Ghost

Ghost (pronounced gohst)

(1) The soul of a dead person, a disembodied spirit imagined, usually as a vague, shadowy or evanescent form, as wandering among or haunting living persons.

(2) A mere shadow or semblance; a trace; a remote possibility; a faint trace or possibility of something.

(3) A spiritual being; the principle of life; soul; spirit (sometimes initial capital letter).

(4) A secondary image, especially one appearing on a television screen as a white shadow, caused by poor or double reception or by a defect in the receiver (also called ghosting).

(5) In photography, a faint secondary or out-of-focus image in a photographic print or negative resulting from reflections within the camera lens (also called ghost image).

(6) In optics, a series of false spectral lines produced by a diffraction grating with unevenly spaced lines.

(7) In metalworking, a streak appearing on a freshly machined piece of steel containing impurities.

(8) In pathology, a red blood cell having no hemoglobin.

(9) In tax-avoidance and other frauds, a fictitious employee, business etc, fabricated especially for the purpose of manipulating funds.

(10) In literature (especially quasi-literature), as ghost-write, to write a book, speech etc for another without attribution (distinct from the trade of the acknowledged ghostwriter).

(11) In engraving, to lighten the background of a photograph before engraving.

(12) In informal use (often associated with social media), suddenly to end all contact with a person without explanation, especially a romantic relationship; abruptly to leave a social event or gathering without saying goodbye.

(13) In digital technology, to remove comments, threads, or other digital content from a website or online forum without informing the poster, keeping them hidden from the public but still visible to the poster.

(14) In bibliography, as ghost edition, an entry recorded in a bibliography of which no actual proof exists.

Pre 900: From the Middle English gost, gast & goost (breath; good or bad spirit, angel, demon; person, man, human being", in Biblical use "soul, spirit, life”), from the Old English gāst (breath, soul, spirit, ghost, being), related to the Old High German gaist & geist (spirit) and the Sanskrit hēda (fury, anger).  The Proto-West Germanic gaist was derived from the Proto-Germanic gaistaz (ghost, spirit, (source also of the Old Saxon gest, the Old Frisian jest, the Middle Dutch gheest, the Dutch geest & the German Geist (spirit, ghost))), from the primitive Indo-European ǵhéysd-os, from ǵhéysd- (anger, agitation) and was cognate with the Scots ghaist (ghost), the Saterland Frisian Gäist (spirit), the West Frisian geast (spirit), the Dutch geest (spirit, mind, ghost), the German Geist (spirit, mind, intellect), the Swedish gast (ghost), the Sanskrit हेड (héḍa), (anger, hatred) and the Persian زشت‎ (zešt) (ugly, hateful, disgusting).  There’s no documentary evidence but the ultimate root is conjectured to be the primitive Indo-European gheis-, used in forming words involving the notions of excitement, amazement, or fear (source also of Sanskrit hedah (wrath), the Avestan zaesha- (horrible, frightful), the Gothic usgaisjan and the Old English gæstan (to frighten).  Ghost is a noun & verb (and used imaginatively as an adjective), ghoster is a noun, ghostly & ghosty are adjectives, ghosting is a noun & verb and ghosted is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is ghosts.

Ghost is the English representative of West Germanic words for "supernatural being" and in Christian writings in Old English it was used to render the Latin spiritus, a sense preserved by the early translators of the Bible in “Holy Ghost”.  The sense of a "disembodied spirit of a dead person", especially imagined as wandering among the living or haunting them, is attested from the late fourteenth century, a meaning-shift which returned the word to what was its probable prehistoric sense.  Most Indo-European words for "soul or spirit" also double with reference to supernatural spirits.  Many have also a base sense of "appearance" (the Greek phantasma; the French spectre; the Polish widmo, from Old Church Slavonic videti (to see), the Old English scin, the Old High German giskin (originally "appearance, apparition”), related to the Old English scinan & the Old High German skinan (to shine)).  Other concepts exist, including the French revenant (literally "returning" (from the other world)), the Old Norse aptr-ganga, (literally "back-comer") & the Breton bugelnoz (literally "night-child”).  The Latin manes (spirits of the dead) was probably a euphemism.

The gh- spelling appeared early in the fifteenth century in Caxton, influenced by Flemish and Middle Dutch gheest, but was rare in English before mid-1500s.  The sense of a "slight suggestion, mere shadow or semblance" (as in ghost image, ghost of a chance etc) is noted from the 1610s; the sense of "one who secretly does work for another" is from 1884 and ghost-write was a 1922 back-formation from the earlier (1919) ghost-writing.  The American Indian ghost dance was first noted in 1890, ghost town is from 1908, ghost story dates from 1811, the now less common ghost-word (apparent word or false form in a manuscript due to a blunder) is from 1886.  The “ghost in the machine” was English philosopher Gilbert Ryle's (1900-1976) 1949 description of René Descartes's (1596-1650) mind-body dualism and the phrase "to give up the ghost" (to die or prepare to die) was well-known in the Old English version; one of the many way folk avoid words like "death" or "die".  Synonyms include phantom, devil, demon, soul, shadow, spectre, vision, vampire, apparition, revenant, appearance, haunt, visitor, shade, spook, poltergeist, phantasm, wraith, daemon & manes.  There are a surprising number of uses of ghost, ghosted, ghosting etc said to be associated modern or internet slang covering fields as diverse as linguistic techniques and the art & science of smoking weed, the latter a rich vein of coinings.  However, the most commonly used describes someone with whom one has been in contact suddenly stops responding, disappearing, as it were, like a ghost.  This can happen in conjunction with unfriending etc but can be an act in isolation.  After becoming one of a number of Australian prime ministers (figuratively) defenestrated by their party before the voters got their chance, Malcolm Turnbull (b 1954; prime minister of Australia 2015-2018) left parliament and decried similarly deposed leaders who chose to stay as "miserable ghosts", a breed with a long tradition in many parliaments.   

Ghostwriters

Art of the Deal by Donald J Trump with Tony Schwartz (1987).  If the Nobel Committee can't bring themselves to confer on President Trump the Peace Prize, they could perhaps make him the Literature Laureate.  He would think that equally deserved.

Ghostwriters (also as ghost-writer) are professional writers hired to create content (books, columns, posts or any other (traditionally) text-focused item), the authorship of which ultimately will be credited to another although ghostwriters can be acknowledged as “co-authors” or (more commonly), receive credit in the form of having their name appear on the cover with a preceding “with”.  That latter approach of course implies some form of collaborative authorship and a famous example is Donald Trump’s (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) The Art of the Deal (1987), published as “by Donald J. Trump with Tony Schwartz” [b 1952].  The Art of the Deal is said to be competently written and for those in the business of the ruthless pursuit of deals it’s apparently an invaluable manual, Mr Trump in one interview saying perhaps the most important passages those advising (1) most deals don’t come off and (2) it’s better to walk away from what appears a bad deal than to close it in the hope it can be made to work.  Had than counsel been followed, there’d likely have been rather fewer corporate collapses than have been suffered since it was published; there’s good reasons why The Art of the Deal stayed at number 1 on The New York Times Best Seller list for three months and was a on the list for a year odd.

One day, there may be Lindsay Lohan: The autobiography.  Hopefully, there will be competing "authorized" and "unauthorized" editions.

So what does “By X with Y” usually imply?  The conventional view is it means “Y” is likely to have composed much of the text, based on interviews with “X”, their previous statements or other things they may have written.  It’s the most common approach in the biographies of sports stars that appear in the run-up to Christmas or father’s day; those books often sell well although whether they’re so often read is uncertain.  By contrast, “By X and Y” should mean true co-authorship (though not necessarily on the basis of 50-50 contribution) whereas “X by Y” should be a pure biography (although that can be “authorized” with the cooperation of “X” or “unauthorized” with even “X’s” active opposition to publication).  The “with” category obviously is the most ambiguous and thus often the most useful for a subject, allowing them to bask in the praise of a work well-received yet provide a layer of “plausible deniability” if needed.  Ghostwriters are used for a number of reasons including constraints of time, a lack of interest in the project (though not the profits) or, typically, a lack of the necessary skill with the written word.  Ghostwriting contracts can vary but the focus typically includes terms of payment, non-disclosure of involvement, the notional author’s exercise of veto over all or some of the content and the rights to the finished work.  Mr Trump certainly acknowledged using a ghostwriter, as did Paris Hilton (b 1981) who in her 2023 memoir thanked the ghostwriter who: “helped me find my voice”.

Monsieur Sarközy (left) and his third wife (Italian supermodel Carla Bruni, b 1967, right) arrive at La Santé Prison, November 2025.  Ghostwritten or not, it's unfair to "judge a book by its cover" but Monsieur Sarközy always looked guilty of something.  

One who never needed help to "find his voice" was Nicolas Sarközy (b 1955; President of France 2007-2012) who even found symbolic ways to express his inner torments.  When, in October 2025, entering La Santé Prison in Montparnasse to begin a five-year sentence imposed for “criminal association” related to campaign financing (it was a conspiracy charge), as well as comfortable shoes and some nice warm jumpers, the former Le Président took a novel and made sure the assembled press pack knew it was a copy of Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (The Count of Monte Cristo, 1844-1946) by Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870)), one of literature’s great “tales of revenge”.  He's since been released pending an appeal hearing so he's got some time to plot and scheme his vengeance and decide upon whom it will first be visited.

It’s the disclosure of using a ghostwriter that is critical, even if the exact details of relative contributions to the text remain murky.  The French novelist and dramatist Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) is best-known for Les Trois Mousquetaires (The Three Musketeers, 1844) and Le Comte de Monte-Cristo but, by his own reckoning, he published some 1,200 volumes, hiring a veritable corps of ghostwriters so the production of “his” works could proceed on an assembly-line basis (many famous painters did much the same, creating by the twentieth century a significant (and lucrative) industry of those in the "authentication" business).  His illegitimate son (Alexandre Dumas fils (1824–1895 (fils being French for “son”)) was also an author of note (best remembered for The Lady of the Camellias (1848 and Camille in English-language versions), adapted by Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) for his opera  La traviata (The Fallen Woman, 1853)) and when one day father and son met for lunch, Dumas the elder asked: ‘‘Have you read my new novel yet?”.  “No,” replied the younger man, “Have you?”

JFK's Ghost, Kennedy, Sorensen and the Making of Profiles in Courage (2021) by David R.Stokes (b 1956 and a member of the Association of Ghostwriters).

One ghostwriter not (explicitly) acknowledged was Theodore Chaikin "Ted" Sorensen (1928–2010; US lawyer, author & presidential adviser), now widely believed to have written the great bulk (and possibly all) of Profiles in Courage (1956), credited to John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; POTUS 1961-1963).  The slim volume displayed Sorensen’s fine touch with language but it was a slight work, a collection of eight, short biographical sketches describing acts of “bravery and integrity” by  DWM (dead white men who were now mostly forgotten US senators) and that it received the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Biography was an indication more of the political sympathies of the selection committee than the work’s literary merit or historical significance.  Still, it was a minor contribution to history and Barack Obama (b 1961; POTUS 2009-2017) accepted the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, awarded apparently to express the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s gratitude he wasn’t George W Bush (George XLIII, b 1946; POTUS 2001-2009).  Even at the time the authorship of Profiles in Courage was controversial with some journalists openly accusing the then Senator Kennedy (Democrat-Massachusetts 1953-1960) of having done little more than put his name on the cover and accept a Pulitzer.  A fortnight after the award was announced, stories began to appear in the press casting doubt on the authorship and, within days, a check (cheque) was drawn against a Kennedy family trust in favour of Ted Sorensen for US$100,000-odd, a extraordinary sum wholly disproportionate to either the fee even well-paid ghostwriters would expect or the profits realised by Profiles in Courage.  Shamelessly (a Kennedy family trait), whether as a senator or POTUS, JFK would autograph copies of “his” book and personally hand them as gifts to visiting dignitaries.

Politicians of course have speechwriters and their contributions are usually well-publicized, some of the more-skilful (or more publicity-conscious) becoming minor celebrities, a thing sometimes resented by those for whom they write although, as a general principle, politicians are well-advised if they leave speech-writing to the pros.  During the 1969 election campaign, when discussing speechmaking, bizarrely, the idiosyncratic Sir John Gorton (1911-2002; prime minister of Australia 1968-1971), despite having at his finger-tips the entire resources of the Commonwealth government, complained that the leader of the Opposition’s (Gough Whitlam (1916–2014; Prime Minister of Australia 1972-1975) “…large staff—which I haven’t got—helps him.  You see, I have never delivered a speech that I haven’t written myself. I doubt very much if Mr Whitlam has ever delivered a speech he wrote himself.  I need some research assistance, some background speech notes and this is what [Mr Whitlam’s staff are] doing and that is all [they are] doing.”  When asked his reaction to Mr Gorton’s claim he wrote all his speeches himself, Mr Whitlam (who had spent the campaign lampooning Gorton’s frequent lapses into near incoherency) quipped: “That is one of the few prime ministerial statements of this election that I find credible.”

An artist's ghostly take on an unforgiving woman: Portrait of Lady Violet Bonham Carter (circa 1917), oil on canvas by Sir William Orpen (1878–1931).

It’s not only speeches that are written for politicians to deliver, much of that to which their signatures are appended the work of others including most correspondence and some ghostwriters manage to hone their style to emulate the distinctiveness of those for whom they labor.  Although he once claimed “Oh, I have not read a great deal”, Winston Churchill’s (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) literary output was prodigious, including even one novel (that proved great fun for Freudians interested in mother-son relationships) and yielded the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature.  His style came to be called “Churchillian” and is recognizable (indeed, even in the 1930s it was thought old-fashioned) but it could also be replicated and, years after his death, it became more widely known his teams of “research assistants” genuinely were responsible for many first drafts and even the authorship of what were at the time described in terms like “rolling Churchillian phrases” but in fairness, in that he was not unique and he did review every word prior to publication, editing and polishing as required.  Sometimes the criticism of such practices can go too far.  When Lord Beaverbrook (Maxwell Aitken, 1879-1964), died, Churchill’s private secretary drafted a short message of condolence to be published in the next edition of The Times: “I am deeply grieved at the loss of my oldest and closest friend who severed his country and his causes valiantly and was the most loyal and devoted of comrades.”  As a message from an old man with not long to live to the memory of his friend of almost 60 years, it seemed not objectionable but an objection came from Lady Violet Bonham Carter, (1887–1969, daughter of Henry Asquith (1852–1928; UK prime minister 1908-1916)) who called the message “clearly political” and thus breaking his silence on such matters, a silence tacitly for some time erected due to his decline.  The secretary smoothed things over with her but she returned to the theme after seeing two messages sent in Churchill's name in support of the Conservative Party on the eve of the 1964 general election.  These she branded “forgeries”.  To this accusation the secretary responded with rather more ferocity, telling her: “I really do not think you should have used the word ‘forgery’ to me.  Sir Winston has had things drafted for him for many years, even when he was prime minister.  If they represent his views, and he signs them, they are not ‘forgeries’.”

C'était ça ou mourir (2026) by Thélyson Orélien.  How the Prix Goncourt's committee rules on this work may prove influential in the future of publishing.

That represents the current view of what's "drafting" rather than "forging" although it may take some time before texts created by generative AI (artificial intelligence) are granted the same approbation, a ghostwriter’s hand still human and, at least for a while, that still matters as one French committee recently concluded, removing from consideration for the 2026 Prix Goncourt (The Goncourt Prize) the novel C'était ça ou mourir (It Was Either That or Die, 2026) by Haitian-born Canadian novelist Thélyson Orélien (b 1988), the concerns being “plagiarism” and “the use of generative AI.”  Although Le prix Goncourt carries a merely symbolic purse of €10, it’s vested with genuine prestige and is associated with a spike in sales so is worth winning.  Monsieur Orélien denies the accusations and the matter is attracting attention because it’s a sign of things to come, literary prize committees among the many institutions that will need to formulate protocols to determine where legitimate use of AI (research, grammar checks, formatting etc) ends and concepts like plagiarism, appropriation and “non-authorship” begins.  It was the English philosopher Gilbert Ryle (1900–1976) who, in The Concept of Mind (1949), when discussing the notion of dualism explored by the French philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650), introduced the phrase “ghost in the machine” and that was better to illustrate for modern readers his critique of the Cartesian position of the mind being distinct from the body with physical and mental activities occurring “simultaneously but separately”.  Mind-body dualism had a long run in Western philosophy and can again be re-considered because we’ve come a long way and with generative AI, the "ghostwriter is now the machine" and these agents clearly have “opinions” so not only are they writing, increasingly, they are “deciding” what to write.  The problems confronting such committees seem insoluble so the fudge may be the creation of new literary prizes for AI generated works and there’s no reason why the committees and juries shouldn’t at least in part be made up of AI agents.

Holy Ghost vs Holy Spirit in Biblical Translation

Pentecostés (Pentecost, circa 1545), oil on canvas by Tiziano Vecelli (or Vecellio), (circa 1489-1576; known in English as Titian), basalica of Santa Maria della Salute, Venice.  The Christian holy day of Pentecost (celebrated 50 days after Easter Sunday) commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and other followers of Jesus Christ while they were in Jerusalem celebrating the Feast of Weeks.

The Trinity is one of Christianity’s central doctrines, the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in the one Godhead.  One of the most important Christian affirmations about God, it’s rooted in the idea God came to meet Christians in a threefold figure: (1) as Creator, Lord of the history of salvation, Father, and Judge, as revealed in the Old Testament; (2) as the Lord who, in the incarnated figure of Jesus Christ, lived among human beings and was present in their midst as the “Resurrected One”; and (3) as the Holy Spirit, whom they experienced as the helper or intercessor in the power of the new life.  In the Roman Catholic Church, the Sign of the Cross is made in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  It’s a myth that prior to Vatican II (the Second Vatican Council 1962-1965), the Third Person of the Trinity was always referred to in English as the Holy Ghost and one of the council’s decisions was to replace this with Holy Spirit.  Although it’s true Pius XII (1876–1958, pope 1939-1958) authorized several bilingual rites that included Holy Spirit, this was merely procedural and a formalization of processes for the publishing of new editions of existing works. Well before the twentieth century, the shift to Holy Spirit had become almost universal in translation although use of the older form persisted because of the reverence for tradition among some congregations (if not always the clergy) and a fondness, particularly in the Anglican community, for earlier translations, especially the Book of Common Prayer (1549-1622) and the King James version of the Bible (KJV: 1611).

Pentecôte (Pentecost, 1732), oil on canvas by Jean Restout (1692–1768), Louvre Museum, Paris.

The change reflects the evolution of words but, as a matter of Christian theology, "Holy Ghost" and "Holy Spirit" mean exactly the same thing.  The early translators were influenced by ghost being of Germanic origin and, as the Old English gast inherited the original meaning “soul, life, breath, good or bad spirit, angel or demon”, they used gast to translate the Latin Spiritus: thus Holy Ghost.  Although the more modern sense of a disembodied dead person dates from the late fourteenth century, it long remained rare and when translating the Bible into English the scholars behind the KJV opted mostly to use Holy Ghost which enjoys 90 entries compared with seven for Holy Spirit (between translators it's thought there were only linguistic and not doctrinal differences).  Either as literature or theology, there’s nothing in the texts to suggest any difference of meaning between the two, the conclusion of biblical scholars being the choices were wholly arbitrary and probably an unintentional consequence of the KJV being translated from the Greek into English by different committees.  One committee translated hagion pneuma as Holy Spirit while the other preferred Holy Ghost and when the work of the two bodies was combined, the differences remained.  In English, the meaning shift of ghost was induced essentially by its adoption in literature and popular culture, the sense long universally understood to be that of the spectre of a deceased person or a demonic apparition, hardly an association the church found helpful.  It hasn’t wholly been replaced however, some editions of the Book of Common Prayer still are printed with the phrase “He may receive the benefits of absolution, together with ghostly counsel and advice, to the quieting of his conscience.”

Unrelated to etymological matters however, there is one fine theological point about the Trinity.  It took some time for the Patristic Fathers (the early Christian writers of the period generally considered to run from the end of New Testament times or end of the Apostolic Age (circa 100 AD) to either the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) or the Second Council of Nicaea (787 AD)) to work out the Trinity was three persons, but one God.  The Old Testament foretold the visit to earthly life of the Messiah, but did not name him explicitly as Jesus, seeing the Holy Spirit as a manifestation of God, but did not see Him as a separate person of the one Godhead.  Despite the implications of that, at least since the still influential Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430), it’s never been an orthodox view the Old Testament should be thought incomplete.  Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022), always one to find a fine theological point, noted “Christians do not read the Old Testament for its own sake but always with Christ and through Christ, as a voyage to Truth through continuing Revelation.”

Rolls-Royce and Ghosts, ancient & modern

A century-odd apart: 1902 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost (left) and Paris Hilton's 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost (right).

Although for model names Rolls-Royce has borrowed from the atlas (Corniche, Camargue), their most frequent source has been the spirit world (Ghost, Phantom, Wraith,  Spectre) and the Silver Ghost (1906-1926) was the car that cemented the company's reputation for quality.  Sometime during its life, it may well have deserved to be regarded "the best car in the world" and while that term a long ago ceased to be useful, Rolls-Royce have at times justified the tag "best-made cars in the world".  Some might have matched the quality of the fit and finish but it's doubtful many have ever done it better and such was the reputation the Silver Ghost quickly gained that the name (coined by the Autocar magazine and not the factory) overtook the line.  Originally, the Silver Ghost had been but one model in a range available on their standard (40/50 hp) chassis but the name so captured the public imagination that, eventually, the factory relented and when the first of the Phantom line was released in 1926, Silver Ghost for all the 40/50 cars it became.  Perhaps surprisingly, although in the subsequent century there were many uses of the "silver" element (Silver Wraith, Silver Dawn, Silver Cloud, Silver Shadow, Silver Spirit, Silver Spur & Silver Seraph), it wasn't until 2009 the "Ghost" name was revived and (since 2021 in its second generation), it remains in production, the line augmented in 2011 by the Ghost EWB (extended wheelbase).  Plenty of manufacturers have over the years listed LWB (long wheelbase) models but EWB was a genuinely novel abbreviation, the factory not commenting on whether LWB had become "a bit common" or it was just a piece of "product differentiation".      

RAF (Royal Air Force) Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost armored car, Iraq, circa 1936.

The Silver Ghost also had what may seem an improbable career as a military vehicle, the factory eventually building 120 armored cars on the chassis, a role to which it was well-suited because famously it was robust enough to survive the often rough roads throughout the British Empire.  Although the period of intended service on the Western Front during World War I (1914-1918) was shortened when the "war of movement" anticipated upon the outbreak of hostilities quickly gave way to effectively static trench warfare, the machines proved ideally suited to the conditions in the Middle East, the most famous the squadron used by T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia; 1888–1935) in battles against Ottoman forces during World War I.  What the British discovered was the tactics the Royal Navy honed at sea for 300-odd years could be applied to motorized operations across vast sandy stretches, detachments of armored cars able to be handled like squadrons of destroyers.  Lawrence remarked the Rolls-Royces were “more valuable than rubies” in desert combat and that he’d be content with one for the rest of his life were it to be supplied with tyres and petrol, the big, heavy Ghosts prone voraciously to chew through both.  In many parts of the empire, numbers of the armoured cars remained in service well into the 1930s (valued especially by the Raj in India) and the last was retired from service with the Irish Free State only in 1944, new tyres having become unobtainable.

Photoflash

Photoflash (pronounced foh-tuh-flash)

(1) An alternative name for a flashbulb (mostly archaic), a lamp that emits a brief flash of bright light, used to take photographs in a dark environment.

(2) Of or relating to flash photography (industry use only).

(3) The precise point at which a flashbulb illuminates.

1925–1930: The construct was photo- + flash.  Photo (phot- the prevocalic) was a clipping of photograph and photo was from the combining form φωτω- (phōtō-) of Ancient Greek φῶς (phôs) (light).  The –graph suffix was from the Ancient Greek suffix -γραφω (-graphō), from γράφω (gráphō) (to scratch, to scrape, to graze), probably best known in the derived from -graphy.  Flash was from the Middle English flasshen, a variant of flasken or flaskien (to sprinkle, splash), likely of imitative origin.  In the sense used in photography, it was probably of North Germanic origin and akin to the Swedish dialectal flasa (to burn brightly, blaze) and related to flare.  The Icelandic variation from the Germanic was flasa (to rush, hastily to go).  The word photoflash has a long history as a technical term in photography and the manufacture of photographic equipment but three syllables was just too much for general use and the public used “flash” for just about all purposes, the odd necessity like “flashbulb” embraced to avoid confusion.  Photoflash is a noun; the noun plural is photoflashes.

The industry however needed to be precise so "photoflash" became a frequent modifier, required because of the modular nature of the flash equipment (originally not part of the camera apparatus proper) and even at the tail-end of mass-market analogue photography, not all cameras featured built-in flash-lamps.  A "photoflash" unit was the whole, packaged flash assembly that included the flash-lamp and its housing, the mounting bracket directly attached the unit to the camera's body.  Originally the units were designed to accommodate replacement lamps but in 1960s, single-use units were developed, styled usually as rotating cubes, thus permitting four shots; for industry and consumers it was a cheaper solution and convenient but was an example of the way in the post-war years convenience led to more plastic waste and pollution, the little cubes soon littering the environment rather like the "ring-pulls" that enabled cans of drink to be opened without the need for a tool (the so-called "church key").  Invented in 1959 by US engineer Ermal “Ernie” Fraze (1913-1989), the design was thought a helpful innovation but because they detached completely from the can, millions of the things were soon an environmental blight and, with sharp edges, a safety hazard too.  Under pressure, in the mid 1970s, the industry phased them out, replacing them with the still familiar non-detachable “stay-on tabs”.  The photoflash capacitor is used not only in cameras.  It is an electrolytic capacitor designed specifically to provide a pulse of high-voltage energy for a very short duration and as well as the use in conventional photography, they’re installed also in devices using solid-state laser power supplies including optical readers and some printers but, whatever the hardware to which they’re attached, the purpose is always a brief illumination.  Because of the requirements for feeding a very high current for a precise length of time, the greatest challenge during the development process was to ensure a reliable high discharge pulse without excessive heat generation and thus the physical expansion of components.

Three-frame spread of Lindsay Lohan being photographed at the point of photoflash.

Photoflash composition has two meanings: (1) The pyrotechnic material which, when loaded in a suitable casing and ignited, produces a flash of sufficient intensity and duration for photographic purposes and (2) the collections of techniques used by professional photographers when shooting in light conditions where the use of a photoflash is required.  This involves considering things like the available ambient light, distance, angles of surrounding surfaces & their reflective properties and the need for any filtering.  For professionals, photoflash devices (known variously as flashes, speed-lights, studio strobes and a number of other terms) are adjustable to an extent those used on consumer lever cameras typically are not, the relevant metric a product of the relationship between the distance between the subject & light source and what is called the focal length (dictated essentially by lens aperture).

RAF (Royal Air Force) 4½ inch (114 mm) Photoflash Bomb.

An example of a basic design that was "right" from day one, the RAF's photoflash was manufactured throughout World War II (1939-1945) with the only fundamental change the use of narrower fins on the Mk II version, the larger units found to be prone to inducing "lateral drift" in high winds.  The cardboard tubular body was closed at the tail by a dome while the nose was sealed by a diaphragm with a bush, into which was inserted the fuse.  A defined measure of flash composition was loaded between the front and the rear diaphragm with a central tube extending between each, filled with gunpowder.  As soon as a fused flashbomb was released from an aircraft, the fuse was operative, triggering the gunpowder at the desired height which burst the body of the photographic flash, simultaneously igniting the flash composition.

Photoflash composition was of critical importance in the photoflash cartridges used in photoflash bombs which were specialized forms of ordnance perfected during the early years of World War II.  Dropped from aircraft passing over enemy territory, they were fitted with a photoflash cartridge timed to detonate at a height chosen to optimize the spread of light over the area of interest.  The development of the devices had been encouraged by research confirmed only a small fraction of the bombs dropped by the RAF were coming within miles of hitting the target zone, despite the claims of aircrew.  For many reasons, the inaccuracy was understandable given that night bombing over distance was a new aspect of war, carried out by inexperienced aircrew in the cold and dark of night, while under fire from night-fighters and ground-based guns, all while trying to locate blacked-out targets.  In the early days, navigators could rely on little more than maps, charts, mathematics and the visual recognition of physical ground-features, the latter obviously marginal at night when cities were under restrictions making visible artifical light a rare sight.

RAF photograph taken from Vickers Wellington bomber over Berlin, 1941.  The ground is illumined by the flash while the unusual light patterns are from ground-based searchlights, the shapes a product of the camera's exposure length.

There would later be electronic innovations such as devices designed to let bombardiers “see through” cloud but the photoflash bomb (always in the RAF clipped to “flashbomb”) was a relatively simple approach that  scaled-up existing technology, the things essentially big versions of the flashbulbs used on cameras.  Given their size, they were capable for short periods of producing intense light of sufficient dispersal and luminosity to permit either a pilot accurately to position his craft for a bombing run or for surveillance aircraft to take aerial reconnaissance photos at a safe height.  Of great utility at the time, flashbombs are no longer part of the military inventory because of improvements in night-vision optics, radar and satellite imagery.  Without them, the RAF's bombing campaign would have been much less effective although, as it was, not until late 1943 was the Anglo-American effort operating at the scale required for the offensive to be strategically significant and until the last weeks of the conflict, the losses suffered by both the RAF and USAAF (US Army Air Force) were shockingly high.

RAF photograph taken from De Havilland Mosquito (pathfinder), Hamburg, 1943.  The shape at the bottom-left is the flashbomb exploding.

The pathfinder concept was a lead aircraft that would identify a target and then drop flares indicating a target-path & target-force for the main force.  Fast, robust and built quickly and economically by virtue of the plywood frame, the twin-engined Mosquito was ideal for the role.  One of the most versatile airframes of the war, it took the Germans some time to develop a fighter than could match its pace and De Havilland responded to that threat with even faster versions.  Remarkably, the Mosquito (which first flew in 1940) remained in production until 1950, radar-equipped versions serving with the RAF until 1952, the durable platform at the time the UK's only all-weather nightfighter until versions of the De Havilland Vampire (1943-1961) and Gloster Meteor (1643-1955) became available.  Few probably think of the Mosquito as as Cold War aircraft but such was the UK's technology deficit at the time there was no alternative.  As well as the use in the pathfinder role, PR (photo-reconnaissance) versions of the Mosquito flew night-time missions over Europe, Burma and the South Pacific, all using the flashbombs with a the same basic but effective engineering and method of construction that would for centuries have been familiar to fireworks makers: A cardboard tube, capped on both ends with metal stoppers and filled a flash powder charge, the fuse set to trigger after a certain time (length of the fuse determining detonation height).  Being a camera’s flashbulb writ large, the flash lasted only around 200 milliseconds but this was ideal for aerial photography and could be enough for a pilot’s visual orientation although flashbombs often were dropped in staggered clusters, providing an extended duration of enhanced visibility.

The much re-printed photograph of Sofia Loren (b 1934, left) and Jayne Mansfield (1933-1967, right),  Romanoff's restaurant, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, April, 1957 (left) and, three months later, her eye similarly drawn, Shirley Perdew (1939-2020), seemingly unable to avert her gaze, looking at Jayne Mansfield (centre & right).  Ms Perdew had just been crowned “Miss Hollywood 1957” and, as a former “Miss Photoflash”, Ms Mansfield had been invited to afforce the voting panel.  The event had been held at Garden of Allah Hotel, built in 1913 as a private residence before in 1926 being converted into a residential hotel; it was demolished in 1959.

Ms Loren's sideways glance, one of the most famous in Hollywood's long history of such looks, variously has been interpreted as “sceptical”, “disapproving” and “envious”, the latter view perhaps most held by men.  Ms Loren herself explained things as "genuine concern" the pink satin gown might not prove equal to the occasion; on the night, there were several photographers covering the event and images shot from other angles illustrate why that concern was reasonable.  There has never been any doubt Ms Mansfield's "wardrobe malfunction" was "engineered and rehearsed", a trick suitably qualified women perfected in the age of the paparazzi.  In her pomp a significant figure in popular culture and a celebrity at a time they were less numerous and not as transitory, Ms Mansfield was a model & actress and what would later come to be known as a “multi-media personality”.  When young, she won a number of sponsored beauty contests including being crowned “Miss Magnesium Lamp”, “Miss Fire Prevention Week” and “Miss Photoflash” but it’s reported she drew the line at becoming “Miss Roquefort Cheese” on the grounds it “just didn’t sound right”, something on which she seems not to have expanded.  Reputedly, the chance to be “Miss Prime Rib” also was declined and while that sounds a missed opportunity, she was sentimental about animals.

Buffalo

Buffalo (pronounced buhf-uh-loh)

(1) An animal from the subtribe Bubalina, also known as true buffalos, such as the Cape buffalo, Syncerus caffer, or the water buffalo, Bubalus bubalis.

(2) A related North American animal, the American bison (zoologically incorrect but in use thus since the 1630s).

(3) An ellipsis of buffalo robe.

(4) As the buffalo fish, the Ictiobus spp.

(5) In numismatic slang, a clipping of Buffalo nickel (a copper–nickel five-cent piece struck by the US Mint 1913-1938) and still (rarely) used of nickels.

(6) In numismatic slang, a clipping of “American buffalo” (a gold bullion coin), still used by collectors.

(7) A locality name most prevalent in North America, the Lake Erie port in western New York, the best-known,

(8) A shuffling tap-dance step (associated with the popular song Shuffle Off to Buffalo, from the musical film 42^nd Street (1933).

(9) As “buffaloed by”, to be puzzled or baffled; to be confused or mystified (now rare).

(10) As “to buffalo”, to impress or intimidate by a display of power, importance etc (now rare).

(11) To hunt buffalo (archaic).

(12) To assault (historically, to “pistol-whip”).

1535–1545: An early Americanism (replacing buffel, from the French, noted since the 1510s), from the Spanish or Portuguese búfalo (water buffalo), from the Italian buffalo, from Late Latin būfalus (an alteration of the Classical Latin būbalus (wild ox)), from the Ancient Greek βούβαλος (boúbalos).  The Greek form was originally the name of a kind of African antelope, later used of a type of domesticated ox in southern Asia and the Mediterranean lands.  I’s a word of uncertain origin and the elements may include bous (ox, cow, from the primitive Indo-European root gwou- (ox, bull, cow) but it may be a Greek folk-etymology.  The use of “buffalo” to describe the American bison is a mistake dating from the 1630s and it has endured so long as to become institutionalized.  The other Germanic words (the Dutch buffel, the German Büffel, the Danish böffel etc) are from the French while the Russian buivolu, the Polish bujwoł and the Bulgarian bivol came from the Medieval Latin.  The “Buffalo gnat” was first recorded in 1822 while the term “Buffalo chip” (dung of the American bison used as a fuel) was in use by at least the 1840s.  The origin of the name of the city Buffalo in western New York is disputed, not least because there were never any bison in close proximity to the place.  It may have been based on the name of a Native American (ie “Red Indian” in the parlance of the time) chief or a corruption of the French beau fleuve (beautiful river).  The use of “buffalo” as a verb meaning “alarm” was documented early in the twentieth century and was probably related to the tendency of the beasts to mass panic.  In many fields, “buffalo” is used as a modifier for many words.  The old synonym buffle is extinct.  Buffalo is a noun & verb, buffaloed & buffaloing are (informal) verbs and buffaloish (non-standard) & buffalo-like are adjectives; the noun plural is buffaloes or buffalos but if used collectively (ie of a herd) buffalo is the usual spelling.  The common collective noun for a group of buffalo is “herd” although “gang” is a recorded US regionalism and some prefer the more evocative “obstinacy”, that label gained by virtue of the beast’s well-documented quality of stubbornness.

Classy Leather’s illustration of the difference in texture between bison and buffalo leather.

The clipping “buff” also tracked a varied path.  Predictably, the word seems first to have been simply a short form of “buffalo” but by the 1560s traders were using it to describe the thick, soft leather obtained from the hides of the creatures being slaughtered by the million although then it was almost always spelled “buffe” (ie as “buffe leather”) from the French buffle.  Buff was by the 1780s used generally to describe a “light brownish-yellow” color, based on the hue assumed by the buffalo leather in its processed form and as early as circa 1600 the old association of “hide” with “skin” led to the phrase “in the buff” (naked), strengthened by buff leather and pale human skin being similar in hue.  Over time, “buff naked" emerged and this morphed into "buck naked," possibly influenced by use of the word “buck” which, in American slang, had been used to refer to male deer, Native Americans, or African-American men in certain contexts. The exact etymological connection is debated, but “buck” here may have been used to evoke an image of primal or raw naturalism (at the time, Europeans and white colonial settlers tended to divide the world's population into (1) civilized, (2) barbarians and (3) savages).  The linguistic evolution continued and by the early nineteenth century there was also “butt naked” obviously more explicit and descriptively accessible to a modern audience, emphasizing the state of stark nudity by referencing the buttocks.  It’s now the most popular of the three slang forms.  All three are unrelated to the use of “buff” to mean “polish a metal to a high gloss”, that based on the original “buffing cloths” being off-cuts of a “buff-coat” (a military overcoat originally made from the hide).  A tool for this purpose is often still called “a buff”.  The noting of “polishing up” by “buffing” was taken up in video gaming (especially role-playing) where it meant “to make a character or an item stronger or more capable”.  Of the color, “buffish” is the alternative adjective but that's rare.

The admirable Jessica Simpson.

The use of buff to mean “an enthusiast for something with a great knowledge of the topic” (eg Ferrari buff (a very devoted crew); film buff (an obsessive lot who take things very seriously); Lindsay Lohan buff (a calling for some)) was related to the color.  Since the 1820s, New York City’s volunteer fire-fighters had been issued buff-colored protective clothing and their image of daring with more than a whiff of danger in the 1890s attracted a following among young men with the cherished ambition to some day become firemen.  This manifested them rushing to the sites of fires at any time of the day or night, just so they could watch the firemen at work, fighting the fire.  There is a lure to fire that draws some and in Australia, where bushfires have always been a feature of the hot, dry seasons, there have been cases of volunteer fire-fighters starting fires, apparently just so they can experience the thrill of extinguishing them; fire being fire, sometimes things end very badly.  As early as 1903 the New York Sun was referring to these enthusiasts (had it been later they might have been called “fire groupies”) as “the buffs” and from this use came the idea of a “buff” being someone devoted to anything although there’s now more often the implication of “great knowledge of the topic”).  In the UK military (mostly in plural), a “Buff” was a member of the Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment (1572-1961)) and in numismatic slang, “buff” was a clipping a number several coins, most commonly the Buffalo nickel (a copper–nickel five-cent piece struck by the US Mint 1913-1938.).  In UK slang, Buff also meant “a member of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes” (sort of like the Freemasons but reputedly without as much plotting and scheming”).  The finger food “Buffalo wings” made famous by the admirable Jessica Simpson (b 1980) gained the name because they were first served in 1964 at Frank & Teressa's Anchor Bar on Main Street, Buffalo.  Ms Simpson’s confusion about the composition of the dish (made with chicken wings) may have been caused by them often appearing on menus as “buffalo wings”) with no initial capital.

The BUFF.

In USAF (US Air Force) service-slang, the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress (produced 1952-1962 with some still in service) is the BUFF (the acronym for Big Ugly Fat Fellow or Big Ugly Fat Fucker depending on one's assessment of the delicacy of who asked).  From BUFF was derived the companion acronym for the LTV A-7 Corsair II (1965-1984, the last in active service retired in 2014) which was SLUFF (Short Little Ugly Fat Fellow or Short Little Ugly Fat Fucker).  Boeing and the USAF (US Air Force) are in the throes of upgrading the B-52H to B-52J, the letter "I" being skipped to avoid any confusion with "1" (ie the numeric "one"), the same rationale adopted by may including those naming models of cars and underwear manufacturers designating bra cup sizing.  In rail-transport, a “buff” describes the compressive coupler force that occurs during a slack bunched condition (and is related in that sense to “buffer” which is a physical barrier placed to halt the progress of a train to prevent damage to a structure).  In the slang of the dealers of street drugs, “buff” is any substance used to dilute drugs (by volume) in order to increase profit.  The noun “buffware” is not an IT term (although SysAdmins (system administrators) could probably think of a few products which should be so described); it describes pottery in a buff color.  

Highly qualified content provider Busty Buffy (b 1996) in leather braces (unlikely to be of buffalo hide).

As is done in her profession, Busty Buffy appears sometimes “in the buff” which means “in the nude” although, among the more fastidious, there are those who insist porn stars can only ever be “naked”, a “nude” something more respectable and seen usually hung in an art gallery.  According to Gary Martin’s authoritative site tracing the origins of phrases, “in the buff” was derived from the “buff coat”, a “light leather tunic worn” by English soldiers (mostly by cavalry and officers and thus something of a precursor of the trench coat) until the seventeenth century and originally, to be “in the buff” was to be wearing one’s coat.  A practical field-garment (it offered some degree of protection against glancing blows from edged weapons and even musket-balls fired at long range), the name was derived from the buffalo or ox hide from which typically it was made.  In The Comedy of Errors (circa 1591), William Shakespeare (1564–1616) makes a reference to the buff coat, using the word “suit” in two of its senses: (1) an action filed in a court of law and (2) a garment:

ADRIANA: What, is he arrested? Tell me at whose suit.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE: I know not at whose suit he is arrested well;

But he’s in a suit of buff which ‘rested him, that can I tell.

So, it needs to be explained why the phrase “in the buff” shifted from meaning “wearing a coat” to “wearing nothing”.  That was because the hide used for the coats was a light, yellowish beige and thus similar to what was then the almost universal skin-tone in England.  Mr Martin cites the play Satiromastix, or The Untrussing of the Humorous Poet (1601) by the English writer Thomas Dekker (circa 1572–1632) as one of the first known references to the newer meaning, “in buff” likened to “in stag”, then popular slang for “naked”: “No, come my little Cub, doe not scorne mee because I goe in Stag, in Buffe, heer’s veluet too.”  From that ultimately came expressions like “well buffed” or “buffed up” to describe fit types with admirable muscle definition and derived from that came the special use among role-playing video-gamers, “to debuff” being an effect used to make a character weaker (a “negative status” effect).

A “buffster” is someone who is “buffed” (lean, physically fit) and that use of the word emerged from gym culture during the 1980s, under the influence of buff in the sense of “polish to perfection”.  That influenced also the use of buff to mean “physically attractive; desirable” which began in MLE (Multicultural London English) before spreading to other linguistic tribes; the adverb buffly (in a buff manner; attractively or muscularly) can be used of a buffster (one who is fit and with good muscle definition).  In hospital slang, “to buff” means “to alter a medical chart, especially in a dishonest manner”, hinting there may be something in Evelyn Waugh’s (1903-1966) warning the greatest risk to one in hospital is “being murdered by the doctors”.  In the slang of graffiti writers (the term “graffiti artist” accepted by the art market if not all critics) a “buff” is the act of removing a piece of graffiti by someone other than the creator.  Buffy is an adjective meaning “of or tending to a buff color” (the comparative buffier, the superlative buffiest) but it’s probably now most associated with the eponymous pop-culture character in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (that may have been an influence on it being adopted by porn stars as their pseudonym (the synonym “screen-name” more apt than “stage-name”)).

The phrase “It’ll buff out” is a joke-line in the collector car market which references attempts to downplay the extent or significance of damage.  It ranks in the trade with “ran when parked”, “only surface rust” and “air-conditioning just needs a recharge” among the least believed claims.

In 2005, Lindsay Lohan went for a drive in her Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG roadster.  It didn’t end well.  Based on the R230 (2001-2011) platform, the SL 65 AMG was produced between 2004-2012, all versions rated in excess of 600 horsepower, something perhaps not a wise choice for someone with no background handling such machinery though it could have been worse, the factory building 400 (175 for the US market, 225 for the RoW (rest of the world)) of the even more powerful SL 65 Black Series, the third occasion an SL was offered without a soft-top and the second time one had been configured with a permanent fixed-roof.  A production number of 350 is sometimes quoted but those maintaining registers insist it was 400.

Map illustrating the rapid nineteenth century decline in the regions of North America where buffalo roamed (left, from The Extermination of the American Bison (1889), by William Temple Hornaday (1854–1937) published in Washington DC by the USGPO (US Government Printing Office, since 2014 the US Government Publishing Office, the change a (belated) acknowledgement that digital output was exceeding that of printed material)) and a stack of Buffalo hides awaiting shipment, Dodge City, Kansas, 1874 (right).

Viewed by those breathing the rather more censorious air of the twenty-first century, US hunter, taxidermist, zoologist, conservationist & author William Temple Hornaday is controversial because of his youthful pursuits, a few of the views he expressed and some the company he later in life would keep but, in an era when wildlife conservation and protection of the natural environment were not fashionable causes, he made seminal contributions to these fields.  Effected by the army and contractors operating with logistical support from the military's supply chains, the government’s “war on the bison” was an aspect of colonial policy in that it was an example of the “scorched earth” tactic adopted by retreating armies to deny invading forces any ability to “live off the land”, slowing down their advance and imposing strains upon their lines of supply.  In the nineteenth century the enemy were the various Native American (ie “Red Indian”) nations and the theory was that by exterminating the plentiful buffalo from their hunting grounds, their economies and way of life would collapse with all that implies.  The implications of that policy were understood by the US prosecution team at the first Nuremberg Trial (1946-1946) of two dozen-odd of the surviving Nazi civilian leadership & military high command of the Third Reich (1939-1945).  There,  scrupulously the US lawyers avoided the then novel word “genocide” (coined to describe the attempt by the Nazis to murder the entire Jewish population in Europe).  Although the judges of the IMT (International Military Tribunal) explicitly had disallowed the defense counsel the use of any form of Tu Quoque argument, the Americans were well-aware such discussions might ripple beyond the courtroom.  Historic estimates of pre-colonial Buffalo numbers in North America notoriously are unreliable but few scholars put the count at less than 30 million while some suggest it may have been double that.  However calculated, it was a big number but by 1884 the verified count had shrunk to a few hundred.

Classy Leather’s “Buffalo Hunter”.

Buffalo leather isn’t suitable for all purposes but is greatly valued because of the combination of thickness (compared to cow or goat leather or pig skin) and the unique and varied grain patterns.  It’s the thickness which adds to the durability of buffalo leather but, despite that, it remains soft and flexible, making it an ideal material for premium leather goods such as leather bags, leather accessories, jackets etc.  The Classy Leather operation published an informative guide to buffalo leather and included technical information including what must have be a revelation to some: Although the terms “buffalo” and “bison” tend interchangeably to be used in North America, the leathers are quite distinct and what the industry calls “buffalo leather” usually means leather derived from the Asian Water Buffalo.  Buffalo leather comes from domestic buffalos (almost always Asian Water Buffalo), raised mostly for milk or meat; at the end of their productive life, the hides are used to make leather and a variety of processing methods are used, designed to suit the skin structure with its large pores.

The “Water Buffalo”: 1974 Suzuki GT750.  The front twin disc setup was added in 1973 and was one of the first of its kind.

The Suzuki GT750 was produced between 1971-1977 and was an interesting example of the breed of large-capacity two-stroke motorcycles that provided much excitement (and not a few fatalities) but which fell victim to increasingly stringent emissions standards and the remarkable improvement in the performance, reliability and refinement of the multi-cylinder four-stroke machines of which the first generation Honda CB750 (1969-1978) and Kawasaki Z1 900 (1972-1975) were exemplars.  Something of a novelty was the GT750's water-cooling, at the time rarely seen although that meant it missed out on one of Suzuki’s many imaginative acronyms: the RAS (Ram Air System) used on the smaller capacity models.  The RAS was a simple aluminum scoop (designed to trap air-flow for upper-cylinder cooling) that sat bolted atop the cylinder head.  It was the water-cooling of the GT750 that attracted nicknames but, a generation before the internet, the English language tended still to evolve with regional variations so in England it was “the Kettle”, in Australia “the Water Bottle” and in North America “the Water Buffalo”.  Foreign markets also went their own way, the French favoring “la bouillotte” (the hot water bottle) and the West Germans “Wasserbüffel” (water buffalo).  Suzuki called those sold in North America the "Le Mans" while RoW (rest of the world) models were simply "GT750".

Detail of the unusual 3-into-4 exhaust system: The early version (left) with the ECTS (Exhaust Coupler Tube System), the bifurcation hardware for the central cylinder's header (centre) and the later version (1974-1977) without the ECTS (right).  Exhaust systems have long exerted on motorcyclists a fetish-like fascination and the holy grail may be the Italian straight-six Benelli 750 & 900 Sei (six) (1972-1978), offered variously with a 6-into-6 and 6-into-2, both constructions inspiring awe.  

The GT750 shared with the other two-stroke, three-cylinder Suzukis (GT380 & GT550) the novelty of a 4-into-3 exhaust system (the centre exhaust header was bifurcated (sometimes referred to as "saimesed")), the early versions of which featured the additional complexity of the ECTS connecting the three tubes; it was designed to improve low-speed torque.  The 3-into-4 apparatus existed apparently for no reason other than to match the four-pipe appearance on the contemporary four stroke, four cylinder Hondas and Kawasakis, an emulation of the asymmetric ducting used on Kawasaki's dangerously charismatic two-strokes perhaps dismissed as "too imitative", the four-pipe arrangement having previously been used by others and thus plasusibly an "industry standard".