Swansong

Swansong (pronounced swon-sawng)

(1) The last act or manifestation of someone or something; farewell appearance.

(2) According to legend, the first and last song a dying swan was said to sing.

1831: A compound word, swan + song and a calque from the original German Schwanenlied (that construct being Schwan + Lied).  Swan dated from before 900 and was from the Middle English & Old English swan, from the Proto-Germanic swanaz (swan, literally “the singing bird”), from the primitive Indo-European swonhz- & swenhz- (to sing, make sound”).  It was cognate with the West Frisian swan, the Low German Swaan, the Dutch zwaan, the German Schwan, the Norwegian svane and the Swedish svan.  It was related also to the Old English ġeswin (melody, song) & swinsian (to make melody), the Latin sonus (sound), the Old Norse svanr, the Middle Low German swōn and the Russian звон (zvon) (ringing) & звук (zvuk) (sound).  Song was from the Middle English & Old English song & sang (noise, song, singing, chanting; poetry; a poem to be sung or recited, psalm, lay), from the Proto-Germanic sangwaz (singing, song), from the primitive Indo-European songwh-o- (singing, song) from sengwh- (to sing). It was cognate with the Scots sang & song (singing, song), the Saterland Frisian Song, the West Frisian sang, the Dutch zang, the Low German sang, the German Sang (singing, song), the Swedish sång (song), the Norwegian Bokmål sang, the Norwegian Nynorsk (song), the Icelandic söngur and the Ancient Greek ὀμφή (omphḗ) (voice, oracle).  It was related to the Gothic saggws and the Old High German sang.  Swansong (used also a swan song & swan-song) is a noun; the noun plural is swansongs.

The English swansong (which has always existed also as swan song and swan-song) was a calque of the German Schwanenlied (Schwan (swan) + Lied (song)) (also as Schwanengesang), the term alluding to the old belief that swans normally are mute but burst into beautiful song moments before they die.  Although the idea is much older, swansong appeared first in English translation in 1831 but did not pass into common use until after 1890 which is perhaps surprising giver Chaucer mentions the singing of swans as early as the late fourteenth century.  To date, Lindsay Lohan's last single release was Back to Me (2020), released on the Casablanca label.  She has hinted it may be included on a yet to be released third album but this far, musically, it's her swansong.

The romantic roadster's swansong

Ferrari's Dino 246 F1 on the Monza banking, Italian Grand Prix, September 1960.

The swansong for the front-engined open wheel racing cars which had since the early twentieth century dominated top-flight motorsport came in the 1960s.  In 1959, both the driver’s and constructor’s championships were claimed using rear-engined machines and as the new decade began, it was obvious to all in the once unpredictable behaviour of the layout had been mastered (at least on race tracks in the hands of expert drivers) and the opening eight rounds of the season did nothing to change that view, rear-engined cars winning the lot.  Ferrari, still running the front-engined Dino 246 F1, were not happy and that meant most of Italy was similarly grumpy, something which induced the organizers of the Italian Grand Prix to stage their event under conditions designed to suit the Scuderia’s last remaining advantage: straight-line speed.  Accordingly, it was announced the event would be held using the combined road and oval course at the Monza Autodrome, making what was already the championship’s highest speed circuit faster still.  With both the driver's & constructor's titles already decided, other leading teams opted to boycott the event, attracted by neither the prospect of their delicate machines being subjected to the notorious roughness of the concrete banking nor the prospect of a high-speed accident following mechanical damage.  As planned, Scuderia Ferrari enjoyed a 1-2-3 result, delighting the Italian crowd.  It was the last World Championship grand prix won by a front-engined car.

The rebodied 246 F1, Lady Wigram Trophy weekend, RNZAF (Royal New Zealand Air Force) Wigram Air Base, Christchurch, New Zealand, 1964.

The winning Dino 246 F1 therefore became a machine of some historical significance but even though Enzo Ferrari (1898-1988) may have suspected the success would not again be repeated, he was not sentimental about yesterday’s car, happy usually to sell anything obsolete to gain funds so he might build something with which to win tomorrow.  The Monza winner was thus sold to a private racer in New Zealand who, with a similar pragmatism, removed the 2.5 litre V6 in favour of the greater power and torque offered by a 3 litre V12 Testa Rossa engine in sports car trim.  In that form, he campaigned the hybrid Ferrari for two quite successful years but found no buyers when he tried to sell it, most agreeing with Il Commendatore that, big engine and all, it was just another, uncompetitive relic with the engine in the wrong place.  Thinking laterally, the owner took a very modern approach, having a coachbuilder fabricate in sixteen gauge aluminium a body strikingly similar to the factory’s own 250 GTOs, creating a very fast road car and one of the few on the road with the underpinnings of the machine which won an Italian Grand Prix.  The rules were rather more relaxed in those days.  In that form it was run until 1967 when it was sold, along with its original body, to an English collector who restored it to it with its V6 engine to the configuration in which it ran at Monza in 1960.  It’s still seen as an entry in historic events on the European calendar.

Ran just before crashed, nicely patinaed, one headlamp believed matching numbers and many parts still original: 1954 Ferrari 500 Mondial, as sold (left & centre) and in period (right).

To Enzo Ferrari for whom old race cars were usually just assets to be sold, it would in 1960 have amused him had anyone suggested decades later, people would pay millions of dollars for old, battered Ferraris, some of which never came close to winning anything.  Improbable as it would have sounded, he might have conceded such things could one day happen if the vehicles had four wheels and were drivable but the state of the 1954 Ferrari 500 Mondial which in August 2023 sold at auction for US$1.875 million would have been beyond comprehension.  The second Mondial built and one of 13 examples with Pininfarina spider coachwork, it was one of the rare “customer” race cars which used two litre, four cylinder engines and was campaigned extensively in Italy and the US where, sometime between 1963-1965 (the stories vary) it crashed and was incinerated, apparently while fitted with a Chevrolet V8, the swap a common practice at the time.

Some assembly required.

The provenance is solid if not illustrious.  It was raced by a one-time Scuderia Ferrari team driver and its many appearances included starts in the Mille Miglia, Targa Florio, and Imola Grand Prix.  Although the original engine was long gone, the sale included a comparable 3.0-liter Tipo 119 Lampredi four while the transmission was original and thus the prized “matching numbers”.  Belying the (usually undeserved reputation) Italian corporations have for chaotic record keeping, the supplied documentation was an impressive wad, including the precious factory build sheets and homologation papers.  In the hands of experts, such a thing can be restored although without the original engine, it hard to predict if it will realise the same value as the US$4.15 million a fully-restored Mondial (Chassis number 0448 MD and all “matching numbers”) achieved in 2019.

The Offenhauser-powered Watson Special, winner of the 1964 Indianapolis 500.

In the US, the swansong of the front-engined roadsters at the Indianapolis 500 came a little later, the last victory coming in 1964.  As in so many things however, the end came quickly and the next year a solitary roadster completed the full race distance, finishing a creditable fifth.  The last roadster to appear in the event in 1968 qualified on the second to last row of the grid and completed only nine laps of the 200, retiring with a collapsed piston.  That run was at the time little noted but it’s now remembered as the swansong of the front-engined roadsters in top flight racing. 

Richard Strauss, Vier Letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs)

Richard Strauss (1864-1949), was the last great German composer in the Romantic tradition and Vier Letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) was his swansong, the last set of work he wrote.  Inspired by the poetry of Nobel Laureate Hermann Hesse (1877-1962) and Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (1788-1857), all four are pieces of exquisite beauty but Strauss didn’t live to hear them performed, the premiere delivered posthumously in London in 1950, sung by Kirsten Flagstad (1895–1962), accompanied by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886–1954).

Many notable sopranos have sung the songs but the definitive performance remains the 1965 recording by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (1915-2006) with the Radio-Symphonieorchester Berlin under György Széll (1897–1970).  (CD: EMI Classics Cat: 0724356696020[9]).

Four Last Songs Since their collaboration, the need again to record the songs vanished; it's simply not possible to improve on  Schwarzkoph's achievement in 1965.  Re-mastered versions from the original master-tapes have been released and they're of interest to audiophiles but add nothing to the atmospherics so well captured in the Berlin sessions. 

Spring (Hermann Hesse)

Wandering in darkness under your high
vaulting branches, I have dreamed so long
of your green leaves and breezy blue sky,
the vibrant fragrances–and the bird song!
 
Now, as you open your robe of winter night,
your brilliance staggers every sense.
The world sparkles in the light
of a Miracle, your recurring presence.
 
I feel the healing touch
of softer days, warm and tender.
My limbs tremble–happily, too much–
as I stand inside your splendor.

September (Hermann Hesse)

The garden mourns.
The flowers fill with cold rain.
Summer shivers
in the chill of its dying domain.
 
Yet summer smiles, enraptured
by the garden’s dreamy aphasia
as gold, drop by drop, falls
from the tall acacia.
 
With a final glance at the roses–
too weak to care, it longs for peace–
then, with darkness wherever it gazes,
summer slips into sleep.

When I Go to Sleep (Hermann Hesse)

Now that day has exhausted me
I give myself over, a tired child,
to the night and to my old friends, the stars–
my watchful guardians, quiet and mild.
 
Hands–let everything go.
Head–stop thinking.
I am content to follow
where my senses are sinking.
 
Into the darkness, I swim out free:
Soul, released from all your defenses,
enter the magic, sidereal circle
where the gathering of souls commences.

 At Sunset (Joseph Karl Benedikt Freiherr von Eichendorff)

We have passed through sorrow and joy,
walking hand in hand.
Now we need not seek the way:
we have settled in a peaceful land.
 
The dark comes early to our valley,
and the night mist rises.
Two dreamy larks sally
forth–our souls’ disguises.
 
We let their soaring flight delight
us, then, overcome by sleep
at close of day, we must alight
before we fly too far, or dive too deep.
 
The great peace here is wide and still
and rich with glowing sunsets:
If this is death, having had our fill
of getting lost, we find beauty, –No regrets.

Giallo

Giallo (pronounced jah-loh (often pronounced in English-speaking use as gee-ah-lo)

(1) The industry (and later the public) term for a series of Italian mystery, crime and suspense novels, first published by Mondadori in 1929 and so-dubbed because of the giallo (yellow) hue used for the covers.  They were known as Mistero giallo (yellow mystery) and collectively as the racconti gialli “yellow tales”.  The term “giallo” is a clipping of Il Giallo Mondadori (Mondadori Yellow).

(2) By extension, an unsolved mystery or scandal (historic Italian use).

(3) By later extension, a genre of Italian cinema mixing mystery and thriller with psychological elements and, increasingly, violence.

(4) A film in this genre.

1930s (in English use): From the Italian giallo (yellow (although now used also of amber traffic signals)), from the Old French jalne (a variant of jaune), from the Latin galbinus (greenish-yellow, yellowish, chartreuse; effeminate (of men)) of unknown origin but possibly from galbanum, from the Ancient Greek χαλβάνη (khalbánē) (galbanum) (the resinous juice produced by plants of the genus Ferula), from the Hebrew חֶלְבְּנָה (ḥelbənāh), from the root ח־ל־ב (ḥ-l-b) (related to milk), from the Proto-Semitic ḥalīb- (milk; fat).  Over time, the term evolved in Italian language, undergoing phonetic and semantic shifts to become giallo.  As an adjective the form is giallo (feminine gialla, masculine plural gialli, feminine plural gialle, diminutive giallìno or giallétto) and as a noun it refers also to a (1) “a sweet yellow flour roll with raisins” in the Veneto) and (2) “Naples yellow”; the augmentative is giallóne, the pejorative giallàccio and the derogatory giallùccio.  The derived adjectives are nuanced: giallastro (yellowish but used also (of the appearance of someone sickly) to mean sallow); giallognolo (of a yellowish hue) & giallorosa (romantic (of movies)).  The yellow-covered books of the 1930s produced giallista (crime writer which is masculine or feminine by sense (giallisti the masculine plural, gialliste the feminine plural).  The verb ingiallire means “to turn yellow).  Giallo is a noun; the noun plural is giallos or gialli (the latter listed as rare).

Arnoldo Mondadori Editore (the Mondadori publishing house, founded in 1907 and still extant) first published their mystery, crime and suspense novels in editions with distinctive yellow covers in 1929.  Few were of local origin and almost all were translations into Italian of works written originally in English by US and British authors and not all were all of recent origin, some having appeared in English decades earlier.  Produced in a cheap paperback format, the giallos were instantly successful (triggering a secondary industry of swap & exchange between readers) and other publishing houses emulated the idea, down even to the yellow covers.  Thus “giallo” entered the language as a synonym for “crime or mystery novel” and it spread to become slang meaning “unsolved mystery or scandal”.  The use as a literary genre has endured and it now casts a wide net, giallos encompassing mystery, crime (especially murders, gruesome and otherwise), thrillers with psychological elements and, increasingly, violence.

In print and in film: The modern understanding of the giallo movie is probably "horror with a psychological theme".

The paperbacks were often best-sellers and film adaptations quickly followed, the new techniques of cinema (with sound) ideally suited to the thriller genre and these films too came to be called “giallos”, a use which in the English-speaking world tends to be applied to thriller-horror films, especially if there’s some bizarre psychological twist.  The film purists (an obsessive lot) will point out (1) the authentic Italian productions are properly known as giallo all'italiana and (2) a giallo is not of necessity any crime or mystery film and there’s much overlap with other sub-genres (the ones built about action, car-chases and big explosions usually not giallos although a giallo can include these elements.

1971 Lamborghini Miura P400 SV in Giallo Fly and 1971 Lamborghini LP500 Countach prototype (with periscopio) in Giallo Fly.

Despite the impression which lingered into the 1980s, giallo (yellow) was never the “official” color of Lamborghini, but variations of the shade have become much associated with the brand and in the public imagination, the factory’s color Giallo Orion probably is something of a signature shade.  When Lamborghini first started making cars in the early 1960s (it was a manufacturer of tractors!) no official color was designated but the decision was taken to use bold, striking colors (yellow, orange, and a strikingly lurid green) to differentiate them from Ferraris which then were almost twice as likely than today to be some shade of red.  It was Giallo Fly which was chosen when the LP500 Countach prototype was shown at the now defunct Geneva Motor Show, a machine in 1974 destroyed in a crash test at England’s MIRA (Motor Industry Research Association) facility but in 2021 an almost exact replica was created by Polo Storico (the factory’s historical centre), the paint exactly re-created.

Lamborghini factory yellows, 2024.

Over the years, the factory’s palette would change but the emphasis on bright “energetic” hues remained.  Customers are no longer limited to what’s in the brochure and, for a fee, one’s Lamborghini can be finished in any preferred shade, a service offered also by many manufacturers although Ferrari apparently refuse to “do pink”.  An industry legend is that according to Enzo Ferrari’s (1898-1988) mistress (Fiamma Breschi (1934-2015)), when the original Ferrari 275 GTB (1964-1968) appeared in a bright yellow, it was to be called Fiamma Giallo (Flame Yellow) but Commendatore Ferrari himself renamed it to Giallo Fly (used in the sense of “flying”) which he thought would be easier to market and he wasted to keep a word starting with “F”.  Both Ferrari and Lamborghini at times have had Giallo Fly in their color charts.

1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4 NART Spider (Chassis #09437) in Giallo Solare (left), Lady Gaga (the stage-name of Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (b 1986)) in Rodarte dress at the Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Awards Viewing Party, Los Angeles, March 2022 (centre) and 2010 Ferrari 599 SA Aperta (chassis #181257) in Giallo Lady Gaga (right).

Factory paint tag: Giallo Lady Gaga.

Ferrari over the decades have offered many shades of yellow including Ardilla Amarillo, Ardilla Amarillo Opaco, Giallo Dino, Giallo Fly, Giallo Kuramochi, Giallo Lady Gaga, Giallo Libano, Giallo Modena, Giallo Montecarlo, Giallo Montecarlo Opaco, Giallo My Swallow, Giallo Nancy, Giallo Senape, Giallo Solare, Giallo Triplo Strato & Yellow Olive Magno Opaco and one suspects the job of mixing the shades might be easier than coming up with an appropriately evocative name.  One color upon which the factory seems never to have commented is Giallo Lady Gaga which seems to have been a genuine one-off, applied to a 599 SA Aperta, one of 80 built in 2010.  The car is seen usually in Gstaad, Switzerland and the consensus is it was a special order from someone although quite how Lady Gaga inspired the shade isn’t known.  As a color, it looks very close to Giallo Solare, the shade the factory applied to the 275 GTB/4 NART Spider used in the Hollywood film The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) which was re-painted in burgundy because the darker shade worked better for the cinematographer.  The car had come second in class in the 1967 Sebring 12 Hours (with two female drivers) and was one of only two of the ten NART Spiders will aluminium coachwork.

Coat of arms of the municipality of Modena in the in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy (left), cloisonné shield on 1971 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona Berlinetta in Giallo Dino (centre) (the band of silver paint across the nose appears on the early-build Daytonas fitted with the revised frontal styling (the acrylic headlight glass covers used between 1968-1970 were banned by US regulations) and stick-on badge on 1975 Dino 308 GT4 in Rosso Corsa (right).  Not all approve of the stickers (unless applied by the factory) and although they seem to be dying off, there are pedants who insist they should never appear on Dinos made between 1967-1975 (which were never badged as Ferraris).

Just as yellow was so associated with Lamborghini, red is synonymous with Ferraris and in 2024, some 40% are built in some shade of red, a rate about half of what was prevalent during the 1960s.  The most famous of Ferrari’s many reds remains Rosso Corsa (racing red) and that’s a legacy from the early days of motor sport when countries were allocated colors (thus “Italian Racing Red”, “British Racing Green” et al) and yellow was designated for Belgium and Brazil.  On the road and the circuits, there have been many yellow Ferraris, the first believed to been one run in 1951 by Chico Landi (1907-1989) a Brazilian privateer who won a number of events in his home country and the Belgium teams Ecurie Nationale Belge and Ecurie Francorchamps both used yellow Ferraris on a number of occasions.  If anything, yellow is at least “an” official Ferrari color because it has for decades been the usual background on the Ferrari shield and that was chosen because it is an official color of Modena, the closest city to the Ferrari factory, hence the existence of Giallo Modena.

Apestail

Apestail (pronounced eypse–teyl)

A name for the symbol “@”, adapted from its Dutch name.

1990s: An adaptation of the Dutch word aapestaartje (literally “little monkey's tail”, coined as a jocular term for the @ symbol, the etymology reflecting the symbol's spiral or curled shape, said to resemble the tail of a monkey, the construct being aap (monkey) + staart (tail) + -je (indicating something small or endearing).  Unlike German, the Dutch language has a tradition of humorous descriptive terms although the Germans did retaliate with Klammeraffe (spider monkey.  Other forms have included the Italian chiocciola (snail), the Polish małpa (monkey) and the Hebrew shtrudel (strudel pastry).  An English alternative was ampersat, the construct being ampersa(nd) + at.  Apestail is a noun; the noun plural is apestails.

Apestail in the Algerian font.

One of the curious linguistic paradoxes produced by the internet is that the “@” symbol, although one of the most widely used of those on the standard keyboard, it has never gained a universally accepted “official” name (such as “ampersand” for the “&”).  In English, when referred to it’s usually as “at”.  It was of course its adoption as the divider between the user name and the domain (UserName@domain.x) in email addresses which meant the once neglected key on the keyboard became widely used and although the rise of SMS (short message service), social media platforms, instant messaging services and such has meant there are now many alternatives for electronic communications, so entrenched in corporate life is the email protocol that it’s estimated that every day in 2024, over 350 billion emails are sent, an increase of some 4% from the previous year.  That does make modern capitalism sound industrious but the same researchers also reckoned some 85% of the volume was spam.  As early as the 1960s there had been forms of electronic messaging but all were parochial and it wasn’t until 1971 when programmer Ray Tomlinson (1941–2016) included the @ symbol in ARPANET’s (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network; the operation which created the underpinnings of what became the modern internet) implementation and although much has changed in terms of packets and protocols, the @ endures.  From the very start, it was understood to mean “at” thus lindsaylohan@disney.com would universally be understood to mean “Lindsay Lohan at Disney Corporation”.  There was a element of chance in the choice, Mr Tomlinson selecting @ because it was one of the least used ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) characters and one thus unlikely to conflict with objects elsewhere in code or operating system routines.

Apestail in the Agency FB font.

So the basic syntax of the email address predated the development of the familiar PC or laptop keyboard but in that context it was of very little use because it wouldn’t be until well into the 1990s that email achieved a critical mass of users.  Despite that, from the very first, the @ appeared on most keyboards and that was because substantially they emulated the layout of those which had become familiar on typewriters.  Probably few typewriter users had much need for the symbol either but for those who did it was essential and its long history in typography and commercial transactions justified a key although often it wasn’t included on smaller, cheaper typewriters aimed at the consumer market and even in the computer industry, it wasn’t until @ was included in the ASCII character set that computer keyboards were (more or less) standardized.  In commerce, by the sixteenth century “2” widely was used by merchants to signify a rate or price, such as “7 jars of olives @ 5 drachmas” was understood as 7 x 5 =35 so it was 35 drachmas for 7 jars of olives.  Like the Arabic numeric system, the commercial use spread across Europe and became a standard notation, facilitating a certainty of trading terms between those who shared neither a language now spoke the lingua franca.  Because of its importance and utility in bookkeeping and commerce, it was included on keyboards for the convenience of businesses.  Occasionally, @ would appear in specific academic or technical applications but these instances were rare, localized and none seem to have endured although, for all we know, it may have some secret meaning in Freemasonry.  Some jurisdictions have banned the use of “@” and an element when registering the name of an infant, the implication of that being that some parents must have tried.

Apestail in the Berlin Sans font.

The first time many computer users became aware of the mysterious @ was when it was included as the prefix for built-in functions in the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet, the so-called “killer app” which in 1983 did so much to legitimize the personal computer in corporate life.  Released in 1979, VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet but it was the more capable Lotus 1-2-3 (soon laden with macros and add-ins) which captured the market and anyone familiar with VisiCalc would have found the transition relatively simple: whereas in VisiCalc SUM(B1:B10) would have calculated the sum of the range A1 to A10, in 1-2-3 it was @SUM(A1..A10). and statements like @IF(condition, value_if_true, value_if_false) were used for conditional logic.  The arrival of Microsoft Windows 3.x in 1990 and especially Windows 95 in 1995 shifted the universe and over time Excel captured the spreadsheet market and while it moved away from the use of @ as a universal function prefix, it does still exist in aome of Excel’s advanced functions such as structured references in arrays.  In many computer languages, @ is used for a variety of purposes.

Apestail in the Niagara Solid font.

The very origin of @ is murky but it seems to have appeared during the later medieval period when it was known in Spanish and Portuguese as arroba, from the Old Spanish arroua and the Old Galician-Portuguese arrova, from Andalusian Arabic and Arabic اَلرُّبْع (ar-rubʕ) (one-fourth), the reference to it making up one fourth of a quintal (the capacity of a standard amphora, a vessel used to store and transport liquids, cereals and other goods) The symbol was used as a shorthand form of the Latin ad (at; to) and one of a range of truncated or stylized forms which saved (1) the time of scribes, (2) ink and (3) paper, all commodities which cost money and some were expensive.  In countries where Spanish and Portuguese were spoken, arroba also referred to a measure of weight, typically around 11.5 kg (25 lb) although regional variations were common.  In that sense, by the operation of local custom, @ was a (regionally) standardized measure like a pood but unlike the pood, it never spread.

Junk

Junk (pronounced juhngk)

(1) In historic nautical use, old cable or cordage used when untwisted for making gaskets, maps, swabs etc and (when picked apart), the oakum used for filling the seams of wooden ships.

(2) A fragment of any solid substance; a thick piece; a chunk (obsolete).

(3) Old, damaged or discarded material (metal, paper, rags et al).

(4) Anything regarded as worthless, meaningless, or contemptible; nonsense; gibberish.

(5) Anything judged cheap or trashy.

(6) In slang, the narcotic heroin (used casually of other injected drugs, the users thus “junkies”).

(7) In historic sailor’s slang, as saltjunk, the salted beef or pork used as rations on long voyages, the origin being the comparisons in taste and texture made with junk (frayed old rope).

(8) In slang, the external genitalia (especially of a male if used as a target in unarmed combat).

(9) In baseball slang, relatively slow, unorthodox pitches, deceptive to the batter in movement or pace (knuckleballs, forkballs et al).

(10) A sea-going sailing vessel with a traditional Chinese design and used primarily in Chinese waters, having square sails spread by battens, a high stern (poop deck) and (usually) a flat bottom.

(11) A sperm whale equivalent of the melon (cetacean)

(12) To cast aside as junk; discard as no longer of use; to scrap.

1350-1400: From the Middle English joynk & junke (old refuse from boats and ships), from the earlier nautical sense of “old rope or cable”, and the use of junk to describe “old rope and such” may have been influenced by the words “join, joint &, juncture”.  The Middle English junk, jonk, jounke, jonke & junck (a rush; basket made of rushes), from the Old French jonc or junc (rush, reed (also used figuratively to describe “something of little value”), from the Latin iuncus (rush, reed) was once often cited as a source but etymologists have concluded there’s “no evidence of connection”.  In nautical use, the extension from “old rope & cables” to “old refuse from boats, ships & ports” had occurred by the 1660s, travelling inland to “old or discarded articles of any kind” by the late nineteenth century, initially with the implication of reusability.(following the naval tradition with rope) as opposed to “scrap” which (except for metals) had an air of finality.  Saltjunk (salt beef or pork used on long voyages) was first recorded in 1762, the slang for heroin (later used loosely of other injected narcotics) dates from 1925, junk food (the term rather than the product” first appeared in the US in 1971, the culinary equivalent of junk art (from a decade earlier and used by conservative critics to decry some modern art).  Junk mail (unsolicited advertizing delivered to the letterbox was so described in 1954 and was later re-used for the electronic version (“junk email” thought just a letter too much and never caught on) while the term junk bond (a financial instrument (originally bonds) rated below “investment grade” due to a high risk of default by the issuer and thus offered at a high interest rate) emerged in 1979.  The verb, dating from 1803, also owed something the old nautical practice of “cutting up ropes for other purposes” in that it conveyed the idea of “to cut off in lumps”, the modern sense of “to throw away as trash, to scrap” appearing a century-odd later.  The synonyms can thus (depending on context) be rubbish, trash, rubble, debris, detritus, refuse, litter or clutter while (in the sense of (to throw away) they include bin, chuck, chuck away, chuck out, discard, dispose of, ditch, dump, scrap, throw away, throw out, toss or trash.  Junk is a noun & verb, junkie & junker are nouns, junky is a noun & adjective, junklike, junkier & junkiest are adjectives and junked & junking are verbs; the noun plural is junk or (of the sailing vessels) junks.

The use to describe the Chinese sailing vessels dates from 1545–1555 and was from the Portuguese junco, either from or influenced by the Dutch jonk, from the Arabic جُنْك (junk), from the thirteenth century Malay (Austronesian) jong (large boat, ship) or Javanese djong (a variant of djung), from the Old Javanese jong (seagoing ship), ultimately from either the Hokkien 船 (chûn) or the Teochew 船 (zung), from the Proto-Min -džion (ship, boat).  The use in Malay may have been influence by the dialectal Chinese (Xiamen) chûn (which may be compared with the Guangdong (Cantonese) dialect syùhn, and the (Mandarin) Chinese chuán).  In sixteenth century English use it was recorded as giunche & iunco.  Unrelated words include junket and the German Junker.  Junket was from the Middle English jonket (basket made of rushes; food, probably made of sour milk or cream; banquet, feast), from the Medieval Latin iuncta, possibly from the Latin iuncus (rush, reed) and thus possible a doublet of jonquil (a species of daffodil and a shade of yellow).  By the 1520s the meaning had shifted to “feast or banquet”, presumably because of the association with “picnic basket”, leading to the early nineteenth century notion of a “pleasure-trip” which later evolved by the 1880s to mean “a trip made ostensibly for business but which is really for leisure or entertainment”.  Junkets remain common (often well-disguised for expense-claim purposes) and in the gambling business, a junket is a gaming room for which the capacity and limits change daily, often rented out to private vendors who run tour groups through them and give a portion of the proceeds to the main casino.  The idea of a junket being “a delicacy” or “a basket” is long obsolete but remains a culinary niche, describing a dessert made of sweetened curds; it was originally a type of cream cheese, the name gained from it being originally prepared and served in a rush basket.  The English Junker was from the German Junker, from the Middle High German juncherre (young lord; not yet knighted nobleman).  As a term it became associated with Prussia militarism and was used to refer to the stereotypical “narrow-minded and anti-liberal, authoritarian attitudes associated with the “Junker class” (the sometimes impoverished) land-owners of “great Prussian estates”, the families which provided the so many of the officer class of the Prussian and later Imperial German Armies (thus “junkerdom”, “junkerish” & “junkerism” entering the language of political science).

Stocking up: Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) buying junk food to share with former special friend DJ Samantha Ronson (b 1977) , Los Angeles, October, 2008.

Junk is widely used in derived terms and idiomatic forms including “Jesus junk” (Christian-specific junk mail or other merchandize), “hunk of junk” (a term which adds no meaning but is a compelling rhyme (compared with “heap of junk”, “pile of junk” “load of junk”, all of which mean the same thing) and often heard in IT departments when discussing components more than a year old), “junkaholic” (either a hoarder of what others perceive as junk or an individual who consumes much junk food), “junkhead” (either a drug user or addict (ie a synonym of “junkie”) or in engineering, an always unusual (no close to extinct) design of internal combustion engine (ICE) in which the cylinder head is formed by a dummy piston mounted inside the top of the cylinder, “junk news” (a early 1980s critique of “journalism” consisting of sensationalized trivia (as opposed to the later “fake news” which was intended to mislead rather than being merely entertaining)), “Junk DNA” (in earlier use in genetics, “any portion of the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid; the so-called “building blocks” or “framework of life”) sequence of a chromosome or a genome with no apparent function” (the term “non-functional DNA” now preferred because there’s now a greater understanding of what was one dismissed as “junk DNA”), “junk in the trunk” (having a big butt), “junk shop” (a shop selling second-hand goods, originally cheap but there are now some “junk shops” with some high-priced items), “ junk drawer” (the place designated for the storage of various miscellaneous, small, but (at least potentially) useful items (and apparently usually the third-drawer down in the kitchen); some residences even have a “junk room”), “junk science” (assertions or methods expressed in the language of science but either with no scientific legitimacy or with data interpreted in a misleading manner), “junk conference” (a nominally “academic” conference run for other purposes (holiday junkets, commercial promotion etc), “junk job” (used variously of employment thought boring, pointless, disrespectable or offering no obvious social benefit, “junkware” (in computing, (1) malicious or unwanted software or (2) software which is buggy or doesn’t work), “junkshot” (in oil drilling, a method to shut off a faulty blowout preventer (BOP) by injecting the BOP with material which will “choke off” the hole), “space junk” (the objects in orbit around the Earth that were created by human activity but which now serve no useful purpose and can be a hazard to satellites (known also as “space debris”), “junk hook” (in whaling, a hook designed for handling or extracting the unwanted material (junk) from the head of a whale) “junkman” (one who works in a “junk yard” (a place where scrapped items (typically cars) are sold for parts or metal recycling).

A little corner in the late Rudi Klein's junkyard, Los Angeles, California.

In the junkyard business, in some jurisdictions, there are cars with “salvage titles” and “junk titles”, both designations related to the condition of a vehicle but serving different purposes and reflecting distinct stages in a vehicle’s lifecycle and potential future.  A Salvage Title can be issued when a vehicle has been damaged or declared a total loss by an insurance company, typically because exceeds a certain percentage of the car's assessed value (75-90%, depending on local regulations).  Despite that, a with a salvage title may be repairable and returned to the road after undergoing proper repairs and inspections although the title usually significantly reduces the resale value and can be a factor in insurance companies limiting or denying subsequent coverage.  A Junk Title (also known as a “Certificate of Destruction”) can be issued for a vehicle that considered irreparable or not safe for use on public roads and thus suitable only for scrap or the salvaging of usable parts.  Once a junk title is issued, the vehicle cannot be registered or driven on public roads again, unlike a salvage title vehicle which can be repaired or restored.  Informally, the terms “junkyard” and “scrapyard” are used interchangeably and while there used to be many “car wreckers”, of late, environmentally respectable titles like “recycling centre” have come into vouge.

The Junkyard: The Rudi Klein Collection

Although well-known in the collector community for its large stocks of rusty and wrecked Porsches, Mercedes-Benz and other notable vehicles from the post-war years, the Californian “junkyard” belonging to Rudi Klein (1936-2001) attracted world-wide interest when details were published of the gems which had for decades been secreted in a large and secure shed on the site.  Mr Klein was a German butcher who in the late 1950s emigrated to the US to work at his trade but quickly discovered a more enjoyable and lucrative living could be had dealing in damaged or wrecked European cars, sometimes selling the whole vehicles and sometimes the parts (“parting out” in junkyard parlance).  His Porsche Foreign Auto business had operated for some time before he received a C&D (cease & desist) letter from the German manufacturer’s US attorneys, the result being the name change in 1967 to Porche (sic) Foreign Auto.

Three dusty Lamborghini P400 Miuras in a corner of Mr Klein's now famous shed.

Unlike many collectors, Mr Klein amassed his collection unobtrusively and, astonishingly to many, apparently with little interest in turning a profit on the rarest, despite some of them coming to be worth (at the time of his death), over a million US dollars.  In the way of such things, just what sat unseen in the big shed was the stuff of speculation and rumor, the mystery enhanced by tales of Mr Klein turning the junkyard’s dogs (“junkyard dog” itself an idiomatic use suggesting the particularly aggressive type of canine associated with such a role and applied figuratively also to people of similar temperament) on those who ventured too close to the locked doors although some trusted souls apparently were give a tour on the basis of maintaining the secret and it seems all respected the confidence.  After Mr Klein died in 2001, his two sons preserved the collection untouched but in October 2024, a series of rolling sales will be conducted by the auction house Sotheby’s.

Period photograph of the 1935 Mercedes-Benz 500 K Special Coupé (the “Caracciola Coupé” Roadster-Limousine).

Undoubtedly, the star (though not the most expensive) of the show will be the 1935 Mercedes-Benz 500 K Special Coupé, built by Sindelfingen (the factory’s in-house coach-building house) for the three-time European Grand Prix Championship winner Rudolf Caracciola (1901-1959).  The leading driver of the Mercedes-Benz racing team, it was said of him by Alfred Neubauer (1891–1980; racing manager of the Mercedes-Benz competition department 1926-1955): “He never really learned to drive, he just felt it, the talent came to him instinctively”.  The one-off 500 K (W29, deconstructed as 5.0 litre (306 cubic inch) straight-eight with kompressor (supercharger)) was a “gift” (ie part of his “package” as a factory driver) and confusingly tagged (the build-sheet is included in the documentation) by Sindelfingen as a “Roadster-Limousine” which neither etymologically nor by coach-building conventions makes sense but was explained by the car being “built on the chassis of a 500 K Special Roadster with limousine-like fittings & appointments.”  As a basis, the sleek 500 K Special Roadster was illustrious enough, described in the post-war years as “the brightest glint of a golden age” (the reference to the cars of the era, not the geopolitics) so the lines and unique provenance of the “Caracciola Coupé” will attract much interest.

The “Caracciola Coupé” in Mr Klein's shed

It’s believed Caracciola used the car until the late 1930s when it is said to have passed into the hands of Count Galeazzo Ciano (1903–1944; Italian foreign minister 1936-1944), notable both for his entertaining (if not wholly reliable) diaries and having married the daughter of Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943).  The marriage was certainly a good career move (the Italians would joke of the one they called “ducellio”: “the son-in-law also rises”) although things didn’t end well, Il Duce having him shot (at the insistence of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), something which over the years must have drawn the envy of many a father-in-law (and the sentiment was expressed by Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) who didn't always approve of his daughters' choices).  There seems to be no evidence of Count Ciano’s stewardship but even if not true, it’s certainly the sort of car he’d liked to have owned.  Things become murky after the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945) but in 1962 it was discovered in Ethiopia, covered in tarpaulins and hidden in a manure pile.  That may hint at a (probably unrelated) connection between count & car because in 1935, during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War (the last war of the era of European colonialism which even at the time seemed to many an embarrassing anachronism), Ciano had commanded the Regia Aeronautica's (Royal Air Force) 15th Bomber Flight (nicknamed La Disperata (the desperate ones)) in air-raids on primitive tribes during the Italian invasion, being awarded the Medaglia d'argento al valor militare (Silver Medal of Military Valor), prompting some to observe he deserved a gold medal for bravery in accepting a silver one, his time in the air having hardly exposed him to danger.

The “Caracciola Coupé”, "Best in Class" winner, Pebble Beach, Monterey County, California, 1978.

The coupé in 1963 then travelled to the US where it was subject to an 18 month restoration before being entered in the 1966 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, finishing second in class, behind a Bugatti Royale (type 41), beginning a 13 year career as a fixture on the North American concours & classic car circuit becoming, a little ironically given its later 44-year hiatus, one of best-known Mercedes-Benz of the “supercharger era”.  Back on the manicured lawns of Pebble Beach in 1978, it went one better than a decade earlier, this time taking first in class and in 1979 it was purchased by Mr Klein who exhibited at a show at least once.  After that, it was left to languish in the big shed but it remained solid, mechanically original (apparently, in the restoration only the paint, chrome, upholstery and perishable parts were replaced) so as re-commissioning projects go, while unlikely to be “cheap”, it won’t be intimidating.  Sotheby’s haven’t published a price estimate but most are suggesting it should achieve between US$3-4 million.

Out in the California sun: The Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster & aluminum Gullwing with the one-off Iso Griffo A3/L Spider prototype behind the roadster, sitting beneath a Facel Vega HK500.

At auction also among dozens will be a 1957 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster, a rare (one of 29) 1955, aluminum-bodied Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing (long thought lost and likely to realize close to US$10 million), a trio of damaged Lamborghini P400 Miuras, the one-off Iso Griffo A3/L Spider prototype (which will need to have its unique front coachwork re-created but will still command well over US$1 million) and a 1939 Horch 855 Special Roadster, always prized for its rakish lines and the only 855 known to have survived the war.