and F1's brand values.”  F1’s “brand values” are however underpinned by “dollar values” and in the years since Grid Girls (officially promotional personnel) have sometimes been allowed to adorn the grid.

Comrade Grid Girls, Hungarian Grand Prix, 1986.  

Dr Henry Kissinger (1923-2023; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1973-1977) once recalled his most pervasive memory of life behind the iron curtain being one of “dull grayness and the smell of boiled cabbage”.  Clearly, old Henry didn’t get a pit pass to the 1986 Hungarian Grand Prix where things were bright and colourful.  The 1986 Hungarian Grand Prix was notable because it was the first such event in the country for half a century and the first as a top-flight race, the 1936 Grand Prix not being part of the European championship and run under Formula Libre rules (there should be more Formula Libre events).  Not in Hungry or anywhere else in 1936 were there pit babes or grid girls but on that sunny June day, a woman had been entered for the event, England’s Eileen Ellison (1910–1967) listed for the grid driving a 3.0 litre, straight-8 Maserati 8CM.  Unfortunately, there were what would now be called “supply chain interruption” and her Maserati was DNA (Did not Appear) so Ms Ellison appears in the race record as a DNS (Did not Start).

End of an era: Grid Girls in Marlboro livery at the Hungarian Grand Prix, 2005.

It turned out to be a bad day for the Mercedes-Benz team, the W25 which had in 1934 been revolutionary now outclassed and all three were DNFs (Did not Finish), the race won by the mercurial Italian Tazio Nuvolari (1892–1953) in a 3.8 litre straight-8 Alfa Romeo 8C 35, entered by Scuderia Ferrari.  Held in August as the eleventh race of the 1986 series, that year’s Hungarian Grand Prix was the first in the country since 1936 and was the first Formula 1 World Championship (contested since 1950) race to be held behind the Iron Curtain; it was attended by some 200,000 spectators (drawn substantially from around the Eastern Bloc), a number not seen since the inter-war years and a mark not exceeded until the 1995 Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide.  The race was won by Nelson Piquet in a Williams Honda.  The Hungarian Grand Prix returned to the record books in 2005 when the “XXI Marlboro Magyar Nagydij” became the last Grand Prix to be sponsored by a tobacco company, half the field running in the livery of the tobacco industry, West, Mild Seven, Lucky Strike, Malboro and Benson & Hedges all colourfully represented.  With the EU’s (European Union (1993)), the multi-national aggregation which evolved from the EEC (European Economic Community), the Zollverein formed in 1957) ban of tobacco advertising coming into force on 31 July, 2005 (race day!), there ended over four decades of cigarette sponsorship in Formula 1, most teams keeping the livery until the last possible moment, the stickers appearing during qualifying and peeled off only shortly before the machines were wheeled to the starting grid (although Ferrari, Renault and Jordan rebelled and kept the logos without consequences).  Of course, the EU’s law-change meant the pit babes and grid girls also got new outfits although cunningly, the designs often featured shapes and colors recalling the distinctive packaging used for cigarette cartons so the message got through, and ways were explored to find techniques so the cars could also continue as moving billboards.    

Turban

Turban (pronounced tur-buhn)

(1) A man's headdress, associated particularly with Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs in South Asia (but with a long tradition of use in many places), consisting of a long lengths of silk, linen, cotton etc, swathed either about a cap-like base or directly around the head.

(2) Any headdress resembling this.

(3) In fashion, any of various off-the-face hats for women that are close-fitting, of a soft fabric, and brimless, or that have a narrow, sometimes draped, brim.

(4) In zoology, the complete set of whorls of a spiral shell.

1555-1565: From fifteenth century Middle French turbant, from the Italian turbante, from the Old Italian tolipante, from the Ottoman Turkish دلبند‎ (tülbent) (gauze, muslin, tulle), from the Persian دلبند‎ (dolband) (turban) (which was the source also of “tulip”.  The obsolete alternative forms were turbant & tulipant.  For reasons related presumably to traditions of pronunciation, the spelling change from “l” to “r” may have happened in Portuguese India and from there picked up in other European languages.  Long a men's headdress, in the late eighteenth century variations of the style became popular as women’s fashion.  The alternative spellings of turbaned & turbaning are turbanned & turbanning and there derived forms are enturban, enturbanment, enturbanning & beturbaned.  Turban is a noun; tubaned & turbanning are verbs and turban-& turbanesque are adjectives; the noun plural is turbans.

Lindsay Lohan in turban, in costume during the filming of Liz & Dick (2012).

Quite when and where the turban originated is unknown but few doubt it was one of the earliest forms of headwear, adopted presumably for warmth or protection from the elements, the link to matter of cultural significance or fashion emerging as societies developed.  The essence of a turban is that it’s a form of headwear created by swathing long lengths of silk, linen, cotton etc either about a cap-like base or directly around the head.  Although in the popular imagination it seems most associated with the cultures of South Asia (notably in Sikhism), the practice is neither geographically specific nor or necessity vested with religious meaning although for many, the wearing of a turban is certainly devotional.  The tradition can be found throughout much of Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans, the Caucasus and in Asia.  A similar garment was the puggry (also spelled pagari, pagri, pugaree, puggaree, puggerie, puggery, puggree, puggri & pugree), from the Hindi.  It was a strip of cloth wound around the upper portion of a hat (particularly a pith helmet), and falling down behind to act as a shade for the back of the neck.  Some women do wear a classic turban but in fashion, the style called a turban is actually a spectrum of hats which to some extent emulate the appearance of a turban although they are “pre-wrapped” as it were, ready-to-wear and close-fitting, constructing using soft materials and either brimless or with a narrow (sometimes draped), brim.  In the industry jargon, they’re an “off-the-face” hat.

Devout Sikh holy man Avtar Singh Mauni (b 1954) wears a turban consisting of 645 m (2120 feet) of fabric which the Guinness World Records has verified as the longest known to exist.  Weighing around 45 kg (100 lb) (the same length as 13 Olympic standard swimming pools or 1¼ quarter-mile (400 m) drag strips), it takes some six hours to wrap.  Mr Sauni added length to his turban for over a decade until the impressive length was achieved although it does necessitate certain lifestyle changes, doorways some time challenging and he can't fit inside a car, travelling usually by Royal Enfield motorcycle.  Most Sikh turbans use between 5-7 m (16-23 feet) of fabric but Mr Mauni says the principle of swathing are the same regardless of length, the wrapping proceeding “from top to bottom one layer at a time just like you would lay the storeys of a building.”