Guillotine

Guillotine (pronounced gil-uh-teen)

(1) An apparatus designed efficiently to carry out executions by decapitation.

(2) In medicine, an instrument used surgically to remove the tonsils.

(3) Any of various machines in which a vertical blade between two parallel uprights descends to cut or trim metal, stacks of paper etc.

(4) To truncate or cut.

(5) A technical procedure permitted in some parliaments which provides for an early termination of the time usually allocated to debate a bill, forcing an immediate vote.

(6) In philosophy, as “Hume's guillotine”, a synonym of “Hume's law”, the idea that what ought to be the case cannot be deduced from what is already the case; named after the Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume (1711–1776).

(7) In law, as “guillotine clause”, a contractual stipulation that the adoption of the overall contractual package requires adoption of all of the individual treaties or contracts within it; the clause often appears in international treaties or agreements between sub-national entities.

(8) In historic French slang, as “dry guillotine”, the deportation to a penal colony.

Circa 1791: The guillotine was named after Joseph Guillotin (1738-1814), the French physician who advocated its adoption.  The surname Guillotin was of French origin and was from the Old French personal name Guillot, a diminutive of "Guillaume" (the French form of William, meaning “will” or “desire” + “helmet” or “protection” which, macabrely, is amusing given the later association with the guillotine). The “-in” suffix is a common diminutive in French surnames, meaning “little” (in the sense of “younger”) or “son of”.  Still today, the surname Guillotin is found primarily in western France, particularly in regions like Brittany (Bretagne), Normandy, and the Loire Valley and probably began as a patronymic, identifying the bearer as “the son of Guillot”.  Guillotine & guillotining are nouns & verbs and guillotined is a verb; the noun plural is guillotines.  Although use of the verb is attested only from 1794, etymologists seem to agree it would have come into oral use simultaneously with the noun.

The classic guillotine consists of a tall, upright frame in which a weighted and angled blade is raised to the top and suspended.  The condemned person is secured with stocks at the bottom of the frame, positioning the neck directly below the blade. The blade is then released, swiftly to fall, forcefully decapitating the victim in a single pass, the head falling into a basket below.  In 1789, having witnessed the sometimes prolonged suffering caused by other methods of execution, Dr Joseph Guillotin (1738-1814), then a deputy in the National Assembly, had commended the guillotine to the authorities, his notes at the time indicating he was concerned with (1) efficiency of process, (2) a humanitarian concern for the victim and (3), the effect less expeditious methods had on executioners (and of the three, it was only the first and third which would later induce the Nazis to abandon mass-shootings of the Jews and instead create an industrialized process).  The French administration agreed and several guillotines were built in 1791, the first execution the following year.  Approvingly reporting the efficiency of the machine, the Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure in January 1793 noted "The name of the machine in which the axe descends in grooves from a considerable height so that the stroke is certain and the head instantly severed from the body."  The device also affected Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) who, in his seminal French Revolution (1837), was moved to observe "This is the product of Guillotin's endeavors, ... which product popular gratitude or levity christens by a feminine derivative name, as if it were his daughter: La Guillotine! ... Unfortunate Doctor! For two-and-twenty years he, unguillotined, shall hear nothing but guillotine, see nothing but guillotine; then dying, shall through long centuries wander, as it were, a disconsolate ghost, on the wrong side of Styx and Lethe; his name like to outlive Cæsar's."  For better or worse, historians no longer write like that.

Sterling silver cigar cutter (1994) by Theo Fennell (b 1951).

A finely crafted piece, the upright frame contained a sprung, angled blade with retaining chain, the cigar tip tumbling into a gilded silver basket after the blade descends to the stocks.  The base was of honed, black slate with a sterling silver cartouche ready for engraving, the unit supplied in a bespoke, two-door presentation case.  At auction, it sold for Stg£2,000 (cigar not included).

Born in Saintes, Dr Guillotin emerged as a prominent member of the Constituent Assembly in Paris and although philosophically opposed to capital punishment, he was a realist and wished executions done in a more humane manner and, very much in the spirit of the times, for the one method to be used for all social classes.  He recommended a machine known at the time as the “Louison” or “Louisette”, the nickname derived from the French surgeon and physiologist Dr Antoine Louis (1723-1792) who designed the prototype although it was built by German engineer and harpsichord maker Tobias Schmidt, the process typical of the division of labor in Europe at the time.  It was Herr Schmidt who suggested using a diagonal blade rather than the round shape borrowed from the executioner’s axe and, with his knowledge of anatomy, Dr Louis calculated what came to be known as the “angle of Louis”, an alternative term for the "sternal angle" (the point of junction between the manubrium and the body of the sternum).  The advocacy of Dr Guillotin however received more publicity and, much to his regret, “Guillotine” captured the public imagination, his family so embarrassed by the connection they later changed the family name.  A confessed Freemason, Dr Guillotin died of natural causes in his Paris home, aged 75 and was buried in the city’s Père-Lachaise Cemetery.

One of the kitten-heel shoes worn by Marie Antoinette (1755–1793; Queen Consort of France 1774-1792) on the day of her execution, 16 October 1793.  

While ascending the stairs to the guillotine, she tripped, stepped on the executioner's foot and lost her shoe, something of a harbinger to what she’d lose a few moments later.  The shoe was later recovered and is now on display at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen.

Although Dr Guillotin regretted his name being associated with the contraption, the true origin wasn't even French.  While the date such a thing was first used is unknown it seems almost certainly a medieval creation, an early English record indicating a mechanical beheading device was in use in Halifax in West Yorkshire; then called the Halifax Gibbet, the decapitation of an unfortunate Mr John Dalton recorded in 1286.  A sixteenth century engraving named The Execution of Murcod Ballagh Near to Merton in Ireland 1307 shows a similar machine suggesting use also in medieval Ireland and Scotland, from the mid-sixteenth century until the abolition of use circa 1710; it was called the Maiden which seems to have been functionally identical to the Halifax Gibbet.  In Italy, most un-euphemistically, it was called the Mannaia (cleaver).  Over the years, it attracted many nicknames, some sardonically deployed as the equivalent of gallows humour including La Monte-à-regret (The Regretful Climb), Le Rasoir National (The National Razor), La Veuve (The Widow), Le Moulin à Silence (The Silence Mill), La Bécane (The Machine), Le Massicot (The Cutter), La Cravate à Capet (Capet's Necktie (Capet being Louis XVI (1754–1793; King of France 1774-1792)) & La Raccourcisseuse Patriotique (The Patriotic Shortener).

Marie Antoinette's execution on October 16, 1793 (Unknown artist).

The carts famously used to take victims to the guillotine during the Reign of Terror (the period in the mid-1790s after the declaration of the First Republic, marked by massacres, public executions, anti-clericalism and internecine political struggle) were called tumbrels although many illustrations depict the use of four-wheeled carts rather than tumbrels.  Presumably both types were used but historians generally believe it was usually the tumbrel because the revolutionaries preferred the symbolism of something used usually for moving dung or rubbish and suggest artists preferred the four-wheelers simply for compositional reasons.  The noun tumbrel (two-wheeled cart for hauling dung, stones etc) was from mid-fifteenth century French, a name, curiously perhaps, used in the early thirteenth century to describe what some eighteenth century dictionaries described as a mysterious “instrument of punishment of uncertain type” but which turned out to be (1) a name for the cucking stool used, inter alia, to conduct the dunking in water of women suspected of this and that and (2) was a type of medieval balancing scale used to weigh coins.  It was from the Old French tomberel (dump cart) (which exists in Modern French as tombereau), from tomber ((let) fall or tumble), possibly from a Germanic source, perhaps the Old Norse tumba (to tumble), the Old High German tumon (to turn, reel).

Public guillotining of Eugen Weidmann, Versailles, 1939.

The records from the early days of the revolution are understandably sketchy but the first guillotine was likely that crafted by German harpsichord maker Tobias Schmidt which first was used on 25 April 1792, the term “guillotine” appearing first in print in a report by the journalist Louis René Quentin de Richebourg de Champcenetz (1759-1794) who, in another journalistic scoop, was later guillotined.  Although synonymous with the French Revolution, during which some seventeen thousand were beheaded, the guillotine remained the nation's official method of capital punishment until the death penalty was abolished in 1981.  The highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier (circa 1756–1792) was the first victim while the last public guillotining was of Eugen Weidmann (1908-1939) who, convicted of six murders, was beheaded in Versailles on 17 June 1939.  The final drop of the blade came when murderer Hamida Djandoubi’s (1949-1977) sentence was carried out in Marseille on 10 September 1977.

Boucles d'oreilles pendantes guillotine en laiton (guillotine drop earrings in brass), cut and engraved, Paris, circa 1880.

In France, until the onset of modernity with the coming of the twentieth century, artistic and decorative representations of the guillotine proliferated because the bloody events of the 1790s had made the instrument a symbol of republican patriotism.  Methods of execution now appear less as fashion items although there was a revival associated when the punk movement went mainstream in the mid-1970s (anarchists, revolutionaries and such less inclined to trivialize what they intended soon to be a serious business). In recent years, models in nooses have however strutted the catwalks generating outrage which, measured in column inches, photographs and clicks, was of course the point of them donning the macabre accessory.  For those nostalgic for the days of la révolution, made with a variety of materials, guillotine drop earrings are available on-line.

Paper trimming guillotine.

The device was used in many European countries until well after the Second World War but, perhaps predictability, none were as enthusiastic as the Nazis.  Having been used in various German states since the seventeenth century and being the preferred method of execution in Napoleonic times (circa 1799-1815), guillotine and firing squad were the legal methods of execution during both the Second Reich (1871–1918) and the Weimar Republic (1919–1933).  For the Nazis however, it was just another way to industrialize mass-murder and under the Third Reich (1933-1945), 16,500 were guillotined including 10,000 in 1944–1945 alone although, after the attempt on his life in July 1944, Hitler wasn’t at all attracted to an efficient or humanitarian dispatch of the surviving plotters and for them specified a more gruesome method.  The guillotine was used for the last time in the FRG (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany) 1949-1990) in 1949 though use in the GDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic; the old East Germany) 1949-1990) persisted until 1966, mostly by the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Ministry for State Security, better known as the Stasi) for secret executions.

Brandenburg prison fallbeil now on display at the Deutsche Historisches Museum.  Unlike most of the Tegel machines, it's un-painted and not fitted with a blade shield although the rather crude construction (using unfinished wood planks and four hefty, unadorned wooden legs) is characteristic of the Tegel design.  Some other Tegel fallbeils have had some of the timber members replaced with square metal tubing.

The German for guillotine is fallbeil (literally "axe-method" which is pleasingly informative).  The Nazis increased the number of capital offences in the criminal code and consequently, there was a drastic increase in the number of executions in the Reich.  To meet the demand, many prisons were designated as execution sites, sixteen gazetted by 1942, all equipped with metal (Mannhardt) fallbeils, the standardized procedure for execution as typically exact and bureaucratic as anything in the German civil service.  The first fallbeils were made from wood and built by the inmates of the Tegel prison in Berlin (hence the name) while the later Mannhardt design (fabricated from steel) was more sophisticated, including an external pulley frame and, thoughtfully, a hinged sheet-metal cover to protect the executioner from "blood spray".

The help admiring a SWB 600.

It’s at least arguable the Mercedes-Benz 600 (M100, 1963-1981) was the last car which, upon its introduction, could be called “the best car in the world”.  Some publications used exactly that phrase when their road-test reports appeared and about all the review in US magazine Road & Track found to complain about was (1) the choice of where to place the driver’s ashtray was obviously the decision of a non-smoker and (2) the air-conditioning (AC) was primitive compare with what was installed in Cadillacs, Lincolns and Imperials (or for that matter, Chevrolets, Fords and Plymouths).  The factory did improve ashtray placement (before social change drove them extinct) but it took decades for it to produce AC systems as good as those from Detroit although, impressionistically, probably nothing has ever matched the icy blasts possible in 1960s Cadillacs and such.

A 600 Pullman on location, 2011.

Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) & Grant Bowler (b 1968) during the filming of Liz & Dick (2012), a “biopic” of the famously tempestuous relationship between the actors Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) & Richard Burton (1925–1984).  The car is a Mercedes-Benz 600  four-door Pullman with the vis-a-vis seating.  The flagstaffs (installed in this instance above the front wheel arches) were usually fitted to cars used by governments or the corps diplomatique.

An extraordinary technical achievement, despite its run of 18-odd years, the 600 was a commercial failure with only 2677 built, the 408 (345 sedans & 63 Pullmans) which left the line in the first year of full production (1965) an encouraging start but that proved the high point, the decline precipitous after 1972 when the 600 was withdrawn from the US market, the costs of complying with the new regulations (as well as uncertainty about what was to come) just too onerous to be justified for such a low-volume model.  Although there were examples of special coachwork (armour plating, higher roof versions and even a couple of coupés)  the 600 appeared in three basic forms, the SWB ("short" wheelbase) four-door sedan, the LWB (long wheelbase) Pullmans (in four & six door form) and the Pullman Landaulets (with two lengths of retractable roof); the breakdown was 2,190 sedans, 428 Pullmans and 59 Landaulets.

The car of kings, dictators and real estate developers.

The 1970 Pullman Landaulet (one of twelve known informally as the "presidential" because the folding portion of the roof extended to the driver's compartment, the other 58 Landaulets having a convertible top only over the rear seat) was purchased by the Romanian government and used by comrade president Nicolae Ceaușescu (1918–1989; general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party 1965-1989) until he and his wife were executed (by Kalashnikov assault rifle) after a “people's tribunal” held a brief trial, the swiftness of which was aided by the court-appointed defense counsel who declared them both guilty of the genocide of which, among other crimes, they were charged.  Considering the fate of other fallen dictators, their end was less gruesome than might have been expected.  Comrade Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980; prime-minister or president of Yugoslavia 1944-1980) had a similar car (among other 600s) but he died undisturbed in his bed.  The blue SWB (short wheelbase) car to the rear is one of the few SWB models fitted with a divider between the front & rear compartments including hand-crafted timber writing tables and a refrigerated bar in the centre console.  It was delivered in 1977 to the Iranian diplomatic service and maintained for the Shah’s use.  The 1969 sedan to the right (identified as a US market car by the disfiguring headlight treatment) had a less eventful past, purchased by a California real estate developer, who took advantage of the Mercedes-Benz European Delivery Program (discontinued in 2020 after some sixty years), collecting the 600 from the Stuttgart factory.

KCNA (Korean Central News Agency) footage of the DPRK Youth Parade, Pyongyang, DPRK, 2012.  The KCNA (its headquarters at 1 Potonggang-dong in Pyongyang's Potonggang District) may be the world's most productive state news agency and is the best source for new Kim Jong-Un content. 

At the 2012 Youth Parade, all in the full stadium were happy and enthusiastic, delighted no doubt to be the only audience on the planet able to see two long-roof Mercedes-Benz 600 Landaulets together.  The DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) should not be confused with the "puppet state" RoK (Republic of Korea (South Korea)).  Kim Il-Sung (Kim I, 1912–1994; Great Leader of DPRK 1948-1994) purchased a brace of presidential Landaulets which he passed down the line (along with the rest of North Korea) to his descendants Kim Jong-Il (Kim II, 1941-2011; Dear Leader of DPRK1994-2011) & Kim Jong-Un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK since 2011).    Evil dictators and real estate developers are one thing but the television personality Jeremy Clarkson (b 1960) also owned a (SWB) 600 and from that the car's reputation may never have recovered.  

Staged publicity shot of 1966 Mercedes-Benz 600s.

A four-door Pullman (left) and SWB (right) parked outside the Hotel Vierjahreszeiten, Munich, Bavaria, FRG.  This shot illustrates the difference between the two platforms, the Pullman's additional length all in the wheelbase (the Pullman's was 3,900 mm (153½ inches) against the sedan's 3,200 mm (126 inch).  The factory initially called the sedans “limousines” because that was the traditional German term for a four door sedan (or saloon) but they’re commonly referred to also as the SWB (short wheelbase), the Pullmans very definitely a LWB (long wheelbase).

1966 Mercedes-Benz 600 SWB, Place de la Concorde, Paris, France.

The 600’s famously smooth ride and remarkably capable handling was achieved with a suspension system using air-bellows but more intricate still was the engine-drive hydraulic system with which could be controlled the raising and lowering of the windows and central divider (installed on all but one of the Pullmans and optional on the SWBs), the setting of the shock absorbers (dampers), the opening and closing of the sun-roofs (it was possible on Pullmans to order two!) and the positions of the seats.  Additionally, the closing of the trunk (boot) lid and doors were hydraulically controlled although the hood (bonnet) needed to be raised manually; the factory was clearly more concerned for the comfort of passengers than mechanics.  To achieve all this, the plumbing’s fittings included 30 hydraulic switches, 12 double-acting hydraulic cylinders, 10 single-acting cylinders, six self-resetting single-acting units, a pump, a reservoir, and an accumulator, all connected by 3.5 mm (⅛ inch) internal-diameter lines coursing with hydraulic oil at a pressure of 2,176 psi (150-bar).  As might be imagined, to even experienced automotive engineers & mechanics, the schematic appeared of Byzantine complexity but to those accustomed to the hydraulics of heavy machinery it seemed simple, the only novelty being components unusually small.  The pressure of the system was high enough (twice that of a typical fire hose), if ruptured, to pierce human flesh although, reassuringly, below what’s needed to cut through bone.  Just to prove safety warnings are not something recent, the high pressure warranted a passage in a notably thick publication: Workshop Manual, Type 600, The Grand Mercedes: “It cannot be too highly stressed that it is mortally dangerous to open the oil-pressure container!”  Although the silently operating hydraulic system did offer the advantage of eliminating the noise which would have been generated had electric motors been used, the real attraction was the elimination of an estimated 800 metres (2600 feet) of wiring and more than a dozen motors (and it would have been a challenge to fit them all in the existing structure).

The Guillotine.

A Mercedes-Benz 600 sedan in the now closed Kemp Auto Museum in Saint Louis, Missouri, is used to demonstrate why the hydraulically activated trunk (boot) lid was known to wary technicians as “the guillotine”.  This is the lid closing with the hydraulics on the most hungry setting.

1966 Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman Landaulet with the shorter of the two folding roofs.

The trunk-lid’s single hydraulic cylinder can bring the steel panel down with alarming force so service personnel decided it deserved to be nicknamed “the guillotine”.  It was however adjustable to reduce the potential to damage fingers (at least there was an attempt to minimize risk; from certain manufacturers, some of the early electric windows didn’t include a clutching mechanism and were capable of crushing the match boxes often used to demonstrate the danger to dawdling digits).  The 600’s hydraulic system was well-built and used high quality components but the factory knew nothing is indestructible and every car included in the trunk a box containing (1) four wedges to force between the glass and the jambs to keep the windows up and (2) a set of pins which could be inserted to keep the squabs of the front seats upright.  Indeed, the door closing apparatus proved troublesome (tales of expensive dresses ruined by a squirt of hydraulic fluid part of the 600 legend) and wasn’t fitted after 1967 but the guillotine remained standard equipment until the end.

Bob

Bob (pronounced bobb)

(1) A short, jerky motion.

(2) Quickly to move up and down.

(3) In Sterling and related currencies, a slang term for one shilling (10c); survived decimalisation in phrases like "two bob watch", still used by older generations).

(4) A type of short to medium length hairstyle.

(5) A docked horse’s tail.

(6) A dangling or terminal object, as the weight on a pendulum or a plumb line.

(7) A short, simple line in a verse or song, especially a short refrain or coda.

(8) In angling, a float for a fishing line.

(9) Slang term for a bobsled.

(10) A bunch, or wad, especially a small bouquet of flowers (Scottish).

(11) A polishing wheel of leather, felt, or the like.

(12) An affectionate diminutive of the name Robert.

(13) To curtsy.

(14) Any of various hesperiid butterflies.

(15) In computer graphics (using "Bob" as a contraction of Blitter object), a graphical element (GEL) used by the Amiga computer (the first consumer-level computer which handled multi-tasking convincingly).  Technically, Bobs were hardware-generated objects which could be moved on the screen by the blitter coprocessor.  Bobs were an object of some veneration among the demosceners (the computer art subculture that produces and watches demos (audio-visual computer programs)), Bobs rated according to their the volume and dynamics of movement.

(16) In Scotland, a bunch, cluster, or wad, especially a small bouquet of flowers.

(17) A walking beam (obsolete).

1350–1400: From the Middle English bobben (to strike in cruel jest, beat; fool, make a fool of, cheat, deceive), the meaning "move up and down with a short, jerking motion," perhaps imitative of the sound, the sense of mocking or deceiving perhaps connected to the Old French bober (mock, deride), which, again, may have an echoic origin. The sense "snatch with the mouth something hanging or floating," as in bobbing for apples (or cherries), is recorded by 1799 and the phrase “bob and weave” in boxing commentary is attested from 1928.  Bob seems first to have been used to describe the short hair-style in the 1680s, a borrowing probably of the use since the 1570s to refer to "a horse's tail cut short", that derived from the earlier bobbe (cluster (as of leaves)) dating from the mid fourteenth century and perhaps of Celtic origin and perhaps connected in some way with the baban (tassel, cluster) and the Gaelic babag.  Bob endures still in Scots English as a dialectical term for a small bunch of flowers.  Bob is a noun & verb, bobber & boggy are nouns, bobbing is a noun & verb, bobbed is a verb & adjective, bobbish is an adjective and bobbingly & bobbishly are adverbs; the noun plural is bobs.  When used as a proper noun, there's an initial capital.

Australian politician Bob Katter (b 1945) with cane toad.

An introduced pest (ie the cane toad), Mr Katter's idea is children should be given guns (air rifles) to hunt them, each carcass attracting a bounty of 40 cents ("four bob" in the old slang).  This photograph is thus potentially "a five bob".  Affectionately, Mr Katter is known as “his Bobness” and, depending on who is asked, is either (1) an intellectual or (2) barking mad.  Between 1974-1992, Mr Katter served in the Queensland state parliament but since 1993 has been the member for Kennedy (at 567,377 km² (219,066 sq miles) about the size of metropolitan France) in the Commonwealth House of Representatives.  Until 2001 he was a member of the National Party (the old Country Party), after which he sat as an independent.  The suggestion which circulated implying he was asked by the Nationals to vacate his seat after an IQ test revealed he was "too intelligent for the National Party" was fake news and wholly malicious.   

Two two bob coins: Obverse (heads, left) and reverse (tails, right) of two 1945 Australian florins, minted in the same year as Mr Katter.

The coin at the top is one which spent some time in circulation while the more lustrous example below is a UNC (uncirculated coin) which would likely have spent its entire existence in collections.  Numismatists (coin collectors) will pay a premium for a UNC, a 1945 UNC Australian florin typically trading at four times the price of a circulated coin in good condition.  Now nominally equivalent to 20 cents (although a florin’s purchasing power was greater), it was worth two shillings (thus “two bob” in slang).  The group of "bob words" in English is beyond obscure and mostly mysterious.  Most are surely colloquial in origin and probably at least vaguely imitative, but have long become entangled and merged in form and sense (bobby pin, bobby sox, bobsled, bobcat etc).  As a noun, it has been used over the centuries in various senses connected by the notion of "round, hanging mass" and of weights at the end of a fishing line (1610s), pendulum (1752) or plumb-line (1832).  As a description of the hair style, although dating from the 1680s, it entered popular use only in the 1920s when use spiked.  As a slang word for “shilling” (the modern 10c coin), it’s recorded from 1789 but no connection has ever been found and the origin of this is unknown.  In certain countries, among older generations, the term in this sense endures in phrases like “two bob watch” to suggest something of low quality and dubious reliability.

UK Prime Minister Lord Salisbury (Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 1830–1903; UK Prime Minister for thirteen years variously 1885-1902.

The third marquess was, in the words of of Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955): "prime-minister since God knows when" and the affectionate diminutive of his grandson (Robert Arthur James Gascoyne-Cecil 1893-1972; Fifth Marquess of Salisbury 1947-1972) was "Bobbety".  The phrase "Bob's your uncle" is said often to have its origin in the nepotism allegedly extended by Lord Salisbury to his favorite nephew Arthur Balfour (1848–1930; UK Prime Minister 1902-1905), unexpectedly promoted to a number of big jobs during the 1880s.  The story has never convinced etymologists but it certainly impressed the Greeks who made up a big part of Australia's post-war immigration programme, "Spiro is your uncle" in those years often heard in Sydney and Melbourne to denote nepotism among their communities there.

The other potential source is the Scottish music hall, the first known instance in in a Dundee newspaper in 1924 reviewing a musical revue called Bob's Your Uncle.  The phrase however wasn't noted as part of the vernacular until 1937, six years after the release of the song written by JP Long, "Follow your uncle Bob" which alluded to the nepotistic in the lyrics:

Bob's your uncle
Follow your Uncle Bob
He knows what to do
He'll look after you

Partridge's Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (1937) notes the phrase but dates it to the 1890s though without attribution and it attained no currency in print until the post-war years.  Although it's impossible to be definitive, the musical connection does seem more convincing, the connection with Lord Salisbury probably retrospective.  It could however have even earlier origins, an old use noted in the Canting Dictionary (1725) in an entry reporting "Bob ... signifies Safety, ... as, It's all Bob, ie All is safe, the Bet is secured."

Of hair

A bob cut or bob is a short to shoulder-length haircut for women.  Historically, in the west, it’s regarded as a twentieth-century style although evidence of it exists in the art of antiquity and even some prehistoric cave-paintings hint it may go way back, hardly surprising given the functionality.  In 1922, The Times (of London), never much in favor of anything new, ran a piece by its fashion editor predicting the demise of the fad, suggesting it was already passé (fashion editors adore the word passé) although the photographic record for the rest of the decade does suggest it took the bright young things of the age a while to take the paper's hint.  Certainly, bobs were less popular by the difficult 1930s but in the 1960s, a variety of social and economic forces saw a resurgence which has never faded and the twenty-first century association with the Karen hasn't lessened demand (although the A-line variant, now known in the industry as the "speak to the manager" seems now avoided by all except those for whom there are few viable alternatives).  The connection with the Karen is the second time the bob has assumed some socio-political meaning; when flaunted by the proto-feminists of the 1920s, it was regarded as a sign of radicalism.  The popularity in the 1920s affected the millinery trades too as it was the small cloche which fitted tightly on the bobbed head which became the hat of choice.  Manufacturer of milliner's materials, hair-nets and hair-pins all suffered depressed demand, the fate too of the corset makers, victims of an earlier social change, a phenomenon which would in the post-war years devastate the industries supporting the production of hats for men.  In the 1970s, some optimists (some of whom may have been men), noting one well-publicized (though not widely practiced) aspect of second-wave feminism, predicted the demise of the bra but that garment endured and flourishes to this day.

Actor Lily Collins (b 1989) in a semi-sheer white Calvin Klein ensemble, the cropped spaghetti-strap top and knee-length pencil skirt both embellished with scale sequins, New York Fashion Week,  New York City, September 2025.  Note the pleasing definition of the sinews (arrowed, centre).  The hair-style is a chin-length bob.

Variations on a theme of bob, Marama Corlett (b 1984. left) and Lindsay Lohan (b 1986, right), Sick Note, June 2017.

Hairdressers have number of terms for the variations.  The motifs can in some cases be mixed and even within styles, lengths can vary, a classic short bob stopping somewhere between the tips of the ears and well above the shoulders, a long bob extending from there to just above the shoulders; although the term is often used, the concept of the medium bob really makes no sense and there are just fractional variations of short and long, everything happening at the margins.  So, a bob starts with the fringe and ends being cut in a straight line; length can vary but the industry considers shoulder-length a separate style and the point at which bobs stop and something else begins. Descriptions like curly and ringlet bobs refer more to the hair than the style but do hint at one caveat, not all styles suit all hair types, a caution which extends also to face shapes.

Greta Thunberg: BB (before-bob) and AB (after-bob).

The style received an unexpected imprimatur when Greta Thunberg (b 2003) opted for a bob (one straddling chin & shoulder-length).  Having gained fame as a weather forecaster, the switch to shorter hair appears to have coincided with her branching out from environmental activism to political direct action in the Middle East.  While there's no doubt she means well, it’s something that will end badly because while the matter of greenhouse gasses in the atmospheric can (over centuries) be fixed, some problems are insoluble and the road to the Middle East is paved six-feet deep with good intentions.  Ms Thunberg seems not to have discussed why she got a bob (and how she made her daily choice of "one braid or two" also remained mysterious) but her braids were very long and she may have thought them excessive and contributing to climate change.  While the effect individually would be slight, over the entire population there would be environmental benefits if all those with long hair got a bob because: (1) use of shampoo & conditioner would be lowered (reduced production of chemicals & plastics), (2) a reduction in water use (washing the hair and rinsing out all that product uses much), (3) reduced electricity use (hair dryers, styling wands & straighteners would be employed for a shorter duration) and (4) carbon emissions would drop because fewer containers of shampoo & conditioner would be shipped or otherwise transported.

Sydney Sweeney (b 1997) with new bob, Variety's Power of Women 2025 Event, Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles, California, October 2025.

Actor Sydney Sweeney (b 1997) seemed not to have revealed whether it was Greta Thunberg who inspired her to get a bob but the symmetrical cut made quite a splash when she appeared on the red carpet at Variety's Power of Women 2025 Event.  The reaction universally was favourable but also noted by critics was her sparkling silver full-length gown from the spring 2026 collection of Christian Cowan (b 1995) & Elias Matso (b 2002); it’s fair to say dress overshadowed hair, fetching though the latter was.  The gown was called “Twisted Crystal Mesh Tee” and for deconstructionist fashionistas, the piece was a delight of detail in sheer fabric including bell sleeves, a scooped neckline, a form-fitting bodice with an intricately crafted twisted waist, lending a cinched effect which merged effortlessly to a lace-up fastener at the back, constructed with a corset-tie motif: coming or going, she looked good.  So lovely is Sydney Sweeney she would look good in just about anything but she certainly knows how to get the most from a garment, her underwear limited to “nude knickers” with diamond drop earrings and rings from EFFY.

Variety's clip of Sydney Sweeney (moving slightly) with new bob.

Her appearance in that dress of course provoked the digital traffic she would have expected and it’s hard to disagree with the feminist critics who suggested the juxtaposition of well-filled gown with the speech she delivered at the event was a device intended deliberately to illustrate the behavioral phenomenon she’d discussed in earlier interviews: That women can be defined as sexy or serious but not both simultaneously.  As evidence of that, the extent of the on-line coverage of how Ms Sweeney looked in the dress may be compared with the minimal attention afforded the speech she delivered from the podium, the former already joining the Alexandre Vauthier (b 1971) LRD (little red dress) worn by & Bella Hadid (b 1996) Cannes Film Festival in May 2016 as one of the dresses of the twenty-first century.  Of her words, most of the “cultural commentators” seemed intent on criticizing what they deemed the apparent discontinuity between her wishing to be taken seriously while looking so stunningly sexy, apparently missing the point that in bundling her body, the garment in which it was wrapped and the text she delivered as a single installation, she made her point well, dress and body just part of her text.

Sydney Sweeney with new bob.

Ever since the Canadian theorist Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) explained the concept in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964), it’s been understood “the medium is the message”, his theory being it is the channel or technology through which information is transmitted which matters more than the content in the shaping human experience and society.  While that obviously wasn’t an absolute rule, the notion was helpful, decades before TikTok, in providing a model of the way a structure can have social effects independent of its content.  To define “medium”, McLuhan cast a wide net, including not only the then familiar (and dominant) television & print, but any channel through which information passes, including speech, gesture and appearance.  The person delivering a message is thus a medium and the reaction of an audience to the words of a glamorous, attractive woman can be very different to that extended to someone plain, even if both recite the same text with the same tonal technique.

Sydney Sweeney with new bob.

So, Ms Sweeney’s dress wasn’t just packaging, it was part of the meaning and that was not what she implied but what the audience inferred; what “the medium is the message” meant was the form of delivery and the embodied qualities of the communicator are inseparable from the content’s impact.  This was heady stuff in 1964 and, thirty-odd years on, the internet would gain critical mass and, at scale, prove his principle but his idea wasn’t new, the line of thought running through Western philosophy from Aristotle (384-322 BC) who called it “ethos” to Leo Strauss (1899–1973) who wrote of a kind of “authenticity”.  Unfortunately, Strauss was disturbed by way the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) were so accessible they were there for Nazis and others to make of them something else so his meaning(s) existed in a kind of elaborated code it took some time to learn but definitely he was in the Aristotelian tradition McLuhan would have understood.  It’s a long way from Nietzsche to Sweeney but from her back to McLuhan, it’s not that far.

Bob identification: By their bob they shall be known

Asymmetrical Bob: Another general term which describes a bob cut with different lengths left and right; they can look good but should not be applied to all styles.  The effect is often most dramatic when combined with some variant of the Shaggy (JBF).

A-line bob: A classic bob which uses slightly longer strands in front, framing the face and, usually, curling under the chin; stylists caution this doesn’t suit all face shapes.

Buzz-cut bob: Known also as the undercut (pixie) bob, and often seen as an asymmetric, this is kind of an extreme inverted mullet; the the usual length(s) in the front and close-cropped at the back.  It can be a dramatic look but really doesn’t suit those above a certain BMI or age (although the former seem often unable to resist the look).

Chin-length bob: Cut straight to the chin, with or without bangs but, if the latter is chosen, it’s higher maintenance, needing more frequent trims to retain the sharpness on which it depends.  Depending on the face shape, it works best with or without fringe.

Inverted bob: A variation on the A-line which uses graduated layers at the back, the perimeter curved rather than cut straight. Known also as the graduated bob, to look best, the number of layers chosen should be dictated by the thickness of growth.

Shaggy bob: A deliberately messy bob of any style, neatness depreciated with strategic cutting either with scissors or razor, a styling trick best done by experts otherwise it can look merely un-kept.  The un-kept thing can be a thing if that’s what one wants but, like dying with gray or silver, it's really suitable only for the very young.  Some call this the choppy and it’s known in the vernacular of hairdressing as the JBF (just been fucked).

Spiky bob: This differs from a JBF in that it’s more obviously stylised.  It can differ in extent but with some types of hair is very high maintenance, demanding daily application of product to retain the directions in which the strands have to travel.  Not all hair is suited to the look and while product can compensate for much, beyond a certain point, there is a law of diminishing returns. 

Shingle bob: A cut tapered very short in the back, exposing the hairline at the neck with the sides shaped into a single curl, the tip of which sits at a chosen point on each cheek.  This needs to be perfectly symmetrical or it looks like a mistake.

Shoulder-length bob: A blunt bob that reaches the shoulders and has very few layers; with some hair it can even be done with all strands the same length.  Inherently, this is symmetrical and a remarkably different effect is created depending on whether it's done with or without a fringe although hairdressers caution this is not a style best suited to "round" faces and with those it can be necessary to experiment, a fringe sometimes improving things, sometimes not.

Speak to the manager bob: Not wishing to lose those customers actually named Karen, the industry shorthand for the edgy (and stereotypically in some strain of blonde) bob didn’t become “Karen”.  The classic SttM is an asymmetric blonde variation of the A-line with a long, side-swept fringe contrasted with a short, spiky cut at the back and emblematic of the style are the “tiger stripes”, created by the chunky unblended highlights.  It's now unfashionable though still seen because it remains the "go to cut" for women of a certain age who have been persuaded the style they've stuck to since they were 19 is no longer flattering.