Vaporetto

Vaporetto (pronounced vap-uh-ret-oh or vah-paw-ret-taw (Italian))

A steam-powered public transit canal-motorboat used as a passenger bus along the canals in Venice, Italy.

1926: From the Italian, the construct being vapor(e) (steamboat) + -etto.  Vaporetto is a diminutive of vapore (steam) from the Latin vapor & vaporem.  The origin of vapor is uncertain but may have been related to the Ancient Greek καπνός (kapnós) (smoke) and the primitive Indo-European keawp (to smoke, boil, move violently), via the older form quapor, the pronunciation of which softened over time.  The etto- suffix was used to forms nouns from nouns, denoting a diminutive.  It was from the Late Latin -ittum, accusative singular of –ittus, and was the alliterative suffix used to form melioratives, diminutives, and hypocoristics  and existed variously in English & French as -et, in Italian as Italian -etto and in Portuguese & Spanish as -ito.  With an animate noun, -etto references as male, the coordinate female suffix being -etta, which is also used with inanimate nouns ending in -a.  It should not be confused with the homophonous suffix -eto (grove).  In Italy, steam-powered vessels were quickly dubbed vapori in the way similar ships were in English known as steamers. The noun plural is vaporettos in English or vaporetti in Italian although in Venice, the locals call them batèlo or vaporino.

Vaporettos long ago were converted to run on diesel engines but the name (derived from vapore (steam)) had assumed its own identity and was retained.  Venice’s first vaporetto company was founded by a prominent member of the city’s Jewish community, the lawyer & councilor Amedeo Grassini (1848-1908) and businessman Giuseppe Musatti (1796-1877) who created a holding company which was instrumental in the transformation of the Lido into a tourist destination.  The vaporetto was the vessel which made mass-market tourism possible among the canals, offering what was by historic standards a system of mass-transit which operated with the economies of scale necessary for financial viability.  The first vaporetto service was launched in 1881 and despite the fears of the boatmen operating the gondoliers which also plied the routes, their business was stimulated and they remain essential to this day for the transport system to function, their narrow boats able to sail along the narrower, tighter waterways.  With dimensions dictated by the size of infrastructure such as bridges and docks, vaporettos were built to be as large as possible so that the passenger load could be maximized.

Amedeo Grassini is also noted as the father of Margherita Sarfatti (1880-1961), one of the Italy’s most renowned art critics of the early twentieth century and the mistress & first biographer of Benito Mussolini (1883–1945; Prime Minister of Italy (and Duce) 1922-1943)).  She was interested in politics from a young age and was a left-wing activist during World War I (1914-1918), one of many who noted with dissatisfaction what little Italy gained from the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920) although to what extent this influenced her change of political direction has never been certain.  Her affair with Mussolini began in 1911 and was tolerated her husband Cesare Sarfatti (1866-1924) (who these days newspapers would describe as a “colorful character”) but Rachele Mussolini (1890-1979) was not best pleased, something with which the Duce had learned to cope.  Husband and Duce remained friends.

Lindsay Lohan disembarking from vaporetto, Venice Film Festival 2006.

Upon being widowed in 1924, signora Sarfatti wrote a biography of Mussolini (published in Italy as Dux (Leader) and in English language editions as The Life of Benito Mussolini).  In Italy, the book was of course a great success but it was translated into seventeen languages and internationally was well-received and widely read, reflecting the positive image many had of Italian fascism in the 1920s and 1930s when the system appeared dynamic and modern.  However, as the influences of the Nazis began to affect the Duce, even signora Sarfatti began to harbor doubts although she continued to maintain there was no “Jewish question” in Italy and declared the fascist regime would never follow Hitler’s anti-Semitic policies.  However, on Bastille Day 1938, The Manifesto of the Race appeared in the Roman daily Il giornale d’Italia.  Written mostly by the Duce himself, the document condemned the corruption of the Italian Aryan race through intermarriage with Jews and marked the point at which the Rome-Berlin axis (signed in 1936) ceased to be merely symbolic and became emblematic of Italy’s vassal status.  At this point, signora Sarfatti, who had ended the affair two years earlier because of unhappiness with the Duce’s colonial adventures and the implications of his dalliances with the Nazis, left Italy for Argentina in 1938, not returning until 1947.  Despite it all, her memoir Acqua Passata (Water under the bridge (1955)) was unapologetic.

Giorgia Meloni.

Although it has exercised the minds of many in chanceries around Europe, the specter of Mussolini (the younger or older) seems not to have disturbed enough of the 64%-odd of the Italian electorate which in the election of 22 September delivered a majority in both houses to a coalition of right-wing parties, described by some, fairly or not, as “neo-fascist”.  Giorgia Meloni (b 1977) seems set to become Italy’s first female prime-minister, heading a coalition including former prime-minister (and aspiring president) Silvio Berlusconi’s (b 1936) Forza Italia and aspiring prime-minister Matteo Salvini’s (b 1973) League.  Actually, the F-word was never far from the election campaign, signora Meloni in her youth having been a member of Italy's neo-fascist movement although it may have been a youthful indiscretion (perhaps something like the flirtation of Liz Truss with republicanism) because she claimed in her book Io sono Giorgia (I am Georgia (2021)) not to be a fascist and her 2022 campaign was more about getting trains to run on time than anything which overtly recalled the fascist past.  Despite that, she continues to use an old fascist slogan "God, fatherland and family" and during electioneering repeated "I have taken up the baton of a 70-year-long history".  The coalition’s margin of victory wasn’t as great as some of the polls had suggested but there are unlikely to be any surprises in upcoming public policy, signora Meloni having long campaigned against LGBT rights, advocated a naval blockade of Libya and has warned against allowing Muslim migrants.  Although unlikely to match the Duce’s two-decade tenure (although things for him ended badly), she’s promising Italy’s seventieth government since his fall from office will be stable and durable.  Given her partners’ reputation for intrigue and willingness to pursue their own agendas, all wish her well.

Vaporetto passing under Rialto Bridge.

Although on occasions rebuilt since the twelfth century, the Ponte di Rialto (Rialto Bridge, Ponte de Rialto in Venetian) across the Grand Canal is the oldest in Venice and now a noted tourist attraction.  It was once even more important for the city, for three centuries the only way to cross the waterway, something of great commercial value to the butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers who surrounded it in medieval times.  The Rialto district was the origin of Venice, the ninth century settlement there the first in the area and it gained the advantage from its early establishment by emerging as the financial and commercial hub, the Rialto Bridge the gateway to the main market which, by the eleventh century, was claimed (perhaps optimistically) to be the finest south of the Dolomites. 

Il Ponte di Rialtoby (circa 1877) by Antonietta Brandeis (1848–1926).

The original structures to accommodate crossings were made of wood which, between occasionally collapsing under the weight of humanity and burning down, for centuries provided their vital link but in the sixteenth century, the decision was taken build in stone and in 1591, after three years of construction, Ponte de Rialto was opened to the public.  In an example of a cultural phenomenon that persists to this day when anything startlingly new is built, not all admired the appearance, some thinking it jarringly out of place; history has been kinder to the architect, Antonio da Ponte (1512–1597).  More concerning perhaps were the opinions of some engineers who had little faith in the mathematics used in the design, doubting whether the then radical structure would long survive the stresses the weight of the passing traffic would impose but it’s stood now for over four centuries, during which, many others have tumbled.

Ponte de Rialto design by Antonio da Ponte (1512–1597).

The bridge is built with two inclined ramps, each with its own row of shops, an important revenue-generating aspect of the design and access to the pinnacle of the archway is through a staircase at each end.  The arch is, by Venetian standards, tall and the vaporetti could be higher and still comfortably pass underneath but the arches of most of the city’s bridges are lower so the boats are built low.  Some twelve-thousand wooden pilings provide support and proved adequate, if the local legend is to be believed, to withstand the stress of the canons said to have been fired from atop the bridge during the riots of 1797.

Fount

Fount (pronounced phont)

(1) A spring of water; fountain (now mostly poetic use).

(2) A receptacle in church for holy water.

(3) A receptacle for oil in a lamp.

(4) In metal typesetting, a set of type sorts in one size.

(5) In phototypesetting, a set of patterns forming glyphs of any size, or the film on which they are stored; in digital typesetting, a set of glyphs in a single style, representing one or more alphabets or writing systems, or the computer code representing it.

(6) In computing, a file containing the code used to draw and compose the glyphs of one or more typographic fonts on a computer display or printer (now always with the spelling font).

(7) A source or origin; often used in a mystical sense such as a “fount of wisdom”.

1250-1300: A back formation (as a shortened form) from fountain, from the Old English font, a borrowing from the From Middle French fonte, feminine past participle of verb fondre (to melt), from the Latin fons (fountain)  It came from a primitive Indo-European root cognate with the Sanskrit धन्वति (dhanvati) (flows, runs), possibly dhenhz- (to flow).  The Old French fonte (a founding, casting), came apparently from the (unattested) Vulgar Latin funditus (a casting), from the Latin fundere (to melt). Fount is a noun; the noun plural is founts.

Fount:  Baptism Fount, Christ Church Cathedral, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.

The two meanings are unrelated.  The sense of font (and fount) as a "complete set of characters of a particular face and size of printing type" dates from the 1680s and such things have been referred to from the 1570s as a "casting" (now more commonly as "typeface".  The meaning in mechanical printing became attached because of the link with the Middle French fonte (a casting), noun use of feminine past participle of fondre (to melt) from the fundere (past participle fusus) (to melt; cast; pour out) from a nasalized form of the primitive Indo-European root gheu- (to pour).  The fount became so-called because all the letters in a given set were cast at the same time; fonte is also the root of foundry (the places where metal for the typefaces was melted) and, because of the melting cheese: fondue.  In modern use, the preferred convention is for font to be used when referring to digital typefaces and fount for metal and other older systems of typesetting.  Fount should be used for all other senses although many US dictionaries do suggest font may be used for all purposes.

Font: One font even has a biography.

While the long-running operating system (OS) wars and the bus wars of the 1980s & 1990s were landmark events in the digital revolution and followed with great interest by nerds, they were barely noticed by most consumers.  By contrast, the font wars of the early 1990s were little more than brief skirmishes but their implications proved immeasurably greater for most users.  In the 1980s, for all but a handful of computer users, the font used was almost always whatever was an application’s default and most wouldn’t have known its name, features like “italics” or “bold” sometimes possible but usually key-stroke intensive selectively to apply.  The sub-set using graphical interfaces such as Apple’s Macintosh (1984; it didn’t become the “Mac” until 1999) and the fondly-remembered Amiga Workbench (1985) enjoyed a wider range and more control but even then what a font looked like on a screen and how it appeared when printed didn’t always align and for those who needed professional-standard output, high-quality fonts were expensive.  For most, even if there were fonts available, there were many limitations including frequent limitations on the number which could be included in a single document.

The industry standard then was Adobe’s PostScript but that nice, profitable niche was upended when Apple and Microsoft cross-licensed their technologies, the breakthrough being the bundling of a number of TrueType fonts (emulating some publishing stalwarts) with Windows 3.1, released to general availability in March 1992.  Not best pleased, Adobe’s CEO called a press conference at which tearfully he announced Adobe’s Type 1 format was now in the public domain; now not best pleased were those many customers who’d recently paid Adobe’s high prices.  Adobe also circulated a document explaining why PostScript was better than TrueType, something with which analysts agreed but the almost all also agreed it was the latter to which consumers would flock.  They were right and within weeks the bulletin boards were offering dozens of TrueType character sets, some derivative, some fanciful and many exactly what the market wanted.  There are now thousands of TrueType fonts.

During her campaign (which she actually won!) for the Democratic nomination for the 2016 presidential election, crooked Hillary Clinton's Burn Book probably would have been referred to internally as her "Bern Book" because it would have been so filled with tactics designed to sabotage the campaign of Bernie Sanders (b 1941; US senator (Independent, Vermont) since 2007) (digitally altered image).  In Mean Girls (2004), the Burn Book's cover used the "ransom note" technique which involved physically cutting letters from newspapers & magazines and pasting them onto a page, a trick of the pre-DNA analysis age which left no identifiable handwriting.  There are a number of "ransom" fonts which emulate the appearance in software.

Rainbow

Rainbow (pronounced reyn-boh)

(1) An arc-shaped spectrum of color seen in the sky opposite the Sun, especially after rain, caused by the refraction and reflection of sunlight by droplets of water suspended in the air.  Secondary rainbows that are larger and paler sometimes appear within the primary arc with the colors reversed (red being inside). These result from two reflections and refractions of a light ray inside a droplet.  The colors of the rainbow are violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red.  

(2) A similar bow of colors, especially one appearing in the spray of a waterfall or fountain.

(3) Any brightly multi-colored arrangement or display.

(4) A wide variety or range; gamut.

(5) A visionary goal, sometimes illusory (as in “chasing rainbows”).

(6) In DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) politics, as a modifier, of or relating to a political grouping together by several minorities, especially representatives from multiple identity groups, as those identifying variously by race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation.

(7) The flag of the LGBTQQIAAOP movement.

(8) In zoology, a descriptor used in some species (rainbow lorikeet, rainbow trout etc).

(9) In baseball jargon, a curveball, particularly a slow one.

(10) In the slang of poker (Texas hold 'em or Omaha hold 'em), a flop that contains three different suits.

(11) In the UK Girl Guide Association (as the Rainbow Guides), the faction containing the youngest group of girls (aged 5-7 years).

Pre 1000: From the Middle English reinbowe & reinboȝe, from the Old English reġnboga & rēnboga (rainbow), from the Proto-Germanic regnabugô (rainbow; literally rain +‎ bow (arch).  It was cognate with the Old Norse regnbogi, the West Frisian reinbôge, the Dutch regenboog, the German Regenbogen, the Danish regnbue, the Swedish regnbåge and the Icelandic regnbogi, all of which translated as “rainbow).

The Rainbow Flag

The rainbow flag is more commonly known as the gay pride or LGBTQQIAAOP (usually truncated to LGBTQI+) pride flag although it has been co-opted for other purposes.  It was designed in 1978 by San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker (1951-2017) using eight colors but has long been displayed with six stripes, red at the top as it appears in a natural rainbow.  The original colors were assigned thus:

Hot pink: Sex
Red: Life
Orange: Healing
Yellow: Sunlight
Green: Nature
Turquoise: Art
Indigo: Harmony
Violet: Spirit

However, for technical reasons, hot pink proved difficult to produce in volume and was deleted, the first commercial release having seven stripes but within a year it was again modified.  When hung vertically from the lamp posts of San Francisco's Market Street, the centre stripe was obscured by the post and changing to an even number of stripes was the easiest fix.  Thus emerged the final version: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.

On its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2003, Gilbert Baker advocated the original design be restored but there’ was little support, the six-stripe standard clearly having reached critical mass although there have been one-off variations such as the addition of a black stripe symbolizing those community members lost to AIDS.  Aged sixty-five, Baker died in New York City on 31 March 2017.

Unfurling the flag: Emperor Dale on the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands.  The plaque in the sand contains the words of the kingdom's  declaration of independence.

In June 2004, activists from the G & L factions of the LGBTQQIAAOP collective sailed to Australia's almost uninhabited Coral Sea Islands Territory and proclaimed the now liberated lands independent, calling it the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands (GLK) with the rainbow flag its official standard.  It was a symbolic gesture with no validity in domestic or international law, the declaration in response to the Australian government's refusal to recognize same-sex marriage.  Undeterred by such tiresome details, the GLK immediately issued stamps, the official website listing tourism, fishing and philatelic sales as its only economic activities but that swimming, reef walking, lagoon snorkeling, bird-watching, seashell-collecting, and shipwreck-exploring were all GLK sanctioned non-economic activities.

Then Senator Eric Abetz.

Fearing it’s assertion of independence seemed not to be making much impression on the former colonial oppressor, on 13 September 2004 the GLK declared war on Australia.  Neither the declarations of statehood or war attracted much attention until February 2017 when, in a Senate estimates hearing on finance and public administration, Senator Eric Abetz (b 1958; senator for Tasmania (Liberal) 1994-2022) objected to the GLK's flag being hung in the Department of Finance’s building on the grounds that (1) government departments should take a neutral stand on political debates and (2) it was wrong to hang in government buildings the flag of an aggressive, hostile state (the GLK) which had declared war on Australia, the comparison presumably that the swastika wasn't hung in the White House or Downing Street during World War II (1939-1945).  The finance minister, Senator Mathias Cormann (b 1970; senator (Liberal) for Western Australia 2007-2020, minister for finance 2013-2020, Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) since 2021) agreed, assuring Senator Abetz he would ensure “…there are no flags of hostile nations anywhere in any government building.”

Stamps of the GLK authorized for issue by the edict of Emperor Dale Parker Anderson (b 1965).

Self-described as a "gay 22×-great-grandson of King Edward II (who was also born gay) and a direct descendant of all English kings & queens down to King Richard III", the emperor traces his family back to the fifteenth century marriage of the Earl of Huntington to Princess Catherine of England.  Despite the emperor's illustrious lineage from an age of absolutism and the divine right of kings, the GLK was established as a constitutional monarchy.  While the GLK never released details about the extent to which it could be considered a democracy with institutions such as a representative & responsible legislative assembly or an independent judiciary, the spirit seemed not to be despotic.  As a new state, the GLK might even have appeared with a system as genuinely novel as monarchical anarchy.    

Fobbed off.

While no governments granted recognition to the GLK as a sovereign state or established diplomatic relations, the chief of staff in Queensland's Department of Premier and Cabinet did in 2004 write to Emperor Dale Parker Anderson which suggested at least a tacit acknowledgment of the existence of the GLK which sat off Queensland's east coast.  There's no record of further communication between any level of Australian government and the GLK and nor does it appear the GLK made any attempt to secure even observer status in any international bodies.  Following the Australian government voting to legalize same-sex marriage, the GLK was on 17 November 2017 dissolved and the state of war officially lapsed.  There were no casualties.

Slender rainbow: Lindsay Lohan in a vintage Hervé Leger bandage dress at the Gansevoort Hotel, NYC, May 2007.

The distinctive colors of the rainbow flag and their simple, geometric deployment in stripes have made the flag a popular design.  At the human scale it can be applied to just about any article of clothing and worn as a political statement either of self-identity or an expression of inclusiveness and although the motif can exist at the level of fashion, regardless of intent, the design is now so vested with meaning that probably it's always interpreted as political.

The Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, bathed in a rainbow flag projection during a vigil for victims of a shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, June 2016.

Bold, horizontal stripes on a rectangle are perhaps uniquely suited to being deployed at scale and can thus be an aspect of representational architecture but even structures in the built environment with little relationship to the straight lines and right angles of the rectangle offer a suitable canvas.  Because the stripes can flow across and around even the most complex curves and there's no inherent hierarchy in the significance of the colors, if a treated shape emphasizes some and minimizes others, it matters not because the meaning is denoted by the whole.

The progress flag

The concept of the rainbow flag continues to evolve.  Although the text string has been appended as the factions in sexual politics achieved critical mass in acceptability, while the "T" in LGBTQQIAAOP included the trans community, their flags and banners had been separate.  One suggestion to achieve more inclusive vexillological recognition was the "progress flag" (sometimes with initial capitals) which in its latest form is defined:

Red: Life
Orange: Healing
Yellow: New Ideas
Green: Prosperity
Blue: Serenity
Violet: Spirit
Black & Brown: People of Color
White, blue & pink: Trans people
Purple circle on yellow: Intersex

The intersex component was in 2021 interpolated by Valentino Vecchietti, an activist with the UK’s Intersex Equality Rights movement, building on the original progress flag designed in 2018 by US graphic artist Daniel Quasar who had added the five-striped chevron.  The element Vecchietti used was the intersex flag, first displayed in 2013 by Australian bioethicist Morgan Carpenter, the design rationale of which was the purple and yellow being positioned as a counterpoint to blue and pink, traditionally binary, gendered colors, the choice of the circle being to represent “…being unbroken, about being whole, symbolizing the right to make our own decisions about our own bodies.”  Carpenter has noted that statement is not an abstraction, non-consensual surgeries still being performed in many places.  The new design reflects recent internal LGBTQQIAAOP politics which have for some time focused on inclusivity underneath the broader LGBTQ+ umbrella, the feeling being intersex people have long been not only underrepresented but also visually undepicted in the Pride imagery ubiquitous in clothing, events and publicity materials.

Defrock

Defrock (pronounced dee-frok)

(1) To remove a frock.

(2) To deprive a person in holy orders of ecclesiastical status.

(3) As informal slang (by extension), formally to remove the rights and authority of someone, eg a medical practitioner or lawyer.

1575-1585: From the fifteenth century French défroquer (unfrock), the construct being dé (partially inherited from the Old and Middle French des, inherited from the Classical Latin dis (apart), the ultimate root being the primitive Indo-European dwís, and partially borrowed from the Latin dē (from), in some cases + froc (from the Middle French frocq (cloth made of coarse wool), from the Old French froc (compare Late Latin hroccus (frock)) from the Frankish hrokk (robe, tunic), from the Proto-Germanic hrukkaz (robe, garment, cowl), a variant of rukkaz (upper garment, smock, shirt), from the primitive Indo-European rug (upper clothes, shirt) which was cognate with the Old High German hroch & roc (tunic, smock, jersey) (German rock), the Old Saxon rok (mantle, jacket), and the Old English rocc (over-garment, jacket).  Defrock has become so associated with the mechanism used to deal with sinful priests that (unless with irony) it shouldn't be used to mean "removing one's dress", the companion terms disfrock & unfrock both available although neither are exactly elegant.  Defrock & defrocked are verbs and defrocking is a noun & verb; the noun plural is defrockings (a word the Vatican had had to read much in recent years).

For literalists: Lindsay Lohan frocked-up (left) at the Venice Film Festival, September 2006 (left) and defrocked (right) for photo-shoot by photographer & director Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri (b 1983), October 2010. 

Laicization

Defrocking, sometimes called unfrocking (there’s nothing in the etymological record to suggest de-frock or un-frock has ever had currency) is the act of denying an ordained member of the clergy the right to practice ministry.  The procedure differs between Christian denominations (although, for technical reasons, is rare and often impossible in Anglicanism) and is most often applied to the Roman Catholic Church although, as a point of law, it does not overturn ordination.  Although the term defrock is widely used to describe the process whereby members of the Catholic Church clergy are dismissed from the clerical state, the term doesn’t exist in canon law and is never used by the Vatican, clerical expulsion instead known as laicization.  Unlike the more common suspension, which can be reversed upon repentance, laicization is a permanent and final measure although it’s not always imposed as a punishment (Latin: ad poenam) and may granted at the request of a priest (Latin: pro gratia).  Although criticized for not having done enough during his pontificate to ensure sinful priests were defrocked, regulations authorized by Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022) in 2009 did simplify the process which, unchanged for centuries, could take more than a decade.

Guilty as sin:  Former Roman Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick (b 1930).  Ordained in 1958, he was first appointed bishop in 1977 and created cardinal in 2001.  Accused of long-term sexual misconduct towards boys and seminarians, after being retired from the ministry in 2018 he was defrocked (laicized) in 2019.

The defrocking by the Holy See followed McCarrick’s trial before the Inquisition (then called The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF)) in which he was found guilty of "solicitation in the Sacrament of Confession, and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power".  The Inquisition rejected an appeal against the judgement and sent the papers to the pope, who, as the Holy See’s chief magistrate, certified the verdict as res iudicata (no further appeal possible).   One curiosity of canon law is that ordination cannot be excised so McCarrick remains a priest but is barred from performing any priestly duties except in one exceptional case: he may administer the last rites to the dying if no other priest is available.  Criminal charges were laid but the defrocked priest began to suffer the "significant" and "rapidly worsening" cognitive decline which seems to afflict so many priests charged with sexual offences and after a state-appointed forensic psychologist reported "deficits of his memory and ability to retain information", in late 2023 a court ruled that McCarrick was mentally incompetent to stand trial.

Clutch

Clutch (pronounced kluhch)

(1) To seize with or as with the hands or claws; snatch.

(2) To grip or hold tightly or firmly.

(3) In slang, to spellbind; grip a person's emotions, attention, or interest; to become tense with fright or panic (both archaic and rare outside US).

(4) To operate the clutch in a vehicle.

(5) The hand, claw, etc when grasping.

(6) Power of disposal or control; mastery (usually in the plural).

(7) The act of clutching; a snatch or grasp; a tight grip or hold.

(8) A device for gripping something.

(9) In automotive and other machinery, a mechanism for readily engaging or disengaging a shaft with or from another shaft or rotating part (a specialized form of coupling); a control, usually a pedal, for operating this mechanism.

(10) In sports, an extremely important or crucial moment of a game (rare outside US).

(11) Any critical position or situation; emergency (rare outside US).

(12) A small purse that can be carried in the hand and usually has no handle or strap (also called clutch bag).

(13) In poultry production, a hatch of eggs; the number of eggs produced or incubated at one time; a brood of chickens.

(14) One of several collective nouns for books or dancers.

1175–1225: A variant of (the now Northern English dialectal) cletch, from the Middle English clucchen, clicchen, cluchen, clechen & cleken, a variant of clicchen, from the Old English clyccan (bring together, bend (the fingers), clench), akin to the Scots cleck (to hatch) from the Old Norse klekja (to hatch) and related to the Old Frisian kletsie (spear) & the Swedish klyka (clasp, fork).  It was cognate with the Irish glac (hand).  The origins of the English verb were Germanic, the source the Proto-Germanic klukjaną, from the Proto-Germanic klu- (to ball up, conglomerate, amass), from the primitive Indo-European glew- (to ball up; lump, mass).  It was cognate with the Swedish klyka (clamp, fork, branch). The noun is from Middle English cleche, cloche, & cloke (claw, talon, hand), related to the Scots cleuk, cluke & cluik (claw, talon), of uncertain origin, with the form probably assimilated to the verb.

The meaning "to grasp" is early fourteenth century; that of "to seize with the claws or clutches" from later that century.  The sense of "hold tightly and close" is from circa 1600, influenced by the Middle English cloke (a claw) whereas "a brood, the number of eggs incubated at any one time" (in reference to chickens) dates from 1721 and is a (southern England) dialectal variant of cletch (1690s), noun from the verb cleck which is from the 1400s Middle English clekken (to hatch, give birth to), most likely from a Scandinavian source such as the Old Norse klekja (to hatch), perhaps of imitative origin in the same way as cluck.  The original meaning (a grip, grasp, tight hold) dates from circa 1200, the form clutches (in the sense of “the hands" suggesting grasping rapacity or cruelty) not emerging until the 1520s.  A product of the industrial revolution, the mechanical clutch (movable mechanical coupling or locking and unlocking contrivance for transmitting motion) is from 1814 with the "seizing" sense extended to "a coupling device for bringing working parts together".  Originally applied to the static machines in mills, it was first used to describe the transmissions (as the coupling between crankshaft and gearbox) in 1899.  The now rare meaning "moment when heroics are required" is attested from the 1920s but never gained currency outside the US

The clutch purse

One’s eye is always drawn to a nice clutch purse.  Salma Hayek B 1966) with Alexander McQueen (1969-2010) skull clutch, Evening Standard Theatre Awards, London, November 2015.

The modern definition of a “clutch” is a handbag without handles but with a detachable (sometimes a chain) strap and (usually) rectangular in shape.  Most often an evening bag, they can be used during the day, the most defining characteristics being they’re slim and primarily hand-held.  Bags and purses predate pockets and the clutch bag seems to have been a very early solution to the problem of carrying small, high-value possessions.  Evidence survives in the historic record in paintings and tapestries but few examples remain extant because almost all were made from perishable materials, a seven-hundred year old relic on display at London’s Courtauld Gallery the oldest known to exist.

For her much anticipated appearances at the Cannes film Festival, Salma Hayek has over the years made the clutch purse her signature accessory.

Lindsay Lohan with Carmen Steffens evening clutch, annual amfAR fundraiser at the Cannes Film Festival, Hotel Eden Roc in Cap D’Antibes, May 2017.

In many parts of the world, clutch bags never went away but in the west, the increasing emancipation in the nineteenth century meant bags became larger and the clutch all but disappeared.   It was the resurgence of classical style dresses in the 1920s which led to its revival because it was an ideal accessory for the diaphanous flapper dresses of the era, a style which didn’t detract from the line of the body.  They’ve not since faded from popularity and are now an essential fashion accessory, performing also the socially invaluable function of giving the hands something to do. Because clutch purses so often tend to the rectangular in all aspects, they’re often styled using the motifs associated with the art deco era of the early-mid twentieth century and most designers seem to favor the elaborate, decorative styles of the earlier (pre 1929 Wall Street crash) art deco.  Given the small size of a clutch purse, this can be a challenge to implement but so can the more simplified plays of flattened and stylized geometric shapes or abstract patterns.

Cadillac, Ferrari and the clutch pedal

Although not all early Ferraris were so equipped and by 1976 the 400 GT was even offered with an automatic transmission (General Motors’ famously robust Turbo-Hydramatic 400), the open-gate shift was for decades a motif associated with the marque.  However, advances in hydraulics and electronics meant that by the early twenty-first century, the inefficiencies and technical disadvantages attached to automatic transmissions had been overcome to the point where no Ferrari with a manual transmission, however expertly driven, could match their performance.  Using automatic transmissions meant a clutch pedal was no longer necessary but it didn’t mean clutches were deleted; instead they were automated.  Scuderia Ferrari first used the technology in the Tipo 640 Formula One car in 1989 and any doubts about its speed or reliability were quickly allayed, the machine winning at its maiden appearance in the Brazilian Grand Prix.  Development continued and in 1997, the automated system, dubbed F1, was offered as an option in the F355, the first road car so equipped, the electro-hydraulic system operated by paddles behind the steering wheel linked to the F355's otherwise conventional 6-speed manual transmission.

It certainly started a trend and paddles quickly become almost a de rigueur piece of technology for high-performance cars, the occasional old style, three-pedal model released only to cater for the dwindling number of drivers who enjoyed the experience of the way things used to be done.  In Ferrari dealerships, the numbers dwindled fast and the last Ferrari with a manual transmission left the factory late in 2011, the replacement a dual-clutch transmission (also called twin-clutch or double-clutch) which used two separate clutches for odd and even gear sets.  The two separate transmissions had their respective clutches contained in one housing and worked as a single unit.  The model which enjoyed the distinction of providing a swansong for the old open gate was the California.  Upon release in 2008 it was estimated between 5-10% of buyers would opt for a clutch pedal but, between then and late 2011, a mere three were ordered (some sources say two or five but the factory insists it was three).

2012 Ferrari California (top) and 2012 Cadillac CTS-V sedan.

So the last decade at Maranello has been automatic (technically “automated manual transmission”) all the way and although a consequence of the quest for ultimate performance, it wasn’t anything dictatorial and had customer demand existed at a sustainable level, the factory would have continued to supply manual transmissions.  Amusingly, Cadillac had in 2004 begun offering a model with a manual transmission for the first time since the 1953 Series 75 (among the Cadillac crowd the Cimarron (1982-1988) is never spoken of except in the phrase "the unpleasantness of 1982" ) and by 2013, while one could buy a Cadillac with a clutch pedal, one could not buy such a Ferrari.  For most of the second half of the twentieth century, few would have thought that anything but improbable or unthinkable.