Kammback

Kammback (pronounced cam-bak)

A motif in automotive styling (originally dictated by wind tunnel findings during research into aerodynamic properties) in which rear of the car slopes downwards before being abruptly cut off to terminate in a vertical or near-vertical surface.  The things are known also as the Kamm tail (K-tail).

1950s (the actual design first appearing in 1938): The construct was Kamm + back.  The surname Kamm (related to Kamp) was of Germanic or Jewish (Ashkenazic) origin and translates literally from the German as “comb”.  The German comb was from the Middle High German kamb, kambe, kam & kamme and the Yiddish kam (comb).  Genealogists conclude Kamm was probably an metonymic occupational surname for someone who either made or sold combs, a common tool used for grooming or for textile work such as carding or combing wool.  There’s also the possibility the name of some Kamm clans could have been of topographic origin because in German, Kamm can also mean “ridge” or “crest” of a hill, mountain or some other elevation; it could thus have referred to someone who lived near such a geographical feature.  Less likely is that some arose from nicknames based on physical features or personal characteristics with Kamm used to describe someone with hair resembling a comb or someone with a sharp or distinctive personality.  The surname emerged in the Middle Ages, a time when hereditary family names were becoming more common in German-speaking regions and in addition to the presence in Germany, exists at various scale in areas with a historic patter of German migration (notably the north-eastern US and South Australia.

Back was from the Middle English bak, from the Old English bæc, from the Proto-West Germanic bak, from the Proto-Germanic bakam & baką which may be related to the primitive Indo-European beg- (to bend).  In other European languages there was also the Middle Low German bak (back), from the Old Saxon bak, the West Frisian bekling (chair back), the Old High German bah and the Swedish and Norwegian bak; there are no documented connections outside the Germanic and in other modern Germanic languages the cognates mostly have been ousted in this sense by words akin to Modern English ridge such as Danish ryg and the German Rücken.  At one time, many Indo-European languages may have distinguished the horizontal back of an animal or geographic formation such as a mountain range from the upright back of a human while in some cases a modern word for "back" may come from a word related to “spine” such as the Italian schiena or Russian spina or “shoulder”, the examples including the Spanish espalda & Polish plecy.

Tail was from the Middle English tail, tayl & teil (hindmost part of an animal), from the Old English tægl & tægel (tail), from the Proto-Germanic taglaz & taglą (hair, fibre; hair of a tail) (source also of the Old High German zagal, the German Zagel (tail), the dialectal German Zagel (penis), the Old Norse tagl (horse's tail) and the Gothic tagl (hair), from the primitive Indo-European doklos, from a suffixed form of the roots dok & dek- (something long and thin (referring to such things as fringe, lock of hair, horsetail & to tear, fray, shred)), source also of the Old Irish dual (lock of hair) and the Sanskrit dasah (fringe, wick).  It was cognate with the Scots tail (tail), the Dutch teil (tail, haulm, blade), the Low German Tagel (twisted scourge, whip of thongs and ropes; end of a rope), the dialectal Danish tavl (hair of the tail), the Swedish tagel (hair of the tail, horsehair), the Norwegian tagl (tail), the Icelandic tagl (tail, horsetail, ponytail), and the Gothic tagl (hair). In some senses, development appears to have been by a generalization of the usual opposition between head and tail.  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) suggest the primary sense, at least among the Germanic tongues, seems to have been "hairy tail," or just "tuft of hair," but already in Old English the word was applied to the hairless "tails" of worms, bees etc.  The alternative suggestion is that the notion common to all is that of the "long, slender shape."  It served as an adjective from the 1670s.  A long obsolete Old English word for tail was steort.  Kammback is a noun; the noun plural is kammbacks.  No lexicographer seems to have listed Kammbackesque, Kammbacklike or Kammbackish as standard adjectives but, given the extent of the deviances from Professor Kamm's original which are still labelled as “Kammbacks”, they might be useful forms.  Who wouldn't want to be able to use terms like the comparative “more Kammbackish” and the superlative “most Kammbackish”?

Some notable Kammbacks

The Kammback (also known as the Kamm tail) was named after German engineer & aerodynamicist Professor Wunibald Kamm (1893–1966) who during the 1930s pioneered the shape, his work assisted greatly by some chicanery within the Nazi military-industrial complex which enabled the FKFA (Forschungsinstituts für Kraftfahrwesen und Fahrzeugmotoren Stuttgart (Research Institute of Automotive Engineering and Vehicle Engines Stuttgart) institute he established in 1930s to secure funding to construct a full-sized wind tunnel equipped with a two-part steel treadmill in the floor and an 8.8 metre (350 inch) diameter axial fan, able to drive air at up to 400 km/h (250 mph).  What the two concentric floor turntables allowed was that as well as enabling turbulence to be studied from the side on the running steel belt, slip angles were also possible.   At the time, it was the most modern structure of its kind on the planet, the very existence of which was owed to the priority afforded by the Nazis to re-armament, especially the development of modern airframes, most of the money eventually coming from the Reichs-Luftfahrt-Ministerium (RLM, the State Air Ministry).

A classic Kammback on a 1970 Fiat 850 Coupé (1965-1973), one of the last of the generation of post-war mainstream rear-engined cars built in Western Europe.

While Professor’s Kamm’s work on automobile shapes continued, increasingly the facility became focused on military contracts, contributing to an extraordinary range of novel aircraft designs, some revolutionary and most of which would never reach production.  All of this ceased in July 1944 when the facility was severely damaged in air-raids by Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command, a costly campaign in which one mission incurred a loss-ration of 20% and it wasn’t until the late 1940s that reconstruction began after it was acquired by Daimler-Benz AG which enlarged and modernized the machinery, the early fruits including the 300 SL (the W194, first gullwing coupé) which won the 1952 Le Mans 24 hour race and the W196R “streamliner” Grand Prix race cars which created such a sensation in 1954.  Although he wasn’t part of “Operation Paperclip” (the US project which secured (by various means including the military “smuggling” them into the country despite many being wanted by those investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity) Professor Kann was acknowledged as one of the world’s leading authorities on turbulence and between 1947-1953 was part of the team working at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.  Some of what was undertaken then remains classified but it can be assumed it was all related to military projects and what would later become the space program.

The Kammback which really wasn't: 1976 Chevrolet Vega Kammback.

One often misunderstood aspect of the Kamm tail is that the aerodynamic benefits are realized only if the flat, vertical surface created was no more than about 50% of the total area of the vehicle (as viewed directly from the back).  That’s why even designs which don’t conform to the requirements are often casually referred to as “Kammbacks” and in the US, Chevrolet were cynically opportunistic when the Vega range (1970-1977) included what was nothing more than a two-door station wagon (estate), it was named “Vega Kammback”.  Actually, even the existence of the thing in the US was unusual because at that stage, General Motors (GM) really “didn’t like” small station wagons but many critics did agree the Kammback was the best looking of the Vega’s body-styles.

2023 Ford Mustang coupe (left) and convertible (right).  Three of the Mean Girls (2004) ensemble (Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried (b 1985)), Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert (b 1982)) & Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan (b 1986)) in 2023 filmed a commercial for Pepsi Corporation, one of the props a 2023 Ford Mustang convertible.  So ubiquitous has the Kammback become that its now unnoticed (except in its absence), one quirk being that when convertibles are created from such a base, many of the aerodynamic advantages are lost, one reason why (all else being equal which is rarely the case) a convertible will tend to have slightly inferior performance and slightly higher fuel consumption.

The knowledge gained from aero-engine development during World War I (1914-1918) meant even the mainstream engines of the 1920s were developing much more power so the speeds of cars were rising.  Some intrepid types also took advantage of the number of huge, powerful aero-engines being sold cheaply as “war surplus”, installing them is powerboats and racing cars, resulting in some fast machines and not a few fatalities.  However, it became clear the law of diminishing returns applied as speeds rose because while an increase of 100 horsepower might make possible an increase in top speed from 100 to 120 mph, another 100 hp might yield only another 10 mph; wind resistance increasing too much for the power to overcome.  Thus the interest in aerodynamics, then usually called “streamlining” something which, coincidently, produced some memorable art deco designs buy the engineers were interested in higher speeds and lower fuel consumption for a given quantum of energy input (fuel consumption).

2014 Shelby American Cobra 427 50^th Anniversary Edition in aluminium (left) and 1964 Shelby Daytona Coupe (right).

The AC Shelby Cobra (1962-1967) was small, light and powerful which made it an instant success on the race tracks but, ruggedly handsome though it was, its aerodynamics limited the top speed and on the some fast, open European circuits it gave away as much as 50 km/h (30 mph) to less powerful but more streamlined machines.  More power wasn’t the solution but a new Kammback body was and the Daytona duly won its class in the 1965 World Sports Car Championship.  All used the 289 cubic in (4.7 litre) Ford Windsor V8 although one briefly was fitted with a 390 (6.5) FE V8 and the planned 427 (7.0) version (CSX3027, the so-called “Daytona Super Coupe”) was never completed until sold by Shelby some 17 years later in a “rummage sale”.  The Kammback Daytona was the work of US designer Pete Brock (b 1936) and in a macabre coincidence, his namesake, the Australian racing driver Peter Brock (1945–2006) was killed while competing (in retirement) in a replica Daytona Coupe during the now defunct Targa West (2005-2021) in Western Australia.

Before the Kammback, the state of the aerodynamic art was the airship-like "streamliner" which, although it probably didn't cross the engineers' minds, owed something to the train of a bride's gown.  1939 Lincoln Zephyr V12 Coupe (left) and 1937 Mercedes-Benz 540K (W29) Special Roadster (originally delivered to Mohammad Zahir Shah (1914–2007; the last King of Afghanistan 1933-1973).

What soon became clear was that the shape of the dirigible (better known as the “airship” or “blimp”) was close to ideal and needed to be tweaked only by honing it into a “teardrop shape” with a rounded nose, extending to a long, tapered tail, a shape which in the 1930s caught the imagination of designers who rendered some memorable designs although the most famous were impractical and inefficient in terms of packaging, thus suitable only for the then small market niche which sought speed.  It was to try to gain the benefits of streamlining in a shape more suitable for mass production that Professor Kamm and others took their slide-rules to the wind tunnel began to experiment.  The solution which emerged was to terminate the lovely, long flowing roofline with an abrupt end at a surface which was either vertical or close to it, an unexpected benefit being an improvement in high-speed stability, obviating the need for (a usually central) stabilizing fin (a la an aircraft’s tail).  By 1938, BMW had produced a car with a Kammback and although World War II (1938-1945) interrupted development by the late 1940s the shape had begun to appear in showrooms and in little more than ten years it was common in specially bodied racing cars.  That didn’t mean the allure of the teardrop went away because the aerodynamicists (who now had both access to bigger wind tunnels in which higher speeds could be tested and the novelty of computers which could process previously unimaginable quantities of data) could still prove ultimate slipperiness could be attained only with the teardrop.

Pre-Kammback & non-Kammback.  Porsche 917LH (Langheck (long tail)) at Arnage, Le Mans 24 hour, 1969 (left) and 2020 McLaren Speedtail (right).  Such things are now possible.

It was this which convinced Porsche to use such a tail on their revolutionary 917 in 1969 and having encountered no stability issues on their test track, sent the car to the circuits where it proved as fast as expected.  Unfortunately, the size of the Porsche test facility limited the 917 to 290 km/h (180 mph) and when on the long straights of some European circuits when speeds exceeded 320 km/h, it was clear the thing was lethally unstable.  Although the drivers killed at the wheel of the early 917s didn’t die at such velocities, it was understood it would be only a matter of time so the rear bodywork was redesigned.  When in 2018 McLaren returned to the teardrop for the “Speedtail” (a car which sacrificed just about anything not mandated by law in the quest for top speed), it was able to achieve a safe (it’s a relative term) 400 km/h (250 mph) because advances in aerodynamics, computing and hydraulics had made such things possible although the packaging inefficiencies remained, something not significant for the target market.

Tank

Tank (pronounced tangk)

(1) A large receptacle, container, or structure for holding a liquid or gas.

(2) A natural or artificial pool, pond, or lake (a now rare British and US dialectical form).

(3) A light-proof container inside which a film can be processed in daylight; any large dish or container used for processing a number of strips or sheets of film.

(4) In the military, an armored, self-propelled combat vehicle, armed with cannon and machine guns and moving on a caterpillar tread.

(5) Slang term for a prison cell or enclosure for more than one occupant, as for prisoners awaiting a hearing.

(6) In fashion, as tank top, a type of sleeveless shirt.

(7) To do poorly or rapidly to decline rapidly; to fail.  In competitive sport (as tanking), intentionally to fail.

(8) As belly tank racer, a specialised class of motorsport using vehicles constructed using WWII surplus auxiliary under-belly aircraft fuel tanks.

1610-1620: A Portuguese import from India, from the Gujarati Hindi ટાંકી (tānkh & ṭāṅkī) (artificial lake; cistern, underground reservoir for water) or the Marathi टाकी (ṭākī, tanken & tanka), the Indian forms possibly from the Sanskrit tadaga-m (pond, lake pool) and reinforced in the later (1680s) sense of "large artificial container for liquid" by the Portuguese tanque (reservoir), contraction of estanque (pond, literally “something dammed up”), derivative of estancar (hold back a current of water; to dam up; block; stanch, weaken (related to the modern English stanch)), possibly (unattested) from the Vulgar Latin stanticāre (to dam up; block; stanch, weaken).  That’s not conclusive, some sources even suggesting the Portuguese word is the source of those in the Indian dialects.  While, at this distance, cause and effect can be difficult to determine, there were links also to languages in west Asia, and the Gujarati, Marathi and other Indian forms may be compared with the Arabic verb اِسْتَنْقَعَ‎ (istanqaʿa) (to become stagnant, to stagnate).  Synonyms include vessel, container, pond, pool, reservoir, keg, cask, cistern, basin, receptacle, vat, cauldron, tub & aquarium.

#Free Britney tank top.

Tank proved an adaptable verb.  The most obvious sense (to pour or put into a tank) was noted first in 1900 but may earlier have been in oral use.  Perhaps surprisingly, the meaning in sporting competition "deliberately to lose” is documented only from 1976 when it was used in a magazine interview by a female professional tennis player noting the practice among the men on the tour.  It’s been suggested use in boxing may have pre-existed this but no evidence has been offered.  As an adjective, “tanked” has been used to describe the inebriated since 1893.

The meaning "fuel container" is recorded from 1902 and came to be applied to just about every transportation vehicle or platform using liquid or gaseous fuels (cars, trains, aircraft, rockets, missiles etc) and even missiles using solid fuels.  Exceptions seemed to be made for novel technologies such as nuclear-powered devices and hydrogen where “cell” seems preferred if the storage tank is exchangeable although tank is still used for fixed hydrogen storage.  It’s tempting to suspect “fuel tank, gas tank or petrol tank” may have been in use prior to 1902 because oil tank is documented from 1862 but all sources quote 1902 as the first recorded instance although the first use of tanker to describe a ship designed to carry oil or other liquid cargo was in 1900.  The railroad tank-car is attested from 1874 and the slang term for a jail-cell is from 1912.

Lindsay Lohan in Gucci tank top.

Two certainly unrelated aquatic terms emerged about the same time.  The first fish-tanks, for hobbyists or as ornamental objects, were advertised in 1921, a year after the tank suit (one-piece bathing suit), so named because it was worn in a swimming tank, a slang term for swimming pools since circa 1890.  The tank top, an item of women’s casual-wear which blended the styling of the tank suit with a tee-shirt was released in 1968.  The first think-tank (in the sense of a formal research institute) established was the Centre for Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto, California in 1959.  Think-tank is widely used in colloquial language and the formally established think-tanks have become so associated with political agendas they’ve long habitually needed a modifier (left-wing, liberal, conservative etc).

Another adjectival example has (predictably) ancient roots: the septic tank.  Septic (septic circa 1600) was from the Latin septicus (of or pertaining to putrefaction) from the Greek septikos (characterized by putrefaction) from sepein (make rotten or putrid, cause to rot).  The septic tank is attested from 1902 and was used even in UK rhyming slang as “the septics” to refer to Americans (ie the tank in septic tank rhyming with “yank”).

The sardonic humor of war: March 2022, a young lady from Ukraine in a tank turret.

Johnson and Shipley Belly Tank Racer (1955), Bonneville Salt Flats, circa 1963.

Belly tank racers were built in the post-war years using World War II (1939-1945) era surplus auxiliary under-belly aircraft fuel tanks as bodies, mated to whatever ever engines fell conveniently to hand.  Because the tanks were designed to have optimal aerodynamic properties to minimise drag during flight, they were ideal for straight line speed and most belly tank racers were used for top-speed record attempts at venues like the Bonneville Salt Flats where runs of several miles were possible.  The auxiliary fuel tanks had a profound influence on course the war because they made possible for relatively short-range interceptors like the North American P51D Mustang and ground-attack platform like the Republic P47D Thunderbolt to gain the range required to escort the Allied heavy-bomber fleets to Berlin and other targets in Central Europe.  Not only did this inflict upon the Luftwaffe's dwindling fighter resources losses from which it never recovered, the growing number of raids compelled the Nazis to allocate for home defence large numbers of the 88 mm canons as anti-aircraft flak, meaning they couldn't be used in the anti-tank role on the Eastern Front where the need was so great.  Beyond this, it was the success of the drop-tank (so called because the tanks could be jettisoned as soon as the fuel was expended, thereby reducing weight and gaining aerodynamic advantage) equipped Mustangs & Thunderbirds in decimating the Luftwaffe which meant the Allied control of the skies during the Normandy campaign following the D-Day landings (6 June 1944) was barely contested.  

One outlier is the tankard.  Despite being something used to hold liquids, it’s said to be a phonetic coincidence, tankard apparently unrelated to tank which it long pre-dated.  The origin of tankard (large tub-like vessel) is uncertain, like corresponding Middle Dutch tanckaert.  One suggestion is it’s a transposition of kantard, from the Latin cantharus (a large drinking cup with two handles or a fountain or basin in the courtyard of a church used by worshippers to purify prior to entry) and another ponders a link with the French tant quart (as much as a quarter).  The meaning "drinking vessel" was first noted in the late fifteenth century.

In military use (to describe the armored vehicle moving on continuous self-laying articulated tracks and with mounted canon), the word is from 1915.  The development of the tank proceeded initially under the auspices of the Royal Navy which probably seems strange but happened that way because the organization with the most expertise in the steel fabrication and with the heavy engines needed was the navy which formed the Admiralty Landships Committee to coordinate the operation.  On Christmas eve 1915, the Committee of Imperial Defense, reviewed the proposal for what was then called the "caterpillar machine-gun destroyer" and approved it “for secrecy” being a project of the “Tank Supply Committee”.  Charmingly, it seems both "cistern" and "reservoir" also were proposed a cover names, all based on the physical similarity, early in production, between the armored vehicles and the navy's water-storage tanks; the admirals preferred the punchier, monosyllabic "tank".

First used in action on the Western Front, at Pozieres ridge, on 15 September 1916, the name was quickly picked up by soldiers and has been part of military jargon since, including derived forms: the tank-trap (ditch, sometime with steel structures) attested from 1920, the tank-destroyer (a kind of propelled grenade, later versions including the bazooka and the famous late WWII German Panzerfaust) from 1928 and the tank-buster (ground-attack fighter aircraft with 40mm canon) in 1942.  In 1940, a French general described the English Channel as “a good tank ditch” and suggested he was more optimistic than most of his colleagues that the British could resist invasion.  So it proved, the scale required for the armada assembled in 1944 an indication of just how good a tank ditch it was.

British Mark I, 1916.

The first tank (150 built) used in combat, the Mark I was deployed in an attempt to break the stalemate of trench warfare.  Protected from small arms fire and able to crush barbed wire emplacements, the early tactical use was as a device to clear a pathway for infantry assaults but, although the first effects were dramatic, counter-measures were soon developed and it wasn't until later in the war it became clear the tank had to be used en masse, as a strategic weapon.  The  rhomboidal shape, unusual by later standards, meant the twin 57mm (2.25 inch) canons had to be side mounted; a turret arrangement would have resulted in a centre of gravity which would have rendered the structure unstable.  By war's end, the British had built more than two-thousand tanks but the design which would most influence future development was probably the French FT.

The German's versatile Sturmgeschütz III (StuG III; 1940-1945) self-propelled gun.

Tanks and self-propelled guns (SPG) are visually similar and sometimes confused.  The difference is that a SPG doesn’t have the rotating gun-turret which gives the tank such a flexible range of fire, SPGs having a range of barrel adjustment usually only in the vertical plane.  They are also almost always less armored, often slower and either with lighter or no subsidiary defenses.  In some ways, the SPG may be compared with a tank in the same way a battlecruiser differed from a battleship.

Soviet era T-34 medium tank (1940-1967 (USSR) still in use by some armed forces)).

The T-34 was one of the outstanding tanks of WWII, its superiority over the German Panzers a shock to the invading Wehrmacht in 1941.  It used a powerful 76.2 mm (3 inch) canon which for years out-gunned almost everything ranged against it but perhaps its most clever feature was a simple design trick, armor sloped at a tumblehome 60^o which afforded a high degree of protection against anti-tank weapons, shells tending to glance off rather than penetrate or explode.  Such was its influence, aspects of the concept and details of design were copied by both by allies and the enemy and, early in the war, there was no better battlefield weapon.  The T-34 had a lasting impact on tank design and there's more of a lineal path from the T-34 to the later Panzers, the Panther and the Tigers, than from earlier German designs.

German Panther: PanzerKampfwagen V (1943-1945 (Germany); 1944-1949 (France)).

Neither as heavily gunned or armored as the better known Tiger family, the Panther was rushed into production to counter the Soviet T-34.  It was immediately effective but the lack of time fully to develop the design meant problems of reliability and field maintenance were never wholly solved.  Like any tank, a compromise between cost, performance, range, firepower, mobility and protection, the Panther was fine machine in the circumstances and its performance in open country and for long-range deployments was outstanding.  Had the Panthers been fully developed and available in strategic numbers earlier in the war, many battles might have taken a different path and, like the "revolutionary" submarines developed late in the war, it was a case of what Donald Rumsfeld (1932–2021: US defense secretary 1975-1977 & 2001-2006) would later call a "unknown known"; even in 1939 the Germans had the technology to build the Panther and had resource allocation been more efficient, there would also have been the industrial capacity to produce them at the scale needed for them to be used as a strategic weapon.

Lindsay Lohan in tank top.

Coterminous

Coterminous (pronounced koh-tur-muh-nuhs)

(1) In geography, having the same border or covering the same area; bordering; contiguous; having matching boundaries; or, adjoining and sharing a boundary.

(2) Being the same in extent; coextensive in range, scope, time etc.

(3) Of objects or abstractions, meeting end to end or at the ends.

(4) By extension, anything having the same scope, range of meaning, or extent in time. 

(5) In the law of real property, linked or related property leases which expire together.

1790–1800: A re-formation of the earlier conterminous, from the Latin conterminus, the construct being con- (with) + terminus (border, end).  The con- prefix was from the Middle English con-, from the Latin con-, from the preposition cum (with), from the Old Latin com, from the Proto-Italic kom, from the primitive Indo- European ḱóm (next to, at, with, along).  It was cognate with the Proto-Germanic ga- (co-), the Proto-Slavic sъ(n) (with) and the Proto-Germanic hansō.  It was used with certain words to add a notion similar to those conveyed by with, together, or joint or with certain words to intensify their meaning.  Terminus was from the primitive Indo-European térmn̥ (boundary) of uncertain origin but perhaps from terh- (pass through).  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek τέρμα (térma) (a goal) and τέρμων (térmōn) (a border) and although contested, some etymologists suggest a relationship with the Sanskrit तरति (tar-) (to overcome), the Classical Latin trāns (through, across, over) and even possibly intrō (I enter, I go into).  Most dictionaries insist that despite having been in use since the 1630s, the hyphenated co-terminous is a malformation but, coterminous being a rare word, it’s not often disputes arise.  Purists who prefer always to stick to the classics reject both as needless formations and prefer the original Latin: conterminous.  Coterminous, coterminated & coterminal are adjectives, conterminousness is a noun, coterminal is a noun & adjective, coterminate & coterminating are verbs and coterminously & coterminally are adverbs; the noun plural is coterminals.

417 & 419 Venice Way, Venice Beach, Los Angeles, California where, during 2011, Lindsay Lohan lived (in 419 (right)).  This style of construction is sometimes called a “pigeon pair” but these two are only "semi-mirrored" because there are detail differences in the architecture.  Next door (417) lived Ms Lohan's former special friend Samantha Ronson.  Each four bedroom (3½ bathrooms) house included a floating stairway leading to a mezzanine which the property’s agent described as “ideal for a studio or office”.

In the law of real property, the term "coterminous" is used of a lease (or leases) which cover two properties with separate titles where the lease (or leases) expire simultaneously.  Whether the properties are geographically coterminous (or have any contiguous boundaries) is not relevant, indeed the two (or more) can be separated by great distances, the conterminousness of the relationship a product of the active lease(s), not the physical geography.  The land on which stands 417 & 419 Venice Way could be titled as a single entity and thus the two houses would sit on the one coterminous space or (as is more common), the land can have two separate titles and the two would sit contiguously.  At law, a coterminous lease of the houses could accommodate either arrangement and either 417 or 419 could also be part of a coterminous lease with one or more properties in another part of the state.        

The advantage of being original

The constitutions of some nations were written in the blood shed in war, revolutions or long struggles between sovereign and subjects so their foundation documents, their basic law, often contain stirring words, preambles especially sometimes even with literary merit.  The Constitution of Australia is not one of those documents.  While there were arguments during the eight-odd years it took for the six self-governing British colonies to agree on a draft, the matters in dispute mostly were procedural and mercantile rather than the rights of man and the pursuit of happiness.  Things were hammered-out in committees and smoke-filled rooms (the phrase then used literally), there were no mobs taking to the street or storming a parliament; apparently not even an effigy was burned.  The document which emerged has proved durable and adaptable but not a great read, befitting a nation which gained its independence (if originally incomplete until 1986) not through battle but bureaucracy.  The draft reached London in 1900 and was soon passed by the imperial parliament as the Constitution of Australia Act which effectively created the country, its executive, legislature and judiciary, empowering a parliament to meet.  Thus assembled, the Parliament of Australia passed the Constitution of Australia Act, becoming effective on 1 January 1901, the first day of the new century.

So Australia was born not on streets running with rivers of blood but by a grant of freedom from a colonial oppressor which had learned the lessons of 1776.  The constitution passed has since been little modified (a process technically simple but politically challenging) has accommodated some changes better to suit a place where things do change.  It tends to be forgotten that, even in 1901, anything like what’s now thought to be genuine democracy was rare anywhere and, where it existed to the extent it did, it was a recent and sometimes fragile thing.  The Australian constitution did however create a framework for one structural aspect of democracy now thought fundamental: the equality of the value of the individual citizen’s vote although, on that framework hung an imperfect skin and it wouldn't be for decades that something close to "one vote-one value" was achieved. 

That didn't however apply to the Australian Senate (the upper house) and that was one of the prices to pay for nationhood; the smaller states would never have agreed to federate had they not been afforded equality of representation in what they seemed genuinely to believe would be the place where their interests would be protected.  That illusion didn’t long last but the distortions, now actually worse, remain.  Regarding the lower house, Chapter I, Part III, Section 24 of the constitution provides (1) it shall have twice the number of members of the upper house and (2) the number of members in each of the six states shall be in proportion to the state’s population.  That, even today, is about as equitable as is possible but a further clause provided that (3) none of the original states can have fewer than five members, regardless of the math imposed by (1) & (2).

By the early twenty-first century, that meant in New South Wales, there was one senator for every 680,000-odd souls whereas one represented every 45,000 Tasmanians, a impressive imbalance around 85:15; in the lower house it was a much more democratic 62:38.  Better still, if ever Tasmanians feel somehow unrepresented, there’s also a state parliament with an upper and lower house and a generous layer of local government.  These distortions do happen in other countries (notably the United States Senate) but among those with some claim to free and fair electoral systems, the Tasmanian example is probably extreme.  In Australia, it pays to be an original state.

Electoral divisions, Tasmania, Australia.

In the state parliament, a feature of Tasmania’s mysterious Hare-Clark electoral system for the House of Assembly (state lower house) is its five electoral divisions are coterminous with the five House of Representatives (Commonwealth lower house) divisions (Bass, Braddon, Clark, Franklin and Lyons).  Although it may sound a rare example of bureaucratic efficiency, it’s dictated more by the practicalities of the multi-member Hare-Clark system in which each seat returns the same number of MHAs (Member of the House of Assembly although the modern practice is for them to be styled “MP” (Member of Parliament)); the number of seats in the legislative assembly is thus always divisible by five.  The House of Assembly first sat in 1856 when the bicameral parliament was established with the proclamation of responsible government and the Hare-Clark system was the co-creation of Thomas Hare (1806-1891), an English lawyer with an interest in political reform & Andrew Inglis Clark (1848–1907), an engineer & lawyer who served as attorney-general in Tasmania between 1887-1892 & 1894-1897.  Hare's original design dated from 1856 and was one of many systems of proportional representation explored during the nineteenth century and it was modified by Clark, becoming law in 1896 and has been used state-wide since 1909.

Eric Abetz MP (Liberal Party, Franklin), official ministerial photograph, Office of the Cabinet, Tasmania, Australia.

When other systems were in use, the number of seats varied several times between 32-38 but, after the Commonwealth's divisional boundaries were co-opted, the number of seats for decades remained relatively stable: set at 35 in 1900, 30 in 1906, & 35 in 1959.  In a rare moment of rationality, this was in 1998 reduced to 25 but in an unfortunate "triumph of politics" moment, this was restored to 35 for the 2024 general election.  So, the place is back to having too many politicians but however unpleasing the surplus, it may be thought a small price to pay for the return of Eric Abetz (b 1958) to politics.  Upon his election to the House of Assembly in 2024, Mr Abetz was immediately elevated to cabinet as Minister for Business, Industry and Resources, Minister for Transport & Leader of the House.  Having previously served as a senator (Liberal Party) for Tasmania between 1994-2022, it’s a remarkable resuscitation of a political career which had seemed terminal.  Having Eric Abetz back to represent the views of the eighteenth century has been welcomed by all political junkies.

Rational

Rational (pronounced rash-nl (U) or rash-uh-nl (non-U))

(1) Agreeable to reason; reasonable; sensible.

(2) Having or exercising reason, sound judgment, or good sense.

(3) Of a person or their personal characteristics, being in or characterized by full possession of one's reason; sane; lucid; healthy or balanced intellectually; exhibiting reasonableness.

(4) Endowed with the faculty of reason; capable of reasoning.

(5) Of or relating to, or constituting reasoning powers.

(6) Proceeding or derived from reason or based on reasoning.

(7) Logically sound; not self-contradictory or otherwise absurd

(8) In mathematics, capable of being expressed exactly by a ratio of two integers or (of a function) capable of being expressed exactly by a ratio of two polynomials.

(9) In chemistry, expressing the type, structure, relations, and reactions of a compound; graphic; said of formulae.

(10) In physics, expressing a physical object.

(11) In the philosophy of science, based on scientific knowledge or theory rather than practical observation.

(12) The breastplate worn by Israelite high priests (historic references only).

1350-1400: From the Old French rationel & rational, from the Middle English racional, from the Late Latin ratiōnālis (of or belonging to reason, rational, reasonable; having a ratio), the construct being ratiōn (stem of ratiō (reason; calculation)) + -ālis.  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).  The use to describe the breastplate worn by Israelite high priests was from the Old French rational, from the Medieval Latin ratiōnāle (a pontifical stole, a pallium, an ornament worn over the chasuble), neuter of the Latin rationalis (rational).  The spelling rationall is obsolete.  Rational is a noun & adjective, rationalizing is a noun & verb, rationalize & rationalized are verbs, rationalism , rationalness & rationalizer are nouns and rationally is an adverb; the noun plural is rationals.  The rarely used adjective hyperrational means literally “extremely rational” and can be used positively or neutrally but it’s applied also negatively, usually as a critique of “economic rationality”.

Rational & irrational numbers illustrated by Math Monks.

In something of a departure from the usual practice in English, “antirational”, “nonrational” & “irrational” (there are hyphenated forms of both) are not necessarily synonymous.  Antirational describes something or someone who is or acts in a way contrary to the rational while arational (often in the form arationality) is a technical term used in philosophy in the sense of “not within the domain of what can be understood or analyzed by reason; not rational, outside the competence of the rules of reason” an applied to matters of faith (religious & secular).  Nonrational (used usually in the hyphenated form) is literally simply the antonym of rational (in most senses) but now appears most often in the language of economics where it’s used of decisions made by actors (individual, collective & corporate) which are contrary to economic self-interest.  Irrational can be used as another antonym but it’s also a “loaded” adjective which carries an association with madness (now called mental illness) while in mathematics (especially the mysterious world of number theory) it’s the specific antonym of the “ration number” and means a “real number unable to be written as the ratio of two integers”, a concept dating from the 1560s.

The adjective rational emerged in the mid-1400s and was was a variant of the late fourteenth century racional (“pertaining to or springing from reason” and of persons “endowed with reason; having the power of reasoning”, from the Old French racionel and directly from the Latin rationalis (of or belonging to reason, reasonable) from ratio (genitive rationis) (reckoning, calculation, reason).  By the 1560s it was picked up in mathematics to mean “expressible in finite terms” before becoming more precisely defined.  The meaning “conformable to the precepts of practical reason” dates from the 1630s.  The adverb rationally was from the same source as ratio and ration; the sense in rational is aligned with that in the related noun reason which got deformed in French.  The noun rationality by the 1620s was used in the sense of “quality of having reason” and by mid-century that had extended to “fact of being agreeable to reason”, from the French rationalité and directly from the Late Latin rationalitas (reasonableness, rationality (the source also for the Spanish racionalidad and the Italian razionalita), from the Latin rationalis (of or belonging to reason, reasonable).  As late as the early fifteenth century racionabilite (the faculty of reason) was in Middle English, from the Latin rationabilitas.

Rational AG's iCombi Pro range: Gas or Electric.

By the 1820s, the noun rationalization was in use in the sense of “a rendering rational, act of subjection to rational tests or principles”, the specific modern sense in psychology in reference to subconscious (to justify behavior to make it seem rational or socially acceptable) adopted by the profession early in the twentieth century.  The verb rationalize (explain in a rational way, make conformable to reason) dates from the mid eighteenth century although the sense familiar in psychology (to give an explanation that conceals true motives) came into use only in the 1920s on the notion of “cause to appear reasonable or socially acceptable” although decades earlier it had been used with the intransitive sense of “think for oneself, employ one's reason as the supreme test”.  The use in psychology endured but “rationalize” also came into use in applied economics with the meaning “to reorganize an industry or other commercial concern to eliminate wasteful processes”.  That seems to have come from US use although the first recorded entry was the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) supplementary edition in 1927.  In this context, it became a “vogue word” of the inter-war years of both sides of the Atlantic although it fell from favour after 1945 as the vogue shifted to “integrate”, “tailor”, “streamline” and that favourite of 1970s management consultants: the “agonizing reappraisal”.  However, in the 1980s & 1990s, “rationalize” gained a new popularity in economics and (especially) the boom industry of financial journalism, presumably because the “economic rationalists” coalesced during the Reagan-Thatcher era as the dominant faction in political economy.

Many have their own favourite aspect of Sigmund Freud’s (1856-1939) theories but one concept which infuses mush of his work is the tussle in the human psyche between the rational and irrational.  Freud’s structural model consisted of the three major components: id, ego & superego, the elements interacting and conflicting to shape behavior and personality.  The id was the primitive & instinctual part containing sexual and aggressive drives; operating on the pleasure principle, it seeks seeking immediate gratification and pleasure.  Present even before birth, it’s the source of our most basic desires and in its purest processes is wholly irrational, focused on wants and not the consequences of actions.

Concept of the id, ego & superego by the Psych-Mental Health Hub.

The rational was introduced by the ego, something which developed from the id and was the rational, decision-making part of the mind which balanced the demands of the id and the constraints of reality.  As Freud noted, implicit in this interaction was that the ego repressed the id which obviously was desirable because that’s what enables a civilized society to function but the price to be paid was what he called “surplus repression”.  That was a central idea in Freud's later psychoanalytic theory, exploring the consequences of the repression of innate, instinctual drives beyond that which was necessary for the functioning of society and the individual: the rational took its pound of flesh.  Discussed in Civilization and its Discontents (1930), “primary repression” was essential to allow the individual to adapt to societal norms and function in a civilized society while “surplus repression” was the operation of these forces beyond what is required for that adaptation.  Freud identified this as a source of psychological distress and neurosis.

Lindsay Lohan’s early century lifestyle made her a popular choice as a case-study for students in Psychology 101 classes studying the interaction of the rational and irrational process in the mind.  Most undergraduates probably enjoyed writing these essays more than had they been asked to analyse Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974), America’s other great exemplar of the struggle.

It was the ego which mediated between the id, the superego, and the external world, making possible realistic and socially acceptable decisions, essentially by making individuals consider the consequences of their actions.  The superego developed last and built a construct of the morality, ethical standards & values internalized from parents, the education system, society and cultural norms; operating on the “morality principle”, the superego one of the “nurture” parts of the “nature vs nurture” equation which would for decades be such an important part of research in psychology.

Utopia & Dystopia

Utopia (pronounced yoo-toh-pee-uh)

(1) An imaginary island described in Sir Thomas More's Utopia, a place enjoying perfection in law, society and politics; such a place cannot exist.

(2) An ideal place or state of being.

(3) Any visionary system of political or social perfection.

(4) A popular product name in the illicit drug industry.

1516: From the New Latin utopia (literally "nowhere"), coined by Sir Thomas More (1478–1535) and used as title of his 1516 book about an imaginary island enjoying perfect legal, social, and political systems although the author’s meaning was rather more nuanced than that the casual use of “utopia” is used usually to convey.  The construct was the Ancient Greek οὐ (ou) (not) +‎ τόπος (topos) (place; region) + ia (from the Classical Latin ia and the Ancient Greek ία (ía) & εια (eia) which form abstract nouns of feminine gender).  The meaning was extended to "any perfect place" by the early seventeenth century.  Marx used the word in disparagement of the “…useless utopian myths…” he thought infected the schools of socialist too remote from political and economic reality.  The French form was utopie.  Utopia, utopographer, utopianizer, utopianization & utopianism are nouns, utopian & utopist are nouns & adjectives, utopianize is a verb, utopianistic is an adjective, utopianly is an adverb; the noun plural is utopias.

Dystopia (pronounced dis-toh-pee-uh)

(1) A society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding.

(2) Any imaginary place or state of being where everything is bad.

1868: A compound word dys + (u)topia, the word coined by the English philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) and its first public use was in one of his speeches delivered in the House of Commons.  The construct was the Ancient Greek δυσ (dus) (bad) + τόπος (tópos) (place; region) + ia (from the Classical Latin ia and the Ancient Greek ία (ía) & εια (eia) which form abstract nouns of feminine gender). It’s since usually been used in the sense of any bad place, real or imagined.  In popular culture, depictions of dystopia have tended to follow the concerns of the time; pandemics, nuclear war, alien invasion, dictatorial régimes and climate change.  The spelling distopia is erroneous but not uncommon.  Dystopia, dystopographer, dystopianizer, dystopianization & dystopianism are nouns, dystopian & dystopist are nouns & adjectives, dystopianize is a verb, dystopianistic is an adjective and dystopianly is an adverb; the noun plural is dystopias.  The constructs follow the model of those derived from utopia although in use, most are rare.

Urban future by noted practitioner of dystopian art, Polina Kulagina.  There is an entire genre of dystopian art and literature.

For something which More insisted can't exist, utopia has survived well and it's proved a popular building block.  A gaytopia is the sort of place (real or imagined) which is (for whatever reason) a paradise for the LGBTQQIAAOP community and the hetrotopia was apparently a right-wing reaction to that, the idea being a "gay-free" zone.  A pornotopia is a place (real or virtual) in which every form of pornography however depraved was available; it was a specialized form of an infotopia which was something like the original vision of some for the WorldWideWeb (WWW) back when Al Gore (b 1948; US vice president (VPOTUS) 1993-2001 & in 2000 the next president of the United States (NPOTUS)) called it the "information superhighway".  Apparently he invented the internet so it's reasonable he assumed naming rights.  Pornotopia was originally used to describe a imagined world where all were willing (even anxious) to engage in all forms of sexual activity while an intimatopia was a fantasy world serving as an ideal setting for sexually charged relationships involving a high degree of sustained emotional intimacy.  The romantopia was a world imagined by women as the ideal setting for romantic love (it has dismissively been called millsandboonatopia).  A cyberutopia is a kind of heaven for nerds, a place full of cables, computers, routers and coffee machines where Coca-Cola & pizza are free.  The technoutopia is much the same sort of place and one inhabited by technoutopians and technoutopists dedicated to the pursuit of technoutopism.  An autopia was envisaged as an urban landscape designed around the use of the automobile and it's long been used as a critique of certain cities of which Los Angeles is the best-known example although there are many cities where traffic management is far, far worse.  The negative forms can be a bit fuzzy (and remember More's Utopia was used as an internally negated concept).  Dystopia is well known but there is also unutopia & anti-utopia, all appearing to mean "the antithesis of utopia".  On the rare occasions anti-utopia & unutopia appear, it's advised to deconstruct the context.

The dystopian vision of Dante's Inferno: The Fifth Circle (1587) by Stradanus (1523-1605)), depicting Virgil and Dante on the River Styx in the fifth circle of Hell where the wrathful are for eternity condemned to splash around on the surface, fighting each other.  Dante Alighieri's (circa 1265–1321), Divine Comedy was written between 1307-1321 and helping the pair cross is the infernal ferryman Phlegyas.  Stradanus was one of the many names under which the Flemish artist Jan van der Straet painted, the others including Giovanni della Strada, Johannes della Strada, Giovanni Stradano, Johannes Stradano, Giovanni Stradanus, Johannes Stradanus, Jan van Straeten & Jan van Straten.

So influential has been Robert Bolt’s (1924–1995) play A Man for All Seasons (1960) in forming the public perception of Sir Thomas More that he seems now remembered as a kind of proto-liberal.  It is true he held opinions which would have been shared by few (lord) chancellors of the last 500-odd years including a condemnation of private property and the idea that the very structure of English society was a “conspiracy of the rich”.  Centuries before Karl Marx (1818-1883), he discussed the surplus value of labor and the mechanisms by which working people were alienated for this value so it could be absorbed by the already rich to add to their wealth.  So he ticks many boxes of wokeness but he also held views on women and their place that would make social media identity Andrew Tate (b 1986) follow his X (formerly known as Twitter) account.

More’s book Utopia is similarly misunderstood, the modern use of the word meaning many who have never read it merely assume what it means.  Structurally, it was influential because it contains threads identifiable as both science fiction (SF) and fantasy and in both these genres, authors have often described “utopias”, usually either as (1) places of unrestricted self-indulgence or (2) places in which everything is so antiseptically perfect that humans, with their inherent imperfections, just “don’t fit in”.  In these alternative universes, being fictional, something has to happen and what often occurs is that they turn into dystopias, the ultimately inadequate human inhabitants dealt with; that which doesn't "fit in" must be "thrown out".  More wasn’t quite so theatrical; his original title for the book was in Latin and is best translated as something like “the Best State of a Commonwealth on the New Island of Utopia” and, living in troubled times, his book explored ways society might be arranged in another way that would ensure the intrigue, corruption and scandal with which he was familiar might be avoided.  Unlike England with its then quite rigid hierarchical structure, Utopia was a communal venture and one in which forms of wealth existed but only as a means to ensure things run smoothly.  Not only was the quest to accumulate wealth not pursued, the very idea was absurd because it would fulfil no useful purpose.  Unfortunately, such is the nature of man that it seems such a place can never exist, or at least not long survive, thus the choice of the name Utopia (“nowhere” in the New Latin).