Cartnaping

Cartnaping (pronounced kahrt-nap-ing)

(1) In retail industry slang, the act of customers taking a shopping cart (in some markets a “shopping trolley, buggy, trundler etc”) beyond the designated confines (usually a car-park).

(2) In slang, a customer (now presumed to be a “Karen”) who purloins another’s (empty) shopping cart for their own use, usually when no others conveniently are to hand.

1990s: First recorded in California on the model of “kidnapping”, the construct being cart + nap + -ing.  In most non-US use, the spelling would usually be “cartnapping”.  Historically, a cart was a small, open, wheeled vehicle, drawn or pushed by a person or animal and used usually for transporting goods (although many passenger transports (often towed) have been described thus.  Go-carts (also as go-kart), the small motor vehicles, powered by lawn-mower or motorcycle engines remain one of the most popular platforms in entry-level motorsports although the sport no prefers they be called “karts”.  Cart was from the Middle English cart & kart, from the Old Norse kartr (wagon; cart), akin to the Old English cræt (chariot; cart), from the Proto-Germanic krattaz, krattijô & kradō, from the primitive Indo-European gret- (tracery; wattle; cradle; cage; basket), from ger- (to turn, wind).  It was cognate with the West Frisian kret (wheelbarrow for hauling dung), the Dutch krat & kret (crate; wheelbarrow for hauling dung), the German Krätze (basket; pannier); the most obvious wider cognate was the Sanskrit ग्रन्थ (grantha) (a binding).

In English the familiar meaning of “nap” is “to sleep for a brief time, especially during the day”.  In that sense, nap was from the Middle English nappen, from the Old English hnappian (to doze, slumber, sleep), from the Proto-West Germanic hnappōn (to nap) and was cognate with the Old High German hnaffezan & hnaffezzan (from which Middle High German gained nafzen (to slumber), source of the German dialectal napfezen & nafzen (to nod, slumber, nap).  In this sense, “nap” is used figuratively, often in the phrase “caught napping” which suggests being “caught off guard (in military conflicts, sporting competitions etc.  However, one of the other meanings of “nap” was “to grad; to nab”) and while the use is long extinct as a stand-alone word, as an element it endures in “kidnap” (and the derived “cartnap”, “catnap” etc).  In that sense the source of “nap” is murky but it was probably of North Germanic origin, from the Old Swedish nappa (to pluck, pinch).  The suffix –ing was from the Middle English -ing, from the Old English –ing & -ung (in the sense of the modern -ing, as a suffix forming nouns from verbs), from the Proto-West Germanic –ingu & -ungu, from the Proto-Germanic –ingō & -ungō. It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian -enge, the West Frisian –ing, the Dutch –ing, The Low German –ing & -ink, the German –ung, the Swedish -ing and the Icelandic –ing; All the cognate forms were used for the same purpose as the English -ing).  Cartnaping & cartnap are nouns & verbs, cartnaper is a noun and cartnaped is a verb; the noun plural is cartnapings and although also rare, cartnapers is more widely used, usually on internet “shaming” sites which document the devices abandoned or dumped in streets, waterways, parks etc.

How it all began: US Patent 2,196,914.

Although it’s clear such things had been used in many cultures for millennia, as a mass-produced commodity, the modern shopping cart was “invented” by Sylvan Goldman (1898-1984) an Oklahoma-based supermarket mogul.  It was in 1936, during the Great Depression, that Mr Goldman built his first prototypes and the following year, he began a trial of the devices in his chain of Humpty Dumpty grocery stores.  Although the early take-up rate was “sluggish”, by 1938, when he filed a patent application for his original design (“a combination basket and carriage”) the things had becoming popular with customers and in April 1940 the US Patent and Trademark Office granted US Patent 2,196,914 (Folding Basket Carriage for Self-Service Stores).

The utility was so obvious that shopping carts rapidly became features of large shopping centres throughout the nation and he soon added features, most famously as “baby seat” although the implementation of that would probably shock & appal today’s H&S (health & safety) regulators.  In the post-war years the shopping carts multiplied by the million because of a then unique combination of circumstances in the US economy: (1) widespread prosperity, (2) a shift of population from town centres to (often newly developed) remote suburbs, (4) clusters of those suburbs being serviced by large shopping centres & supermarkets and (4) multi-vehicle households which meant women had begun to drive to shop.  What the shopping centres tended to do was provide a space in which all a week’s shopping could be done in one place, purchases collected by customers who parked their car in a vast car park and it was the shopping cart which made this structural model possible.

1964 GM Runabout show car with obligatory white, happily married, middle-class woman with one of her 2.8 children (who were always well-behaved).  Note the child's white gloves, a wise parental precaution (even pre-COVID-19) given the volume of pathogens found on the typical supermarket shopping cart.

One refinement to the concept was the GM Runabout, displayed at the General Motors Futurama Exhibit the 1964 New York World's Fair.  The three-wheeled car was able to seat two adults and three children (approximately the size projected for the “average” white, middle-class US family of the late 1960s) and was optimized for ease of handling, the single front wheel able (at low speeds) to turn through 180^o.  The target market was made obvious by its most innovative feature: two fitted shopping carts which slotted into the rear bodywork, the wheels and lower assembly folding away when locked into position.  That might seem superfluous given supermarkets provided such things but the advantage was the carts could also be used at home, obviating the need to make several trips between car and kitchen.  The retail industry presumably would have liked to have seen the idea catch on because, having already off-loaded onto the customer the task of carrying the groceries to the car, it would have meant they could do away with most of their own stock of carts, needing only a few for those who needed to take their goods as far as a taxi.  The poor, able to afford neither cab nor car would just have to work it out.

Mitt Romney (b 1947; Republican nominee in the 2012 US presidential election, US senator (Republican-Utah) since 2019) (left), buying 12-packs of Caffeine Free Diet Coke and Wild Cherry Diet Pepsi, Hunter's Shop and Save, Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, August 2012.  Mormons are not allowed to do anything “evil” (though it's rumored some do) and the Doctrine and Covenants (the D&C (1835); referred to usually as the Word of Wisdom) is the scriptural canon of the Church of the Latter Day Saints (the Mormons), section 89 of which provides dietary guidelines which prohibit, inter-alia, the consumption of alcohol, tobacco, and hot drinks (ie tea & coffee).  This index of forbidden food accounts not only for why noted Mormon Mitt Romney usually looks so miserable but also why manufacturers of chocolate, candy & soda have long found Utah a receptive and lucrative market; other than joyful singing, the sugary treats are among their few orally enjoyed pleasures.  Although buying caffeine-free soda, Mitt still knows how to have a good time.  Lindsay Lohan, shopping in Beverley Hills in December 2007 (right), uses a shopping cart because a half-dozen 500 ml (16.9 fl oz) bottles of Evian water are heavier than they look.  Neither have ever been accused of cartnapping.

Dumped in the wild: victims of cartnaping. 

But carts built into cars never reached the market so the shopping cart remained ubiquitous, thus the emergence of the crime of “cartnaping”, a poorer demographic (such as university students with carts loaded with beer & frozen pizzas) sneaking from the store, using their cart all the way home.  So the students got their beer and pizza but now had the problem of disposing of an unwanted cart and waiting for dark to fall before dumping the things in local parks, waterways or underpasses was a popular solution.  Because there were so many cartnaping students, it became a real problem (1) for the environment and (2) for the stores which paid several hundred dollars for each cart.  One early response was to pay third-party contractors a “fee per cart recovered” but more recently there have been measures to prevent cartnaping including electronic devices which make it difficult to push the things beyond a certain point and a deposit scheme in which a low-denomination coin is inserted to gain use; the money refunded when the cart is returned.  The latest approach is to require a swipe with a credit card or phone, not to extract a payment but to register the name of the user and local authorities have a variety of schemes t address the problem including a "report-a-cart hotline" and regimes under which stores are fined for each of their carts found "in the wild".

Cereal & Serial

Cereal (pronounced seer-ee-uhl)

(1) Any plant of the grass family yielding an edible grain (wheat, rye, oats, rice, corn, maize, sorghum, millet et al).

(2) The grain from those plants.

(3) An edible preparation of these grains, applied especially to packaged, (often process) breakfast foods.

(4) Of or relating to grain or the plants producing it.

(5) A hamlet in Alberta, Canada.

(6) As Ceres International Women's Fraternity, a women's fraternity focused on agriculture, founded on 17 August 1984 at the International Conclave of FarmHouse fraternity.

1590s: From the sixteenth century French céréale (having to do with cereal), from the Latin cereālis (of or pertaining to the Roman goddess Ceres), from the primitive Indo-European ker-es-, from the root ḱer- (to grow”) from which Latin gained also sincerus (source of the English sincere) and crēscō (grow) (source of the English crescent).  The noun use of cereal in the modern sense of (a grass yielding edible grain and cultivated for food) emerged in 1832 and was developed from the adjective (having to do with edible grain), use of which dates from 1818, also from the French céréale (in the sense of the grains).  The familiar modern use (packaged grain-based food intended for breakfast) was a creation of US English in 1899.  If used in reference to the goddess Ceres, an initial capital should be used.  Cereal, cereology & cerealogist are nouns and ceralic is an adjective; the noun plural is cereals.

Lindsay Lohan mixing Pilk.

Cereal is often used as modifier (cereal farming, cereal production, cereal crop, non-cereal, cereal bar, pseudocereal, cereal dust etc) and a cereologist is one who works in the field of cerealogy (the investigation, or practice, of creating crop circles).  The term “cereal killer” is used of one noted for their high consumption of breakfast cereals although some might be tempted to apply it to those posting TikTok videos extolling the virtue of adding “Pilk” (a mix of Pepsi-Cola & Milk) to one’s breakfast cereal.  Pilk entered public consciousness in December 2022 when Pepsi Corporation ran a “Dirty Sodas” promotion for the concoction, featuring Lindsay Lohan.  There is some concern about the high sugar content in packaged cereals (especially those marketed towards children) but for those who want to avoid added sugar, Pepsi Corporation does sell “Pepsi Max Zero Sugar” soda and Pilk can be made using this.  Pepsi Max Zero Sugar contains carbonated water, caramel color, phosphoric acid, aspartame, acesulfame potassium, caffeine, citric acid, potassium benzoate & calcium disodium EDTA.

TikTok, adding Pilk to cereal and the decline of Western civilization.

A glass of Pilk does of course make one think of Lindsay Lohan but every mouthful of one’s breakfast cereal is something of a tribute to a goddess of Antiquity.  In 496 BC, Italy was suffering one of its periodic droughts and one particularly severe and lingering, the Roman fields dusty and parched.  As was the practice, the priests travelled to consult the Sibylline oracle, returning to the republic’s capital to report a new goddess of agriculture had to be adopted and sacrifices needed immediately to be made to her so rain would again fall on the land.  It was Ceres who was chosen and she became the goddess of agriculture and protector of the crops while the caretakers of her temple were the overseers of the grain market (they were something like the wheat futures traders in commodity exchanges like the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT)).  It was the will of the goddess Ceres which determined whether a harvest was prolific or sparse and to ensure abundance, the Romans ensured the first cuttings of the corn were always sacrificed to her.  It’s from the Latin adjective cereālis (of or pertaining to the Roman goddess Ceres) English gained “cereal”.

For millennia humanity’s most widely cultivated and harvested crop, cereal is a grass cultivated for its edible grain, the best known of which are rice, barley, millet, maize, rye, oats, sorghum & wheat.  Almost all cereals are annual crops (ie yielding one harvest per planting) although some strains of rice can be grown as a perennial and an advantages of cereals is the differential in growth rates and temperature tolerance means harvesting schedules can be spread from mid-spring until late summer.  Except for the more recent hybrids, all cereals are variations of natural varieties and the first known domestication occurred early in the Neolithic period (circa 7000–1700 BC).  Although the trend in cultivated area and specific yield tended over centuries to display a gradual rise, it was the “green revolution” (a combination of new varieties of cereals, chemical fertilizers, pest control, mechanization and precise irrigation which began to impact agriculture at scale in the mid twentieth century) which produced the extraordinary spike in global production.  This, coupled with the development of transport & distribution infrastructure (ports and bulk carriers), made possible the increase in the world population, now expected to reach around 10 billion by mid-century before declining.

Serial (pronounced seer-ee-uhl)

(1) Anything published, broadcast etc, in short installments at regular intervals (a novel appearing in successive issues of a magazine (ie serialized); a radio or TV series etc).

(2) In library & publishing jargon, a publication in any medium issued in successive parts bearing numerical or chronological designation and intended to be continued indefinitely.

(3) A work published in installments or successive parts; pertaining to such publication; pertaining to, arranged in, or consisting of a series.

(4) Occurring in a series rather than simultaneously (used widely, serial marriage; serial murderer, serial adulterer etc).

(5) Effecting or producing a series of similar actions.

(6) In IT, of or relating to the apparent or actual performance of data-processing operations one at a time (in the order of occurrence or transmission); of or relating to the transmission or processing of each part of a whole in sequence, as each bit of a byte or each byte of a computer word.

(7) In grammar, of or relating to a grammatical aspect relating to an action that is habitual and ongoing.

(8) In formal logic and logic mathematics (of a relation) connected, transitive, and asymmetric, thereby imposing an order on all the members of the domain.

(9) In engineering & mass-production (as “serial number”), a unique (to a certain product, model etc) character string (which can be numeric or alpha-numeric) which identifies each individual item in the production run.

(10) In music, of, relating to, or composed in serial technique.

(11) In modern art, a movement of the mid-twentieth century avant-garde in which objects or constituent elements were assembled in a systematic process, in accordance with the principles of modularity.

(12) In UK police jargon, a squad of officers equipped with shields and other protective items, used for crowd and riot control.

1823: From the New Latin word seriālis, from the Classical Latin seriēs (series), the construct being serial + -al on the Latin model which was seriēs + -ālis.  It was cognate to the Italian seriale.  The Latin seriēs was from serere (to join together, bind), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European ser- (to bind, put together, to line up).  The -al suffix was from the Middle English -al, from the Latin adjectival suffix -ālis, ((the third-declension two-termination suffix (neuter -āle) used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or numerals) or the French, Middle French and Old French –el & -al.  It was use to denote the sense "of or pertaining to", an adjectival suffix appended (most often to nouns) originally most frequently to words of Latin origin, but since used variously and also was used to form nouns, especially of verbal action.  The alternative form in English remains -ual (-all being obsolete).  The –alis suffix was from the primitive Indo-European -li-, which later dissimilated into an early version of –āris and there may be some relationship with hel- (to grow); -ālis (neuter -āle) was the third-declension two-termination suffix and was suffixed to (1) nouns or numerals creating adjectives of relationship and (2) adjectives creating adjectives with an intensified meaning.  The suffix -ālis was added (usually, but not exclusively) to a noun or numeral to form an adjective of relationship to that noun. When suffixed to an existing adjective, the effect was to intensify the adjectival meaning, and often to narrow the semantic field.  If the root word ends in -l or -lis, -āris is generally used instead although because of parallel or subsequent evolutions, both have sometimes been applied (eg līneālis & līneāris).  Serial, serializer , serialization serialism & serialist are nouns, serialing, serialize & serialed are verbs, serializable is an adjective and serially is adverb; the noun plural is serials.

The “serial killer” is a staple of the horror film genre.  Lindsay Lohan’s I Know Who Killed Me (2007) was not well received upon release but it has since picked up a cult following.

The adjective serial (arranged or disposed in a rank or row; forming part of a series; coming in regular succession) seems to have developed much in parallel with the French sérial although the influence of one on the other is uncertain.  The word came widely to be used in English by the mid nineteenth century because the popular author Charles Dickens (1812–1870) published his novels in instalments (serialized); sequentially, chapters would appear over time in periodicals and only once the series was complete would a book appear containing the whole work.  The first use of the noun “serial” to mean “story published in successive numbers of a periodical” was in 1845 and that came from the adjective; it was a clipping of “serial novel”.  By 1914 this had been extended to film distribution and the same idea would become a staple of radio and television production, the most profitable for of which was apparently the “mini-series”, a term first used in 1971 although the concept had been in use for some time.  Serial number (indicating position in a series) was first recorded in 1866, originally of papers, packages and such and it was extended to soldiers in 1918.  Surprisingly perhaps, given the long history of the practice, the term, “serial killer” wasn’t used until 1981 although the notion of “serial events” had been used of seemingly sequential or related murders as early as the 1960s.  On that model, serial became a popular modifier (serial rapist, serial adulterer, serial bride, serial monogamist, serial pest, serial polygamy etc)

For those learning English, the existence of the homophones “cereal” & “serial” must be an annoying quirk of the language.  Because cereals are usually an annual crop, it’s reasonable if some assume the two words are related because wheat, barley and such are handled in a “serial” way, planting and harvesting recurrent annual events.  Doubtless students are told this is not the case but there is a (vague) etymological connection in that the Latin serere meant “to join together, to bind” and it was used also to mean “to sow” so there is a connection in agriculture: sowing seeds in fields.  For serial, the connection is structural (linking elements in a sequence, something demonstrated literally in the use in IT and in a more conceptual way in “serial art”) but despite the differences, both words in a way involve the fundamental act of creating order or connection.

Serial art by Swiss painter Richard Paul Lohse (1902–1988): Konkretion I (Concretion I, 1945-1946), oil on pavatex (a wood fibre board made from compressed industrial waste) (left), Zwei gleiche Themen (Two same topics, 1947), colored pencil on paper (centre) and  Konkretion III (1947), oil on pavatex.

In modern art, “serial art” was a movement of the mid-twentieth century avant-garde in which objects or constituent elements were assembled in a systematic process in accordance with the principles of modularity.  It was a concept the legacy of which was to influence (some prefer “infect”) other artistic schools rather than develop as a distinct paradigm but serial art is still practiced and remains a relevant concept in contemporary art.  The idea was of works based on repetition, sequences or variations of a theme, often following a systematic or conceptual approach; the movement was most active during the mid-twentieth century and a notable theme in Minimalism, Donald Judd (1928-1994), Andy Warhol (1928–1987), Sol LeWitt (1928-2007) (there must have been something “serial” about 1928) and Richard Paul Lohse (1902-1988) all pioneers of the approach.  Because the techniques of the serialists were adopted by many, their style became interpolated into many strains of modern art so to now speak of it as something distinctive is difficult except in a historic context.  The embrace by artists of digital tools, algorithms, and AI (Artificial Intelligence) technologies has probably restored a new sort of “purity” to serial art because generative processes are so suited to create series of images, sculptures or digital works that explore themes like pattern, progression, or variation, the traditional themes of chaos, order and perception represented as before.  In a way, serial art was just waiting for lossless duplication and the NFT (Non-fungible token) and more conservative critics still grumble the whole idea is little different to an architect’s blueprint which documents the structural framework without the “skin” which lends the shape its form.  They claim it's the engineering without the art.

Relics of the pre-USB age; there were also 25 pin serial ports.

In IT hardware, “serial” and “parallel” refer to two different methods of transmitting data between devices or components and the distinction lies in how data bits are sent over a connection.  In serial communication, data was transmitted one bit at a time over as little as single channel or wire which in the early days of the industry was inherently slow although in modern implementations (such as USB (Universal Serial Bus) or PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express)) high speeds are possible.  Given what was needed in the early days, serial technology was attractive because the reduction in wiring reduced cost and complexity, especially over the (relatively) long distances at which serial excelled and with the use of line-drivers, the distances frequently were extended to hundreds of yards.  The trade-off was of course slower speed but these were simpler times.  In parallel communication, data is transmitted multiple bits at a time, each bit traveling simultaneously over its own dedicated channel and this meant it was much faster than serial transmission.  Because more wires were demanded, the cost and complexity increased, as did the potential for interference and corruption but most parallel transmission was over short distances (25 feet (7½ metres) was “long-distance”) and the emergence of “error correcting” protocols made the mode generally reliable.  For most, it was the default method of connecting a printer and for large file sizes the difference in performance was discernible, the machines able to transmit more data in a single clock cycle due to simultaneous bit transmission.  Except for specialized applications or those dealing with legacy hardware (and in industries like small-scale manufacturing where such dedicated machines can be physically isolated from the dangers of the internet, parallel and serial ports and cables continue to render faithful service) parallel technology is effectively obsolete and serial connections are now almost universally handled by the various flavours of USB.

Whitewall

Whitewall (pronounced hwahyt-wawl or wahyt-wawl)

(1) A tyre (or tire), almost always pneumatic, with a sidewall with a white circular line of varying widths.

(2) Having white sidewalls (of a tyre).

(3) In US military use, a hair cut with a closely cropped back and sides and the hair on the top of the head left longer.

(4) In UK dialect (Northamptonshire), the spotted flycatcher (the bird so-called because of the white color of the under parts).

1950–1955: The construct was white + (side)wall.  White pre-dates 900 and was from the Middle English whit & hwit, from the Old English hwīt (whiteness, white food, white of an egg (and in late Old English “a highly luminous color devoid of chroma”)), from the Proto-West Germanic hwīt, from the Proto-Germanic hwītaz, from the primitive Indo-European ḱweydós, a by-form of ḱweytós (bright; shine). It was cognate with the German weiss, the Old Norse hvītr and the Gothic hweits; akin to wheat.  The idea of the “whites of the eye” was known in the late fourteenth century while the use of the term “white man” emerged in the late 1600s.  Wall pre-dates 900 and was from the Middle English wal, from the Old English weall (wall, dike, earthwork, rampart, dam, rocky shore, cliff), from the Proto-West Germanic wall (wall, rampart, entrenchment), from the Latin vallum (wall, rampart, entrenchment, palisade), from vallus (stake, post), from the primitive Indo-European welH- (to turn, wind, roll).  It was likely conflated with waw (a wall within a house or dwelling, a room partition), from the Middle English wawe, from the Old English wāg & wāh (an interior wall, divider).  It was cognate with the North Frisian wal (wall), the Saterland Frisian Waal (wall, rampart, mound), the Dutch wal (wall, rampart, embankment), the German Wall (rampart, mound, embankment) and the Swedish vall (mound, wall, bank”).  The forms white wall & white-wall are also used.  Whitewall is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is whitewalls.

Wide whitewalls on 1953 Packard Caribbean Convertible (left), narrow whitewalls on 1967 Mercedes-Benz 600 (centre) and triple whitewalls on 1966 Cadillac Coupe De Ville (right) (there were also double whitewalls).

Whitewall tyres became available in the early years of the twentieth century but it wasn’t until the 1930s they became a noted feature on luxury cars sold in the US and, in the way these things work, they were soon also an option on lower-priced models although, being relatively expensive and offering no functionality, the take-up rate was low.  The very existence of the whitewall was, stylistically, something of a throwback because the earliest pneumatic tyres were an off-white, the color of the natural rubber formula and the manufacturers soon added a zinc oxide to the mix for no reason other than producing a bright white which was more appealing in showrooms.  Given the unsealed roads of the era, the stark white didn’t long last in use and tyres quickly degenerated to a “dirty beige” and although “tyre cleaning” products were available, it was a sisyphean task and presumably few persisted.  In 1910 the BF Goodrich Company began adding carbon black to its various formulae after tests confirmed this added strength and durability to the rubber.  Rapidly the technique was adopted by the industry although because carbon black was an additional input cost, some tyres were produced with the additive used only for the portion of the rubber used for the tread surface, meaning the sidewalls remained white.  The first whitewalls were thus a product of cost-cutting and it’s an irony the look would more than a decade later be picked up as a marker of wealth and luxury although the commercial “whitewalls” would be a strip of white rubber added during the manufacturing process to an all-black carcass.  As a “discovery” the whitewall can be thought serendipitous.

Lindsay Lohan on the cover of Whitewall magazine, Fall / Autumn 2012 edition.  The photograph was Lindsay Lohan V by Richard Phillips (b 1962).  By magazine standards, the predominately black & grey cover was unusually dark but this was a deliberate editorial choice.  New York-based Whitewall magazine was founded in 2006 by Michael Klug (b 1978) who remains publisher & editor at large.  Whitewall is described as a publication for creative communities, bringing together art, design, fashion & lifestyle, with a focus on sustainability and diversity, offering a platform for the queer, trans and those identifying as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Persons of Color).

Raised-letter tyre on 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 (left) and red-line (later, there would be blue-line, yellow-line etc) tyre on 1966 Pontiac GTO (right).  The BF Goodrich Radial T/A (left) was valued by road-racers because it was discovered as the tread wore it behaved with characteristics which were similar to a racing "slick".  For a while, worn T/A Radials became a handy revenue earner for tyre shops.

The whitewall became more popular in the late 1940s until the Korean War (1950-1953) caused a squeeze on rubber supplies but once the peacetime returned, so did the whitewall and the width grew, often measuring 2½-3 inches (65-75 mm), something made possible by the physical size of tyre sidewalls increasing during the 1950s.  The perception now is the fashion was very much a US taste and while there’s some truth in that, American culture in the 1950s exerted a great influence and whitewalls were seen in Europe, Australia and Japan and for some reason the Italian fashion magazines seemed particularly taken with them for their photo-shoots.  Curiously, the US industry seemed to lose interest in whitewalls between 1961-1963, just as the wild fins of the era suddenly vanished although there was a period of transition, the “standard” whitewall shrinking to a width of 1 inch (25 mm) and sometimes less.  During the 1960s, although whitewalls remained a fixture on the more up-market mainstream vehicles the preferred look for high-performance machinery (it was the “muscle-car” era) was the “raised letter” tyre which spelled out the manufacturer’s name and often model of tyre, the free advertising greatly pleasing.  At the same time, the muscle car circle developed a taste for “red-line” tyres” which featured a thin red strip.

US actress Mamie Van Doren (b 1931) cleaning her Jaguar XK120 OTS (open two seater (ie roadster) 1948-1954), paying special attention to the whitewall tyres.  For those who need advice on such matters, Longstone Tyres has published a guide.

In the collector community there are factions for whom whitewalls are a thing (for some, verging on a fetish) and according to these experts, the most common mistake is to use a product like ArmorAll’s various tyre cleaners (ArmorAll’s stuff usually a good choice for many surfaces) which, because of the chemical composition, tend to draw the carbon from the black rubber of the tyres, permanently staining the whitewalls with a yellowish hue.  For generations the preferred cleaning product was Westley’s Bleche Wite but, after a corporate takeover, the ingredients were in some way changed and the reputation suffered, the product later replaced.  Among disgruntled ex-customers, the theories explaining all this included corporate greed and some (unspecified) intervention by the EPA (Environmental protection Authority).  Containers of Westley’s Bleche Wite (those with the original chemical composition) now trade on the internet at multiples of their original price, in the manner of bottles of “original” Absinthe dating from the days when it was in many places banned although, unlike the “green fairy”, most of the cleaning spray is probably authentic.  There seems not now a consensus about what’s the nest cleaning product and some even suggest good results can be obtained by using a mix of baking soda or plain white toothpaste with warm water.

Sir William Lyons (1901–1985) presenting the Jaguar E-Type to the press pack, Geneva, March 1961 (left) and a 1961 publicity shot for the US market release (right).  In the US market, Jaguar had long made the whitewalls optional for the XK sports cars but there, most of the E-Type's (often called XK-E or XKE in the US) publicity material featured whitewalls.  The fad soon faded although narrow whitewalls were still available until 1975 when the last E-Types were sold.

Using one of his trademark outdoor settings, Norman Parkinson (1913-1990) photographed model Suzanne Kinnear (b 1935) adorning a Daimler SP250, wearing a Kashmoor coat and Otto Lucas beret with jewels by Cartier.  The image was published on the cover (left) of Vogue's UK edition in November 1959, the original's (right) color saturation being "enhanced" in pre-production editing; Vogue's artists made models thinner and cars shinier.  Although never quite as popular in Australia, the UK & Europe as they were in the US, whitewalls until the 1980s were not a rare sight in these places and buyers were seduced also by that other American intrusion, the vinyl roof, something more of a crime against good taste than any whitewall.

1952 Ferrari 212 (which the factory supplied with an up-rated 225 engine) Barchetta by Touring Superleggera (left) and 1974 Mercedes-Benz R107 (450 SL).

The Ferrari was a gift from Enzo Ferrari (1898-1988) to Henry Ford II (1917–1987) and was the last non-racing Ferrari bodied by coachbuilder Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera.  The whitewall tyres were fitted especially for US delivery and Ford used the car during its evaluation process for the 1955 Thunderbird which picked up styling cues including the hood (bonnet) scoop and egg crate grille.  The Mercedes-Benz 450 SL illustrates just how jarring whitewalls can be if used on vehicles not suited to their presence.  On the early R107s (1971-1989) and C107s (the SLC, 1971 1981), thin whitewalls were sometime fitted to US market cars and even then there was comment about they really didn’t suit.  On the 450 SL pictured, the error is compounded by the fitting of the “chrome” wheel arch trims.  This was an unfortunate trend (which spread also to Jaguar, BMW and beyond) which began with their appearance in 1963 on the Mercedes-Benz 600 (W100, 1963-1981) but on the original they were of metal whereas the aftermarket ones were almost always anodized plastic. 

Decadence

Decadence (pronounced dek-uh-duhns or dih-keyd-ns)

(1) The act or process of falling into an inferior condition or state; deterioration; decay.

(2) Synonyms: decline, retrogression, degeneration

(3) Moral degeneration or decay; turpitude.

(4) Unrestrained or excessive self-indulgence.

(5) The decadent movement in literature (often with an initial capital and extended sometimes to the visual arts).

1540–1550: From the early fifteenth century French décadence, from the Medieval Latin dēcadentia (decay), from the Late Latin dēcadent-, stem of dēcadēns (falling away), the present participle of the Vulgar Latin dēcadere (to fall away; to decay), an etymologically restored form of the Latin dēcidere (to fall away, fail, sink, perish”), the construct being de- (apart, down) + cadere (to fall (from the primitive Indo-European root kad- (to fall)).  The meaning “process of falling away from a better or more vital state” dates from the 1620s while the use to define epochs is traced by some historians to the sense used of “decadent” in 1837 by Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881): “…in a state of decline or decay (from a former condition of excellence)”, decadent from the from French décadent (a back-formation from décadence).  The use to refer (disparaging) the perceived corruption of literary values began in the 1850s and thirty years later was common in both French and English criticism.  The addition of the sense of decadence being “a form of self-indulgence” seems not to have emerged until the late 1960s when it was applied (negatively) to the counter-culture but modern commerce soon re-packaged to use it of products marketed as “desirable and satisfying”; creamy desserts were often so labeled and the cake “Chocolate Decadence” became a generic term, the recipes varying greatly in detail.  Originally, the term “decadence” was used of “a period of historical decline, particularly of empires or civilizations” but, from the late nineteenth century, it shifted to become a literary & artistic word describing a movement and later a type of moral or cultural behavior, particularly human behavior that is seen as self-indulgent or excessive.  Finally, it became the name of a chocolate cake, something (vaguely) linked to association philosophers and historians would make between the decline of civilizations declined from periods of greatness into moral and structural decay, often with a focus on materialism and indulgence.  Decadence & decadency are nouns, decadent is a noun & verb and decadently is an adverb; the noun plural is decadences.

The related adjective deciduous was from the Latin dēciduus (falling down or off), from dēcidō (fall down) and is now most familiar from the arboreal branch of biology where it describes trees which shed their leaves (variously in winter, the fall (autumn) or the dry season.  However, in the technical language of anatomy it’s used of body parts which fall off or are shed, at a particular time or stage of development (ie not the result of injury or disease) and more generally can be used figuratively of things transitory or ephemeral, this mostly as a literary device.  Obviously also related is the noun decay, from the Middle English decayen & dekeyen (to decrease, diminish), from the Anglo-Norman decaeir (to fall away, decay, decline), from the Vulgar Latin dēcadere.  Decay describes the process or result of being gradually decomposed; rot, decomposition and is widely used of qualities such as (1) a deterioration of condition; loss of status, quality, strength, or fortune, (2) civic, societal or moral decay and (3) systemic decay.  It was also once used of overthrows of governments and even now has a technical meaning in computer programming.

Lindsay Lohan arriving at the Maddox Gallery to attend the Tyler Shields (b 1982) Decadence exhibition private view, London, February 2016.

Despite the spelling, unrelated is the noun “decade”.  Decade (the spelling decad long obsolete) was from the Middle English decade, from the Old French decade, from the Late Latin decādem ((set of) ten), from the Ancient Greek δεκάς (dekás), from δέκα (déka) (ten).  In English, the reference to a “span of ten years” was originally a clipping of the phrase “decade of years”, that seeming tautology existing because over the centuries there have been also “decades of soldiers” (ie ten men), “decades of days” (in history a period of ten days, particularly those in the ancient Egyptian, Coptic, and French Revolutionary calendars, “decades of books” (a work in ten parts or books, particularly such divisions of Roman historian Livy’s (Titus Livius; 59 BC–17 AD) Ab Urbe Condita (literally “From the Founding of the City” and in English usually styled as History of Rome), “decades of prayers” (in the rituals of the Roman Catholic Church, a series of prayers counted on a rosary, typically consisting of an Our Father, followed by ten Hail Marys, and concluding with a Glory Be and sometimes the Fatima Prayer), “decades of stuff” (things which existed as a group, set or series of ten),  The dominant, modern sense of “a period of ten years” dates from the seventeenth century while the notion it “usually” is one beginning with a year ending in 0 and ending with a year ending in 9” was (more or less) formalized in the nineteenth.  In technical use “decade” has been re-purposed in some specialist fields including the Braille language (to refer to the various sets of ten sequential characters with predictable patterns), electronics (of devices or components used to represent digits and physics & engineering (of the interval between any two quantities having a ratio of 10 to 1).

For what most people do most of the time, a decade is “a period of ten years beginning with a year ending in 0 and ending with a year ending in 9” (ie the 1980s, 1990s etc) bit it remains correct that a decade can be any period of that duration (such as 1994-2003).  May style guides don’t approve of this, not because it’s technically wrong but because it can tend to confuse if things are not carefully phrased.  That seems wise advice although the suggestion terms like decennium or decennary can be a substitute for “non-standard” ten-year periods is unlikely to catch on.  Words nerds note that the computation protocol for something like “the 1970s” is xxx0-xxx9 whereas for “real” decades it’s xxx1-xxx0, following the practice for centuries and millennia, something which creates the certain anomalies because there was no “year 0”, the Western calendrical shifting directly from 1 BC to 1 AD.  “Decadence” and “decade” do however sometimes mix: the Japanese term Lost Decade (失われた10年) (Ushinawareta Jūnen) coined in the late 1990s to describe the period of national economic stagnation in precipitated by the collapse of the asset price bubble (notably Tokyo commercial floor-space) which began in 1990.  The phenomenon though endured and economists responded in subsequent decades by adding 失われた20年(lost 20 years) and 失われた30年 (lost 30 years).  The 2020s are showing little indication of a return to high growth and given Japan’s structural challenges (debt rations and an aging & declining population, there’s an expectation 失われた40年 will appear in the late 2020.

The other chocolate cake: Chocolate Decadence Soap by Heritage Downs: Aus$6.50 (inc GST) per cake; the gift for the chocaholic who has everything.

In the history of art or literary theory, “decadent” was in the nineteenth century iused to describe a period during which the output was “qualitatively in decline” compared with the (perceived) excellence of a former age.  Historically, it was applied to the Alexandrine period (300-30 BC) the period after the death of Augustus (Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (known also as Octavianus (Octavian)); 63 BC-14 AD, founder of the Roman Empire (27 BC-476 AD) and first Roman emperor 27 BC-14 AD).  In modern use it’s applied to the late nineteenth century symbolist movement in France (the poetry a particular target).  The movement emphasized the autonomy of art (exemplified in the contemporary phrase l'art pour l'art (art for art's sake), the need for sensationalism & melodrama, egocentricity, the bizarre or (wholly or partially) artificial, and the superior “outsider” position of the artist who was “in” yet not quite unambiguously “of” society; a critic rather than a participant (which of course was a reference to middle-class (or bourgeois society).  What is now classified as “decadent” poetry was preoccupied with personal experience, self-analysis, perversity, the suffering of artists and elaborate and exotic sensations.

View of Amalfi (1844), pencil, ink & water colour by John Ruskin (1819-1900).

In France the exemplar of decadence was the poet & critic Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) whose book of lyric poetry Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil; the first version published in 1857) is regarded still a manifest of the movement (though some conservative critics prefer “cult”) and the deconstructions who trace the changes in tone (he continued to add material until his death) regard it as something of a “journal” of the times.  In English translation, Les Fleurs du mal is some 300 pages and, in the way of the movement, the poetic forms are not “traditional” and some of the imagery is as suggestive as the thematic motifs of eroticism, suffering, sin, evil and death which will delight some and repel others and the latter wishing to explore the movement might find more accessible the novel À rebours (Against the Grain (published also as Against Nature); 1884) by the French author & art critic Joris-Karl Huysmans (pseudonym of Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans (1848–1907)); it’s a slimmer volume which English poet & critic Arthur Symons (1865–1945) would later describe as the movement’s “breviary” (in this context “a brief summary”).  There were many notable figures who devoted their lives to proving their allegiance to this aesthetic cult and the preoccupation with decay, ruins sadness and despair was appealing to nihilists and neo-Romantics, linked even with twentieth century German fascism which was styled (however misleadingly) as a revival of purity and a return to Classical roots.  It never caught on in quite the same way in the English-speaking world the influences are clear in the work of “excessively civilized” & “troubled” figures like the Irish writer Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) and English aesthete John Ruskin.

Chocolate Decadence Cake by Vegan Peace (Striving towards peacefully sharing our Earth).

Ingredients (wet & dry to be mixed separately)

1½ cups whole wheat pastry flour (or gluten-free all-purpose flour) (dry).
1 cup organic white sugar (not powdered) (dry).
3 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted if lumpy (not Dutch process cocoa) (dry).
1 level teaspoon baking soda (dry).
¼ teaspoon sea salt (dry).
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (wet).
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar (wet).
1½ cup oil (sunflower, non-virgin olive, melted coconut, or safflower) (wet).
1 cup chocolate soymilk (wet).

Freaky Frosting Ingredients

5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon non-hydrogenated margarine.
2¼cups plus 4 teaspoons organic powdered (confectioner's) sugar.
5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon cocoa powder (sifted if lumpy).
2 teaspoons vanilla extract.
Pinch of sea salt.
½ cup chocolate soymilk.

Directions

(1) Preheat oven to 350° F (175° C).

(2) Oil 9 x 9 inch (230 x 230 mm) pan or a dozen muffin cups.

(3) Mix wet & dry ingredients separately ensuring each is lump-free and well-mixed.

(4) Gently combine wet-mix & dry-mix do not “over-mix” (the batter will at this point taste strange but this will disappear in the baking process.

(5) Pour mix into oiled baking pan or muffin cups and bake until the point where a knife inserted in the centre comes out clean (ie no trace of liquid or semi-liquid batter).  For cupcakes, this should take about 20 minutes; for the pan between 30-40 minutes.

(6) Remove from oven and allow cake to cool before frosting.

Frosting Directions

(7) Using electric beater, whip margarine in a large bowl until fluffy (do not over-whip.

(8) Slowly add in remaining ingredients one at a time, in the order listed.  Beat at high speed until very fluffy, using a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of bowl as needed.

(9) Refrigerate frosting until cake has cooled.

(10) Frost cake, ideally after allowing frosting to warm to room temperature before serving cake.  A chocolate decadence may be decorated with edible flowers, raspberries, strawberries, chocolate shavings or whatever else seems to suit.