Harlequin

Harlequin (pronounced hahr-luh-kwin or hahr-luh-kin)

(1) A stock comic character, depicted usually wearing a black mask and dressed in multicolored, diamond-patterned tights, often with a wooden sword or magic wand (often with initial capital)

(2) In theater, the most famous of the zanni (the comic servant characters) from the Italian commedia dell'arte (from the Italian Arlecchino or one of its many variants (Arlechin, Arlechì et al) which was associated with the city of Bergamo.  In English the character is best known as the foppish lover of Columbine in the English harlequinade.  The original spelling in Italian was Harlicken.

(3) A jester; a buffoon or oaf-like character; the pantomime fool.

(4) Any of various small snakes having bright diamond-pattern scales.

(5) Anything fancifully varied in color, decoration etc and in commerce sometimes of a specific product (such as harlequin ice-cream) and the eighteenth century English adjective particoloured is a reference to the absurdity of a Harlequin’s costume.

(6) Of a greenish-chartreuse color (a specialized use in certain industries and used sometimes both as harlequin-green & harlequin-yellow).

(7) A clipping of “harlequin's mask”.

(8) In writing, something comic, ludicrous or absurd.

(9) In geology, a classification of opal,

(10) In fashion, the use of multi-color combinations in other than an obviously discernible pattern.

(11) In medicine, as harlequin-type ichthyosis, (also clipped as harlequin ichthyosis), a severe genetic disorder that results in thickened skin over nearly the entire body at birth (“harlequin baby” & “harlequin foetus” the historic medical slang although use of both is now often discouraged.

(12) In zoology (as a modifier in the names of certain animals) having a white or light-hued coat with irregular patches of black or other dark colors including various snakes, ducks (used informally), a bat, a moth, a species of darter fish, the mantis shrimp, some insects & beetles and any of various riodinid butterflies of the genera Taxila and Praetaxila.

(13) To remove or conjure away, as if by a harlequin's trick; to perform antics or play ludicrous tricks.

1580–1590: From the French harlequin, from the Middle French arlequin & harlequin, semantically (and in part phonetically), from the Italian arlecchino, from the Middle French, phonetically continuing unattested the Old French mesniee Herlequin (more often appearing as la maisnie Hellequin (the household of Hellequin) although the spellings Harlequin, Halequin, Herlequin, Hierlekin & Hellekin also appear) (a malevolent spirit; leader of band of demon horsemen who rode at night (literally “Hellequin's escort”)), perhaps from the Middle English Herle (the (unattested) King Herle, a figure of legend identified with Woden), from the Old English Herla Cyning (or Herela Cyning; Helle cyn) (King Herle), rendered in the Anglo-Latin as Herla rex and related to the Middle English Hurlewain (a mischievous sprite or goblin).  Although it’s uncertain, etymologists think it likely the Old English forms were related to the Old Frisian helle kin and the Old Norse heljar kyn (the kindred of Hell).  One quirk noted in the theatrical history is the earliest known depictions of Harlequin are of a crass and bumbling servant rather than the amusing and magical hero familiar in the nineteenth century which would imply the accepted story of the origin being with the world of demonic horsemen and dark spirits might be suspect.  The other curiosity is the earliest known reference in a French text but it lists him among Italian characters, so the Italian origin remains probable.  .  Because of its origin in the name of an Italian theatrical character, Harlequin is often used as a proper noun (although the appearance of the initial capital is often incorrect).  Harlequin is a noun & adjective, harlequinade, harlequinery & harlequinism are nouns, harlequining & harlequined are verbs and harlequinesque & harlequin-like are adjectives; the noun plural is harlequins.

The logo and home-kit colors of Harlequin Football Club (1866).  A rugby union club and usually referred to as “Harlequins”, they're based at the Twickenham Stoop in south-west London.

The Germanic links includes the Old High German Herilo (a personal name, derivative of heri (armed forces) and the ultimate source of the Modern German Herres (Army), thus the World War II (1939-1945) institution OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres; the army high command), the companion structures being OKL (Oberkommando der Luftwaffe: the air force high command) & OKM (Oberkommando der Marine: the navy high command), all three structurally subordinate to OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht: the armed forces high command).  To the Allies that was a familiar military structure and it was only after the war it came to be understood how little coordination was imposed by OKW.

Clockwise from main image: Arlecchino, Arlequine, Arlequin & Colombine.  Commedia dell'arte costumes from Maurice Sand's Masques et Bouffons (Masks & Jesters), Paris 1860.

The English comic theatrical genre harlequinade evolved between the seventeen & nineteenth centuries and was a form in which clowns (not all of them in traditional harlequin garb) were the principal protagonists & antagonists.  Originally a physical form of comedy very much in the tradition of the Italian commedia dell'arte in which there were five main characters, the most celebrated of which were Harlequin and his lover Columbine, it evolved from a mime performance with music and a form of dance which, although choreographed, was designed to appear to the audience as unstructured and sometimes chaotic.  Dialogue was introduced as the appeal began to wane but the focus was always on the colorful visual spectacle, usually as relatively brief, intense performances being staged as a prelude to longer musicals, operas or even ballet.  In English theatre, the popularity of harlequinade endured until World War I (1914-1918), historians of theatre noting its successful adaptation to changing conditions in what was becoming a more crowded environment by incorporating increasingly elaborate stage effects.  The advent of cinema in the 1920s was the death knell for harlequinade which, labor-intensive and demanding a large inventory of props and equipment, had become an expensive production although the legacy lingers in the some aspects of the Christmas pantomimes which in the UK remain popular annual events.  The words pantomime entered English in the sixteenth or seventeenth century and was from the Latin pantomīmus, from the Ancient Greek παντόμιμος (pantómimos), the construct being πᾶς (pâs), (each, all) + μιμέομαι (miméomai) (I mimic), thus analyzed as “all on stage miming”, the name persisting as a generic description even after dialogue had been introduced to the performances.

1960s Volkswagen advertizing in the US: inverted snobbery.

In a brief era of unprecedented and not since repeated general affluence, Volkswagen in 1960s America wasn’t able to compete with the domestic manufacturers with advertizing emphasizing the qualities they liked to project: power, speed, style and in some cases, sheer size.  Instead they used a technique the industry called “inverted snobbery” which wasn’t new but the Volkswagen advertizing of the time is thought still a classic example of the type.  Knowing the Beetle had a reputation for being slow, small and anything by stylish, the campaign took those perceptions and presented them as virtues, with wry humor emphasizing practicality and economy of operation.

1960s Volkswagen advertizing in the US, the first VW “Harlequin” (the term not then used).

Also, at a time when Detroit made annual changes, often with no purpose other than to ensure the new cars in the showrooms looked different for last year’s model so status-conscious buyers would be stimulated to update, Volkswagen made a point of the Beetle looking much the same from season-to-season, one from 1954 barely distinguishable from the 1964 model.  For a number of reasons, the company choose usually to run the copy in black & white but there was one which really had to be in color: it featured a Beetle assembled with various panels from models made over five years, each in a different color, the harlequinesque effect said to have been achieved with physical paint on metal rather than air-brushing a photograph (doubts have be cast).  As well as the subliminal messaging about timelessness, there was the practical aspect of parts interchangeability which, so it was asserted, made spare parts more readily available, something which should presumably was intended to work in unison with the advertisement suggesting the most likely need for those parts would be if one let one’s wife drive.  That one might not be published today.

Der Polo Harlekin: Home market propaganda, 1995.

Whether carefully bolted together or just an air-brushed photograph, the harlequinesque Beetle might have remained a footnote in the annals of advertizing had not something apparently unrelated appeared in the 1990s.  It’s all a bit murky but it’s clear that somewhere within Volkswagen (the tales vary), as an allusion to the soon to be announced “block construction” concept (green=paintwork; blue=engines & chassis; yellow=interior; red=special equipment), ten of the new VW Polos were built using panels of four different colors (Chagallblau (Chagall Blue, LD5D), Flashrot (Flash Red, LP3G), Ginstergelb (Ginster Yellow, L132) & Pistazie-grün (Pistachio Green, LD6D) for use as promotional vehicles.  A popular attraction after first appearing at the Frankfurt Motor Show, the much photographed cars generated so much publicity a further ten were built the following year to meet the demand from dealers who wanted one to display in their showrooms.  Selfies weren’t then a thing but many turned up to be snapped by a camera wielding companion and, most unexpectedly, dealers were reporting customers actually wanting to buy one.

Polo Harlekin color chart.

Despite this, Volkswagen’s corporate management wasn’t convinced there would be sufficient demand to make a production run viable but the inquiries from the public continued so a market study was conducted which confirmed the cult was real and it was announced that if 1000 were ordered, 1000 would be produced.  As a novelty, there were also 1000 key-chains with numbered certificates and this was to rationalize the production process because the buyers couldn’t choose the base color (ie the welded components: the color of the chassis, identified by roof, C-pillars, rocker panels & what lay beneath the plastic moldings, carpets and engine bay which was of some legal significance because it was the colored associated with ownership title and VIN (Vehicle Identification Number).  The 1000 were thus produced but in a what sounds a remarkably inefficient way, each Polo Harlekin painted as used on the standard production-line in the base color and then by hand disassembled and reassembled in accordance with the schedule of the Polo Harlekin color chart, the trick being that no two removable panels of the same color were touching.  In the 1960s, the colors had been about engineering; by the 1990s, it was all art.

Polo Harlekin brochure.  The look does seem something which wouldn't appeal to the stereotypical German; it may be they sold well to Bavarians, it being hard to imagine a Prussian driving one. 

Despite the labor intensive nature of production, presumably the accountants would have calculated things and worked out it was less expensive than disrupting the production lines, the same conclusion the Ford Motor Company had reached in 1969 when arranging a small run of Mustangs with the Boss 429 engine.  In the manner typical of such “specials”, added touches included a bright blue leather for the steering wheel, “Joker” plaid upholstery for the sport seats (so admired it would later appear in the “Joker” edition Polo), a Harlekin sticker on the hatch, blue piped floor mats, and Harlekin gear-shift knob.  The other options were the usual array for the Polo, the only surprise for one being which of the four color combinations one would receive when arriving to collect one’s Polo Harlekin.  The 1000 however didn’t satisfy demand so a further 2806 ended up being built, some even with right-hand-drive (RHD), all of which appear to have been sold in the UK, buyers in Australia, Japan and New Zealand denied the pleasure of their own Polo Harlekin.

1996 Volkswagen Golf Harlequin (US market).  The Americans didn't take to the cult as the Europeans had.

Inspired by the European’s embrace of the Harlekin concept, Volkswagen’s North American operation decided the new world too shouldn’t be denied the particoloured treat and in 1996, 264 Mark 3 Golfs (the VW formerly and briefly later known as the Rabbit) were produced for sale in the US, all of course configured with left-hand-drive (LHD), the main visual difference being the use of Tornadorot (Tornado Red, LY3D) while in accordance with local habits, most had automatic gearboxes.  Demand never went close to matching that in Europe and some sat in dealer stock for some time and one dealer in Georgia with eight on his hands had them re-made into single-color cars to attract buyers, the only remaining hint of difference the unique pattern in the gray upholstery.  It echoes what some Plymouth dealers resorted to in 1970 & 1971 to shift the remaining outlandish looking Superbirds (now expensive collectable), buyers of the standard Road Runner then easier to find.  The Golf Harlequins haven’t attained quite that status but the oddballs have a following among VW enthusiasts and seem now to command a small price premium.

Made in Mexico.  1996 Volkswagen Beetle Harlequin.

There was one more Volkswagen Harlequin and it was the rarest of all.  Although production in Germany ended in 1978 (the last cabriolets sold in the US the following year), Beetle production in Brazil lasted until 1996 and in Mexico until 2003.  Officially, all of the Beetle Harlequins were produced in Mexico for the home market and it seems some 141 were made, apparently hand painted on Ginster Yellow bases.  Some have been photographed in Brazil but the factory denied involvement and, given Brazil’s long tradition of improvisation in such matters, it’s likely they were efforts by enterprising owners although it’s not impossible at least some were Mexican 

Nu en Jaune (Nude in Yellow (1908)), oil on canvas by Sonia Delaunay, Musée d'Arts de Nantes (The Museum of fine arts, Nantes, France).

In the sense the colourful Volkswagens are understood, “harlequin” cars predate not only the ventures of the 1990s which came at the dawn of the internet as a mass-market commodity but even the advertisement of 1960.  French artist Sonia Delaunay (1885–1979) was born in Odessa but was adopted by a rich uncle, became multi-lingual, toured the great capitals of Europe and at 18 entered the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe (Karlsruhe State Academy of Art) in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.  After two years, she enrolled at the Académie de La Palette (The Palette Academy; 1888-1925) in Paris which had begun as a progressive art school but early in the century it evolved into a kind of finishing school (an “un foutu terrain de reproduction” (a damned breeding ground) according to some critics) for the avant-garde; the alumni of this short-lived institution is a notable list.

The Ball (1913 and originally Le Bal Bullier (the name of a Parisian ballroom)), oil on canvas by Sonia Delaunay, Centre Pompidou, Paris.  Some 3½ m (12 feet) wide, it is a classic piece in the school of Orphism.

Delaunay’s early work reflected both her academic training and the influences swirling around her but what was always striking was her use of color and a reluctance to adhere to the naturalistic.  These tendencies manifested especially in her role as one of the leading practitioners of Orphism, a fork of Cubism which usually is described as an exercise in pure abstraction rendered in vivid colors.  It was in part a reaction to the focus of the mainstream cubist artists on substantive subjects such as people or physical objects and their obvious aversion to using multiple color but as often seems to happen, Orphism did seem to evolve into of l'art pour l'art (art for art's sake).  Orphism seems to have been the at least the conduit through which Delaunay left the world of fine art an applied her talents to fashion, publications, fabrics, wallpaper industrial structures and machines, some of the most memorable of which were cars.

Escarpins (Court Shoes) (1925) by Sonia Delaunay, Musée de la mode et du textile, Paris (Museum of Fashion and Textiles, 1905-1986) (left) and Propeller (Air Pavilion) (1937), oil on canvas by Sonia Delaunay, a wall-sized work painted for the 1937 Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques (International Exhibition of Arts and Techniques Applied to Modern Life) (right). 

From Orphism she brought what she called “simultaneity”, the exercise of the interplay of colors, shapes and textures within the one visual space", a dynamic she would play with when posing with some of her creations, wearing clothing also rendered in the “simultaneity” style.  Even early in the century there had been “stunts” and debates about “what is art” and there is much in what Delaunay produced which can be seen as a precursor to later movements like surrealism and pop art although for those who want to deconstruct as reductively as the record allows, in a sense the path from some elements in prehistoric cave drawings to Dame Vivienne Westwood (1941–2022)  is lineal (with the odd diversion).

Vogue, January 1925, cover art by Georges Lepape.

Cars were among the many machines Delaunay decorated.  Triangles (and the diamond shapes they could combine to create) were one of the notable motifs of the art deco era.  From the start, Vogue was of course about frocks, shoes and such but its influence extended over the years to fields as diverse as interior decorating and industrial design.  The work of Georges Lepape (1887-1971) has long been strangely neglected in the history of art deco but he was a fine practitioner whose reputation probably suffered because his compositions have always been regarded as derivative or imitative which seems unfair given there are many who are more highly regarded despite being hardly original.  His cover art for Vogue’s edition of 1 January 1925 juxtaposed one of Delaunay’s (1885–1979) "simultaneous" pattern dresses and a Voisin roadster she'd decorated with an art deco motif.

1927 Voisin C14 Lumineuse,

One collector in 2015 was so taken with Pepape’s image that when refurbishing his Voisin C14 Lumineuse (literally “light”, an allusion to the Voisin’s greenhouse-inspired design which allowed natural light to fill the interior), he commissioned Dutch artist Bernadette Ramaekers to hand-paint a geometric triangular pattern in sympathy with that on the Vogue cover in 1925.  Ms Ramaekers took six months to complete the project and in 2022 the car sold at auction for £202,500 (US$230,000).  Produced during the whole inter-war period (1919-1939), the Voisin cars were among the most strikingly memorable of the era although for a variety of reasons, commercial viability was often marginal.  The demise was unfortunate because a manufacturer which once contemplated production of a straight-twelve engine deserved to survive.

Making the strange stranger.

There have been a few French cars which looked weirder than the Matra 530 (1967-1973 and not to be confused with the rather faster Matra R.530 air-to-air missile after which it was named) but the small, mid-engined sports car was visually strange enough although, almost sixty years on, it has aged rather well and the appearance would by most plausibly be accepted as something decades younger.  In 1968, Matra's CEO Jean-Luc Lagardère (1928–2003) commissioned Delaunay to use a 530 as a canvas and she delivered a harlequinesque creation.  The Matra is sometimes displayed though it wasn’t an exhibit at the Sonia Delaunay Tate Modern retrospective (April-August 2015), remarkably the first time her work had been showcased by an English gallery.  Had she been a man, it’s likely she’d be more celebrated.

Lindsay Lohan in harlequin mode.  How fashion critics will react to anything beyond the defined parameters of what's thought within their range of "right" is hard to predict: most seemed to like this.

Lindsay Lohan in November 2022 appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America to promote the Netflix movie, Falling for Christmas.  What caught the eye was her outfit, the harlequinesque suit in a gallimaufry of colors from Law Roach’s (b 1978) Akris’ fall 2022 ready-to-wear collection, the assembly including a wide-lapelled jacket, turtleneck and boot cut pants fabricated in a green, yellow, red & orange drei teile (three parts) print in an irregular geometric pattern.  The distinctive look was paired with a similarly eclectic combination of accessories, chunky gold hoop earrings, a cross-body Anouk envelope handbag, and Giuseppe Zanotti platform heels.

The enveloping flare of the trousers concealed the shoes which was a shame, the Giuseppe Zanotti (b 1957) Bebe-style pumps in gloss metallic burgundy leather distinguished by 2-inch (50 mm) soles, 6-inch (150 mm) heels, open vamp, rakish counters and surprisingly delicate ankle straps.  The designer's need for the cut of the trousers to reach to the ground is noted but the shoes deserved to be seen.

Rabbit

Rabbit (pronounced rab-it)

(1) Any of several soft-furred, large-eared, rodentlike burrowing mammals of the family Leporidae, allied with the hares and pikas in the order Lagomorpha, having a divided upper lip and long hind legs, usually smaller than the hares and mainly distinguished from them by bearing blind and furless young in nests rather than fully developed young in the open.

(2) Any of various small hares.

(3) The fur of a rabbit or hare, often processed to imitate another fur.

(4) A runner in a distance race whose goal is chiefly to set a fast pace, either to exhaust a particular rival so that a teammate can win or to help another entrant break a record; pacesetter.

(5) In sport, a person poor at a sport; in cricket specifically, an unskilled batter (also as “batting bunny”, usually clipped to bunny).

(5) As Welsh rabbit, an alternative form of Welsh rarebit & Welsh ribbit (A snack made of cheese melted with a little ale and served on toast).  Welsh rabbit was the original form but was erroneously marked as a corruption in a dictionary published in 1785 although it’s not clear if the editor made the assumption or drew the conclusion from oral evidence.

(6) In nuclear engineering, a pneumatically-controlled tool used to insert small samples of material inside the core of a nuclear reactor.

(7) In computing theory, a large element at the beginning of a list of items to be bubble sorted, and thus tending to be quickly swapped into the correct position.

(8) In northern English regional slang, as “rabbit catcher”, a midwife or one who by force of circumstance assists in the delivery of a baby.

(9) As “rabbit ears”, the indoor dipole television antenna which typically sat atop the early analogue sets which received a terrestrial signal.

(10) Incessantly or nonsensically to talk.

(11) To hunt rabbits.

(12) In US slang, to flee.

1375-1425: From the late Middle English rabet & rabette, from the Anglo-Latin rabettus, from the Middle French rabouillet (baby rabbit), from the dialectal Old North French rabotte, probably a diminutive of Middle Dutch or West Flemish robbe (rabbit, seal), of uncertain origin but which may be an imitative verb (perhaps robben or rubben (to rub)) and used to allude to a characteristic of the animal.  The related forms include the French rabot (plane), the Middle Dutch robbe (rabbit; seal (from which Modern Dutch gained rob (seal (also “rabbit”), the Middle Low German robbe & rubbe (rabbit), the later Low German Rubbe (seal), the West Frisian robbe (seal), the Saterland Frisian Rubbe (seal) and the North Frisian rob (“seal”) eventually borrowed as the German Robbe (seal).  Early dictionary editors thus described the word as “a Germanic noun with a French suffix”.  Rabbit is a noun & verb, rabbitiness is a noun, rabbited is a verb, rabbitlike & rabbity are adjectives and rabbiting is a noun & verb; the noun plural is rabbits and (especially in the collective) rab·bit.

Lindsay Lohan with rabbit.

Until the late nineteenth century, the meaning was exclusively what would now be understood as “a young rabbit” but it came to be used of the whole species, replacing the original coney, owing to the latter's resemblance to and use as a euphemism for cunny (“vulva” and linked obviously with “cunt” although despite that the preferred slang with some zoological allusion came to include “beaver”, “camel toe” and (especially) “pussy”, rather than “bunny”).  The noun coney dates from the early thirteenth century and was abstracted from the Anglo-French conis and the Old French coniz, (plurals of conil (long-eared rabbit; (Lepus cunicula)) from the Latin cuniculus, the source also of the Spanish conejo, the Portuguese coelho and the Italian coniglio), the small, Spanish variant of the Italian hare (Latin lepus).  The word may ultimately be from the Iberian Celtic although classical writers said it was Hispanic.  In Middle English the two forms were cony & conny (the derivations including coning, cunin & conyng) while the Old French had conil alongside conin.  The evolution seems to be that the plural form conis (from conil, with the -l- elided) was taken into English and regularly single-ized as cony.  The Old French form was borrowed in the Dutch konijn and the German Kaninchen (a diminutive), and is preserved in the surname Cunningham (from a place-name in Ayrshire).  Rabbits not being native to northern Europe, there was no Germanic word for them.  In the fourteenth century “rabbit” came to describe the young of the species and over the centuries came to supplant coney, a process complete by the early nineteenth.  It was another of those exercises in sanitization because in English & Welsh slang, coney had been adopted as a punning synonym for cunny (cunt).  That was complicated by it appearing in the Book of Proverbs in the King James Version of the Bible (KJV, 1611) so the work-around was to change the pronunciation of the original short vowel (rhyming with honey, money) to rhyme with bony, stony.  In the Old Testament, the word translates the Hebrew shaphan (rock-badger).

When Volkswagen in 1974 introduced the Golf in the North American market, it was named the Rabbit, apparently because it would thought the name would suggest qualities such as “agility, speed & playfulness” which were positive attributes in what was then (by US standards) a very small car, much smaller than the more recent versions.  Because of the international success of the Golf, when the revised model was released in 1983, the North American cars switched to that name and it’s been marketed that way since except between 2003-2008 when the Rabbit badge was revived.  The revival was in retrospect a curious choice given the obvious advantages offered by using the one name globally but at the time VW America had a rationalization: “We think we have some opportunities to do something creative with the Rabbit nameplate and recognizes the Golf nameplate has never really caught on with North American consumers as it was overshadowed by the Jetta sedan and wagon.  Volkswagen customers want a relationship with their cars and names like The Thing, Beetle, Fox and Rabbit support this."  Whatever the opportunities may have been, the linguistic experiment wasn’t continued and since 2009, it’s been Golfs all the way.

US market VW Golfs: 1974 Rabbit L (Generation 1)  (left) and 2007 Rabbit TSI (Generation 5).

There was some linguistic irony in VW’s choice because as the US satirist & critic HL Mencken (1880–1956) pointed out in The American Language; An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States (1919): “Zoologically speaking, there are no native rabbits in the United States; they are all hares. But the early colonists, for some unknown reason, dropped the word hare out of their vocabulary, and it is rarely heard in American speech to this day. When it appears it is almost always applied to the so-called Belgian hare, which, curiously enough, is not a hare at all, but a true rabbit.”

The White Rabbit was a character in Lewis Carroll’s (1832–1898) Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and one which appears often, always in a waistcoat with pocket watch and in a hurry, fearful always of the impending fury the duchess will visit upon him should he be a moment late.  It’s the white rabbit which Alice follows down the rabbit hole, leading to the bizarre adventures recounted.  One of popular culture’s best-known rabbits gave rise to the phrase “bunny boiler”, a reference to the scene in the film Fatal Attraction (1987) in which a scorned woman revenged herself upon her adulterous ex-lover by tossing his daughter’s pet rabbit into a pot of boiling water; he arrives home to discover a boiled bunny.  The Warner Brother cartoon character Bugs Bunny first appeared on the screen in 1938 and is often described by his shotgun wielding antagonist, the lisping Elmer Fudd, as "that wascally wabbit".

In idiomatic use there’s “pull a rabbit out of the hat” (to find or obtain a sudden solution to a problem), “rabbit-hearted” (someone timid or inclined to be flighty), “rabbit food” (a disapproving view of vegetables held by some meat-eaters), “the rabbit test” (an early pregnancy test involving the injection of the tested woman's urine into a female rabbit, then examining the rabbit's ovaries a few days later for changes in response to a hormone (“the rabbit died” the phrase indicating a positive test or an admission of one’s pregnancy)), “breed like rabbits” (slang for an individual, family, or sub-group of a population with a high birth-rate), “down the rabbit hole” (a time-consuming tangent or detour, often one from which it’s psychologically difficult to extricate oneself), “lucky rabbit’s foot”, (the carrying of a luckless bunny’s preserved rabbit’s foot as a lucky charm), “like a rabbit warren” (a confusingly labyrinthine environment (used literally & figuratively)), “rabbit in the headlights” (an allusion to the way rabbits (like some other wildlife) sometimes “freeze” when caught in the light of an oncoming vehicle’s headlamps) and the inevitable “rabbit fucker” (a general term of disparagement (although it could be applied literally in the right circumstances)).

The “earless” rabbit with “eared” companions.

In May 2011, some weeks after the meltdown at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant which suffered severe damage in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami, a video of an “earless rabbit” began to circulate, purportedly captured in an area just beyond the crippled plant’s exclusion area.  The immediate speculation was of course the creature’s unusual state was a result of a radiation-induced genetic mutation.  Geneticists however had a less troubling explanation.  Although there’s no doubt the radiation emitting from Fukushima Dai-ichi (some 225 kilometres (140 miles) north-east of Tokyo) represents a major risk to health and the long-term environmental effects remain unclear, the scientists say not only is it unlikely to be linked with the earless rabbit, such creatures are far from unusual.  According to a  statement issued from Colorado State University's Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences: “…radiation can cause mutations that can be occasionally expressed as obvious birth defects, such as shown in the video.  However, to say this is the result of contamination from the Fukushima accident is a stretch, because natural radiation, as well as many other chemical substances in the environment and other factors, can also be mutagenic.  In most cases, the cause of congenital birth defects in humans and other animals cannot be determined and as far as science has shown, there have never been mutations produced by ionizing radiations that do not occur spontaneously as well.”

Rabbits used in nuclear reactors: Polyethylene 1-inch (25 mm) rabbit (left), Polyethylene 2-inch (50 mm) rabbit (centre) and Titanium 2-inch (50 mm) rabbit.

The rabbit does though have a place in nuclear engineering.  In the industry, the term “rabbit” is used to describe a range of pneumatically controlled tools which are used remotely to insert or retrieve items from a nuclear reactor or other radioactive environments.  The name is thought to come from the devices being tubular (on the model of the rabbit borrow) which allows samples rapidly to be injected into the periphery of a reactor core, the injectables moving “with the speed of startled rabbits” although there may also be the implication of rabbits as expendable creatures, the tool essential for maintenance, inspection, and repair tasks in nuclear facilities, where direct human intervention is either dangerous or impossible because of high radiation levels.

Winston Churchill inspecting the progress of project White Rabbit No, 6, Clumber Park, Nottinghamshire, England, November 1941.

The World War II (1939-1945) era White Rabbit No. 6 was an engineering project by the British Admiralty although as a security measure the official code-name was changed to Cultivator No. 6 to make it sound less mysterious and more like a piece of agricultural equipment.  It was a military trench-digging machine and an example of the adage that “generals are always preparing to fight the last war” and although designed exclusively for army use on (and at least partially under) land, it came under the auspices of the Royal Navy because it was a brainchild (one of many) of Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) who, between the outbreak of war in 1939 and his assumption of the premiership some months later, served as First Lord of the Admiralty (the service’s civilian head).  Trenches and artillery had been the two dominant features of World War I (1914-1918) and Churchill had spent some months (1915-1916) in one of the former while under fire from the latter while commanding a battalion; before the implications of mechanization and the German’s Blitzkrieg (lightning war) tactics were apparent, he assumed the new war in France would unfold something like the old, thus the interest in something which would “revolutionize trench warfare”.  Trench warfare however wasn’t repeated so White Rabbit No.6 was soon realized to be already obsolete and the project was abandoned and although the most fully developed of the prototypes did perform according to the design parameters, whether it would have been effective remains doubtful; remarkably, work on these things wasn’t wholly abandoned until 1942.  The “White Rabbit” project codes came from Churchill’s sense of humor, his ideas coming, as he said: “like rabbits I pull from my hat” and he supported many, some of which were of great military value while others, like the “floating runways” (artificial icebergs made with a mixture of shards of timber & frozen water), were quixotic.

White Rabbit © Copperpenny Music, Mole Music Co

Surrealistic Pillow album cover, 1967.

White Rabbit was a song by Grace Slick (b 1939) and released on the album Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane.  The lyrics were inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the sequel Through the Looking-Glass (1871).  It was the psychedelic era and drug references were common in popular music and in the case of White Rabbit it may have been appropriate if the speculation the books been written while the author was under the influence of Laudanum (a then widely-available opiate-infused drug) is true (there's no evidence beyond the circumstantial).  Given the imagery in the text, it’s not difficult to believe he may have been on something and among authors and poets it was a popular way to stimulate the imagination, inspiring at least some of one of the most beloved fragments of English verse, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s (1772-1834) Kubla Khan (1797) which ends abruptly at 54 lines.  According to Coleridge, he was unable to recall the rest of the 300-odd which had come to him in an opium-laced dream (the original publication was sub-titled “A Vision in a Dream”) because he was interrupted by “a person on business from Porlock” (a nearby Somerset village).  Grace Slick would have sympathized with an artist being intruded on by commerce.

White Rabbit lyrics:

One pill makes you larger

And one pill makes you small

And the ones that mother gives you

Don't do anything at all

Go ask Alice

When she's ten feet tall

 

And if you go chasing rabbits

And you know you're going to fall

Tell 'em a hookah-smoking caterpillar

Has given you the call

Call Alice

When she was just small

 

When the men on the chessboard

Get up and tell you where to go

And you've just had some kind of mushroom

And your mind is moving low

Go ask Alice

I think she'll know

 

When logic and proportion

Have fallen sloppy dead

And the White Knight is talking backwards

And the Red Queen's off with her head

Remember what the dormouse said

Feed your head

Fedora

Fedora (pronounced fi-dawr-uh or fed-dohr-uh)

A soft felt or velvet hat with a curled medium-brim, usually with a band and worn with the crown creased lengthwise.

1887: An invention of American English, from Fédora, an 1882 play by Victorien Sardou (1831-1908), the protagonist of which was the Russian princess Fédora Romanoff, played originally by Sarah Bernhardt.  Bernhardt, a noted cross-dresser, wore a center-creased, soft brimmed hat which was adopted by feminists of the age, then known as women's-rights activists.  The name comes from the Russian Федо́ра (Fedóra), feminine form of Фёдор (Fjódor), from the Ancient Greek Θεόδωρος (Theódōros) (gift of god), derived from θεός (theós) (god) and δῶρον (dôron) (gift).  The ultimate root was the Indo-European dhes- (forming words for religious concepts) + dōron (gift) from do- (to give)).

In the Western world, between the demise of the top hat after the First World War and the abandonment of hats in the 1960s, three variations on a theme, the Fedora, the Trilby and the Homburg vied for choice as men’s headgear, all popular in a way the bowler hat never was.  Fedoras used to be made mostly from wool, cashmere, rabbit or beaver felt, some of the more expensive varieties blended with mink or chinchilla (and rarely mohair, vicuña, guanaco or cervelt).  After enjoying a 1990s revival, they came to be made from any available material, including modern synthetics.

The Trilby (left), Homburg (centre) and the Fedora (right).

The Fedora first became fashionable during the 1920s, displacing the less rakish Homburg (named after Homburg in Imperial-era Germany from where it originated as hunting headgear) although it was the similar, though narrow-brimmed, Trilby (also known in the UK as the “Brown Trilby”) which was said to be more popular with the rich.  The Trilby proved attractive to those often at the track, apparently because, with a narrow brim and one slightly turned up at the back, it made more convenient the carrying of a pair of binoculars.  The name Trilby was derived from a hat worn in the stage adaptation of George du Maurier's (1834-1896) 1894 novel Trilby.  Just another hat in most countries, it suffered by association in Germany because a black Trilby was the choice of most Gestapo officers.

Lindsay Lohan wearing Fedora with coat of unknown provenance, Chiltern Firehouse, London, 2014.

The Homburg did make a mid-century comeback after it became the choice of the UK's pre-war foreign secretary Anthony Eden (1897-1977; UK prime-minister 1955-1957).  The highly strung Eden was the most stylish politician of the age, although his sartorial elegance failed to impress the Duce, Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943) noting he had “…never met a better dressed fool.”  It was his colleague Rab Butler (1902–1982) who, noting the character of Eden's parents, reckoned genetics could explain why Eden was "half mad baronet, half beautiful woman" and he understood that something as distinctive as a hat could convey a political message if the association was widely understood.  At the time when the great dividing line in British politics was the appeasement policy of Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940; UK prime-minister 1937-1940), Eden was replaced as foreign secretary by the pro-appeasement Lord Halifax (1881–1959; UK Foreign Secretary 1938-1940), Butler becoming his under-secretary.  One thing an under-secretary gets allocated is a parliamentary private secretary (PPS), a member of parliament (MP) keen to stake a claim to advancement and on his first day in the Foreign Office (FO), Butler took the PPS to a quiet corner and told him to discard his homburg since it was "too Edenesque" and to "buy a bowler", the hat almost always worn by Halifax.  The PPS had no great regard for Eden and had adopted the homburg merely because he liked the look but anyway took the advice, delighted to be unexpectedly appointed a FO PPS, noting in his diary "...just think, bowlers are back".