Spider (pronounced spahy-der)
(1) Any predatory silk-producing arachnid of the order
Araneae, having four pairs of legs and a rounded un-segmented body consisting
of abdomen and cephalothorax, most of which spin webs that serve as nests and
as traps for prey.
(2) In non technical use, any of various other arachnids
resembling or suggesting these.
(3) A cast-iron frying pan with three legs or feet once
common in open-hearth cookery (now rare and applied more loosely; still used by
chefs).
(4) A trivet or tripod, as for supporting a pot or pan on
a hearth.
(5) In digital technology. digitally to survey websites,
following and cataloging their links in order to index web pages for a search
engine.
(6) In engineering, a skeleton or frame with radiating
arms or members, often connected by crosspieces, such as a casting forming the
hub and spokes to which the rim of a fly wheel or large gear is bolted; the
body of a piston head; a frame for strengthening a core or mould for a casting.
(7) In agriculture, an instrument used with a cultivator
to pulverize soil.
(8) Any implement, tool or other device which is some (even
if vague) was resembles or is suggestive of a spider (sometimes as spider-like
or spideresque).
(9) In nautical use, a metal frame fitted at the base of
a mast to which halyards are tied when not in use.
(10) A drink made by mixing ice-cream and a soda (a fizzy
drink such as lemonade) (mostly Australia & New Zealand).
(11) An alcoholic drink made with brandy and lemonade or
ginger beer (mostly Australia & New Zealand and probably extinct although
it still appears in some anthologies of cocktails).
(12) In slang, a person spindly in appearance (dated); also
a popular nickname for those with the surname Webb.
(13) In slang, a man who persistently approaches or
accosts a woman in a public social setting, particularly in a bar (also as bar
spider).
(14) In snooker & billiards, a stick with a convex
arch-shaped notched head used to support the cue when the cue ball is out of
reach at normal extension; a bridge.
(15) In bicycle design, the part of a crank to which the
chain-rings are attached.
(16) In drug slang, one of the many terms for heroin (an allusion
to the web-like patterns on the arms of addicts into which the needle is poked).
(17) In music, part of a resonator instrument that
transmits string vibrations from the bridge to a resonator cone at multiple
points.
(18) In fly fishing, a soft-hackle fly (mostly southern
England).
(19) In the sport of darts, the network of wires
separating the areas of a dartboard.
(20) In mathematics, a type of graph or tree.
(21) In passenger transport, a early type of light
phaeton (obsolete) and latterly a descriptor for a roadster (also as spyder).
(22) In photography and film-making, a support for a
camera tripod, preventing it from sliding.
1380s: From the Middle English spydyr, spydyr & spither (the forms from mid-century were
spiþre, spiþur & spiþer), from the Old English spīþra & spīthra (spider), from the Proto-West Germanic spinþrijō, from the Proto-Germanic spinnaną & spin-thon (“to
spin”). The Old English forms were akin
to spinnan (to spin) and cognate with
the Danish spinder (literally “spinner”)
and the German Spinne and (mostly)
displaced attercop (spider,
unpleasant person) which was relegated to a dialectal term. The root of the European form was the
primitive Indo-European spen & pen (to draw, stretch, spin) + the formative
or agential -thro. The connection with
the root is more transparent in other Germanic cognates such as the Middle Low
German, Middle Dutch, Middle High German & German spinne and the Dutch spin
(spider). The loss of -n- before
spirants is familiar in Old English (such as goose or tooth). Spider is a noun, spidery and spideresque are
adjectives, spidering is a verb and spidered is a verb & adjective; the
noun plural is spiders.
Despite the ancient lineage, in the Old & Middle English there were more common words used when speaking of arachnids including lobbe (or loppe as Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1344-1400) would have it), atorcoppe (the Middle English attercop translates literally as “poison-head”), and (from the Latin aranea), renge. Middle English also had araine (spider) which was picked up, via the Old French from the Latin word with the same spelling and, more poetically, in the Old English there was gangewifre (a weaver as he goes). In literature, the spider was often a figure of cunning, skill, and industry as well as venomous predation. In the seventeenth century, the spider figuratively represented venomousness and thread-spinning but also sensitivity to vibrations and the habit of solitary lurking, waiting for prey to fall into the web; quintessentially, the spider was an independent character. The two-pack game of solitaire (patience) called spider dates from 1890 (still available in software), the choice of name thought owed to the resemblance of the layout of the decks in the original form of the game. In zoology, the spider crab was first identified in 1710 (an applied to various species) while the spider monkey, so called for its long limbs, dates from is from 1764. The noun spider-web in the 1640s replaced the more cumbersome spider's web from a century-odd earlier and the adjective spidery (long and thin) was first noted in 1823.
The Exorcist’s “spider walk” scene.
Based on the William Peter Blatty (1928-2017) novel The Exorcist (1971), the film version (1973) was directed by William Friedkin (1935-2023) and that it did not win the Best Picture Academy Award is a mystery explained only by the prejudices held at the time by those members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who cast ballots for The Sting (1973) a well-made but formulaic piece and hardly the a landmark like The Exorcist. The “spider walk” scene was long the subject of speculation. Not included in the original theatrical release, the director for years claimed it had never been shot and it was only when copies of the takes were found in the archives he admitted it had been done but that it couldn’t be used because the technology didn’t at the time exist to edit out the wires attached to a rail above which made the performance possible. Subsequently, it was revealed the scene had been shot without use of the harness designed for the purpose because it was performed by an experienced stunt double with gymnastic training. Apparently the director didn’t include it because he thought it appeared too early and disrupted the sequence which is interesting because structurally, The Exorcist is far from perfect. The spider walk scene was included in the “director’s cut” editions released the next century.
Little Miss Muffet in Hell (left) and with MWC's (Motor Wheel Corporation) Spyder wheel (right). Because the use by European manufacturers lent the spelling "spyder with a y" a tinge of the exotic, it was used in US commerce, MWC of Lansing Michigan dubbing one of their "jellybean style" wheels thus. The wheel, produced in the early 1970s, used the then popular technique of combining a styled aluminun center with a chromed steel rim. MWC's wheels were highly regarded for quality and the Spyder was produced for use with disc or drum brakes. Note the latter day Little Miss Muffet's strategic positioning of the tip of the tongue.
The 1550s noun tuffet (little tuft) was from the Old French touffel (the diminutive suffix -et replacing the French -el) which was a diminutive of touffe. In English the word is obsolete except for the use in the nursery rhyme Little Miss Muffet which seems first to have appeared in print in 1805 although it (and variations) may have been circulating much earlier.
Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey;
There came a big spider,
Who sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away.
There are cars called
spider and spyder although, unlike many other natural or engineered creations
which in some way resemble arachnids, these cars are almost always small roadsters
which in appearance don’t look anything like their eight-legged namesakes. The origin of the name lies in the horse
& buggy era when a spider phaeton was a lightweight horse-drawn carriage
intended for short-distance journeys and the design was intended to impress so
there was often little protection from the elements beyond perhaps something to
shade ladies from the sun. Unlike some
true “convertible” or “cabriolet” carriages, there were no side windows and the
spider name was gained from the “spider”, a small single seat or bench for the
use of a groom or footman, the name based on the spindly supports which called
to mind an arachnid’s legs. Quite where
this style of coachwork was first seen isn’t known but they were certainly in
use on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1860s and it’s not impossible the invention
was both simultaneous and independent although there are sources which insist
it was first seen in the ante-bellum US. Historians of early transportation note also the similarity of the small seat with the "jump seat" and the later "rumble" or dicky (also as dickie or dickey) seats.
As engines (steam,
electric and predominately internal combustion) made possible horseless
carriages, in the earliest days the body-styles were carried over as were the
designations which is why berlinas, cabriolets and phaetons appeared in the catalogues
of the early automotive coach-builders.
However, the spider nomenclature seems to have for decades been forgotten, because
although the ancillary seats still existed, the terms “dicky”, “rumble” and “jump” came to be preferred, each with its own etymological
tale. The revival of the name had to
await the interwar years, Alfa Romeo in 1931 introducing the 8C, powered by 2.3,
2.6 & 2.9 litre stright-8s, the line continuing until 1939. Many were touring cars but the Spider version
was a sports car built for road and track, and 8C 2300 Spiders won the 1931 &
1932 Targa Florio road-race in Sicily and it was victory in the 1931 Italian
Grand Prix which the factory honored with the "Monza", the GP car a shortened, lightweight version of the Spider.
Encouraged by the image Alfa-Romeo gained from the illustrious 8C Spiders, a few other cars emerged from Europe in the 1930s but it was in the post-war years the name became really fashionable, the economic boom and the availability of chassis suitable to carry the imagination of carrozzerias meant there was a concurrence of supply and demand for stylish roadsters, many of which carried the magic of the spider name. Seemingly more glamorous still must have been “Spyder” because it was in the 1950s that roadsters called Spyder began to appear. Quite why the “y” sometimes was preferred to the “i” has over the years attracted comment and speculation but the reason for the adoption remain obscure. The idea it was to avoid legal action from Alfa-Romeo was soon discounted because, spider being a historic generic from coach-building (like sedan, limousine, cabriolet etc), it couldn’t be trade-marked or otherwise protected and Alfa-Romeo seems anyway never to have tried. There was however a quasi-legal status granted to the spelling “spider” because in 1924, the (the apparently now forgotten) Milan-based National Federation of Body makers declared that was how it should be written, the speculation being that Il Duce (Benito Mussolini, 1883-1945; Duce (Leader) & Prime-Minister of Italy 1922-1943) wanted to make everything as Italian as possible and, there being no "y" in the alphabet, spider it was. Of whether such matters much occupied the fascist mind, there seems no documentation and it does seem dubious; X, Y, W, J not appearing in the Italian alphabet either although many words in the languages include them.
In 1962 Chevrolet chose “Spyder” as the name for the high-performance version of the rear-engined Corvair, introduced in 1960 as a compact car with an emphasis on economy of operation with no pretentions of sportiness (although drivers would soon discover the sometimes quirky handling characteristics could make the things feel rather like certain racing cars). Adopting the name for the turbocharged Spyder made sense because GM (General Motors) had from the state positioned the Corvair as a more “European” type of car although the irony was it made its debut at a time when across the Atlantic many manufacturers were for their next generation of mass-market machines pondering a switch from RE-RWD (rear engine-rear wheel drive) to FE-FWD (front engine, front wheel drive). In the way Detroit was rather loose in the handling of nomenclature, the “Spider” package was available for the Monza versions both as a coupe and convertible; notably, it made the Corvair only the second passenger vehicle in series production to have been fitted with a turbo-charger, Oldsmobile F-85 Turbo Jetfire having been released a few months earlier. The Oldsmobile venture was brief because the early implementation of the technology demanded rather more of drivers than US buyers had become accustomed to giving and anyway, despite the specification (turbocharged, all aluminium, 215 cubic inch (3.5 litre) V8) sounding tempting, on the road it was less than exciting and GM soon abandoned the engine (whether with forced aspiration or not). The corporation came to regret that decision because the light, compact V8 would have proved a useful augmentation to their ranges in the troubled decades to follow. As it was, in 1965 it sold the rights and tooling to Rover and the V8 would until 2006 provide stellar service to the UK industry. Chevrolet in 1965 retired the “Spyder” name from the Corvair and replaced it with “Corsa”.
1965 Chevrolet Corvair Corsa Coupe (left) and 1967 Chevrolet Corvair 500 Sport Sedan (right). The almost Italianesque lines of the second generation Corvair (1965-1967) were as fine as anything from Detroit in the 1960s but the damage to the car's reputation was done. The four-door version was notable for being the only compact four-door hardtop the industry produced and uniquely, there was no companion model with a B-pillar.
As an evocative name for a car, the Latin corsa (from the Ancient Greek κόρση (kórsē) (variously (1) in building, the uprights on the gate of a temple, (2) in anatomy the sides of the forehead (ie the temples) or (3) the hair on the temples)) wasn't encouraging as a noun because it meant “the outer strip in the molding about a door (a girder)”. However, the Latin adjective corsa could (in the feminine) be used to mean “a Corsican” or “of or relating to Corsica” and that obviously was very European. To emphasise that, “Corsa” exists in a number of Romance languages including Asturian, Catalan, French, Galician, Italian, Latin, Portuguese & Spanish. There is nothing to suggest there was in the mid-1960s and market resistance to the name “Spyder”, the switch to “Corsa” made just to create the aura of “newness” at the time so important. In 1965 that was a quality especially important for the second generation Corvair, the reputation of which (rightly) had suffered after the publication of Ralph Nader’s (b 1934) Unsafe at Any Speed (1965) which was a devastating critique on the safety standards of US-made automobiles, the dubiously implemented swing-axles on the very early Corvairs the emblematic case study. Ironically, as well as being one of the loveliest designs of the era, the revised Corvair greatly was improved but by them the damage was terminal and the project doomed, the model lingering until 1969 only because GM didn’t wish it thought Nader had claimed a scalp.
MWC may not have wanted customers to associate its Spyder with the then recently cancelled Corvair but may have been encouraged by FoMoCo (Ford Motor Company) which as early as 1958 had borrowed the French spelling Galaxie for the top-trim option for its then full-sized Fairlane, the company in 1966 adding the 7 Litre option to the range. Even then liters were not unknown in US English (especially among scientists and engineers) but they tended not to use the French spelling (although Pontiac used it to emphasize the distinctly "European" flavor of its short-lived (1966-1969) OHC (overhead camshaft) straight-six). FoMoCo's marketing staff wouldn’t have deluded themselves by imagining use of “litre” would suggest to buyers there was anything remotely “French” about the Galaxie's biggest engine option (by 1966, French cars certainly weren’t built with 7 litre V8 engines) but it avoided a linguistic clash with Galaxie and anyway such things were then anyway part of the zeitgeist of commerce. Then as now, New York City was no more representative of life in the US than were things south of the Mason-Dixon Line but cars were named for the whole country and just as wild creatures (cougar, mustang, barracuda etc) suited some segments, “Galaxie” in 1958 had been chosen because, post-Sputnik, it was the dawn of the “space age” with rockets and satellites suddenly part of the cultural milieu. So it was a deliberate exercise in branding and not a linguistic accident, just as litre appealed because more than any other European nation, France was thought redolent with connotations of modernity and sophistication, making "Galaxie 7 Litre" a happy combination.
1971 Ford LTD Convertible with MWC's Spyder wheels. The proliferation of smaller ranges (the pony cars and intermediates) meant the demise of the "sporty" versions of the full-size lines; among the Fords, the last big block V8 / 4-speed manual transmission combo was built in 1969 and the last LTD convertible would appear in 1972.
A 1971 LTD is an improbable resting place for a set of MWC Spyders which presumably enjoyed an earlier life on another vehicle or perhaps several, certainly they were never a FoMoCo factory option. The LTD began in 1965 as just another option for the Galaxie; it was a "luxury package" (ie letting the Galaxie fulfil the role for which in 1939 Mercury had been created). Although in the 1930s & 1940s there had been various "Deluxe" & "Super Deluxe" Fords, it was when the Edsel venture played out over two and a bit seasons (1958-1960) that the real intra-corporate cannibalization began with Ford in the 1960s increasingly trespassing on what in marketing theory should have been Mercury's fenced-off turf. Even when Mercury stumbled on its one bona fide hit (the 1967 Cougar), it wasn't long before there was a Ford emulating it and, to add insult to injury, at a lower cost. Mercury did well to last until 2011 when FoMoCo grasped the excuse of the GFC (global financial crisis, 2008-2012) to shutter the brand.
The alpha-numeric juxtaposition also simplified the administration of the badgework because in 1966 & 1967, FoMoCo actually offered two very different versions of their 7 litre FE V8, the 427 (a famously powerful & robust beast with a stellar reputation on the circuits which was expensive, noisy, prone to being cantankerous and an oil burner) or the 428 (mild-mannered, smooth, quiet, cheap to build and offering prodigious low-speed torque), the choice at the dealership just a tick on the box for those with the cash of credit rating to afford the 427. The market spoke, the sales breakdown between the 427/428 in 1966/1967 being 11035/38 and 1056/12. So the 427 was retired from the full-sized line for 1968, a run 350-odd of a curious version with hydraulic valve lifters (intended originally for the Mustang) used in the Mercury Cougar, coupled exclusively to an automatic gearbox; for the 1968 Cougars, Ford decided there were just 427s & 428s and didn't bother with litres or liters. Strangely, by then, the corporation would have had an excuse to stick with the French because in 1968 FoMoCo had three different 7 litre V8s in the showrooms, the 427 & 428 from the FE family and the 429 from the 385 series. Fortunately, another 7 litre (the 430 from the MEL family) had been retired in 1966 after being enlarged to 462 cubic inches (7.5 litres).
In Italy, the naming trend really took off in 1954 when Lancia introduced the B24 Aurelia Spider and soon Ferrari and other from Italy would follow although spyders would appear too, (including some from Ferrari & Lancia), and General Motors (GM), noted scavengers of European nomenclature (GTO, Grand Prix etc) shamelessly tacked Spyder onto the doomed Corvair, even for versions with a fixed roof. North of the Brenner Pass, spyder has found favour, used by Porsche, Audi and BMW while in the Far-East, companies like Toyota and Mitsubishi, arch-imitators in style and perfectionists in execution have rolled out their own spyders. Alfa-Romeo and Fiat however have stuck to spider, Lancia and Ferrari too seeming to have forsaken their youthful indiscretions and only using the original.
1967 Alfa Romeo 1600 Spider Duetto.
Although in continuous production between 1966-1993, it was only during the first three years the bodywork featured the memorable Osso di Seppia (Round-tail, literally "cuttle fish") coachwork. After 1970, the Spider gained a Kamm-tail which increased luggage capacity and apparently also conferred some aerodynamic advantage but purists have always coveted the cigar-shaped original, despite it violating a few rules in the design handbook. The Duetto name was the winning entry in a competition Alfa Romeo in 1965 conducted and in those days that meant running advertisements in newspapers (which people actually paid for and read) to which readers responded by cutting out and filling in the coupon, writing in their suggestion, putting it in an envelope on which they wrote the address, buying and affixing a stamp and putting envelope in mailbox. Then, entering a competition took effort and commitment. The company's directors liked "Duetto" because it summed up the romantic essence of a machine definitely built for a couple but unfortunately, for some legal reason relating to an existing trademark, it couldn't officially be used but for decades, among the cognoscenti, the little roadsters have always been called Duettos. To keep the tiresome lawyers at bay, when released at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1966, the car was released as the Spider 1600.
1980 (left) and 1978 (right) Lancia Beta Zagato Spiders.
Whatever its dynamic qualities, the Lancia Beta (1972–1984) tends to be remembered only for its extraordinary predilection for rusting, vying with the early Alfa Romeo Alfasuds (1971-1989) for the title of “most susceptible”. The coupé (1973-1984) and shooting brake (1975-1984 and named HPE (High-performance Estate)) appear less affected by body-rot but the tainted reputation has meant these models have never attained the desirability of earlier Lancias like the exquisite Fulvia (1963-1976). Tellingly, although convertibles tend in the collector market to attract a premium, not even the Beta Zagato Spider enjoys much of a following despite almost 10,000 having been produced in an era when new convertibles were becoming a rarity. The Zagato Spider was more of a targa than a true convertible but was a clever design with both a removable targa-top atop the front seats and a folding rear-section, al la the early Porsche “soft window” Targas of the late 1960s. The coach-building and design house Zagato has operated in Italy since 1919 and although there have been some nice creations, the operation has often been associated with the angular and the quirky, some designs simply weird. Despite that, more than a century on, Zagato remains while others responsible for many sensuous shapes have come and gone.
Robert
I (Robert the Bruce, 1274–1329; King of Scots 1306-1329) was crowned King of
Scots in 1306 and led Scotland to victory in the First War of Scottish
Independence against the English. Earlier though, he’d had his defeats and his
spirits were said to be at a low ebb when after one disastrous battle, he was
forced to take refuge in a cave. Sitting
in the cold, dark space, he noticed a small spider attempting to weave a web
and time and time again, the little creature failed. However, each time the spider fell, it climbed
back up to try again until finally, the silk took hold and the web was spun. From this, Robert was inspired to return to
the fight and was victorious in the Battle of Bannockburn (1314), a triumph which
turned the tide of the war and ultimately, in 1328. the independence of Scotland was won.
Bruce and the spider, by Bernard Barton (1784-1849)
FOR Scotland's and for freedom's right
The Bruce his part has played;--
In five successive fields of fight
Been conquered and dismayed:
Once more against the English host
His band he led, and once more lost
The meed for which he fought;
And now from battle, faint and worn,
The homeless fugitive, forlorn,
A hut's lone shelter sought.
And cheerless was that resting-place
For him who claimed a throne;--
His canopy, devoid of grace,
The rude, rough beams alone;
The heather couch his only bed--
Yet well I ween had slumber fled
From couch of eider down!
Through darksome night till dawn of day,
Absorbed in wakeful thought he lay
Of Scotland and her crown.
The sun rose brightly, and its gleam
Fell on that hapless bed,
And tinged with light each shapeless beam
Which roofed the lowly shed;
When, looking up with wistful eye,
The Bruce beheld a spider try
His filmy thread to fling
From beam to beam of that rude cot--
And well the insect's toilsome lot
Taught Scotland's future king.
Six times the gossamery thread
The wary spider threw;--
In vain the filmy line was sped,
For powerless or untrue
Each aim appeared, and back recoiled
The patient insect, six times foiled,
And yet unconquered still;
And soon the Bruce, with eager eye,
Saw him prepare once more to try
His courage, strength, and skill.
One effort more, his seventh and last!--
The hero hailed the sign!--
And on the wished-for beam hung fast
That slender silken line!
Slight as it was, his spirit caught
The more than omen; for his thought
The lesson well could trace,
Which even "he who runs may read,"
That Perseverance gains its meed,
And Patience wins the race.
