Planet

Planet (pronounced plan-it)

(1) In astronomy (now also as “major planet), any of the eight large spherical bodies revolving about the sun in elliptical orbits and shining by reflected light: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune, in the order of their proximity to the sun.

(2) A similar body revolving about a star other than the sun.

(3) A celestial body moving in the sky, as distinguished from (the apparently fixed) stars, applied also to the sun and moon (obsolete except in historic reference).

(4) In astrology, the sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto: regarded as sources of energy or consciousness in the interpretation of horoscopes.

1250-1300: From the Middle English planete, from the late Old English planete, from the Old French planete (which endures in Modern French as planète), from the Latin planeta & planetes (found only in plural planētae), from the Ancient Greek πλανήτης (planḗtēs) (wanderer), (ellipsis of πλάνητες ἀστέρες (plánētes astéres (literally “wandering stars”)), from the Ancient Greek πλανάω (planáō) (to wander about, to stray), from planasthai (to wander), of uncertain etymology.  It was cognate with the Latin pālor (to wander about, to stray), the Old Norse flana (to rush about), and the Norwegian flanta (“to wander about”); from here English ultimately gained flaunt.  The source may have been a nasalized form of the primitive Indo-European root pele- (flat; to spread) on the notion of "spread out" but it’s speculative, etymologists noting a similarity of meaning in the Greek plazein (to make devious, repel, dissuade from the right path, bewilder) the evidence simply doesn’t exist to permit a conclusion to be drawn.  Planets were originally so-called because, viewed by the astronomers from Antiquity, they display apparent motion, unlike the stars which seemed “fixed” in space, the word derived from the Ancient Greek phrase plánētes astéres (literally “wandering stars”), ultimately from planasthai (to wander).  Thus the earliest definitions of planets encompassed both the Moon and Sun but not the Earth.  The sense define by modern science of a “world which orbits a star" was first noted in English in the 1630s.  It wasn’t until the Copernican revolution that the Earth was recognized as a planet, and the Sun was seen to be fundamentally different.

The noun planetoid (one of the asteroids, or minor planets, revolving about the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter) is from 1803, the adjectival form planetoidal adopted in 1809.  Strangely, there’s never been an accepted definition of planetoid.  Within astronomical circles, it was initially a synonym for asteroid, "asteroid" referring to the star-like image seen through a telescope while "planetoid" described the object’s planet-like orbit.  In the literature, by the early twentieth century “planetoid” and “asteroid” were both widely used but the latter had prevailed almost wholly by the late 1970s.  This decline in use as a synonym is because it had instead become handy as a word to describe a subset of the larger members of the asteroid community, used to mean “planet-like in form or geology”.  Improvements in observational capacity in the early twenty-first century saw a surge in use as so many more planetary bodies were discovered in the Kuiper belt and beyond.  Within the astronomical community, there was a consensus most were hardly asteroids and concomitant with doubts as to the appropriate definition of "planet", planetoid was the label of choice.

The noun protoplanet (a large, diffuse cloud of matter in the orbit of a young star, regarded as the preliminary state of a planet) dates from 1949, the construct being proto- + planet.  The proto- prefix was a learned borrowing from the Ancient Greek πρωτο- (prōto-), a combination form of πρῶτος (prôtos) (first), superlative of πρό (pró) (before).  The adjective planetary (of or pertaining to a planet) was from the 1590s, probably influenced by the Late Latin planetarius (pertaining to a planet or planets) although the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) notes the only attested meaning as a noun was "an astrologer".  The planetary nebula, so-called because of the shape as seen through a telescope, is from 1785.  1690s The adjective interplanetary (existing between planets) was used in the sense of "travel between planets” as early as 1897 although the English philosopher and physician John Locke (1632–1704) used intermundane in the same sense, the Roman Epicureans having had intermundia (neuter plural) for "spaces between the worlds", translating from the Ancient Greek metakosmia.  Mundane was from the Middle English mondeyne, from the Old French mondain, from the Late Latin mundanus, from the Classical Latin mundus (world).  The noun planetarium (orrery, astronomical machine which by the movements of its parts represents the motions and orbits of the planets) dates from 1734 and was a creation of Modern Latin, the construct being the Late Latin planeta + Latin -arium (a place for).  The modern meaning "device for projecting the night sky onto the interior of a dome" describe the device developed by the optical engineering company Zeiss in Germany; it was first demonstrated in Munich in 1923, the word planetarium adopted in English in 1929.

#plutoisaplanet: Pluto photographed on 14 July 2015 by the New Horizons interplanetary space probe, launched by NASA in 2006.

The Galileian satellites of Jupiter were initially called satellite planets but were later reclassified along with the Moon.  The first observed asteroids were also considered planets, but were reclassified when became apparent how many there were, crossing each other's orbits, in a zone where only a single planet had been expected.   Pluto was found where an outer planet had been expected, but doubts were soon raised about its status because (1) it was found to cross Neptune's orbit and (2) was much smaller than the expectation had suggested.  The debate about the status of Pluto went on for decades after its discovery in 1930.  The pro-planet faction may have become complacent, thinking that because Pluto had always been a planet, it would forever be thus but, after seventy-six years in the textbooks as a planet, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 2006 voted to re-classify Pluto as a dwarf planet on the basis that the icy orb failed to meet a set of criteria which the IAU claimed had been accepted for decades.

To be a planet, the IAU noted, the body must (1) orbit a sun, (2) be sufficiently massive to it pull itself into a sphere under its own gravity and (3), "clear its neighborhood" of debris and other celestial bodies, proving it has gravitational dominance in its corner of the solar system.  Pluto fails the third test.  Because it orbits in the Kuiper Belt (a massive ring of asteroids and planetoids that stretches beyond the orbit of Neptune), Pluto is surrounded by thousands of other celestial bodies and chunks of debris, each exerting its own gravity.  Pluto is thus not the gravitationally dominant object in its neighborhood and therefore, not a planet and but a dwarf, a sort of better class of asteroid.  The IAU’s action had been prompted by the discovery in the Kuiper Belt of a body larger than Pluto yet still not meeting the criteria for planethood.  Feeling the need to draw a line in the cosmos, the IAU dumped Pluto.

Lindsay Lohan in Planet Fitness commercial played during Super Bowl 2022.

However #plutoisaplanet is a thing and Pluto’s supporters have a website, arguing that while it’s universally accepted a planet should be spherical and orbit the Sun, the "clearing the neighborhood" rule is arbitrary, having appears only in a single paper published in 1801.  The history is certainly muddied, Galileo having described the moons of Jupiter as planets and there are plenty of other more recent precedents to suggest the definitional consensus has bounced around a bit and there are even extremists really to accept the implications of loosening the rules such as the moons of Earth, Jupiter and Saturn becoming planets.  Most however just want Pluto restored.

The most compelling argument however is probably just that the IAU are a bunch of humorless cosmic clerks, something like the Vogons ("...not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous.") in Douglas Adams' (1952–2001) Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979-1992) and that Pluto should be restored to planethood because of the romance.  Although lacking the lovely rings of Saturn (a feature shared on a smaller scale by Jupiter, Uranus & Neptune), Pluto is the most charming of all because it’s so far away; desolate, lonely and cold, it's the solar system’s emo.  If for no other reason, it should be a planet in tribute to the scientists who, for decades during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, calculated possible positions and hunted for the elusive orb.  In an example of Donald Rumsfeld's (1932–2021; US secretary of defense 1975-1977 & 2001-2006) “unknown knowns”, the proof was actually obtained as early as 1915 but it wasn’t until 1930 that was realized.  In an indication of just how far away Pluto lies, since the 1840s when equations based on Newtonian mechanics were first used to predict the position of the then “undiscovered” planet, it has yet to complete even one orbit of the Sun, one Plutonian year being 247.68 years long.  The name "Pluto" was from the Roman god of the underworld, from the Classical Latin Pluto & Pluton, from the Ancient Greek Πλούτων (Ploútōn) (god of wealth) from ploutos (wealth; riches (probably originally "overflowing" from the primitive Indo-European pleu- (to flow).  It was the alternative Greek name or epithet of Hades in his function as the god of wealth (precious metals and gems, coming from beneath the earth, form part of his realm).

Omicron

Omicron (pronounced om-i-kron or oh-mi-kron)

(1) The fifteenth letter of the Classical and Modern Greek alphabet and the sixteenth in Ancient archaic Greek; a short vowel, transliterated as o.

(2) The vowel sound represented by this letter.

(3) The common name designated (on 26 November 2021 by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution (TAG-VE)) for the variant B.1.1.529 of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes the condition COVID-19.

(4) In English, as “o” & “O” (fifteenth letter of the alphabet), a letter used for various grammatical and technical purposes.

Circa 1400: The fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet (oʊmɪkrɒn; the symbol Oo), literally "small o" (ὂ μικρόν (ò mikrón)), the construct being o + the Ancient Greek (s)mikros (small (source of the modern micro-) and so-called because the vowel was "short" in ancient Greek.  Omega (O) was thus the “long” (O) and omicron the “short” (o).  It’s from omicron both Latin and Cyrillic gained “O”.  Depending on the context in which it’s being written, the plural is omicrons or omicra.

The fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet was derived from a character which in Phoenician was called 'ain or ayin (literally "eye") and represented by what most dictionaries record as something like "a most peculiar and to us unpronounceable guttural sound".  The Greeks also lacked the sound, so when they adopted characters from the Phoenician alphabet, arbitrarily they changed O's value to a vowel.  Despite the medieval belief, there is no evidence to support the idea the form of the letter represents the shape the mouth assumes in pronouncing it.  The Greeks later added a special character for the "long" O (omega), and the original thus became the "little o" (omicron).  In Middle English and later colloquial use, o or o' has a special use as an abbreviation of “on” or “of”, and remains literary still in some constructions (o'clock, Jack-o'-lantern, tam-o'-shanter, cat-o'-nine-tails, will-o'-the-wisp et al).  The technical use in genealogy is best represented by Irish surnames, the “O’” from the Irish ó (ua), which in the Old Irish was au (ui) and meant "descendant".

As a connective, -o- is the most common connecting vowel in compounds either taken or formed from Greek, where it is often the vowel in the stem.  English being what it is, it’s affixed, not only to constructions purely Greek in origin, but also those derived from Latin (Latin compounds of which would have been formed with the L. connecting or reduced thematic vowel, -i).  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) adds the usage note that this occurred especially when what was wanted were compounds with a sense of Latin composition, which even if technically possible, would not be warranted but, were correct under the principles of Greek composition.  Similarly, blood type-O was in 1926 originally designated “0” (zero)" denoting the absence of any type-A & B agglutinogens but the letter O was adopted to align the group with existing nomenclature.  The standardized scale in railroads (O=1:48 (1:25 gauges)) dates from 1905.

As the character to represent the numerical value "zero", in Arabic numerals it is attested from circa 1600, the use based on the similarity of shape.  The similarity would later cause a Gaëtan Dugas (1952–1984), a Québécois Canadian flight attendant, mistakenly to be identified as "Patient Zero" (the primary case for HIV/AIDS in the United States).  The error happened because of a mistake made in 1984 in either the reading or transcription of a database maintained by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which tracked the sexual liaisons and practices of gay and bisexual men, mostly those from California and New York. Dugas, because he was statistically unusual in having no relevant connections with either state, was coded as "Patient O" (indicating out-of-state) but this was at some point misinterpreted as "Patient 0 (Zero)".  Dugas was later identified as "Patient Zero" (ie the person who introduced HIV/AIDS to North America) in Randy Shilts's (1951-1994) book And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic (1987) which explored the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic in the United States.  Shilts would later dismiss the significance of the technical error, claiming it made no difference to his point that Dugas engaged in behavior by which he either carelessly, recklessly or intentionally infected his many sexual partners with HIV (a claim subsequently contested by others).  Shilts died in 1994 from an AIDS-related condition.

Flirting with risk of exposure to, inter-alia, Omicron: Lindsay Lohan in facemask during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The authorities discourage the use of masks with the one-way, non-return valves (this one a twin-valve model) during epidemics & pandemics because, while affording the usual protection to the wearer, there is a slight reduction in their effectiveness in reducing the risk of infecting others.

A variant of the original SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes Covid-19, Omicron (B.1.1.529) was first reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) in November 2021 after being detected in Botswana.  Rapidly, it out-competed other SARS-CoV-2 strains to become the predominant variant in circulation, the primary transmission vector of that thought to be international air travel.  The WHO’s Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution (TAG-VE) named variant B.1.1.529 “Omicron” in November 2021, skipping the Greek letters next in sequence (nu (Ν, ν) & xi (Ξ ξ)), the former not used because of the confusion envisaged by virtue of the English pronunciation (“new” virus) and the latter avoided so the feelings of Xi Jinping (b 1953; general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) since 2013) weren’t hurt, the origins of Covid-19 being a sensitive issue among the CCP’s Central Committee.

Flirting virus: Omicron FLiRT variant.

Although a number of Omicron sub-variants have subsequently been identified, none has been found so structurally dissimilar that the TAG-VE felt constrained to allocate a different Greek letter.  Instead, such variants were tagged alpha-numerically according to the group’s established convention (BA.1, BA.2 etc; identified sub-variants of BA.5 listed in a BQ.n sequence).  By June 2024, Omicron and its sub-variants remain dominant globally although new strains continue to emerge, notably the “FLiRT" which sounds encouraging but the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) provided a rather dry explanation: “F for L at position 456, and R for T at position 346 (references to specific mutations in the virus’s spike protein).  The FLiRT variants are sub-variants of the Omicron JN.1 strain and include notable strains such as KP.2, KP.3, and KP.1.1.  The FLiRT variants now account for a significant portion of cases in the United States.

The Omicron and others: Notable Lancias

1981 Lancia Beta Spyder (Zagato).

Vincenzo Lancia (1881–1937) used letters from the Greek alphabet (Alpha, Beta, Lambda, Kappa, Omicron et al) as model names for many of his early vehicles and in 1953 returned to the practice for a one-off range based on a commercial chassis.  However, when the Beta (1972-1984) was released in 1972 it was the first time since 1945 the company had used letters from the Greek to designate a passenger vehicle.  It wasn’t Lancia’s first use of Beta, that had been the 1909 car which replaced the Alpha (also Alfa) and, although the 1972 car had been intended to be the model which would symbolize Lancia’s re-birth (il risorgimento), Beta rather than Alfa was chosen to avoid confusion with Alfa Romeo.  Over time, the Beta would be offered with two four-door saloon bodies and a coupé from which two variants were derived: (1) a three-door estate labeled HPE (high-performance estate) in the tradition of the "shooting brake" (a la the Reliant Scimitar et al) and (2) as a co-project with Lombardy-based coach-builder Zagato, a targa-style convertible with a structural arrangement vaguely similar to that used by the Triumph Stag.  In some markets, in an attempt to enhance the image, the Montecarlo sports car was badged as a Beta.  The survival rate of the Betas was low because of chronic rust but the oft-told tale the steel was of poor quality (described as “porous” and obtained in some sort of barter transaction between Italy and the Soviet Union) has been debunked, the Betas (like to contemporary Alfa Romeo Alfasud) crumbling away because of design flaws, inadequate corrosion-prevention measures and poor build quality, the latter due in part to the appalling state of the relations between capital & labor during the troubled 1970s.

1987 Lancia Thema 8·32.

By the standards of European front wheel drive mass-production, the Lancia Thema (1984-1994 and available as a four-door saloon, a five door estate and a low-volume long wheelbase (LWD) limousine) was completely conventional and mostly unexceptional but there was one memorable diversion: the Thema 8·32.  Introduced at the 1986 Turin Motor Show, instead of the predictable variety of four & six-cylinder petrol and diesel engines used in the mainstream range, the 8·32 was fitted with a version of the 3.0 litre V8 Ferrari used in their 308 and Mondial models.  By the mid-1980s, although it was no longer novel to put powerful engines into previously nondescript saloons, the 8·32 was in the avant garde of the more extreme, pre-dating the BMW M5 (E28) by some months and the Mercedes-Benz 500E (W124) by seven years but what made it truly bizarre was it retained the Thema’s front wheel drive (FWD) configuration.  That probably sounds like the daftest idea since Oldsmobile and Cadillac in the mid 1960s decided to offer big FWD "personal coupes" (which eventually would be offered with V8 engines as large as 500 cubic inches (8.2 litre)) but journalists who tested the 8·32 declared it a surprisingly good good road car although those who tried them on racetracks did note the prodigious understeer.  Ferrari supplying Lancia with a V8 was actually returning a favor: In 1954, it was the Lancia D50 Formula One car which became the first Ferrari V8.  By 1986, even the V8-powered Cadillac DeVille range had switched to FWD but it was a very different machine from the 8·32 and many DeVille owners probably neither noticed nor cared the configuration had changed although they would have appreciated the flat floor and additional interior space.

1974 Lancia Stratos HF.

The 8·32 experiment (which Lancia opted not the repeat) wasn’t the first time Ferrari had provided engines for a Lancia. The Stratos HF (1973-1978, the HF standing for "High Fidelity", a moniker sometimes attached to Lancia’s high performance variations) was named after the Stratos Zero, a 1970 show car designed by Bertone’s Marcello Gandini (1938–2024) although, except conceptually, the production vehicle bore little resemblance to that which lent the name.  The diminutive wedge was powered by the 2.4 litre V6 with which Ferrari used in the Dino 246 (1969-1974) and it was one of the outstanding rally cars of the 1970s, winning the 1974 Targa Florio and taking the World Rally Championship (WRC) in 1974, 1975 & 1976.  Still competitive in the late 1970s when factory support was withdrawn because Fiat, the conglomerate which by then owned Lancia, wished to use its activities in motorsport to promote more mainstream models, it continued in private hands to win events into the 1980s and replicas have since been produced.  Such is the appeal of the Stratos that Torino-based coach-builder Manifattura Automobili in 2018 announced a run (said to be limited to 25) of the "New Stratos", based on the (shortened) platform of a Ferrari 430 Scuderia (2007). 

1971 Lancia 2000 Coupé.

The Lancia Flavia was in production between 1961 and 1971 before it was re-named the 2000, a reference to the two litre flat-four, introduced in 1969, an enlarged version of the power-plant which, in 1.5 and 1.8 litre form had powered the Flavia.  Although a decade old at its introduction, the 2000 was still of an advanced specification including the then still uncommon option of fuel-injection.  Although the earlier Flavias were built as four-door saloons, two-door coupés & convertibles (including a quite strange looking coupé by Zagato), the 2000 was offered only with saloon and coupé coachwork, the latter so elegant that most were prepared to forgive the FWD beneath, something the Lancia cognoscenti (a most devoted crew) inexplicably believe is a good idea.

1983 Lancia 037.

The last rear-wheel drive car to win the WRC, the 037 (the mysterious name merely a carry-over of the original project code) was a highly modified version of the Montecarlo, a Pininfarina-designed mid-engined coupé produced between 1975 to 1981 (in some markets called the Beta Montecarlo to maintain a link with the more mainstream Beta models and in North America sold as the Scorpion).  The Montecarlo had begun life as a project undertaken by Pininfarina to replace Fiat’s much admired but outdated 124 Coupé but Bertone’s X1/9 design was thought so outstanding it was instead chosen for immediate production while the 124 continued.  Pininfarina’s bigger, heavier car was then designated the Fiat X1/8, envisaged to compete as an up-market, mid-engined, three litre V6 sports car.  However, after the first oil shock in 1973, the market was re-evaluated and, now code-named named X1/20, it was re-positioned as a two litre, four cylinder car and handed to Lancia to become the Montecarlo.  In development since 1980, the competition version, the Lancia Rally 037, was released late the next year and in its first competitive season in Group 5 rallying proved fast but still fragile although, it was certainly promising enough for the factory to return in 1983 when, fully developed, it won the WRC.  It was however the end of an era, the 037 out-classed late in the season by the all-wheel-drive competition which has since dominated the WRC.  In one aspect however it remains a WRC benchmark: no competitor since has looked as good.

1971 Lancia Fulvia 1.3 Coupé.

The slightly frumpy looking Fulvia saloon was the mass-selling (a relative term) model of Lancia’s range between 1963-1976 but the memorable version was the exquisite coupé (1965-1977).  Mechanically similar to the saloon except that it was on a short wheelbase  (SWB) platform and the FWD Fulvias were only ever offered with V4 engines of modest displacement (1.1-1.6 litres), the relatively high-performance achieved by virtue of light weight, high specific output and, in the two-door versions, a surprisingly efficient aerodynamic profile, belying the rather angular appearance (except for the usual special coupes by Zagato which managed almost to look attractive, not something which could be guaranteed to emerge from their drawing boards).  The HF versions were built for competition with more spartan interior trim, aluminum doors & non-structural panels, the engines tuned for higher power.  Produced in small runs, the early Flavia HFs used quite highly-strung 1.2 & 1.3 litre engines (the last batch gaining a five-speed gearbox) but the definitive competition HF was released in 1969 with a 1.6 litre engine and nicknamed Fanalona (big headlamps), an allusion to the seven inch units which had replaced the earlier five inch versions.  Almost mass-produced by earlier standards, over thirteen hundred were build and it delivered for the factory-supported Squadra Corse team, winning the 1972 Monte Carlo Rally.  The success inspired the factory to capitalize on the car’s success, a purely road-going version, the 1600 HF Lusso (Luxury) with additional interior appointments and without the lightweight parts manufactured between 1970-1973.  This one really was mass-produced; nearly four thousand were made and they remain much coveted.

1930 Lancia Omicron Autoalveolari with two and a half deck arrangement and a clerestoried upper-deck windscreen.

The Lancia Omicron was a bus chassis produced between 1927-1936; over 600 were built in different wheelbase lengths with both two and three-axle configurations.  Most used Lancia's long-serving, six-cylinder commercial engine but, as early as 1933, some had been equipped with diesel engines which were tested in North Africa where they proved durable and, in the Sudan, Ethiopia, Libya and Algeria, once petrol powered Omicron chassis were being re-powered with diesel power-plants from a variety of manufacturers as late as the 1960s.  Typically of bus use, coachbuilders fabricated many different styles of body but, in addition to the usual single and double deck arrangements, the Omicron is noted for a number of “double deck and a half” models, the elevated third deck (a layer architects would probably class as a “mezzanine”) configured usually as a first-class compartment but in at least three which operated in Italy, they were advertised as “smoking rooms”, the implication presumably that the rest of the passenger compartment was smoke-free.  History doesn't record if the bus operators were any more successful in enforcing smoking bans than the usual Italian experience.  Domestically, those with the so-called “double deck and a half” coachwork were known as the Autoalveolari (honeycombs) and that yet again proves how just about anything sounds better in Italian.

Autoalveolari on the streets of il Duce's Roma.

The Autoalveolari were intended to be used as short range, mass-transit buses to transport workers between Rome and its outskirts but although the passenger capacity was impressive, when laden, they proved quite unsuited to the city’s hilly terrain, the claimed top speed of 45 km/h (28 mph) rarely attained with at least part of most journeys undertaken at less than 20 Km/h (12 mph).  Given that, plans to build extended versions able to carry and ambitious 190 passengers never materialized.  Interestingly, the big busses were envisaged only as a stop-gap.  As part of the project to modernize Italy (remembered, if misleadingly as part of “making the trains run on time”) the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943) in mid-1920s embarked on a capital works programme to replace the steam tramways lines which, like much of Italy’s infrastructure, were in a state of decay.  Thus the attraction of large-capacity busses but reality soon prevailed and fleets rapidly had to re-equip with more, smaller units.

Lancia proved both imaginative and inventive when naming their bus and truck chassis.  One backbone of the nation’s post-war transportation system was the Lancia Esatau, some 13,000 of which were delivered between 1947-1973 and that name was a blend using the Italian pronunciation of the Greek letter Σ (Sigma) and the letter T (Tau) (thus esa + tau).  There was also the Lancia Esagamma, produced between 1962-1973, the name another blend.  In Italian, the term esa corresponds to the Greek & Latin prefix hexa- (six) while gamma (sixth letter in the Greek alphabet) was often used to mean “range” or “series” which, as a suffix, was often appended to indicate a generation or class of products.  In the case of the Esagamma, the name was constructed to focus on the new six-cylinder diesel engines used in the chassis, their novelty being what was in the era their unusually light weight which reduced fuel consumption and thus operating costs.  Highly regarded though Lancia’s truck and bus chassis were, the Esagamma was the company’s last design as an independent entity, the financial troubles afflicting other divisions leading to Fiat taking control and Lancia’s commercial vehicle division was later absorbed into Fiat Veicoli Industriali (Fiat’s commercial vehicle division).

The 1959 Plymouth.

In the industry, Lancia was far from unique in creating compound words for product names and linguistically, Chrysler was more adventurous still in 1956 with the release of TorqueFlite, the new automatic transmission, the use of the first element obvious, torque from the Latin torqueō (to twist), from the Proto-Italic torkeō, from the primitive Indo-European terk- (to turn).  The companion value of power, torque is a measure at a certain point of the force something’s rotational or twisting effect and it’s transmitted (and, with some engineering, “multiplied”) by a transmission.  The element “flite” however was a distinctive spelling a la “nite” or “lite”, something often seen in commerce and Chrysler meant it in the sense of “flight”, implying speed.  Presumably the corporation assumed not many would explore the historic meaning of flite because it meant variously (1) a dispute, quarrel, wrangle or brawl, (2) to scold or jeer and (3) to make a complaint.  Flite was either from (1) the Middle English flit, from the Old English flit & ġeflit (strife, contention), from the Proto-West Germanic flit or (2) the Middle English flyten (to argue, quarrel), from the Old English flītan (to strive, contend), from the Proto-West Germanic flītan (to strive, contend).  Chrysler need not have been concerned about any tarring with the linguistically associative brush, the TorqueFlite transmission attracting few complaints, being robust and, by the standards of the time, efficient.

After a hiatus, TorqueFlite returned.

The practice of forming compound words while retaining the capitalization of the original components is called CamelCase (when the capitalization follows an internal hump (iPhone)) or PascalCase (when each word starts with a capital letter (PowerPoint)).  The “camel” is a reference to the visual clue of a hump (and upper case character) appearing in the middle of a word) and in the broader linguistic or typographic sense, the class is called “intercapping”, the general term for inserting capital letters within a word (such as TorqueFlite) and now most associated with IT products and terminology.  Chrysler made the choice just to gain a marketing gimmick (although the corporation would also use Torqueflite, Torque-flite  & Torque-Flite) but the tradition in IT was to some degree technologically deterministic, the file systems in many early operating systems not supporting the gap between characters created at the application level by tapping a keyboards space-bar (and some file systems didn’t use lower case characters).  From that CamelCase became something of a signature for IT products including variants: (1) lowerCamelCase (eBay), (2) StudlyCaps (seemingly random capitalization within a word, often for stylistic or meme purposes (iNiQUiTY BBS), (3) the self-explanatory aLtErNaTiNg CaPs and (4) Snake_Case (file_name) which began as a work-around in those cases where a visual break between two elements in a text string was desired but a space either wouldn’t have been recognized by the system or would have created an internal conflict.

Visualizing variants CamelCase variants makes it possible to interpret unseparated text strings like those sometimes on license plates.  Different meanings are conveyed by "A nu start" and "Anus tart". 

The elegant Fiat 130s (left) and the dull Lancia Gammas (right).

When the Beta was released in 1971, Lancia revived the pre-war tradition of borrowing from the Greek alphabet and, by now part of the Fiat conglomerate, they returned to Greek also when naming their new up-market sedan and coupé.  Fiat had dabbled in the sector between 1969-1977 with the 130 range but, although dynamically in many ways impressive (and the styling of the 130 Coupé was a rectilinear masterpiece), that it was marketed as a Fiat proved a handicap in a market segment where the names Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Jaguar carried such cachet.  Making the Gamma (1976-1984) a Lancia certainly made sense but unlike the 130s, the Gamma was front-wheel-drive (FWD) which tended to be associated with small, low-powered machines and the Gamma, in an expanded market, proved little more successful than the 130. 

1928 Lancia Lambda series 7 tipo Siluro Bateaux (torpedo) "Casaro".

One of the most innovative designs of the 1920s, the Lamba was produced between 1922-1931 and was the first car to enter volume production using a stressed, unitary body.  It featured very effective four-wheel brakes (something surprisingly rare at the time) and independent front suspension, the competence of which was such that it was able to more than match the point-to-point performance of many cars much more powerful but with more brutishly simple solid axles attached to a chassis.  However, because it was so attractive, demand much exceeded Lancia’s capacity to build sufficient numbers and the factory was forced to offer a model with a conventional chassis so coach-builders could provide bodies to fill the supply gap.  All Lambdas were powered by advanced, compact narrow-angle aluminum overhead camshaft V4 engines between 2.1-2.6 litres and over 11,000 were built.

Bogus

Bogus (pronounced boh-guhs)

(1) Not genuine; counterfeit item; something spurious; a sham; based on false or misleading information or unjustified assumptions.

(2) In printing. a matter set (by union requirement) by a compositor and later discarded, duplicating the text of an advertisement for which a plate has been supplied or type set by another publisher.

(3) In computer programming, anything wrong, broken, unlinked, useless etc).

(4) In philately, a fictitious issue printed for exclusively for collectors, often issued as if from a non-existent territory or country (as opposed to a forgery, which is an illegitimate copy of a genuine stamp).

(5) As calibogus, a US dialectical word describing a liquor made from rum and molasses (sometimes rum and spruce beer).

1827: An invention of US English, coined originally by the underworld to describe an apparatus for coining counterfeit currency.  The origin is unknown, etymologists noting the Hausa boko (to fake) and because bogus first appeared in the US, it’s possible the source arrived on a slave ship from West Africa.  An alternative speculation is it was a clipped form of the nineteenth century criminal slang tantrabogus (a menacing object), from a late eighteenth century colloquial Vermont word for any odd-looking object (which in the following century was used also in Protestant churches to mean "the devil").  The New England form may be connected to tantarabobs (a regionalism recorded in Devonshire name for the devil) although the most obvious link (for which there’s no evidence) is to bogy or bogey (in the sense of “the bogeyman”).  In this sense, bogus might thus be related to bogle (a traditional trickster from the Scottish Borders, noted for achieving acts of household trickery which sometimes operated at the level of petty crime.  The use of bogy & bogie by the military is thought unrelated because the evidence is it didn’t pre-date the use of radar (a bogie being an unidentified aircraft or missile, especially one detected as a blip on a radar display).

The noun came first, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) tracing the first use to describe the counterfeiting apparatus to Ohio in 1927, the products of the nefarious minting having also picked up the name by at least 1838, adjectival use (counterfeit, spurious, sham) adopted the following year.  Later, bogus came to be applied to anything of poor quality, even if not something misrepresenting a brand-name (ie bogus in intended function).  The adoption by computer programmers (apparently in the 1980s) to refer to anything wrong, broken, unlinked, useless etc was an example of English in action; they could have chosen any of bogus’s many synonyms but it was the word of choice and hackers use it too.  Bogus is an adjective and (an occasional) noun, bogotic is an adjective, bogusly is an adverb and bogusness a noun.

From the nerdy humor of programmers came the related bogon, the construct being bog(us) (fake, phony) + -on (the suffix used to form names of elementary particles or fundamental units) (the noun plural being bogons).  To programmers, the bogon was the the imaginary elementary particle of bogosity; the anti-particle to the cluon (the construct being clue (idea, notion, inkling) + -on (the plural being cluons) which was the imaginary elementary particle of cluefulness and thus the anti-particle to the bogon.  The slightly less nerdy network engineers adopted bogan to refer to an invalid Internet Protocol (IP) packet, especially one sent from an address not in use.  Clutron proved useful, a clutron an especially clever or well-informed nerd although it was also picked-up in the misogynistic word of on-line gaming where a slutron was a highly skilled female player a combination where meant she attracted hatred rather than admiration a make would usually enjoy.

The surname Bogus was borrowed from the Polish (masculine & feminine) forms Bogus & Boguś, or the Romanian Boguș (the plural of the proper noun being Boguses).  In the British Isles it was initially most common in Scotland before spreading south and is thought ultimately related to other named beginning with Bog- (Bogumił, Bogusław, Bogdan et al).  In Polish, Boguś is also a given name and listed as a back-formation (as a diminutive) from either Bogusław, Bogdan, Bogumił or Bogusław (+ -uś).

A real Ferrari 1963 250 GTO (left) and Temporoa's superbly made replica of a 1962 model (right).  US$70 million vs US$1.2 million. 

The synonyms can include fraudulent, pseudo, fake, faux, phony, false, fictitious, forged, fraudulent, sham, spurious, artificial, dummy, ersatz, imitation, pretended, pseudo, simulated, counterfeit but bogus is what’s known as a “loaded word”.  Bogus implies fake (and less commonly “of poor quality”) but just because something isn’t real doesn’t mean it need be thought bogus.  Ferrari made only 39 (it can also be calculated at 36 or 41 depending on definitions) 250 GTOs and one has sold for US$70 million but it’s possible for experts to create an almost exact replica (indeed one of higher quality than an original although given the standard of some of the welding done in the factory in those years that's really not surprising) but it will only ever be worth a fraction of the real thing (a fine example offered for US$1.2 million).  Whether such a thing should be regarded as a replica, recreation, clone or whatever is something about which there's debate but few would dismiss such a work as bogus.  It really hangs on disclosure and representation.  With only so many 250 GTOs on the planet, all with well-documented provenance, it’s not possible to claim a replica is authentic but there are cars which have been produced in the hundreds or even thousands which some try to pass off as genuine; in these cases, they have created something as bogus as knock-off handbags.  One popular use of bogus is to describe various members of royal families who parade themselves in the dress military uniforms of generals or admirals, despite often having never served on been near a combat zone.

Ferrari 250 GTB production count, 1961-1964.  

With something digital, just about anyone can create an exact duplicate, indistinguishable from the source, hence the attraction of the non-fungible token (NFT) which, thus far, can’t be forged.  NFTs have been linked to real-world objects, as a sort of proof of ownership which seems strange given that actual possession or some physical certificate is usually sufficient, certainly for those with a 250 GTO in the garage but there are implications for the property conveyancing industry, NFTs possibly a way for real-estate transactions to be handled more efficiently.  For those producing items which attract bogus items (running shoes, handbags etc), there’s interest in attaching NFTs as a method of verification.

Humble beginnings: Publicity shot for the 1960 Ford Falcon.

When Ford released the Falcon in 1960, it was modest in just about every way except the expectations the company had that it successfully would counter the intrusion of the increasingly popular smaller cars which, worryingly, many buyers seemed to prefer to the increasingly large offerings from Detroit.  A success in its own right, the Falcon would provide the platform for the Mustang, the Fairlane, the Mercury Cougar and other variations which, collectively, sold in numbers which would dwarf those achieved by the original; it was one of the more profitable and enduring platforms of the twentieth century.  In the US, it was retired after a truncated appearance in 1970 but it lived on in South America and Australia, the nameplate in the latter market lasting until 2016, a run of over half a century during which the platform had been offered in seven generations in configurations as diverse as sedans, vans & pick-ups (utes), hardtop coupés, 4WDs, station wagons and long wheelbase executive cars.

Ford Falcon GTHO Phase I leading three Holden Monaro (HT) GTS 350s, Bathurst 1969.

Most memorably however, between 1969-1972, it was also the basis of a number of thinly disguised racing cars, production of which was limited to not much more than was required by the rules of the time to homologate the strengthened or high-performance parts needed for use in competition.  The Falcon GT had been introduced in 1967 and had proved effective but the next year faced competition from General Motors’ (GM) Holden Monaro GTS which, with a 327 cubic inch (5.3 litre) Chevrolet V8 out-performed the Ford which had by then had benefited from an increase in displacement from 289 cubic inches (4.7 litres) to 302 (4.9) which proved not enough.  The conclusion reached by both Ford & GM was of course to increase power so for 1969 the Falcon and Monaro appears with 351 cubic inch (5.8 litre) and 350 (5.7) V8s; the power race was on.  Ford however decided to make sure of things and developed homologation-special with more power, some modification to improve durability and, with endurance racing in mind, a 36 (imperial) gallon (164 litre) fuel tank, quickly (and inexpensively) fabricated by welding together two standard tanks.  The car was called the GTHO (written variously in documents as also as G*T*H*O, GT-HO & G.T.H.O. (and as GT·HO on the glovebox lid)), HO apparently understood by the Ford engineers to mean “high output” but presented to the public as “handling options”, the company not wishing to frighten the horses with fears of racing cars being sold for use on the streets (and such a furore did ensue in 1972 which proved the GTHO’s death knell.

1970 Falcon GTHO Phase II.

If the 1967 GT had been something beyond what Ford in 1960 thought the Falcon might become, the GTHO would have been beyond their wildest imaginings.  Still usable as a road car, it also worked on the circuits although, because of a bad choice of tyre which was unsuited to the techniques of the drivers, it failed to win the annual Bathurst 500, then (as now), the race which really mattered.  Determined to win the 500, a revised GTHO was prepared and, in a novel move, was known as the Phase II (the original retrospectively re-christened the Phase I), the most obvious highlight of the revised specification a switch to Ford’s new Cleveland 351 V8 which, heavier and more powerful, replaced the Windsor 351.  Underneath however, there were changes which were just as significant with the suspension re-calibrated to suit both racing tyres and the driving style used in competition.  Said to have been developed with “a bucket of Ford’s money in one hand and a relief map of the Bathurst circuit in the other”, the Phase II drove like a real racer and probably few cars sold to the public have deliberately been engineered to produce so much oversteer.  On the track it worked and victory at Bathurst followed, something which drew attention from the early unreliability of the Cleveland 351, the implications of it’s less elaborate lubrication system not for some months appreciated.

1971 Ford Falcon GTHO Phase III (Clone).

The Phase III followed in 1971 with increased power, the propensity to oversteer toned down and it proved even more successful, the legacy due to be continued by a Phase IV with four-wheel disk brakes (something probably more helpful than more power) but the project was abandoned after a moral panic induced by a Sydney newspaper which ran a front page which alleged “160mph (257 km/h) supercars” were about to fall into the hands of teenagers to use on city streets and highways.  That certainly frightened the horses and politicians, always susceptible to anything which appears in a tabloid, vowed to act and prevailed on the manufacturers to abandon the homologation specials.  Thus ended the era of the GTHO and also the similar machines being prepared by GM and Chrysler, the handful of Phase IV GTHOs built quietly sold off, never to see a race track although one did, most improbably, enjoy a brief, doomed career as a rally car.

1972 Ford Falcon GTHO Phase IV.

Over the decades, as used cars, the surviving GTHOs (many destroyed in accidents on and off the track) have become collectable and of the 1222 made (including circa 115 of the (unofficial) Phase 1.5 with a milder (hydraulic valve lifters) Cleveland engine), it’s the Phase III (300 built) which is the most coveted at auction (the handful of Phase IVs seem to change hands mostly in private sales and the record is said to be circa Aus$2 million) and while the prices achieved track the state of the economy, the current record is believed to be Aus$1.3 million.  Based on what was essentially a taxicab which was produced in the hundreds of thousands, there’s an after-market ecosystem which produces all the parts required for one exactly (except for tags and serial numbers) to create one’s own GTHO at considerably less than what a real one now costs so it’s no surprise there are many acknowledged replicas (also described as clones, tributes etc) but the odd bogus example has also been unearthed.

Ford Falcon GTHO Phase IVs being prepared for racing, Melbourne, 1972.

Quite how many of the 287 Phase IIs survive isn’t known and the prices are high so it’s little surprise some have been tempted to misrepresent a bogus example as something real and there are legal implications to this, both criminal and civil.  There are even examples of the less desirable Falcon GTs and in 2011, in a judgment handed down in the District Court of Queensland (Sammut v De Rome [2011] QDC 294), a couple was ordered to pay the plaintiff AU$108,394.04 (US$107,200 at the then favorable exchange rate).  The defendants had sold to the plaintiff what they advertised as a 1969 Ford Falcon GT, a vehicle they had in 2006 purchased for Aus$18,000.  The plaintiff undertook due diligence, inspecting the car in person and in the company of a expert in bodywork before verifying with Ford Australia that the VIN (vehicle identification number) was legitimate car.  Once the VIN had been confirmed as belonging to a 1969 Falcon GT, a sale price of Aus$90,000 was agreed and the sale executed, the buyer having the car transported by trailer to Sydney.

Bogus & blotchy: Lindsay Lohan with fake tan.

Two years later, when the plaintiff attempted to sell the car, a detailed inspection revealed it was a bogus GT, a real GT’s VIN having been used to replace the one mounted on an ordinary 1969 Falcon, an x-ray examination of the firewall confirming the cutting and welding associated with the swap.  It was never determined who was responsible for creating the bogus GT and expert testimony given to the court confirmed that then, a non-GT Falcon of this year and condition was worth between Aus$10-15,000 while the value of an authentic GT was between Aus$65-70,000.  Accordingly, the plaintiff sued for breach of contract, requesting to be compensated to the extent of the difference between what he paid for the car and its current value, plus associated matters such as transport, interest and court costs.  The court found for the plaintiff in the sum of Aus$108,394.04 although the trial judge did note that the defendants likely didn't know the car was bogus, thereby opening for them the possibility of commencing action against the party from whom they purchased the thing, his honor mentioned that because of the civil statute of limitations, they had less than a month in which to file suit.  It's to be hoped they kept the car because in 2022, well-executed replicas of XW Falcon GTs are being advertised at more than Aus$125,000.