Booby

Booby (pronounced boo-bee)

(1) A bird, a gannet of the genus Sula, having a bright bill, bright feet, or both; some are listed as threatened or endangered.

(2) A slang term for someone thought stupid or a dunce, ignorant or foolish (although still used in the mid-twentieth century, it's probably now obsolete, the meaning crowded out by intrusion of newer slang, some of which has also fallen victim to the linguistic treadmill).

(3) The losing player in a game (the historic UK usage "booby prize", now largely obsolete except in informal use).

(4) One of the many slang terms for the human female's breasts and related to the more common boob, boobs and boobie.

(5) In croquet, a ball that has not passed through the first wicket. 

1590s: From Spanish Latin from the earlier pooby, apparently a blend of (the now obsolete in this context) poop (to befool) and baby, perhaps by association with Spanish bobo (stupid person, slow bird), thought to be from an imitative root of the Latin balbus (stuttering).  Balbus was from the primitive Indo-European balb- & balbal- (tongue-tied) and was cognate with the Ancient Greek βαμβαίνω (bambaínō) & βαμβαλύζω (bambalúzō) (I chatter with the teeth), the Russian болтать (boltatʹ) (to chatter, to babble), the Lithuanian balbė́ti (to talk, to babble), the Sanskrit बल्बला (balbalā) (stammering) and the Albanian belbët (stammering).  The booby prize dates from 1883, a prize given to the loser in a game as concept which persists in some sporting competitions as "the wooden spoon", the idea being something as removed as possible from the usual silverware given as trophies.  The booby trap was first noted in 1850, originally a schoolboy prank (ie something only a "boob" would fall for); the more lethal sense developed during World War I and remain common military and para-military use.  Booby and boobyism are nouns, boobyish and (the non-standard but potentially useful)  boobyesque are adjectives; the noun plural is boobies.

Boobies: found usually in pairs

A nice pair of boobies.  Charmingly, blue-footed boobies are known to be monogamous, pairs often staying together for life.

A booby is a seabird in the genus Sula, part of the Sulidae family. Boobies are closely related to the gannets (Morus), which were formerly included in Sula, the genus created in 1760 by the French naturalist Mathurin Jacques Brisson (1723-1806).  The name is derived from súla, the Old Norse and Icelandic word for the other member of the family Sulidae, the gannet.  The English name booby was based on the Spanish bobo (stupid) as the tame birds often landed on board sailing ships, where they were easily captured and eaten.  As well as a popular addition to the diet of sailors for whom meat other than fish was a rarity, it was fortuitous for many, the Admiralty's archives revealing boobies are often mentioned as having been caught and eaten by shipwrecked sailors.  In taxonomic classification, variations include Abbott's booby (Papasula abbotti), blue-footed booby (Sula nebouxii), brown booby (Sula leucogaster), masked booby (Sula dactylatra), Nazca booby (Sula granti), Peruvian booby (Sula variegata), red-footed booby (Sula sula) & Tasman booby (Sula dactylatra tasmani).

One step at a time.

The distinctive blue feet (the result of pigments ingested from their diet of fish) also play a part in the bobby’s mating ritual although not exactly in the podophilic sense familiar in a sub-set of humans.  In the spring mating season, the bird’s feet become a bright turquoise blue and, to demonstrate their health and vitality conspicuously they will display them to potential partners.  The job done, as their eggs hatch, the blue hue fades to something less vivid.  One aspect of their behaviour which amused the ornithologists who first observed it was that if among fishers unloading their catch, it tossed a small fish from the by-catch, a booby will take it and waddled off somewhere to enjoy it in solitude rather than gulping it down as in common in many species.  Like penguins, although ungainly on land, they are skilled plunge divers which used their streamlined bodies and air sacs “fly” through the water, catching their prey at high speed and they hunt in "packs", coordinating their movement to maximize the catch.  Boobies have been recorded diving from as high as 90 m (300 feet), their speed upon entry estimated at around 100 km/h (60 mph).

Boobies in time, in step.

Based on the use by mainstream internet sites (including nominally reputable news organizations), boob (more commonly in the plural as boobs) seems to have emerged as the preferred slang for breasts, probably because it seems the term women find most acceptable and the one they most often use, not infrequently as their default descriptor.  The origin appears to lie in bubby (plural bubbies), a slang term for the female breast dating from the 1680s which is thought to be imitative of a baby's cry or the sucking sound heard during lactation.  It was most associated with south-east England although that may reflect more extensive documentation rather than proof of regionalism.  Inherently anyway a form in oral use, the alternative pronunciations included buhb-ee, boo-bee & boob-ee so the evolution to boob was perhaps not unexpected although most dictionaries list the earliest known instance as a late 1930s Americanism with the back-formed clippings boob & boobs not appearing until the early post-war years, initially as a vulgarism, women not embracing use for decades although that their approval seems to have coincided with late second-wave feminism is presumably coincidental.

Fully loaded: Lindsay Lohan in boobie-top with crash helmet in Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005).

In fashion, the boobie top (less commonly as booby-top) is a style of clothing (including dresses) which in some way draws attention to or emphasizes the breasts.  The design is most associated with generous displays of cleavage or skin but is used also to refer to garments which wholly cover the breasts in such as way as to highlight the size, shape or movement.  In the industry, a “boobie top” differs from a “boob tube” in that while the former seeks to highlight the breasts as a feature (either by using the fabric tightly to shift the focus to the size and shape or with a cut which displays the cleavage component of the décolletage) while a “boob tube” is a different interpretation of the minimalist: it completely envelopes the breasts (ie little or no visible cleavage) but otherwise exposes the torso.

A “tube top” in the original style (left) and a “boob tube” (right), both now likely to be advertised as a “boob tube”.

The style was in 1972 first described as a “tube-top” (strapless and extend from the armpits to the naval; such garments had earlier been available but the name was new) and the companion “tube skirt” appeared the next season (again, a re-labeling).  The first “boob tubes” were advertised in 1977 and the early were all a truncated version of the “tube top” in that they wrapped only around the breasts); inherently it was a midriff-baring creation and could be thought of as a kind of strapless, bandeau bra designed for outdoor wear (on warmer days).  Constructed with elasticized fabrics, they were designed to be worn without a bra but, like all forms of structural engineering, physics does limit what's possible and they came later to be available also with a “built in bra”.  Others just choose boob tubes made with a thicker material so a strapless bra unobtrusively could be worn beneath but, VBS (visible bra-straps) no longer being a sin against fashion, some now choose a to make the bra part of the look.  In truth, the terms “tube top” & “boob tube” were all a bit misleading because it was only the material covering the breasts which tended toward a truly tubular bra with the rest being more or less flat and a better description might have been “flange” but this wouldn’t have had the same appeal in a boutique so “tubes” they became.  In product descriptions, the distinction between “tube top” and “boob tube” quickly became blurred and the latter tends now often to be used of both types. 

US Army booby trap messaging, 1942.  Such infections have for centuries been a significant part of military medicine because STIs often would reduce unit strength (ie "battle-ready" troops).

During World War II (1939-1945), the US military kept up with evolution of slang, something reflected in advertising which lent a new definition to "booby trap", a familiar concept in which soldiers were well-drilled.  Despite the efforts of padres, it was rare for commanders to attempt to impose morality and when on deployment it was common for there to be "authorized" brothels (often separate facilities for officers and other ranks) with the prostitutes subject to regular inspection by medical staff and allowed to practice their ancient profession only if the supervising doctor issued a "clean" certificate.  Until well into the twentieth century (and the beginning of the antibiotic era), it wasn't unusual for the losses of combat-ready troops to illness & disease to exceed those caused by battlefield causalities and although the numbers were dwarfed by conditions such as malaria, preventing and treating sexually transmitted diseases (STDs, then called venereal disease (VD)) was an important component of military medicine.  It wasn’t until the 1970s the initialism VD began to be replaced by STD (VD thought to have to have gained too many specific associations) but fortunately for AT&T, in 1951 they renamed their STD (Subscriber Toll Dialing) service (for long-distance phone calls) to DDD (Direct Distance Dialing), apparently for no better reason than the alliterative appeal although it's possible they just wanted to avoid mentioning “toll” with all that implies.  Many countries in the English-speaking world continued to use STD for the phone calls, even after the public health specialists had re-purposed the initialization.  In clinical use, STI (Sexually Transmitted Infection) seems now the preferred term.

The other booby trap: Helpful advertising circa 1950.

In Western legal systems, two aspects of consumer protection which greatly advanced in the twentieth century were product liability and “truth in advertising”.  What the changes in product liability did was break the nexus of “privity of contract”, meaning it was no longer required that to seek redress or compensation, an injured party had to be the purchaser of the defective goods.  That reform took shape during the inter-war years but “truth in advertising”, although an old concept enforced in contract law, really became a movement in the post-war years; it was designed to remove from commerce “deceptive or misleading” claims although advertising agencies still had a wide scope to be “economical with the truth” if they could make their assertions fit into the “mere puffery” rubric.  One field never policed was women’s shapewear (corsets and such) which, with a judicious placement of struts, elasticized panels, ribs and padding could variously make body parts appear curvier, straighter, smaller, larger or higher.  The Wonderbra (and its many imitators) was probably the best known example because among the many garments and devices it was the one which most dramatically deceived and misled.  Of all this trickery the law remained silent and the sage advice remained: caveat emptor.

Pencil

Pencil (pronounced pen-suhl)

(1) A slender tube, usually of wood, metal or plastic containing a core or strip of graphite (still referred to as lead) or a solid coloring material, sharpened to some extent, used for writing or drawing.

(2) A stick of cosmetic coloring material for use on the eyebrows, eyelids etc.

(3) Anything shaped or used like a pencil, as a stick of medicated material.

(4) In optics (from the seventeenth century), an aggregate or collection of rays of light, especially when diverging from or converging to a point.

(5) In geometry (from the nineteenth century), a set of geometric objects with a common property, such as the set of lines that pass through a given point in a projective plane.

(6) As a verb, "to pencil in", to schedule or list tentatively, as or as if by writing down in pencil rather than in more permanent ink.

(7) In animation, as "pencil-test", a first take of pictures, historically on black and white film stock, now emulated in software; also used to describe a test which assesses (1) the viability of bralessness (Western tradition) or (2) one's attainment of "real womanhood" (Chinese use).

(8) In medicine, a small medicated bougie (from the nineteenth century and now archaic).

(9) A paintbrush (from the fourteenth century and now archaic).

1350–1400: From the Middle English pencel (an artist’s fine brush of camel hair, used for painting, manuscript illustration etc), from the Anglo-Norman and Old French pincil (artist's paintbrush) from the Old & Middle French pincel from the Medieval Latin pincellus, from the Latin pēnicillum & pēnicillus (painter's brush, hair-pencil (literally "little tail"), a diminutive of pēniculus (brush), a diminutive of penis (tail).  It’s from the old French variant pincel that Modern French gained pinceau (paintbrush).  The verb pencil emerged early in the sixteenth century as pencellen (apply (gold or silver) in manuscript illustration) and by the 1530s was being used in the sense of “to mark or sketch with a pencil-brush”, extended to work undertaken with lead pencils from the 1760s.  Despite the obvious similarity, there is no relationship with the word pen.  The spelling pensill is long obsolete.  Pencil is a noun & verb, penciler is a noun, penciled is a verb, penciled is a verb & adjective and pencillike is an adjective; the noun plural is pencils.  The additional "l" (penciller, pencilled etc) is used in traditional British spelling.

The alluring catwalk combination of a "pencil-thin" model (note the shoulder-blade definition) & polka-dots.  The industry has “solved” the problem of the perception of models being “dangerously thin” by adding a token number of “plus-size” units to their DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) roster.  However, the agencies report the fashion houses still first select the slenderest.

Pencils are produced in quite a variety and specialized types include the carpenter's pencil, the wax (or china) pencil, and the color pencil although what’s more precisely defined are the technical descriptions based on the specification of the graphite (HB, 2B etc), used to rate darkness and hardness.  A propelling pencil is one with a replaceable and mechanically extendable lead that wears away with use, designed to provide lines of constant thickness without requiring sharpening and typically featuring a small eraser at the end opposite the tip.  Pencil pouches and pencil cases are containers in which one stores ones pencils and related items (sharpener & eraser); by convention a pouch was made of a soft material while cases tended to be fashioned from some hard substance (steel, wood, plastic etc) but the terms are used loosely.  A kohl pencil (also called an eyeliner pencil) is one with a kohl core (which can be sharpened in the usual manner) used for enhancing the eyes.  The golf pencil was originally designed for golfers and was about three inches (75 mm) in length though they’re now commonly used in situations where pencil turnover is high (election booths, gambling houses etc).

Despite the careful codification, the system of grading the lead in pencils is not an ISO.

Although in general use the ubiquitous HB has long been the default choice, pencils exist with different formulations used for the graphite (ie “the lead”) and specialists choose them according to purpose and the (almost) standardized labelling is based on the range running from “H” (hard) to “B” (soft) with HB in the middle.  That “B” (counterintuitively) means “soft: is explained by the tag being a reference to “black”: the softer the graphite mix, the blacker a pencil will write and the chemistry is simple in that clay makes the lead harder while graphite makes it softer so the more graphite, the softer and blacker the mark left.

Decoding the pencil scale

H = Hard: lighter, crisper lines; less smudging

B = Black (Soft): darker, richer lines; more smudging

F = Fine point: slightly harder than HB

HB: middle ground; the standard writing pencil

Of the tasks

HB or F: A balanced tone, good for general writing, office, or school use; not too dark or inclined to smudge.

2H to 4H: Preferred by artists and architects for creating initial or conceptual sketches and for outlining, the advantage being the light, easily erasable lines which can provide a base structure.

2B to 6B: A spectrum of soft pencils fused to produce rich, dark renderings and smooth blending; the softer the pencil, the darker and more expressive the mark.

HB to 2H: Much used in architectural designs (still a thing even in the age of CAD (computer-aided design)) and technical drawing because of the clean, precise line which can still easily be erased.

H to 6H: Produces crisp, precise lines not prone to fragmentation at the edges (ie, no smudging).

8B-9B: While the 2B-6B range is the standard “utility pencil” for shading and creating shadows, it’s the 8B-9B to which artists and others turn when very dark tones are needed.

Although it resembles the standardized classification systems used for a number of products, the pencil grading system mostly is a manufacturing convention and not an ISO administered by the International Standards Organization.  Instead, the H–B scale was developed and popularized by European manufacturers during the nineteenth century, most notably by Faber-Castell.  There is an ISO standard (ISO 9177-2) but it applies only to mechanical pencil leads and it grades only hardness, not composition; within IS0 9177-2 manufacturers may still use the H-B grading system because strict physical specifications for the lead’s mix are not included and that means a 2B mechanical pencil from one manufacturer may be darker or softer than a 2B from another.  What that means is there’s no universal calibration; it’s a relative system, consistent within a brand but variable across brands.  With a long history of calligraphy, writing instruments are go great cultural significance in Japan and the Japanese domestic standard (JIS S6004) reflects the tradition of use, Japanese pencils tending to be slightly softer than their Western equivalents for the same grade.

School pencils are a useful way to convey important messages to children.

The "pencil skirt" is a close-fitting garment which classically was knee to calf length.  In explosives, a "pencil detonator" (also as "time pencil") is a timed fuse designed to be connected to a detonator or short length of safety fuse.  "Pencil-thin" is a term (historically one of admiration but of late also used negatively) for an especially slender woman but it can be applied to any thin object (synonymous with "stick-thin", thought a clipping of the earlier zoological reference "stick insect thin").  The phrase "power of the pencil" is from professional gambling and refers to an authority to charge a punter's gambling or other bills to the casino (the house).  The "lead in one's pencil" is slang which referencing the state of erection of one's penis; to "put the lead into one’s pencil" referred to some form of stimulation which induced such an erection (including presumably the sight of an attractive, pencil-thin woman).  To "pencil something in" is to make a tentative booking or arrangement (on the notion of being erasable as opposed to using ink which suggests permanence or something confirmed); the phrase has been in use only since 1942.  The derogatory slang "pencil-pusher" (office worker) dates from 1881; prior to that such folk had since 1820 been called "pen-drivers", the new form reflecting the arrival at scale of mass-produced pencils.  The derogatory "pencil neck" (weak person) was first noted in 1973 while "pencil dick" (a penis of a girth judged inadequate or a man with such an organ) is documented in US slang since 1962.

Lindsay Lohan in pencil skirts: The pencil skirt can be thought the companion product to the bandage dress; while a bandage dress ends usually above the knee (the more pleasing sometimes far above) a pencil skirt typically falls to the knee or is calf-length.  If one is in fishnet stockings, an "above-the-knee" cut seems at least desirable, if not essential. 

Technical terms for the grips with which a pencil is held.

The test pencil is a device with a small bulb or other form of illumination which lights up when an active current is detected.  Available in many voltages (the most common being 12, 24, 48 (for automotive and other low-voltage applications) and 110/120 & 220/240v), they work either by direct contact with the wire through which the current passes or (through the insulation) as a proximity device.  The "test pencil" should not be confused with the "pencil test" which is either (1) in animation, an early version of an animated scene, consisting of rough sketches that are photographed or scanned (now overtaken by technology which emulates the process in software and almost obsolete but the term is still used by graphic artists to describe conceptual sketches or rough takes), (2) in apartheid-era South Africa, a method of determining racial identity, based on how easily a pencil pushed through a person's hair could be removed and (3) a test to determine the necessity (some concede on the advisability) of wearing a bra, based on whether a pencil placed in the infra-mammary fold (ie the "underboob") stays in place with no assistance (which sounds standardized but sources vary about whether a pencil test should be performed with the arms by the side or raised, the choice sometimes affected the result.

The Pencil Test

The pencil test: In the West this photograph would be graded "fail"; in China it’s a "pass", an example of "cultural specificity".

Although it sounds a quintessentially TikTok thing and did trend in 2016, the year the Chinese version of TikTok was released, re-purposing of the pencil test by Chinese women as the “true womanhood” test actually pre-dated the platform.  Like the best trends it was quick and simple and required only the most basic piece of equipment: a pencil (although a pen or any tube with the diameter of a classic pencil would do).  The procedure was the classic pencil test used to determine the viability of going braless but, unlike the occidental original where the pencil falling to the ground was graded a “pass”, in the oriental version, that’s a “fail”, the implement having to sit securely in place to prove one is “a real woman”.  Millions of images were uploaded to Chinese social media channels as proof challenge had been passed; this presumably will assist in ensuring one doesn’t become a leftover woman.

The Flying Pencil

Prototype Dornier 17 V1, 1934.

One of terms of the Treaty of Versailles (1919), imposed on Germany after the World War I (1914-1918) was it was denied the right to military aviation.  Those familiar with the operations of sanctions in the twenty-first century will not be surprised that within a few years, there were significant developments in German civil aviation including gliding clubs which would provide the early training of many pilots who would subsequently join the Luftwaffe, even before the open secret of the organization’s existence formerly was acknowledged in 1935.  Additionally, under well-concealed arrangements with Moscow, German pilots underwent training in the Soviet Union, one of the many programmes in a remarkably flourishing industry of military exchanges undertaken even during periods of notable political tension.  In those years, the German aircraft industry also had its work-arounds, sometimes undertaking research, development and production in co-operation with manufacturers in other countries and sometime producing aircraft notionally for civil purposes but which could easily re-purposed for military roles.  An example was the Dornier Do 17, nicknamed the “flying pencil” in an allusion to the slender fuselage.

Battle of Britain era Dornier Do17 E, 1940.

In 1934, Dornier’s initial description of the Do 17 as a passenger plane raised a few eyebrows in air ministries around the continent but in an attempt to lend the ruse a (thin) veneer of truth, the company submitted the design to Deutsche Luft Hansa (which became the modern carrier Lufthansa), the airline admiring the speed and flying characteristics but rejecting the proposal on the reasonable grounds the flying pencil had hardly any room for passengers.  To all observers, the thing was obviously a prototype bomber and one of the fastest and most advanced in the world but to maintain the subterfuge, Dornier instead claimed it was now a “fast mail transport”.  That fooled few but so soon after the Great War, there was little appetite in Europe for confrontation so Dornier was able to continue to develop the Do 17 as a bomber, adding a glazed nose, provision for internal armament and an internal bomb bay.

Dornier Do 217 E, 1943.

The deployment as part of the Condor Legion in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) provided valuable information in both battle tactics and the need for enhanced defensive armaments and it was these lessons which were integrated into the upgraded versions which formed a part of the Luftwaffe’s bomber and reconnaissance forces at the start of World II.  They provided useful service in the early campaigns against Poland, Norway & the Low Countries but the limitations were exposed when squadrons were confronted by the advanced eight-gun fighters of the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the Battle of Britain (July-September 1940).  However, in the absence of a better alternative, they played an important part in the early successes Germany enjoyed in the invasion of the Soviet Union but such was the rapidity of art-time technological advances that by 1942 the Do 17 was obsolescent and withdrawn from front-line service, relegated to training and other ancillary roles.  The slim frame which had in 1934 helped provide the flying pencil with its outstanding performance now became a limitation, preventing further development even as a night-fighter, the role assigned in those years to many airframes no longer suitable for daytime operations.  Its successor, the Do 217 was notably fatter in the fuselage but even it was soon rendered obsolete and by 1944 had been withdrawn from front-line service.

Mohammed Rafieh's extraordinary Persian pencil place

A COVID-19 era Mohammed Rafieh at work in Medad Rafi, located in the vast bazaar which sits between the two mosques in Tehran's district 15.

Mohammed Rafieh opened Medad Rafi in Tehran in 1990, specializing in color pencils, a description which is no exaggeration.  Although his inventory numbers in the thousands, Mr Rafieh has no need for databases, barcodes or lists of part-numbers, having committed to memory the place of every pencil in his shop, his stock said to include every color known to be available anywhere in the world.  Medad (مداد) is Persian for pencil and Rafi the affectionate diminutive of Rafieh so in translation the shop is thus "Rafi's Pencils"; never has Mr Rafieh been accused of misleading advertising.

Mr Rafieh at work.

The essential accessory: Of the pencil sharpener

The pencil in its familiar, mass-produced form is surprisingly modern.  Quills made from bird feathers and small brushes with bristles from a variety of creatures were used long before chalk or lead pencils.  Sticks of pure graphite (commonly (if chemically inaccurately) known as "black lead") were used in England for marking writing instruments from the mid sixteenth century while the wooden enclosure was a contemporary innovation from the Continent and it seems to have been in this era the word pencil was transferred from a type of brush to the newly encapsulated "graphite writing implement".  The modern clay-graphite mix, essentially little different to that still in use, was developed in the early nineteenth century, mass-production beginning in mid century, something made possible by the availability of cheap, precision machine tools.  The inventor of the handy innovation of an eraser being attached to the end opposite the sharpened lead was granted a patent in 1858.  Some like these on pencils and some don't.

Pencil sharpeners of increasing complexity.  Unless one has specific needs, the old ways are usually the best.

The modern pencil also encouraged the development of the pencil sharpener, one of the world's most simple machines and something which really hasn't been improved upon although over the last century an extraordinary array of mechanical and electro-mechanical devices have been offered (some so wondrously complex it's suspected they existed just to flaunt the engineering although they do make fine gifts for nerds; it's likely nerds do prefer pencils to pens).  Apparently first sold commercially in 1854 (prior to than a hand-held blade of some sort would have been the usual method), some have been intriguing and imaginative designs which sometimes found their specialized niche but none sharpen a pencil better than the cheapest and most simple.  Even now, if one has paper, the creation of just about anything in theoretical physics, poetry or literature demands little equipment beyond pencil, paper, sharpener & eraser.  

The Faber-Castell production process.

The pencil as collectable relic

Lot 278: Four volumes of Roget's International Thesaurus.

Pencils can be collectables if their provenance adequately is documented.  Doyle’s in New York on 18 June 2024 conducted an auction of some items from the estate of US composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim (1930–2021), attracting dealers, collectors & Sondheim devotees and Lot 278 was indicative of the strength of bidding: four (well worn) volumes of Roget's International Thesaurus.  Although one was from the first printing (June 1946), it lacked a dust jacket and came with library markings and a “Withdrawn” stamp.  None of those offered were rarities (reflected in the pre-sale estimate of US$200-300) but the hammer fell at an impressive US$25,600.  The stationery freaks (it really is quite a thing) were also in the crowd, a signed spiral notebook selling for what one commentator called “a startling US$15,360.”

Lot 275: Three boxes of Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602 pencils.  The Blackwing was not cylindrical so, like a "carpenter's pencil", it was less prone to rolling onto the floor.  Decades after the pencils entered the market, there would be a Cadillac Blackwing V8, a notable piece of engineering doomed by its high cost. 

What was most surprising though was the fate of Lot 275: “Three boxes of vintage Blackwing 602 pencils (Circa 1940s-1950s).  Three blue boxes printed with "Eberhard Faber/Blackwing/Feathery-Smooth Pencils, two of the boxes complete with 12 pencils, one with 8 only (together 32 pencils).  Some wear to the boxes and drying of the erasers.”  Sondheim was a devoted Blackwing user, telling one interviewer: “I use Blackwing pencils. Blackwings.  They don’t make ’em any more, and luckily, I bought a lot of boxes of ’em.  They’re very soft lead.  They’re not round, so they don’t fall off the table, and they have removable erasers, which unfortunately dry out."  The pencils sold for US$6,400 against a pre-sale estimate of US$600-800.

The pencils were an example of how critical is provenance in the collectables market.  In June 2023, Bloomfield Auctions in east Belfast, Northern Ireland, held a “specialist” sale focused “militaria, police and important Irish historical items”, one entry with a pre-sale estimate of US$65,000-100,000 being Lot 148: “An engraved, silver-plated pencil, believed to have been a 52nd birthday present (20 April 1941) from Eva Braun (1912–1945) to Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945).  On the day, the pencil sold for US$6,900.

The lower than expected price may have been the result of doubts being cast on the authenticity of the item’s claimed history.  Technically, Lot 148 was a mid-20th-century mechanical pencil, of white metal (presumably one with a high nickel content) and silver-plated, engraved along one louvered side facet with the inscription: ZUM 20 APRIL 1941 HERZLICHST EVA.  That’s an abbreviated form of phrase typically used on occasions such as birthdays, the brevity necessitated by the surface area with which the engraver had to work, the pencil only some 3¼ inches (82.5 mm) long.  Deconstructed, the sentence fragment begins with the preposition “to” and a contracted, inflected article of speech, “the” expressed in the dative case.  Zum is literally “To the...”, understood as “Upon the...”.  So, the signatory (“Eva”) is marking the occasion the birthday on 20 April 1941, the inherent formality of form what one would expect in a gift to a head of state though perhaps not one from a lover.  However, the very existence of the relationship between the Führer and the woman who later briefly would be Frau Hitler was unknown beyond his court circle and it may have been even the jeweller wasn’t to be given a hint; the exact (physical) nature of their relationship remains a mystery.  However, the word herzlichst is from the root noun Herz (heart) and as an adjective or adverb, herzlich, is often used in the sense of “heartful” or “heartfelt” which at least suggests something intimate and the –st suffix operates to create a superlative, which if literally translated (“most heartful” or “most heartfelt”) sounds in English like something which might be used ironically or cynically but there’s nothing to suggest it should be understood as anything but something like: On the occasion of the 20th April, 1941, most heartfully, Eva.

The "Hitler" Pencil top.

The provenance of the pencil however proved controversial, something not helped by the anonymity of the seller and the lack of any documentary trail which might have helped confirm the veracity of the back-story.  While one could speculate any number of the life the pencil may have led over the decades, no evidence was offered.  The sale also attracted criticism which is increasingly heard when auction houses offer any of the militaria, memorabilia and ephemera connected with Hitler or the Nazis in general.  Although such objects have for decades been collectables there’s now more resistance to the notion of profits being derived from the trade in what is, in some sense, “the commemoration of evil” and the Chairman of the European Jewish Association had called for the pencil to be withdrawn from sale, issuing a statement in which he called the auction part of a “…macabre trade in items belonging to mass murderers, the motives of those buying them are unknown and may glorify the actions of the Nazis, and lastly, their trade is an insult to the millions who perished, the few survivors left, and to Jews everywhere.”  The president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews described the sale as “…distressing, disturbing and hugely disrespectful”, arguing that even if of historical significance “…these items have no place in our country other than inside the walls of a museum or other institution where they can be used to teach about the results of anti-Semitism.”

1938 Mercedes-Benz 770K (W150) Cabriolet F, a seven passenger tourer & parade car, pictured here with the folding soft-top in sedanca de ville configuration.

There is still some tolerance for the trade in items which would otherwise anyway be collectables (such as the Mercedes-Benz 770Ks (W07 (1930-1938) & W150 (1938-1943), many of which when offered are claimed (dubiously and not) to have some association with Hitler) and for anything of genuine historical significance (such as diplomatic papers) but the circulation of mere ephemera with some Nazi link is increasingly being condemned as macabre and the higher the prices paid, the more distasteful it's alleged to be.  A spokesman for Bloomfield Auctions defended the inclusion of such items in the sale, arguing they “…preserve a piece of our past and should be treated as historical objects, no matter if the history they refer to was one of the darkest and most controversial in recorded history.”, adding “We do not seek to cause hurt or distress to any one or any part of society” and that buyers typically were “legitimate collectors who have a passion for history… all items are a part of history, and we shouldn't be writing history out of books or society.”

Pencil sculpture by Russian artist Salavat Fidai (b 1972).

Backwoodsman

Backwoodsman (pronounced bak-woodz-muhn)

(1) A person living in or coming from the backwoods, or a remote or unsettled area (backwoodswoman a later back-formation).

(2) A person of uncouth manners, rustic behavior or speech etc.

(3) In historic UK use, a peer (member of the House of Lords) who rarely attends the chamber.

1700-1710: An Americanism, the construct being backwoods ((1) partly or wholly uncleared forest (especially in North America use) and (2) a remote or sparsely inhabited region (especially in North America use); away from large human settlements and the influence of modern life) + -man.  The related terms included “hinterlander”, “mountain man” & “woodsman” and while the history of use meant they evolved to be not wholly without implied meaning, in various places a number of “loaded” words and phrases came to be used as a way of disparaging rural dwellers including country bumpkin, boor, clodhopper, hick, rube, rustic, yokel, country boy (or country girl), hayseed, clod, hodge, swain, country cousin, son of the soil, lubber, lummox, galoot, mountainmen & lunk.  Backwoodsman is a noun; the noun plural is backwoodsmen.

Back was from the Middle English bak, from the Old English bæc (rear part of the body), from the Proto-West Germanic bak, from the Proto-Germanic baką & bakam, possibly from the primitive Indo-European bhago- (to bend; to curve) and may be compared with the Middle Low German bak (back), from the Old Saxon bak, the West Frisian bekling (chair back), the Old High German bah, and the Swedish and Norwegian bak.  It was cognate with the German Bache (sow (adult female hog)).  Wood was from the Middle English wode, from the Old English wudu & widu (wood, forest, grove; tree; timber), from the Proto-West Germanic widu, from the Proto-Germanic widuz (wood), from the primitive Indo-European hweydh- (to separate).  It was cognate with the Dutch wede (wood, twig), the Middle High German wite (wood), the Danish ved (wood), the Swedish ved (firewood), the Icelandic viður (wood) and additional cognates include the Irish fiodh (a wood; tree), the Irish fid (tree) and the Welsh gwŷdd (trees), all from the Proto-Celtic widus (wood).  The word was unrelated to the Dutch woud (forest), and the German Wald (forest).  Man was from the Middle English man, from the Old English mann (human being, person, man), from the Proto-West Germanic mann, from the Proto-Germanic mann (human being, man), probably from the primitive Indo-European mon- (man) (men having the meaning “mind”); a doublet of manu.  The specific sense of “adult male of the human race” (distinguished from a woman or boy) was known in the Old English by circa 1000.   Old English used wer and wif to distinguish the sexes, but wer began to disappear late in the thirteenth century, replaced by mann and increasingly man.  Man also was in Old English as an indefinite pronoun (one, people, they) and used generically for "the human race, mankind" by circa 1200.  It was cognate with the West Frisian man, the Dutch man, the German Mann (man), the Norwegian mann (man), the Old Swedish maþer (man), the Swedish man, the Russian муж (muž) (husband, male person), the Avestan manš, the Sanskrit मनु (manu) (human being), the Urdu مانس‎ and Hindi मानस (mānas).  Although often thought a modern adoption, use as a word of familiar address, originally often implying impatience is attested as early as circa 1400, hence probably its use as an interjection of surprise or emphasis since Middle English.  It became especially popular from the early twentieth century.

Types de pionniers, de bouviers et d indians de Benton (Montana) (pioneers, drovers and Indians from Benton, Montana).  A late nineteenth century engraving after the drawing by Émile-Antoine Bayard (1837–1891), depicting the voyage from Washington to San Francisco, in 1868, by French engineer & geologist Louis Laurent (1830-1886), published in Le tour du monde (Hachette edition, 1874), edited by Édouard Charton (1807–1890).  When reproduced for sale in the US (right), the title Backwoodsmen and Indians (in the sense of “Native Americans” was sometimes used.

In the US, “backwoodsman” was a term used to describe those living remotely and it could be used neutrally or, by city-dwellers, as a form of disparagement.  It spread to the UK but didn’t become widely used until the dispute between the Conservative & Unionist Party (the Tories) opposition and the new Liberal government over certain budget measures, the squabble culminating in the “constitutional crisis” of 1911 and the passage of the Parliament Act which removed from the non-elected House of Lords the power permanently to block legislation passed by the (then sort of) democratically elected House of Commons.  When the Lords, defying convention, voted to reject the government’s budget, the prime minister and chancellor of the exchequer (the finance minister or treasurer) decided what was needed was constitutional reform, ending or at least severely restricting the right of their lordships to frustrate a government with a majority in the Commons.

HH Asquith, London, 1911.

The significance of the “backwoodmen” in the constitutional crisis was that they were the peers (members of the House of Lords, almost all of who had inherited their title and the right to sit in the parliament’s upper house, some there thus because of some great service (or in some cases corrupt act) of a ancestor possibly centuries earlier) who rarely, if ever attended sessions.  They gained their name by virtue of being country gentlemen and by virtue of their inherent bias for the Tory cause, they provided a built-in majority for the party and should ever the need arise, they could be summoned to vote.  That need arose during the crisis because the prime-minister (HH Asquith (1852–1928; UK prime minister 1908-1916) had threatened to secure George V’s (1865–1936; King of the United Kingdom & Emperor of India 1910-1936) acquiescence to the creation of hundreds of Liberal Party aligned peers thereby overwhelming the Tory majority, a move which contained the implied threat of the new crop being used in an act of “political suicide”: voting to abolish the Lords.  That might have seemed scaremongery but in the decades ahead, elsewhere in the empire, upper houses would do exactly that.

Backwoodsperson Lindsay Lohan in the woods in Albus Lumen top & skirt from Matches Fashion with Missoni earrings & choker from Ounass, Emirates Woman magazine, May 2018.

As the parliamentary battle-lines were drawn, the Tories in the Lords coalesced into two factions: the “ditchers” and “hedgers”.  The ditchers were the “hardliners”, the absolutists prepared (metaphorically) to “die in the last ditch” rather than accede to any reform which constrained their power.  The ditchers had a world view which included the aristocracy being the natural and essential class to govern the nation.  The hedgers were the age’s version of the “power-realists”, pragmatists who may not have approved of reform but could sniff the winds of political change blowing through Westminster’s oak-panelled corridors, winds that were turning to gusts, blowing in moths already nibbling at the ermine.  Their view was the threatened reform was the lesser of two evils and it was better to concede a little now than later lose a lot more.

David Lloyd George, London, 1907.

Compromise was anathema to the ditchers who mobilized the network of backwoodsman peers, summoning them to London to vote which would have been a experience for some who had not for decades cat their eyes upon the the houses of parliament, let alone sat in the place.  The ditchers thought they had the numbers and at some points in the struggle they almost certainly did but when the news circulated the king had agreed to created hundreds of new barons, some of the ditchers, appalled at the thought their  exclusive circles would be diluted by an infusion of miners, manufacturers and motor car salesmen, left their ditch for the hedge.  When the moment arrived, the Parliament Act (1911) was passed by 131 votes to 114, the hundreds of abstentions an indication of how many had decided to “sit on the hedge”.  After the Parliament Act, the Lords could no longer veto all but the most fundamental constitutional acts and their power was restricted to delaying implementation for two years (in 1949 reduced to six months).  One Liberal actually pleased the need for the hundreds of new peers had never arisen was David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922), then chancellor of the exchequer.  Lloyd George was well acquainted with the character of men likely to be among the hundreds of new barons and viewed them with some distaste, admitting to the Tory leader of the opposition (Arthur Balfour (1848–1930; UK Prime Minister 1902-1905)) that like him he had no desire to see the creation happen: “…looking into the future, I know that our glorified grocers will be more hostile to social reform than your Backwoodsmen.”  Lloyd George appreciated the backwoodsmen might have some sense of noblesse oblige but he knew the way the “jumped up grocers” treated the working class in their mines, mills and factories.

Tube

Tube (pronounced toob or tyoob)

(1) A hollow (usually cylindrical or oval) body of metal, glass, rubber or other material, used especially for conveying or containing liquids or gases.

(2) A small, collapsible, cylinder of metal or plastic sealed at one end and having a capped opening at the other from which paint, toothpaste, or some other semi-fluid substance may be squeezed or pumped.

(3) In anatomy & zoology, any hollow, cylindrical vessel or organ:

(4) In botany, the lower part of a gamopetalous corolla or gamosepalous calyx, below the lobes but used generally of any other hollow structure in a plant

(5) As “inner tube” a rubber, synthetic or composite construction in the form of a torus (doughnut-shaped) which sits inside the tyres of bicycles, motorcycles and certain other vehicles for the purpose of sustaining inflation (now rare on passenger vehicles which tend to use “tubeless” tyres.

(6) In semi-formal use (originally UK colloquial but now trademarked), the London RTS (rapid transit system) railway system (should use initial upper case).  The name comes from the tube-like tunnels drilled for most on the original underground sections but “The Tube” is used of the whole network (which does extend beyond London) including the above-ground sectors.  “Tube” is used variously of (1) the service, (2) of the cylindrical tunnels and (3) the rolling stock (the trains and carriages).  The term is also used in other places to describe underground railways.

(7) In electronics as “electron tube” (clipped usually to “tube”); as the “vacuum tube”, the predecessor of the transistor.

(8) In materials, as “nanotube”, small carbon constructions some 50,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair.

(9) In fashion variously as (1) “tube top” (a tight-fitting, sleeveless garment extening from the armpits to the waist or hips, (2) “boob tube” a shorter type of tube top which covers only the breasts (often labeled as “bandeau tube top”) and (3) “tube skirt” (a close fitting skirt which differs from the similar “pencil skirt” which is tapered).

(10) In slang, a television set (also used as “boob tube” with “boob” used in the sense of “someone stupid or foolish”, an allusion either to the inanity of much of what was broadcast or slur upon the audience).  Historically, television screens (like pre-modern computer monitors) used a “cathode-ray tube” and this was the original source of the idea of televisions as “on the tube”.

(11) In the slang of surfers, the curled hollow space formed when a cresting wave pitches forward when breaking.

(12) In the slang of clinical medicine, to intubate.

(13) In Australian Slang, a can of beer.

(14) In slang, a telescope (now rare and used usually as a deliberate archaism).

(15) To furnish with a tube or tubes.

(16) To convey or enclose in a tube.

(17) To form or render into the shape of a tube; to make tubular.

1590-1600: From the Middle French tube, from the Latin tubus (tube, pipe), related to tuba (long trumpet; war-trumpet), of obscure origin, but possibly connected to tībia (shinbone, reed-pipe).  The idiomatic for “down the tube(s)” (into a ruined, wasted, or abandoned state or condition; lost, finished) dates from the early 1960s and carries the same meaning as “down the drain”.  Despite the similarity of the words and the shapes of the structures, etymologists believe tub (open vessel used for liquids or other substances) was unrelated to tube.  Tub was from the late fourteenth century Middle English tubbe & tobbe, from a continental Germanic source such as the Middle Dutch tubbe, the Middle Low German tubbe & tobbe or the Middle Flemish tubbe, all of uncertain origin.  Tube, tubage & tubing are nouns & verbs, tubulure is a noun, tubed is a verb, tubular, tubey, tubiform, tubesque, tubeless, tubelike, tubish, tuboid & tuboidal are adjectives; the noun plural is tubes.

Squeezed from a tube: The toothpaste one squeezes onto a toothbrush is called a "nurdle".

The original use in the 1590s was of the observed structures in anatomy and zoology (a hollow organ or passage in the body) and this was extended by the 1650s to mean “pipe or hollow cylinder” (especially a small one used as a conduit for liquids).  The use to describe a “sealed container in tubular form” began in 1859 with the vacuum tube, later extended in electronics to a sealed tube containing electrodes (in wide use until the 1950s when transistors achieved mass-production).  The use to describe televisions dates from 1959 and seems to have been as clipping of “cathode ray tube” (CRT, the technology use of pre-modern screens) or “picture tube”.  “The Tube” was also late nineteenth century for wired telephones, the use derived from ships where voice traffic between places was sometimes carried by “speaking tube”, the same technology also used in horse-drawn carriages and early motor vehicles where the passenger compartment was sealed and separated from the drive or chauffeur.  In limousines (with a glass partition or divider), speaking-tubes were still sometimes fitted as late as the 1960s because it was simple, reliable technology and over such short distances an electronic apparatus offer little advantage.  London’s underground railway (an early London RTS (rapid transit system)) came to be known as “the Tube” in 1847, based on the tubular tunnels drilled to created the network; in 1900, in the press, it was dubbed the “Twopenny Tube” (a reference to the basic fare).  “Tube” has come to be a slang for RTS systems in various places, even those with no tubular tunnels (a similar linguistic process to “wire” or “cable” for electronic transmission).

Tube maps (sort of):  The London Underground maps, 1908 (left), 1933 (centre) and 2014 (right).

Although referred to almost universally as the “London Underground Map”, pedants like to point out (1) it’s a schematic (or diagram) rather than a map and (2) over half the “Underground” is above ground.  The now familiar concept of the “map” was in 1931 devised by Henry Beck (1902–1974), then a 29 year old electrical draftsman, who envisaged the rail lines as wires, the stations as connectors and the whole network as an integrated and interconnected diagrammatic system, much like the electrical circuit boards he was accustomed to drawing.  What was revolutionary about Mr Beck’s concept was he understood the purpose was different from a conventional map where scale mattered, rail lines had to be drawn in exactly the shape the assumed and topographic features were included.  What people wanted in a map of “The Tube” was a navigation aid, something which made as simple as possible the task of working out the matter of getting from station-to-station. 

The verb “to tube” (receive, enclose, or dispatch in a (pneumatic) tube) was in use by at least 1870 and was a clipping of pneumatic-dispatch tube (PDT), tubes first installed in 1859 in buildings for the rapid delivery of documents between floors or offices and propelled by air pressure; for dispatch, the documents were rolled and inserted in a small cylinder, the external diameter of which was slightly less than the internal diameter of the tube infrastructure.  The noun tubage (insertion of a tube into a cavity or canal) dates from 1880 and by 1896 it was being used as a collective nouns for tubes.  The adjective tubular (having the form of a tube or pipe) was from the Latin tubulus (a small pipe) and was in the early 1960s adopted in California’s surfing culture to describe the hollow, curling waves, most ideal for riding.

Lindsay Lohan in green-hooped tube top (left) and Coco Avenue's range of boob tubes in designer colors (right).

In pneumatic tyres, although still common on bicycles and motor-bikes, inner tubes are now rare in passenger vehicle use but they are still produced for a variety of commercial application and they have been re-purposed for the recreational pastime of “tubing” (riding on the inflated inner tube of a large (truck, tractor etc) tyre), undertaken both as a water-sport and on ski-slopes.  The jocular slang noun “tube-steak” emerged in 1962 to described “a frankfurter” (ie hotdog sausage), the term obviously a reference to the shape and given that, it’s remarkable it seems not to have been used as a slang for “penis” until the mid-1980s.  The test-tube (cylinder of thin glass closed in rounded form at one end) was so named in 1909 because it was used to test the properties of liquids.  Surprisingly, “test-tube baby” predates by decades modern IVF (In vitro fertilization) and was first used in 1935 in reference to artificial insemination.  In the 1980s, “test tube baby” became the popular descriptor of IVF, “test tube” used as a synecdoche of the process rather than any suggestion of the use of the glass receptacles.  The name “tube-top” (a women's close-fitting elastic top) made its debut in 1972 (although the style had been seen before); the “tube skirt” appeared the next season (again, a re-labeling) while the first “boob tubes” (a truncated version of the “tube top” which wraps only around the breasts) were advertised in 1977.  Being elasticized, some wear boob tubes without a bra but they're available also with a "built-in" bra (like all forms of structural engineering, physics does limit what's possible) and some are made with a thicker material so a strapless bra unobtrusively can be worn underneath.  

YouTube content.  

YouTube is a US social media and online video sharing platform now owned by Google.  It first appeared in 2005 and is now the planet's second most visited internet site, only Google search generating more traffic (as expressed in volumes of unique visits per day).  YouTube was emblematic of the way the internet evolved in a manner somewhat different to that futurists had in preceding decades predicted.  Although it was clear it would be an inter-connected world of databases with content from “content providers” available for download, few predicted the extent to which the terms “viewer”, “user” and “content provider” would overlap; the upload phenomenon generally was not predicted.  Substantially, this was technologically deterministic: with a high percentage of the world’s population carrying cameras able to produce HD (high definition) photographs and films which easily can be uploaded to a global distribution platform at only marginal cost, a new industry emerged and others were disrupted or destroyed.

OSCA S187 (750S).  The Italians dubbed these tubo di dentifricio (toothpaste tube), illustrating yet again how everything sounds better in Italian.

In 1937, facing bankruptcy, the three surviving Maserati brothers (Bindo (1883-1980), Ettore (1894-1990) & Ernesto (1898-1975)) sold their eponymous company to the Orsi Group in Modena, the arrangement including a decade-long consultancy for the trio.  It’s not known if there was “no compete” clause in place but the brothers waited until 1947 when the contract expired before returning to San Lazzaro di Savena (near Bologna) where they founded Officine Specializzate per la Costruzione Automobili Fratelli Maserati S.p.A. (O.S.C.A.), the intention being to build small runs of racing cars for customers and for more than a decade production continued.  Most of the machines built used small displacement engines to contest the various series for such things (then popular in Italy) although in 1951 there was a one-off, 4.5 litre (273 cubic inch) V12, soon rendered an orphan when the Formula One rules were changed. 

Accordingly, subsequent OSCAs were smaller and one of the most exquisite was the S187 which made its debut in 1956.  Built to contest the well-supported 750 cm³ (46 cubic inch) racing class, the name was derived from the displacement of each of the engine’s four cylinders, a convention used for years also by Ferrari.  The smallest engine O.S.C.A. ever made, it was of “square” configuration (the bore & stroke both 62 mm (2.44 inch)) with double overhead camshafts (DOHC) and a pair of twin-choke, side-draft Weber carburetors.  Modest the displacement may have been but the package generated an impressive 70 horsepower which, combined with low weight (a svelte 450 kg (990 lb)) and effective aerodynamics, delivered class-leading performance.  That was despite the S187 being a little heavier than had been envisaged because constraints in time & cash meant the planned multi-tubular space frame had to be abandoned, replaced with a more conventional ladder frame chassis.

OSCA 750S NART (North American Racing Team), one of four with a clamshell body.

The delicate aerodynamic body was by the coachbuilder Morelli and the S-187 (referred to usually as the 750S) was immediately successful, gaining a class victory at the 1956 Mille Miglia, followed the next year with a class win at the 12 Hours of Sebring.  Although in 1959 still competitive in the 750 cm³ class, the brothers produced a new cylinder head which raised the output by 5 horsepower which may sound slight but it was a 7% lift (it would be like adding some 30 hp to a 400 hp engine) and despite in competition being regularly run for sustained periods at the 7700 rpm redline, reliability continued to be outstanding and the 750S remained competitive until well into the 1960s.  Nineteen were built.

End of the line: 1963 OSCA 1600 GT2

Unfortunately, age caught up with the Maserati brothers and in 1963 they sold O.S.C.A. to Count Domenico Agusta (1907–1971) who, in 1945, founded the MV Agusta motorcycle company, a move necessitated by the post-war peace treaty which included a ban on Italian aircraft production which obviously rendered unviable the aviation business Costruzioni Aeronautiche Giovanni Agusta S.A. (formed in 1923 by Count Giovanni Agusta (1879–1927)).  The O.S.C.A. operation was closed in 1967.