Surplus

Surplus (pronounced sur-pluhs)

(1) Something that remains above what is used or needed.

(2) In agricultural economics, produce or a quantity of food grown by a nation or area in excess of its needs, especially such a quantity of food purchased and stored by a governmental program of guaranteeing farmers a specific price for certain crops.

(3) In accounting, the excess of assets over liabilities accumulated throughout the existence of a business, excepting assets against which stock certificates have been issued; excess of net worth over capital-stock value.

(4) In public finance, an excess of government revenues over expenditures during a certain financial year.

(5) In international trade, an excess of receipts over payments on the balance of payments.

(6) In economic theory, an unsold quantity of a good resulting from a lack of equilibrium in a market.  For example, if a price is artificially high, sellers will bring more goods to the market than buyers will be willing to buy.  In classical economics, the opposite of shortage.

(7) In Chancery law (and its successor courts), the remainder of a fund appropriated for a particular purpose.

1325–1375: From the Middle English surplus, from the Old French sorplus (remainder, extra), from the Medieval Latin superplūs (excess, surplus), the construct being super (over) + plūs (more).  The Italian surplus was a borrowing from modern French where surplus had existed since the twelfth century while in English, surplus has been used as an adjective since the fourteenth century.  Enjoying the same pronunciation, surplice and surplus are often confused.  A surplice is a liturgical vestment of the Christian Church, usually styled as a tunic of white linen or cotton material, with wide sleeves and often some lace embellishment or embroidered edges.  Lengths vary; in medieval times it reached almost to the ground but tends now to be shorter; some still retain the longer garments for the ceremonial.  As surplis, it was a thirteenth century Middle-English borrowing from the Anglo-French surpliz, a syncopated variant of Old French surpeliz, derived from the Medieval Latin superpellīcium (vestīmentum) over-pelt (garment), neuter of superpellīcius, the construct being super (over) + pellīt(us) (clothed with skins or fur) + -ius (the adjectival suffix).  A clerical surplice is thus a kind of frock; a clerical surplus means "too many priests".  Surplus is a noun, adjective & verb, surplusage is a noun and surplused & surplussing are verbs; the noun plural is surpluses or surplusses.

Surplus Repression

German-American Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979), a sociologist and philosopher, highly influential in the mid-late twentieth century.  Even today, Marcuse enjoys a cult following and remains a hate-figure for those on the right who trace the ills of Western civilization to the corrosive influence Marxist & neo-Marxists exerted on youth in the newly expanded universities in the 1960s & 1970s.

A critique of capitalism’s culture and economic arrangements, Marcuse's book Eros and Civilization (1955) drew, inter alia, from Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and described an alternative structure for society.  He didn’t reject Freud’s idea that repression of man's instinctive desires was necessary for civilization to endure but Marcuse distinguished between basic (or necessary) repression and surplus repression, detailing the differences between the biological vicissitudes of the instincts and the socially imposed.  His construct was that basic repression was that which man suppresses to permit peaceful societies to form; repression or modification of the instincts being necessary “…for the perpetuation of the human race in civilization.”  Surplus repression meant those “…restrictions necessitated by [the] social domination” of the particular ruling-class or hegemony.  The purpose of surplus repression was to shape the instincts of individuals to conform to the requirements of modern capitalism, a surrender to what Marcuse called the “performance principle”, a construct building on Marx’s theories of alienation and surplus value.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, 2011.

Marcuse's writing did have the attraction of being more accessible than that of Marx or Freud (and certainly that of many neo-Marxists or Freudians) but that also meant it was easier for critics to cherry pick the points they found most objectionable.  For an explanation of why society need to be organized the way it was, conservatives seemed to prefer the rationalization of the "harsh but deliciously clever" English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) best known for his book Leviathan (1651) in which appeared the memorable passage describing the life of man in a world where there existed no restraining authorities forcing people to repress their worst instincts:

In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Such a culture Hobbes called the "state of nature" by which he meant not an environmentally sustainable hippie commune but a place in which there was "bellum omnium contra omnes" (war of all against all) and murder went unpunished except by another murder.  Although the distinction is now an unfashionable one to draw, conservatives liked the way Hobbes seemed to know not all cultures were civilizations and that a little surplus repression was a small price to pay for for its benefits.  Hobbes lived through troubled times and his views on the importance of stable, strong governance should be understood as the writings of one who had seen what the alternative looks like but as a list of exculpatory bullet-points, his world view was one which could be ticked off by by the ayatollahs in Tehran or the CCP (Chinese Communist Party).  Marcuse is not so transportable.

Peace man: PotM (Playmate of the Month) Debbie Ellison (b 1949) on the cover of Playboy magazine, September 1970.  That year's PotY (Playmate of the Year) was Sharon Clark (b 1943).  With due respect to Ms Ellison, sometimes, it really may have been bought for the articles: Michael G Horowitz's profile of Marcuse was published in this edition.  The old curmudgeon of the left wouldn’t have had much sympathy for hippies and their piece sign because neither appeared to be doing much to bring on the revolution and was anyway once heard to remark: “Ach, women!  Useless in a revolutionary situation!”

Playboy titled the profile Portrait of the Marxist as an Old Trooper although the author (one of the philosopher's old students) preferred to call the piece a "personality snapshot" and it certainly had a different flavor than what would have been found in the activist press or journals of political science.  Years later, the author would concede some of his critique of Marcuse's work was misplaced and many of the old pessimist's predictions had (unfortunately) transpired.  That said, Marcuse seems never to have complained about the piece, unlike Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) whose interview by Eric Norden, conducted over an apparently convivial ten days in the “richly furnished living room of his spacious home” in Heidelberg, was published in Playboy’s June 1971 edition.  Speer would later complain the piece had been “…restructured, with words and formulations entirely foreign to me.”  He did however conclude “…on the whole the interview as printed corresponds with my opinions…” by which he meant Nordon was yet another to accept an recycle his core position: “If I didn't see it [the Holocaust], then it was because I didn't want to see it.”  That was the so-called “Billigung defense” which Speer since 1945 had, in a masterful manner, used simultaneously to accept a collective guilt yet absolve himself of individuality responsibility.  Others no more guilty but less cunning had been hanged at Nuremberg and the Playboy interview was printed years before material was discovered in the German federal archives documenting his part in the persecution of Jews and the discovery of private correspondence in which he admitted knowing of the holocaust and its awful, chilling rationale.  As one of his biographers, Gitta Sereny (1921–2012), rightly pointed out in Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth (1995): “If Speer had said as much in Nuremberg, he would have been hanged.”

Marcuse’s work was acknowledged as a landmark in the synthetization of Marxist and psychoanalytic theories but was criticized for being just another of the "pointless utopian myths" written of since antiquity, work cut adrift from the moorings of the political reality which seemed in the 1960s more urgently to demand attention.  Marcuse acknowledged the distance of his work from reality and conceded his theories could reach actualization only by revolution or gradual infiltration of the structures of the power-elite and, after the disappointments of the moments in 1968 when revolution fleetingly was in the air, he preferred the latter.  German student activist Rudi Dutschke (1940–1979) had advocated a "…march through the institutions of power", radically to change society from within government and cultural institutions by becoming part of the machinery and structures under which capitalism operated.  This too owed a debt to the theories of hegemony and Marcuse wrote to Dutschke in 1971 saying he “regarded your notion of the "march through the institutions" as the only effective way.”  It all failed.  It was the highly unusual coincidence of political, economic & demographic circumstances in the post war (1948-1973) Western world which briefly in 1968 made the system seem internally vulnerable and the hegemony learned the lesson: they would control who manned the institutions that matter and the trouble-makers could march through things like theatre trusts, literary festivals and art gallery committees.

Fishtail

Fishtail (pronounced fish-teyl)

(1) As "to fishtail" or "fishtailing", to swerve or skid from side to side, as the rear end of a car (an oversteering sequence).

(2) In aviation, to slow an airplane by causing its tail to move rapidly from side to side; such a maneuver.

(3) A gas burner having two jets crossing each other so as to produce a flame resembling a fish's tail.

(4) A device having a long, narrow slot at the top, placed over a gas jet, as of a Bunsen burner, to give a thin, fanlike flame.

(5) In nautical design, a propeller consisting of a single blade that oscillates like the tail of a fish while swimming.

(6) In jewelry design, a setting consisting of four prominent triangular corner prongs to hold the stone.

(7) In dance, a step in ballroom dancing in which the feet are quickly crossed

(8) In fashion design, a dress or skirt with a flowing, scalloped hemline sometimes longer at the back than at the front, flaring usually from about the knee.

(9) A kind of chisel with a flared blade.

(10) In hair-styling, a two-stranded braid.

1400–1450: From the late Middle English, the construct being fish + tail.  Fish the noun (strictly a vertebrate which has gills and fins adapting it for living in the water but the word came to be more widely applied, zoologically) was from the Middle English fisch, from the Old English fisċ (fish), from the Proto-West Germanic fisk, from the Proto-Germanic fiskaz (fish) (source also of the Old Saxon, the Old Frisian & the Old High German fisc, the Old Norse fiskr, the Middle Dutch visc, the Dutch vis, the German Fisch & the Gothic fisks) and related to the West Frisian fisk, the Danish, Norwegian & Swedish fisk, the Irish iasc & the Latin piscis; Root probably either the primitive Indo-European peysḱ- (fish) or pisk (a fish) but at least one etymologist, on phonetic grounds, has suggested it might be a northwestern Europe substratum word.  Fish the verb is from the Old English fiscian (to fish, to catch or try to catch fish), and was cognate with the Old Norse fiska, the Old High German fiscon, the German fischen & the Gothic fiskon, all derived from the noun.  In popular use, since Old English, fish has been used to apply to "any animal that lives entirely in the water," hence shellfish & starfish although, in English there’s an early fifteenth century document which describes fishes bestiales as "water animals other than fishes").  Today, aquatic mammals like dolphins are presumed fish by some.  The plural is fishes, but in a collective sense, or in reference to fish meat as food, the singular fish is commonly used as a plural so, except for the pedants, that battle is lost.  Regarding the heavens, the constellation Pisces is from the late fourteenth century.  The hyphenated form fish-tail is common.  Fishtail is a noun & verb and fishtailing & fishtailed are verbs; the noun plural is fishtails.  Presumably, were one to be employed to chop the tails off fish, one would be called a "fishtailer" but the term seems never to have been used. 

An artist's depiction of Lindsay Lohan as mermaid.

Tail was from the Middle English tail, tayl & teil (hindmost part of an animal), from the Old English tægl & tægel (tail), from the Proto-Germanic taglaz & taglą (hair, fiber; hair of a tail) (source also of the Old High German zagal, the German Zagel (tail), the dialectal German Zagel (penis), the Old Norse tagl (horse's tail) and the Gothic tagl (hair), from the primitive Indo-European doklos, from a suffixed form of the roots dok & dek- (something long and thin (referring to such things as fringe, lock of hair, horsetail & to tear, fray, shred)), source also of the Old Irish dual (lock of hair) and the Sanskrit dasah (fringe, wick).  It was cognate with the Scots tail (tail), the Dutch teil (tail, haulm, blade), the Low German Tagel (twisted scourge, whip of thongs and ropes; end of a rope), the dialectal Danish tavl (hair of the tail), the Swedish tagel (hair of the tail, horsehair), the Norwegian tagl (tail), the Icelandic tagl (tail, horsetail, ponytail), and the Gothic tagl (hair). In some senses, development appears to have been by a generalization of the usual opposition between head and tail.  The OED (Oxford English Dictionary) suggested the primary sense, at least among the Germanic tongues, seems to have been "hairy tail," or just "tuft of hair," but already in Old English the word was applied to the hairless "tails" of worms, bees etc.  The alternative suggestion is that the notion common to all is that of the "long, slender shape."  It served as an adjective from the 1670s.  A long obsolete Old English word for tail was steort.

1952 Vincent Black Shadow with four-port “fishtail” exhaust extension.

An unmistakable look, the “fishtail tip” polarizes opinion; it really is a “love it or hate it” fitting but they retain great popularity in the Harley Davidson community, a crew as devoted to their machines as any.  There are many modern takes on the design; while all feature the characteristic vertical, narrow flare in the distinctive shape, many are upswept and some protrude from the back more than others.  As well as the look, fishtails often are advertised on the basis of their sound (loud) and internally, are tuned to create different resonances, the ears of Harley Davidson riders as sensitive to the variations as are collectors of Stradivarii.

1937 Norton Model 30 International with Brooklands Can (technically the Brooklands Silencer) (left) and 1934 MG Magnette 'K3' Specification Supercharged Roadster (right).

One of the world’s first dedicated venues for motorsports and aviation, England’s Brooklands motor racing circuit was built in 1907, predating the IndianapolisMotor Speedway by two years.  Located in what had until then been the quiet little hamlet of Weybridge in the county of Surrey, some 20 miles (12 km) south-west of London, it sits 9 miles (14.5 km) south of Heathrow Airport and a portion of the original outer circuit (originally 2.75 miles (4.4 km) in length with the banking in places rising almost 30 feet (9.1 m) high) still exists.  Then, as now, Motorsport was a very noisy business and as the sport boomed in popularity after World War I (1914-1918), the tolerance of the inhabitants of Weybridge must have been tested because there’s a record of complaints about the noise (especially on Sundays and during the 24 hour events sometimes run) and eventually, in September 1924, a group commenced in the High Court an action in the tort of nuisance.  By July 2025 (reasonably brisk by the standards of the legal system), a settlement was agreed which included a permanent injunction limiting the days and hours of operation and the creation of the novel “Brooklands Can”, a design of muffler which could be adapted to both cars and motorcycles.  Were it created today, it'd likely be dubbed the “Brooklands Nimby” (not in my backyard).

1937 Norton Model 30 International with Brooklands Can (Left), diagram of Brooklands Can for a number of contemporary 1930s MGs close to the Magnette NE (1934) specification (centre) and a Luminous White male Guppy (right).

What the High Court’s injunction required was even on those days when racing was allowed, noise levels had to be reduced and the obvious solution was a muffler (in England then known optimistically as “silencers”) and the case turned out to be influential as the century progressed, often cited as the way a court might balance technological progress, any public nuisance created and the right of individuals to the “quiet enjoyment” of life in their homes.  Interestingly, the French (silencieux) and Italians (silenziatore) followed the English practice while the more practical Germans adhered to the realistic literalness of the Americans with Schalldämpfer (sound damper).  All Brooklands cans had two distinguishing characteristics: a rhomboidal receptacle located close to the engines header pipes which emerge from the exhaust manifold and a fishtail tip (although those used on some smaller capacity cars did terminated in a straight “dump pipe” and depending on the displacement (and thus the volume of exhaust gasses), the dimensions of the apparatus varied.  The “silencer” didn’t make the machines “quiet” in the accepted sense of the word; just less noisy.

Tilly Shilling on her Norton N30 500, Brooklands, July 1935.  Note the fishtail Brooklands Silencer.

Ms Beatrice “Tilly” Shilling (1909-1990) was a pre-modern rarity, a female engineer and amateur racing driver.  Even before gaining a MSc (Master of Science) in mechanical engineering, Ms Shilling had been building and racing motorcycles and it was on her modified (at one point even fitting a supercharger) 490 cm³ Norton M30, she lapped the Brooklands track at 106 mph (171 km/h), a feat for which she was awarded the BMRC (British Motorcycle Racing Club) Brookland Gold Star; she remains only one of three women to have lapped the famous banked circuit “at the ton” before it was closed in 1939.  With the coming of war, she returned the Norton to road use, riding in this form until 1953.

Battle of Britain (1940) era Hawker Hurricane Mk IIA (upper) and Supermarine Spitfire Mk II (lower).

In 1940, while employed as an engineer at the RAE (Royal Aircraft Establishment) at Farnborough, Ms Shilling worked on the "fuel delivery problem" reported by RAF (Royal Air Force) Fighter Command pilots, the Rolls-Royce Merlin V12s in their Hurricanes and Spitfires "cutting out" for as long as 1½ seconds during a "negative G-force maneuver" (pitching the nose hard down), the fuel being forced upwards to the top of the carburetor's float chamber rather than into the combustion chamber, leading to a loss of power.  If the negative G continued, the fuel would collect in the top of the float chamber, forcing the float to the bottom. This in turn would open the needle valve to maximum, flooding the carburetor with fuel, drowning the supercharger with an over-rich mixture which would shut down the engine, a serious matter in aerial combat.  While 1½ seconds doesn't sound long, in combat at altitude, travelling at hundreds of mph, inches and seconds can be critical: the difference between life and death.  The complete solution for fuel starvation was a pressurized fuel system such as the direct injection used by Daimler-Benz 600-series inverted V12s as used in the German fighters but such a development would take months to design, test, manufacture and install.

RAE Anti "G" carburetor restrictor plate instruction sheet.

As a stop-gap measure, Ms Shilling designed a flow restrictor: a small metal disc with a central orifice, looking much like a plain metal washer.  The restrictor orifice was sized to accommodate just the fuel flow needed for maximum engine power, the setting usually used during dogfights and it solved the immediate, critical, problem of the engine shutdowns following flooding.  Officially named the RAE Restrictor or RAE Anti “G” Carburetor, the device proved popular with pilots, who much preferred to call it Miss Shilling's orifice or the Tilly orifice.  The simple and elegant solution proved effective until pressurized carburetors (essentially throttle-body injection, a simplified version of the Daimler-Benz direct fuel injection) were developed which permitted even inverted flight.  With a backpack of RAE Restrictors, she toured RAF airfields on the same Norton N30 500 on which she'd once lapped Brooklands at 100 mph, instructing and assisting the maintenance crews with the installation of the devices.  Ms Shilling was a serious engineer making an important contribution to the war effort and was not amused by the nicknames for her invention but, reportedly regarded it as something typical of minds of men, rolled her eyes and carried on with her work.  The orifice was but a footnote in the history of the Merlin and the Allied war effort but did typify the improvisation and speed with which British industry developed "quick & dirty" solutions, especially in the early days of the war.

1933 Napier-Railton.

Driven by John Cobb (1899–1952), this car in 1935 set the Brooklands lap record for the Outer Circuit at 143.44 mph (230.84 km/h) a mark which will stand for all time because after being appropriated in 1939 for military purposes, the facility never re-opened.  The Napier-Railton was powered by a W12 (the so-called “broad arrow”) aero engine of 24 litres (1,461 cubic inch) and because the configuration had the cylinders in three banks of four, three of the Brooklands Cans had to be fitted and, with each bank displacing some 8 litres (487 cubic inch), each system was among the largest ever built.  Away from the delicate ears and aspidistras of Surrey's respectable residents, the machine sometimes ran “unsilenced”, including on the Bonneville Salt Flats where it ran with nothing more open stack exhausts, setting a world 24 hour record at an average speed of 158.6 mph (242 km/h).

1937 Rudge Special 500; like their aquatic sources of inspiration, the fishtail exhausts came in both symmetrical and asymmetric forms.

The sense in common law of tail (limitation of ownership) which endures mostly in the law of real property began as a legal term in English in the early fourteenth century (late thirteenth in Anglo-French & Anglo-Latin); in almost all cases it was a shortened form of entail.  The verb tail dates from the 1520s and was derived from the noun, the sense originally "attach to the tail", the meaning "move or extend in a way suggestive of a tail" dating from 1781.  The meaning “secretly to follow" is a US colloquial creation from 1907, borrowed from the earlier sense of "follow or drive cattle”.  The saying "tail off” (diminish) was noted in 1854.  The tail of a coin (reverse side; opposite the side with the head, hence “heads or tails”) appears to have been first described that was in the 1680s.  The more predictable "backside of a person, buttocks" is recorded from circa 1300, the slang sense of "pudenda" is from the mid-fourteenth century and as a term to refer to an “act of copulation with a prostitute”, it was first noted in 1846.  From circa 1933 it was applied to mean "woman as sex object" is from 1933.  In printing and typography, tail was the technical term to describe the descending strokes of letters from the 1590s.  As “tails”, the formal dress for men (coat with tails), the first advertisements appeared in 1857.  The tail-race, the part of a mill race below the wheel is from 1776.  The phrase “to turn tail” (take flight) dates from the 1580s and was originally from falconry, later to be adopted by the Admiralty and the army.  The image of the “tail wagging the dog” (a minor or secondary part of something which is controlling or dominating the whole or the main part) is from 1907 and was part of the jargon of political science.

A whale fluking its fluke (left) and 1987 Ford Sierra RS Cosworth (1986-1992).

Among the most photographed “fish tails” are those of whales, once hunted for their meat and oil, they’re now charismatic creatures and among nature’s most prolific content providers, their tails “fluking” (appearing above the surface just as a deep dive is about to begin) long an Instagram staple.  Whales are however not fish, all being mammals, they’re thus within the zoological class Mammalia, not Pisces.  The “whale tail” spoiler first appeared on Porsches in 1974 and is best remembered for its use on the 911 Turbo (930, 1974-1989), a vehicle which gained the nickname “widow-maker” because, in unskilled hands, the quirky handling (the 930 wasn’t exactly a “250 horsepower VW Beetle” but the layout was the same and the inherent characteristics thus exaggerated although (up to a point), well-tamed) could lead to “fishtailing” and worse.  The “whale tail” later evolved into the “tea tray” although the original nickname remains more widely used, even of later variants.

Fish appears often in idiomatic use.  The figurative sense of “fish out of water” (a person in an unfamiliar and awkward situation) is attested from the 1610s, the use extended from circa 1750, usually with a modifier (strange fish, queer fish, cold fish) but from at least 1722 it was used in reference to a person considered desirable to “catch”, a sense preserved in the phrase “plenty more fish in the sea”, a form picked up by one dating site.  To “drink like a fish” (one with a habitually high consumption of alcohol) is from 1744 and the “fishy story” (an incredible or extravagant narration) was first noted in 1819, a US colloquial form based on the tendency of anglers to exaggerate the size of “the one that got away”.  Having “other fish to fry” (having other things which demand one’s attention) is from the 1650s.  In optics, the fish-eye lens was patented in 1959.  Fish-and-chips seem first to have been advertised in 1876 and fish-fingers were first sold in 1962.

Lindsay Lohan in fishtail dresses.  Herbie: Fully Loaded premiere, El Capitan Theatre, Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, June 2005 (left); Vanity Fair Oscar Party, Morton’s West Hollywood, Los Angeles, March 2006 (centre); Liz & Dick premiere, Beverly Hills Hotel, Los Angeles, November 2012 (right).

A fitted bodycon construction, the distinguishing feature of the fishtail dress is the flowing, scalloped hemline, often longer at the back and tending to flare from around the knee-line.  Because a successful implementation of the style depends most on length and volume, most fishtail dresses are floor length, many better described as gowns although some have tried shorter variations.  The bodice can vary but fitted waists are the most frequently seen.  The design was originally called the "fishtail train" and the early versions, first seen in the 1870s, all featured the asymmetric extension at the back and it wasn’t until the turn of the century the flaring lowered from mid-thigh to the knee.  Prior to the Victorian era, trains were not unknown but they were then worn only as evening gowns and were really an addition to existing garments.

Promotional shot of the author for Fierce: The History of Leopard Print (2018) by Jo Weldon (b 1962), founder of the New York School of Burlesque.

Some in the industry refer to the “fishtail” as the “trumpet” or the more charming mermaid and there are those who insist on distinguishing between the three, based usually from the point at which the flare begins but the distinction escapes the many who use the terms interchangeably, regarding all as variations on a theme.  However described, the great advantage of the lines is that they create, on a suitable frame, an hourglass figure and one with a range of definition, all determined by the point at which the flare begins and the volume of material chosen for the fishtail; done properly it can render a feminine and flawless silhouette, perhaps the most persuasive reason it’s chosen by so many brides.  Some however are probably too easily persuaded, the fishtail really not suited to those either too short or too wide.  Successfully to wear a fishtail, it’s not necessary to be truly statuesque or actually thin but beneath a certain height, one starts to look like part of a condiment set; one must be realistic about what shapewear can achieve.  The recommendation is that the style can be worn by those of at least average height and it works best on those who are slim with small or medium size hips.  A good seamstress can adapt things to better suit other shapes but there’s a law of diminishing returns the more one is removed from the ideal; a deep but narrow cut can disguise only so much.

Fishtail braid in blonde.

The fishtail braid is a variation of the French braid, both with a smoothly woven appearance, the fishtail dividing the hair into two sections instead of the French three.  The technique essentially is that a small piece of each section is passed over to the other, the process repeated until the braid assumes its shape; in the nineteenth century this was known as the "Grecian braid".  The fishtail braid appears intricate because it's built with small strands but hairdressers say it's a simple, and essentially repetitive, nine-step process.  On great advantage of the fishtail is it lends itself well to a looser braid, one which over a couple of days will tend usually (and gradually) to deconstruct into a deliberately messy look, the attraction is technical as well as aesthetic: the messy fishtail is uniquely suited to act as a framework for hair extensions.

(1) Split the hair into two equal strands

(2) Pick up a small section of hair on the right side of the right strand

(3) Cross the small section over and add it to the left strand

(4) Pick up a small section of hair on the left side of the left strand

(5) Cross the small section over and add it to the right strand

(6) Pick up a small section of hair on the right side of the right strand

(7) Cross the small section over and add it to the left strand

(8) Pick up a small section of hair on the left side of the left strand

(9) Cross the small section over and add it to the right strand

(10) Repeat steps 2-9 until the end is reached.

Students and their mannequins, Pints & Ponytails, London, March 2026.  Presumably, there would be some inverse correlation between symmetry of braids and consumption of pints of beer.  As a quirk of English, while one doing the braiding is a braider, there is no companion word braidee for the one being braided; the same convention applies to plait.

Braiding and platting of hair has for some time been political because certain styles are claimed to have specific cultural or religious connections so anyone not of the background adopting those looks risk being accused of a gamut of offences ranging from microaggression to cultural appropriation.  Recently, the braid has also entered the “toxic masculinity” debate after self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate (b 1986 and dubbed by some the “high priest of toxic masculinity”) disapprovingly shared a video from a “Pints and Ponytails” event in London.  The novel P&Ps are conducted to train men in the art of creating their daughters’ braids, plaits and pony-tails, something which to most probably doesn’t look challenging until they make an attempt and find out it’s something of an art, the tresses just one component in a process which extends also to the mysteries of pins, brushes, detangler spray, leave-in conditioner and hair-ties.

A recent victim of inexpert braiding: More practice required.

To hairdressers, braids and plaits are a “basic style” taught to entry-level apprentices, but even for those familiar with tasks such as stranding cables, early results are likely to be disappointing; to assure those concerned, no daughter was damaged by the neophyte stylists, the P&P sessions conducted using the same mannequins salons use in their training.  The courses have proved popular with men as might be expected of any event including pints of beer but the serious rationale was an attempt to improve bonding between fathers and daughters as well as increasing the participation of men in child-raising chores.  As the organizers expected, the sessions also provided a time and place in which men could discuss the problems and challenges of fatherhood, the unique environment of drinking beer while learning to plait tending to encourage conversation on topics probably not often raised in situations where men gather; in other words, the sort of discussions familiar to young mothers.  Cultural critic Andrew Tate cast aspersions on the masculinity of the men taking part although one might have thought he’d see benefits in women being relieved of responsibility for the daily pony tail(s), thereby leaving them more time for cooking & cleaning.

Cage

Cage (pronounced keyj)

(1) A boxlike enclosure having wires, bars, or the like, for confining and displaying birds or animals or as a protective barrier for objects or people in vulnerable positions (used in specific instances as battery cage, bird-cage, birdcage, Faraday cage, tiger cage, fish cage etc).

(2) Anything that confines or imprisons; prison and figuratively, something which hinders physical or creative freedom (often as “caged-in”).

(3) The car or enclosed platform of an elevator.

(4) In underground mining, (1) an enclosed platform for raising and lowering people and cars in a mine shaft & (2) the drum on which cable is wound in a hoisting whim.

(5) A general descriptor for any skeleton-like framework.

(6) In baseball (1) a movable backstop for use mainly in batting practice & (2) the catcher's wire mask.

(7) In ice hockey and field hockey, a frame with a net attached to it, forming the goal.

(8) In basketball, the basket (mostly archaic).

(9) In various sports which involve putting a ball or other object into or through a receptacle (net, hole), to score a goal or something equivalent.

(10) In fashion, a loose, sheer or lacy overdress worn with a slip or a close-fitting dress.

(11) In ordnance, a steel framework for supporting guns.

(12) In engineering (1) various forms of retainers, (2) a skeleton ring device which ensures the correct space is maintained between the individual rollers or balls in a rolling bearing & (3) the wirework strainers used to remove solid obstacles in the fluids passing through pumps and pipes

(13) To put (something or someone) into some form of confinement (which need not literally be in a cage).

(14) In underwear design, as cage bra, a design which uses exposed straps as a feature.

(15) In computer hardware, as card cage, the area of a system board where slots are provided for plug-in cards (expansion boards).

(16) In anatomy (including in zoology) as rib-cage, the arrangement of the ribs as a protective enclosure for vital organs.

(17) In athletics, the area from which competitors throw a discus or hammer.

(18) In graph theory, a regular graph that has as few vertices as possible for its girth.

(19) In killer Sudoku puzzles, an irregularly-shaped group of cells that must contain a set of unique digits adding up to a certain total, in addition to the usual constraints of Sudoku.

(20) In aviation, to immobilize an artificial horizon.

1175–1225: From the Middle English cage (and the earlier forms kage & gage), from the Old French cage (prison; retreat, hideout), from the Latin cavea (hollow place, enclosure for animals, coop, hive, stall, dungeon, spectators' seats in a theatre), the construct being cav(us) (hollow) + -ea, the feminine of -eus (the adjectival suffix); a doublet of cadge and related to jail.  The Latin cavea was the source also of the Italian gabbia (basket for fowls, coop).  The noun (box-like receptacle or enclosure, with open spaces, made of wires, reeds etc) typically described the barred-boxes used for confining domesticated birds or wild beasts was the first form and form circa 1300 was used in English to describe "a cage for prisoners, jail, prison, a cell".  The noun bird-cage (also birdcage) was in the late fifteenth century formed to describe a "portable enclosure for birds", as distinct from the static cages which came to be called aviaries.  The idiomatic use as “gilded cage” refers to a place (and, by extension, a situation) which is superficially attractive but nevertheless restrictive (a luxurious trap) and appears to have been coined by the writers of the popular song A Bird in a Gilded Cage (1900).  To “rattle someone's cage” is to upset or anger them, based on the reaction from imprisoned creatures (human & animal) to the noise made by shaking their cages.  The verb (to confine in a cage, to shut up or confine) dates from the 1570s and was derived from the noun.  The synonyms for the verb include crate, enclosure, jail, pen, coop up, corral, fold, mew, pinfold, pound, confine, enclose, envelop, hem, immure, impound, imprison, incarcerate, restrain & close-in.  Cage is a noun, verb and (occasional) adjective, caged & caging are verbs (used with object) and constructions include cage-less, cage-like, re-cage; the noun plural is cages.

Wholly unrelated to cage was the adjective cagey (the frequently used derived terms being cagily & caginess), a US colloquial form meaning “evasive, reticent”, said to date from 1896 (although there had in late sixteenth century English been an earlier cagey which was a synonym of sportive (from sport and meaning “frolicsome”)).  The origin of the US creation (the sense of which has expanded to “wary, careful, shrewd; uncommunicative, unwilling or hesitant to give information”) is unknown and despite the late nineteenth century use having been attested, adoption must have been sufficiently hesitant not to tempt lexicographers on either side of the Atlantic because cagey appears in neither the 1928 Webster’s Dictionary nor the 1933 supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).  John Cage (1912–1992) was a US avant-garde composer who, inter alia, was one of the pioneers in the use of electronic equipment to create music.  He’s also noted for the 1952 work 4′33″ which is often thought a period of literal silence for a duration of that length but is actually designed to be enjoyed as the experience of whatever sounds emerge from the environment (the space, the non-performing musicians and the audience).  It was an interesting idea which explored both the definitional nature of silence and paralleled twentieth century exercises in pop-art in prompting discussions about just what could be called "music".

The related forms jail and gaol are of interest.  Jail as a noun dates from circa 1300 (although it had by then been used as a surname for at least a hundred years) and meant "a prison; a birdcage".  It was from the Middle English jaile, from the Old French jaiole (a cage; a prison), from the Medieval Latin gabiola (a cage (and the source also of the Spanish gayola and the Italian gabbiula)), from the Late Latin caveola, a diminutive of the Latin cavea.  The spellings gaile & gaiole were actually more frequent forms in Middle English, these from the Old French gaiole (a cage; a prison), a variant spelling thought prevalent in the Old North French, which would have been the language most familiar to Norman scribes, hence the eventual emergence of gaol which emerged under that influence.  It’s long been pronounced jail and the persistence of gaol as the preferred form in the UK is attributed to the continued use in statutes and other official documents although there may also have been some reluctance to adopt “jail” because this had come to be regarded as an Americanism.

The Mortsafe

A mortsafe.

The construct was mort + safe.  Mort was from the Middle English mort, from the Old French mort (death).  Safe was from the Middle English sauf, safe, saf & saaf, from the Old French sauf, saulf & salf (safe), from the Latin salvus (whole, safe), from the Proto-Italic salwos, from the primitive Indo-European solh- (whole, every); it displaced the native Old English sicor (secure, sure).  In the case of “mortsafe”, the “mort” element was used in the sense of “corpse; body of the dead”).  The “safe” element can be read either as a noun (an enclosed structure in which material can be secure from theft or other interference) or verb (to make something safe).  For its specific purpose, a mortsafe wholly was analogous with other constructions (meatsafe, monesafe etc).

Popular in the UK in the eighteenth & nineteenth century, mortsafes were structures placed over a grave to prevent resurrectionists (now better remembered as “body-snatchers” or “grave-robbers”) from exhuming the corpse or stealing any valuables which may have been interred with the dead.  The companion term was morthouse which was a secure facility in which bodies were kept for a period prior to burial (obviating the need for a mortsafe).  The noun “resurrectionist” was later re-purposed to describe (1) a believer in a future bodily resurrection, (2) one who revives (more often “attempts to revive”) old practices or ideas (3) one who (for profit or as a hobby) restores or reconditions objects) and (4) in the humor of the turf, a racehorse that mid-course recovers its speed or stamina.  Fashioned usually of wrought iron (sometimes in combination with concrete slabs), those which were hired or leased for only a few weeks usually were secured by the design including pile-like extensions driven into the ground while those permanently installed were “concreted in”.  The tradition of burying the dead with valuables has a long history (the best known example being the tombs of the pharaohs (supreme rulers) of Ancient Egypt) and although in the eighteenth century UK any treasure likely to end up in coffins was by comparison modest, items like wedding rings or other jewellery sometimes were included.  The body-snatcher trade existed because there was demand from medical schools which needed a fair number of fresh cadavers for anatomical study and student instruction.

Demand: Anatomische les van dr. Willem Röell (1728), (Anatomy lesson by Dr Willem Röell (1700-1775)), oil on canvas by Cornelis Troost (1697-1750), Amsterdam Museum.

The Enlightenment (which appears in history texts also as the “Age of Reason”) was the period Europe which created the a framework for modernity.  Beginning late in the seventeenth century, it was an intellectual and cultural movement which sought to apply reason and scientific rigor to explore or explain.  Throughout the eighteenth century the Enlightenment spread throughout Western Europe, the Americas and much of the territory of European empires, brining ideas of individual liberty, religious tolerance and the concept of systematic scientific investigation.  Superstitions didn’t vanish as the Enlightenment spread truth, but was increasingly marginalized to matters where proof or disproof were not possible.  One of the benefits of the Enlightenment was the expansion of medical education which was good (at least sometimes) but it also created a demand for fresh corpses which could be used for dissection, the quite reasonable rationale being it was preferable for students to practice on the dead rather than the living; in the pre-refrigeration-age, demand was high and, during the instructional terms of medical schools, often constant.  The Enlightenment didn’t change the laws of supply and demand and entrepreneurial commerce was there to provide supply, the resurrectionists undertaking their ghoulish work usually under cover of darkness when cemeteries tended to be deserted.

Supply: Resurrectionists at work (1887), illustration by Hablot Knight Browne (1815–1882) whose work usually was credited to his pen-name "Phiz".

Ghoul was from the French goule, from the Persian غول (ġul), from the Arabic غُول (ḡūl) and in mythology, ghouls were demons from the underworld who at night visited the Earth to feast on the dead.  It was an obvious term to apply to grave-robbers although for generations their interests tended to be in the whatever valuables might be found and it was only later “specialists” came to be known as “body-snatchers”, a profession created by corpses becoming commodities.  By extension, in the modern era, those with a disturbing or obsessive interest in stuff to do with the death or dying came to be labelled “ghouls” and their proclivities “ghoulish”.  Mortsafes were a usually effective deterrent to body-snatching and some have survived although they were in the eighteenth century more common than those few would suggest.  While wealthy families paid for permanent structures, many were leased from cemeteries or ironmongers for only the short time required before the processes of decay and putrefaction rendered a corpse no longer a tradeable commodity.  Sturdy and durable, ex-lease mortsafes were recycled for the next burial.  Despite the Enlightenment, rumors did still spread the mortsafes were there to prevent keep the undead from rising to again walk the earth but genuinely they were there to keep others out, not the deceased in.  Still, the idea has potential and were crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) to die (God forbid), some might be tempted to install a mortsafe atop her grave so she can’t arise…just to be sure.

Turreted watchtower (1827), Dalkeith Cemetery, near Edinburgh (photograph by Kim Traynor).

In England, the Murder Act (1751) had mandated the bodies of executed criminals could be deemed property of the state and a supply for the training of surgeons thus existed but demand proved greater.  The solution of the authorities was usually to “turn a blind eye” to activities of the grave-diggers (as long as they restricted the trade to snatching the deceased working class) although in Scotland which (as it does now) operated a separate legal system, there was much public disquiet because, north of the border, there was great reverence for the dead and among the population a widespread belief in resurrection (in the sacred sense), the precepts of which included that the dead could not rise from a bodily incomplete state.  Body snatchers were thus thought desecrationists and vigilantes formed into parties to protect graveyards and there were even fatalities as body-snatchers were attacked.  In Scotland, so seriously was the matter taken there were graveyards with permanent stone structures (“watch-towers” or “watch-houses”) to house the “watchers”, volunteer organizations (which, depending on the size of the town could be over a thousand-strong) with rosters so shifts were available to watch over the site.  Reputedly, especially entrepreneurial suppliers of demand solved the problem of interference by the authorities or “concerned citizens” by “cutting out the middle man” (as it were), murdering tramps, vagrants and such to be supplied to surgeons trusted not to ask too many questions.  The legislative response in the UK was the Anatomy Act (1832, known as the “Warburton Anatomy Act”) which made lawful the donation of dead bodies to those “authorized parties” (surgeons, researchers, medical lecturers and students) licence to dissect; this was the codified origin of the notion of “donating one’s body to science”, the modern fork of which is the “organ donation” system.  With the passage of the 1832 act, supply soon exceed demand with it becoming (in some circles) fashionable to include in one’s will a clause “donate my body to science” while some families, in the spirit of the Enlightenment anxious to assist the progress of medical science made the gesture while others wished just to avoid the expense of a funeral.

The cage bra

The single strap cage bra.

A cage bra is built with a harness-like structure which (vaguely) resembles a cage, encapsulating the breasts using one or more straps.  Few actually use those straps predominately to enhance support and the effect tends to be purely aesthetic, some cage bras with minimal (or even absent) cup coverage and a thin band or multi-strap back.  Designed to be at least partially seen and admired, cage bras can be worn under sheer fabrics, with clothes cut to reveal the construction or even (in elaborated form and often on red carpets) worn alone, the effect borrowed from engineering or architecture where components once concealed (air conditioning ducting, plumbing, electrical conduits etc) deliberately are exposed.  It’s thus a complete reversal of the old rule in which the sight of a bra strap was a fashion-fail.  The idea has been extended to sports bras which anyway have long often used additional, thick straps to enhance support and minimize movement, especially those induced by lateral forces not usually encountered in everyday life.  

Lindsay Lohan in harness cage bra with sheer cups and matching knickers.

The cage bra's salient features include: (1) the straps which are a cage’s most distinctive feature.  The most simple include only a single additional strap across the centre while others have a pair, usually defining the upper pole of each cup.  Beyond that, multiple straps can be used, both at the front and back, some of which may have some functional purpose or be merely decorative.  Single strap cage bras are often worn to add distinctiveness to camisoles while those with multiple straps are referred to as the harness style and have the additional benefit (or drawback depending on one’s view) of offering more frontal coverage, the straps sometimes a framework for lace or other detailing; this is a popular approach taken with cage bralettes.

Front and back views of modestly-styled criss-cross cage bras.

(2) Many cage bras are constructed around a traditional back band, especially those which need to provide lift & support while those (usually with smaller cups) have a thin band (merely for location) or none at all.  In this acknowledgement of the laws of physics, they’re like any other bra.  Those with a conventional back band (both bras and bralettes) are often constructed as the V-shaped cage, the symmetrical straps well suited to v-necks or even square necks and paired with cardigans or more structured jackets or blazers, they’re currently the segment's best-sellers.  A more dramatic look is the criss-cross cage but fashionistas caution this works well only in minimal surroundings so accessories should be limited to earrings or stuff worn on the wrist or beyond.

Example of the cage motif applied to a conventional bra, suitable for larger sizes.

(3) As a general principle, the cage bras manufactured tend to be those with cup sizes in the smaller range, supply reflecting the anticipated demand curve.  However, even the nominal size (A, B, C etc) of the cups of cage bras can be misleading because they almost always have less coverage than all but the most minimal of those used by conventional bras and should be compared with a demi cup or the three-quarter style of plunge bras.  That said, there are strappy designs which include molded cups with underwires suitable for larger sizes but it’s a niche market and the range is limited, the scope for flourishes being limited by the need to preserve functionality, a demand which, all else being equal, tends to increase with as mass grows.  Unlike the structural underwire, many of the "underwireish" parts of a cage bra purely are decorative.

Examples of designs used to fabricate harness cage bras which can be worn under or over clothing or, in some cases, to augment a more conventional bra or bralette.

(4) Despite the specialized nature of cage bras, some are multi-purpose and include padding with all the usual advantages in concealment and additional volume, permitting use as an everyday garment rather than one used exclusively for display.  Some include removable padding so the bra can be transformed into a see-through design.

Choker cage bra.

(5) The methods of closure type vary.  The most uncompromising designs actually have no closure mechanism; the idea being one would detract from the purity of the lines so this requires the wearer to pull it over the head; to be fashionable, sometimes there's a price to be paid.  Other types use both front and back closures, usually with conventional hook & clasp fittings (so standard-sized extenders can sometimes be used) but there are some which borrow overtly from the traditions of BDSM underwear (the origin of the cage bra motif) and use extravagantly obvious buckles and even the occasional key-lock.  The BDSM look is most obviously executed in the choker cage bra which includes a neck choker as a focal point to accentuate the neck and torso, something best suited to a long, slender neck.  Buyers are are advised to move around when trying these on because the origins of the BDSM motif lay in devices used in Medieval torture routines so a comfortable fit is important.

Cage bralette.

(6) Almost all cage bras continue to use the same materials as conventional garments, the fabrics of choice being nylon or spandex, their elasticity permitting some adjustments to accommodate variations in shape or location.  Sometimes augmented with lace, fabric, mesh or metal rings, straps can also be made from leather.

Singer Ricki-Lee Coulter (b 1985, left) in a (sort of) dress with an illusion panel under the strappings which may be compared with an illusion bra (right).

(7) The cage and the illusion. The illusion industry variously exchanges and borrows motifs.  Used by fashion designers, the illusion panel is a visual trick which to some extent mimics the appearance of bare skin.  It’s done with flesh-colored fabric, cut to conform to the shape of wearer and the best known products are called illusion dresses although the concept can appear on other styles of garment.  Done well, the trick works, sometimes even close-up but it’s ideal for photo opportunities.  Because cage bras use a structure which can recall the struts used in airframes or the futtocks which are part of nautical architecture, they're an ideal framework for illusion panels.