Teflon

Teflon (pronounced tef-lon)

(1) The trademark for a fluorocarbon polymer with slippery, non-sticking properties; the (chemically correct) synonym is polytetrafluoroethylene.

(2) In casual use, facetiously to denote an ability to evade blame, applied usually to certain politicians, those characterized by imperviousness to criticism, often as “teflon president etc”.

1945: The proprietary name registered in the US by the du Pont corporation, from the chemical name (poly)te(tra)fl(uoroethylene) + the –on.  The use of the -on suffix in science is often described by etymologists as “arbitrary” and in the narrow technical sense the point is well made but there is history.  In physics it was applied on the model of the “on” element in electron, something lent linguistic respectability by the Ancient Greek -ον (-on), used to end neuter nouns and adjectives.  In chemistry, it followed the “on” in carbon, applied to form names of noble gases and certain non-metal elements (creating first boron and then silicon).  In physics, mathematics and biology, it was appended to form nouns denoting subatomic particles (proton), quanta (photon), molecular units (codon), or substances (interferon).  In biology and genetics, it was used to form names of things considered as basic or fundamental units (such as codon or recon).  The derived forms teflonish, tefleony etc are late twentieth century creations from critical political discourse.

Teflon was a serendipitous discovery which was delivered by research on refrigeration gases being undertaken by the Du Pont Company in 1938.  Some of the experiments being performed involved an analysis of the behavior of various compounds of Freon in cylinders and, observations indicated that while the gas appeared to disappear from the cylinders, weight measurements suggested it remained present and, upon inspection, what was found in the cylinders was a white, waxy substance of no use in the process of refrigeration.  The substance did however have remarkable properties, being friction-free (described as being like rubbing wet ice against wet ice) and impervious both almost all solvents and temperature variations between -273–250^o c (-169–121^o f).  Chemically the substance was a form of polytetrafluoroethylene, thankfully shortened to "Teflon" ((poly)te(tra)fl(uoroethylene)).  The significance of Teflon wasn’t initially understood and Du Pont’s major product release that year was anyway nylon, finally available as a commercial substance after thirteen years of development.

Teflon did however soon have an impact in one of the century’s most significant scientific and engineering projects, those attached to the Manhattan Project developing the atom bomb finding it the only coating which worked as seals for the canisters housing the most volatile elements.  However, because of the secrecy which enveloped the Manhattan Project, some aspects of which would not for many decades be declassified, Teflon didn’t enter the public consciousness until the late 1950s, the timing ensuring it came to be associated with the nascent space programme rather than the A-bomb, a perception the military-industrial complex did little to discourage.  Because of the state of the analytical tools then available, it had taken a long time fully to understand the stuff and it transpired the slipperiness came from a unique molecular structure, the core of carbon atoms being surrounded by fluorine atoms, creating a bond so strong that any other interaction was repelled, the chemical mix also accounting for the high degree of invulnerability to solvents and extremes in temperature.

The first extensive use was in electronics industry, first as insulation and corrosion protection for the copper wires and cables which carried the data for telephony and later computer networks but, as an example of the novel products it enabled, shatter-proof, Teflon-coated light bulbs went on sale but most far-reaching, revolutionary actually, was that it was Teflon which was used to hold the new and tiny semiconductor chips.  All those uses played a part in transforming the world but it was the simultaneous (and well-publicized) use in the Apollo Moon programme and the commercial release of the Teflon fry-pans which so cemented the association in public consciousness.  For some years, mystery shrouded how Du Pont managed to get the Teflon to stick to the aluminum or stainless steel with which fry-pans are made but, after the patents expired, it was revealed the classic trick was to sandblast the metal surfaces which left tiny indentations with irregular edges which worked like the clasps jewelers use to secure stones.  Once these tiny impressions were filled with Teflon, the final layer had something to which to adhere; Teflon attracting itself and repelling all else.  That was an wholly mechanical process but chemical processes were also developed to induce attachment to metal.

While some half a billion Teflon fry-pans were being sold, the slippery substance went on extensively to be used in architecture where its qualities of flame resistance and translucence were much appreciated and it proved uniquely suited to solving a problem which had for decades plagued engineers, the need for an insulator to prevent the corrosion endemic between the steel framework and copper skin of the Statue of Liberty.  Living structures also benefited, Teflon of great utility in the medical device industry because of its compatibility with living tissue, proving an ideal substance with which to construct artificial veins and arteries, heart patches and replacement ligaments although most inventive was probably the Teflon powder injections used to restore the function of vocal-cords.  Early in the twenty-first century, concerns were raised after the chemical perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), used in the production of Teflon, was found to be potentially carcinogenic.  The research didn’t produce direct evidence that it's harmful to humans but it was anyway replaced with a substitute, the wonderfully named GenX but this too has attracted concerns.

Teflon resistant: Although described by Representative Pam Schroeder (Democrat, Colorado) as “Teflonish”, one object did stick to Bill Clinton no matter what (and there was much "what").

The word Teflon is used also to refer to that small class of politicians to whom no blame, however well-deserved, seems to attach; whatever mud is slung, none of it ever sticks.  It seems first to have been used by Pat Schroeder (b 1940; Democrat Representative for Colorado in the House 1973-1997) who in a speech on the floor of the House in 1983 denouncing President Ronald Reagan (1911–2004; US president 1981-1989) said “He has been perfecting the Teflon-coated presidency: He sees to it that nothing sticks to him.”  Schroeder later said that the expression came to her while frying eggs in a Teflon fry-pan.  In a display of feminist bi-partisanship, she would in a later interview with CNN note that President Bill Clinton (b 1946; US president 1993-2001) was very “Teflonish” and the phrase has come to be used to describe the political phenomenon of the willingness in voters to excuse in some the shortcomings they wouldn’t accept in most.  The linguistic adaptation didn’t please Du Pont which greatly valued their trademark, issuing a press release insisting that when used in print, the media should always put the trademark symbol next to the word and that ”It is not, alas, a verb or an adjective, not even when applied to the President of the United States!”  Their demands were ignored and English proceeds along its inventive ways.  There is nothing to suggest Teflon sales ever suffered by association.

Lindsay Lohan in a yacht's galley, cooking with non-stick frypan, Cannes, May 2017.

Teflon is produced from a mix of certain chemicals which are part of a large family of substances called perfluoroalkyl & polyfluoroakyl (PFAS) and research has linked human exposure to a number of conditions including some cancers, reproductive issues, and elevated cholesterol levels.  Given that, on the basis of the experience of litigation and legislative response to other once common materials found to be at least potentially dangerous, it might be expected an intensive research effort has at least quantified the extent of the problem.  However, it transpired it’s effectively impossible to measure the risks of the use of PFAS in non-stick, simply because for decades the chemicals have been so ubiquitous in domestic environments because of their role providing water & stain-resistance in everything from raincoats, carpets and car upholstery.  That means PFAS chemicals have long since become part of the environment, detected everywhere from the seabed to mountain tops.  For the human and animal population, the presence in the water supply is of significance and in the US, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2020 published guidelines for the acceptable level of certain PFAS in drinking water, a document which attracted great interest because it appears about the same time as a study which indicated a correlation between exposure and a disturbing “millions of deaths”.  Among the general population, it’s the cookware which came quickly to attract the most concern, not because there’s any evidence to suggest the stuff is a more productive vector of transfer than carpet, curtains or any other source but because of the intimacy of contact; it’s from those non-stick frypans we eat.  It’s also in dental floss but the psychological threshold of swallowing is real.

Lindsay Lohan using non-stick frypan.  Note the metal fork; Ms Lohan is a risk-taker.

Not all PFAS are identical in the critical areas assessed although they all share the characteristic of being stable, something which has seen then dubbed the “forever chemicals”, something potentially useful for science although it’s the implication that once released, the stuff will persist in the environment for millions of years which disturbs.  Some have been identified as especially dangerous and two (PFOS & PFOA) have already been phased out of industrial use, notably because of a risk posed to the human immune system and encouragingly, testing revealed that after FOS use ceased in 2000, levels in human blood declined significantly.  Those who ensure they use only soft kitchen utensils when using the non-stick products shouldn’t be too assured because injecting a big chunk of the stuff historically hasn’t been the issue; it’s the micro-sized bits entering the body and while manufacturers claim any coating swallowed is inert, the concerns remain.  In the absence of relevant data, there are nuanced positions on non-stick pans. The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) continues to permit the use in cookware while the EPA maintains exposure can lead to “adverse health effects” and in 2022 proposed a labeling protocol which would require certain PFAS to be listed as “hazardous substances”.  Another branch of the administration, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) maintains the health effects of low exposure remain “uncertain.”

Sack

Sack (pronounced sak)

(1) A large bag of strong, coarsely woven material, as for grain, potatoes, or coal.

(2) The amount a sack holds; also called sackful the amount contained in a sack, sometimes used as a unit of measurement.

(3) A bag, usually large.

(4) In slang, dismissal or discharge from employment.

(5) In slang, the bed, often as “in the sack”.

(6) In fashion, a loose-fitting dress, as a gown with a Watteau back, especially one fashionable from the late seventeenth to the late eighteenth century (also spelled sacque); formerly, a loose-fitting hip-length jacket, cloak or cape.

(7) A loose-fitting coat, jacket, or cape.

(8) In the slang of baseball, a base.

(9) In the slang of agriculture in South Midland, US, the udder of a cow.

(10) In the slang of American Football, to tackle the quarterback behind the line of scrimmage before the player is able to throw a pass.

(11) In fashion, as sack-line, a loose-fitting, vaguely tubular, enveloping style of dresses and coats which emerged first in 1957.

(12) To pillage or loot after capture; to plunder.

(13) A strong, light-colored wine, traditionally imported from Spain and the Canary Islands.

(14) In cricket, a run scored off a ball not struck by the batsman: allotted to the team as an extra (on sundry) and not to the individual batsman; now usually called a bye (archaic).

(15) In vulgar slang, usually as ball-sack (although there are imaginative variations): the scrotum.

(16) In fashion, as sack coat; a kind of coat worn by men, and extending from top to bottom without a cross seam.

A dated form of sac (pouch in a plant or animal).

Pre 1000: From the Middle English noun sak, sake & sakke (bag, sackcloth), from the Old English sacc (sack, bag) & sæcc (sackcloth, sacking), both from the Proto-West Germanic sakku, from the late Proto-Germanic sakkuz (sack), from the Latin saccus (bag, sack, sackcloth), from the Ancient Greek σάκκος (sákkos) bag made from goat hair, sieve, burlap, large cloak (as for a wedding dress), from the Semitic;  In the Hebrew and Phoenician, a śaq was a “cloth made of hair, bag, mourning dress”.  The use to describe the pillage of a city or other settlement after conquest dates from 1540–1550; from Middle French phrase mettre à sac (to put to pillage, literally “to put (loot) in a sack”), sac in this sense from the Italian sacco (looting, loot), a shortened form of saccomano, from the Middle High German sakman (pillager).  As applies to alcohol, Sack was first recorded in 1525–1535, from the French (vin) sec (dry (wine)), from the Latin siccus (dry).  It was cognate with the Dutch zak, the German Sack, the Swedish säck, the Danish sæk, the Hebrew שַׂק‎ (śaq) (sack, sackcloth), the Aramaic סַקָּא‎, the Classical Syriac ܣܩܐ‎, (Ge'ez) ሠቅ (śäḳ), the Akkadian saqqu and the Egyptian sꜣgꜣ. A doublet of sac.  It was a long time ago and, records being scant, some etymologists suggest the word was originally Egyptian, a nominal derivative of sꜣq (to gather or put together) that also yielded the sok (sackcloth) and the Greek borrowing came via a Semitic intermediary.  Others reject this, noting that such an originally Egyptian word would be expected to yield the Hebrew סַק rather than שַׂק‎ and instead argue the Coptic and Greek words are both borrowed from the Semitic, with the Coptic word perhaps developing via Egyptian sꜣgꜣ.  The Japanese is the descendent is theサック (sakku) and historically, sack was an alternative spelling of sac (sacrifice).

Sack is a noun and verb, sack-like an adjective (there seems never to have been either sackesque or sackish except in jocular use) and sacker a noun.  Other derive forms include sackable and sackage.  Historically, the capacity of a sack has been defined in law.  Although long archaic and subject to (sometimes regional) variations depending on commodity, the old English measure of weight, usually of wool, was equal to 13 stone (182 lb), or 26 stone (364 lb).  The term survives in the Woolsack, on which sits the presiding officer of the House of Lords, the upper chamber of the UK’s parliament (formerly the Lord Chancellor, now the Lord Speaker).  Because there’s never been a universally accept definition for sack (size, shape, construction or capacity), what some call a sack others will call a bag, pack, pouch carryall, portmanteau, satchel, tote etc or the constructs haversack, knapsack, rucksack.  The only (loosely applied) conventions of use appear to be that bags etc tend to be smaller and sacks larger and made from more coarse material.  Folklore said to be medieval held that it was a bag if, when filled with potatoes, it could be carried by a woman but, it if demanded the strength of a man, it was a sack; story is likely apocryphal.  The synonyms for the plundering of cities include pillage, loot & ransack.

Sack dresses by Hubert de Givenchy, Spring Summer 1958 collection, Paris 1957.

Givenchy’s sack-line debuted in their spring-summer line on 1957's catwalks, Balenciaga showing a not dissimilar style just a few weeks later.  Both were essentially an evolution of the “Shirt Dress” which had attracted some attention the previous season and signaled a shift from the fitted, structured silhouettes which had been the signature motif of the decade.  The sack-line dresses were described by some critics as “shapeless” or “formless”, presumably because they lacked any suggestion of the waistline which had existed for so long as fashion’s pivot-point.  However, the forms the sack-line took would have been recognizable to anyone familiar with fluid dynamics or the behavior of air in wind tunnels, a waistless dress which narrowed severely towards the hem one of the optimal aerodynamic shapes.  That was presumably a coincidence but Givenchy’s press-kits at the 1957 shows did claim that “More than a fashion, it’s actually a way of dressing” and one which must have found favor with at least some women, not unhappy at being able to ditch the forbidding and restrictive, high-waisted girdles needed to achieve the wasp-wasted “New Look” which Dior had introduced to a post-war world anxious to escape wartime austerity.

Sack dress # 164 by Cristóbal Balenciaga, Spring Summer 1958 collection, Paris 1957.

Balenciaga’s sack dress was in 1957 probably more exaggerated than Givenchy’s; loose and enveloping, it brought to fashion an unprecedented gap between body and garment, emphasizing how radical a shift it was the long tradition of using idealized version of the female form as the basis for the tailored shape, designers making great efforts in their cuts to emulate aspects of human movement in the behavior of fabrics.  The sack-line disconnected the two, women now feeling an moving within, rather than with the dress; it was really quite subversive to suggest clothes might be designed for the comfort of women rather than the gaze of men.  Gone were the darts, belts and bands which had so carefully be crafted to be suggestive of that idealized shape, the woman’s body now and abstract entity which, within its enveloping cocoon could be a very different that that seen usually on the catwalks.  Within the fashion industry, the enthusiasm with which the sack-line was received was restrained but cultural critics, then less numerous but perhaps more erudite than today, were intrigued, modernity welcomed in a field which had never embraced the avant-garde in the way of art, literature and architecture, the link to functionalism especially noted.  It has aged well and been influential although it would begat a less stylish variation on the theme, the dreaded "tent dress".

Marilyn Monroe in burlap sack dress, 1951.

The sack-line which appeared on the haute couture runways in 1957 wasn’t an entirely new style, a loose-fitting dress, often as a gown with a Watteau back had been fashionable from the late seventeenth to the late eighteenth century (when it was also spelled as both sack & sacque) and even before that the terms had been applied to a a loose-fitting hip-length jacket, cloak or cape and later there was the sack coat; a kind of coat worn by men, the cut extending from top to bottom without a cross seam.  There was however a more recent take, Twentieth Century Fox’s PR operation in 1951 taking advantage of a bitchy comment from a Hollywood columnist (plus ça change) to issue a series of promotional photographs of Marilyn Monroe wearing a literal “sack dress”.  There are a number of versions of the tale but the one most often told is that Ms Monroe, then twenty-four and wearing a revealing red dress, prompting one gossip columnist to snipe that she looked “cheap and vulgar” and would have been better advised to wear “a potato sack.”  Twentieth Century Fox put her in one.

That may or may not be true and it could be the publicity people just wanted some imaginative images, the sex-kitten’s soft curves and the utilitarian angularity of a potato sack quite a juxtaposition and if the intention was to prove she was so beautiful she could make even a potato sack look good, the point was well made.  The photographs were used in Stare magazine, several months before Playboy would be launched with her on the cover and Stare included an interview in which she’s alleged to have said she didn’t care for potatoes because they tend to “put on weight” but it must have been a more tolerant age because there’s no record of her being attracting the opprobrium directed by sections of the vegetable industry at President George HW Bush (George XLI, 1924-2018; US president 1989-1993) after he declared he didn’t like broccoli and it was banned from Air Force One.  Stare noted Ms Monroe had a better political antennae than the president, for whatever her dietary strictures, “…she decided to do something for the potatoes!”

It was during the depression years of the 1930s that flour companies in the US became aware women were turning their cotton flour sacks into clothing, cloths and more.  Money was scarce and seeing the possibility of increasing sales at what would be a marginal cost, one manufacturer began to package their product in sacks decorated with attractive patterns.  Now such a move would be thought part of the “circular economy” but during the Great Depression, it was something that became popular because of economic necessity, “repair, reuse, make do, and don't throw anything away” a widely-spread motto of the time.  Other manufacturers soon followed and professional designers were sometimes used to provide more appealing patterns.

The idea of recycling cotton sacks actually pre-dated the depression years.  Sack clothing was common in the nineteenth century still an important component in rural domestic economies in both Canada and the US during the 1920s but it was the effects of the Great Depression which saw the practice spread and the most commonly used sacks were those of a convenient size, most typically the cotton items in which flour and sugar were sold.  The slang in those years for the recycled clothing was “feedsack,” or “chicken linen”.

The practice declined in the early 1940s as the economy improved but continued during the war years because there were shortages of cotton and much of what was available was devoted to military needs and decorative fabric for dress-making was sometimes unobtainable.  As prosperity overtook the land in the 1950s, the use of sacks to make clothing faded and by 1953, many manufacturers had switched from cotton to much cheaper paper sacks.

Lindsay Lohan adopted the sack-line early and returns to the style from time-to-time.

Martini

Martini (pronounced mahr-tee-nee)

A cocktail made with gin or vodka and dry vermouth, usually served with a green olive (the twist of lemon a more recent alternative).

1885-1890:  Origin disputed; it may be an alteration of Martinez (an earlier alternate name of the drink) but is probably by association with the vermouth manufacturer Martini, Sola & Co. (later Martini & Rossi). Another theory holds it’s a corruption of Martinez, California, town where the drink was said to have originated.  Others claim it was first mixed in New York but then NYC claims lots of things happened there first.

CCTV image capture, New York City, 24 July 2012.  Noted Martini aficionado Lindsay Lohan enjoys a Vodka Martini.

By 1922 the Martini had assumed its modern, recognizable form: London dry gin and dry vermouth in a ratio 2:1, stirred in a mixing glass with ice cubes, sometimes with addition aromatic bitters, then strained into a chilled cocktail glass.  Green olives were the expected garnish by the onset of World War II with a twist of lemon peel often seen by the 1950s.  From the 1930s on, the amount of vermouth steadily dropped as the cult of the dry prevailed.  Today, a typical dry Martini is made with a ration between 6:1 and 12:1.  Some were more extreme, Noël Coward (1899–1973) suggesting filling a glass with gin, then lifting it in the general direction of the vermouth factories in Italy.  Ian Fleming (1908–1964) had James Bond follow Harry Craddock’s shaken, not stirred directive from The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930) but contemporaries, Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) and Franklin Roosevelt (1882–1945; US president 1933-1945), neither a stranger to a Martini, both recommended stirring although chemists observe the concept of “bruising the gin” has no basis in science.  The Vodka Martini came later.  It was first noted in the 1950s when known as the Kangaroo Cocktail, a hint at its disreputable origins but normally reliable sources commend the Blueberry Vodka Martini and purists concede this is the only Martini to benefit from using sweet vermouth.  In 1966, the American Standards Association (ASA) released K100.1-1966, "Safety Code and Requirements for Dry Martinis," a humorous account of how to make a "standard" dry Martini. The latest revision of this document, K100.1-1974, was published by American National Standards Institute (ANSI).  Flippant they may have been but they’re good guides to the classic method.

Compare & contrast: A classic Gin Martini (left) and a Stoli Blueberry Vodka Martini (right)

Stoli Blueberry Vodka Martini Recipe

Ingredients

60 ml (2 oz) Stoli Blueberi Vodka
60 ml (2 oz) sweet vermouth
15 ml (½ oz) lemon Juice
3-5 fresh blueberries
Ice Cubes

Instructions

(1) Pour Stioli Blueberi Vodka, sweet vermouth and lemon juice into cocktail shaker and middle blueberries.
(2) Add ice cubes until shaker is two-thirds full.
(3) Shake thoroughly until mixture is icy.
(4) Strain and pour into chilled martini glasses.
(5) Skew blueberries with cocktail pick, garnish martini and serve.
(6) Add a little blueberry juice to lend a bluish tincture (optinal).

Martini Racing, the Porsche 917 and the Pink Pig

Porsche 917LH, Le Mans, 1970.

Unlike some teams which maintained a standard livery, Martini Racing sometimes fielded other designs.  One noted departure was the “hippie” or “psychedelic” color scheme applied to the Porsche 917LH (Langheck (Longtail)) which placed second at Le Mans in 1970 and proved so popular that the factory received requests from race organizers requesting it be entered.  Weeks later, across the Atlantic, the organizers of the Watkins Glen Six Hours wanted their own ‘hippie’ 917 but with the car in Stuttgart, Martini Racing took over another team’s car and raced in ‘hippie’ colors to ninth place on one day and sixth the next.

Porsche 917K, 1970.

Subsequently the scheme was reprised in another, even more lurid combination of yellow & red in another psychedelic design, this time to match the corporate colors of Shell, the teams sponsor.  This remains the only surviving psychedelic car, the factory’s Langheck 917 being converted to 1971 specifications and painted in Gulf Oil’s livery for Le Mans.  Like many other used 917s, subsequently it was scrapped by an unsentimental Porsche management.

Porsche 917-20, 1971.

Although it raced only once, the “Pink Pig” (917-20) remains one of the best remembered 917s.  In the never-ending quest to find the optimal compromise between the down-force needed to adhere to the road and a low-drag profile to increase speed, a collaboration between Porsche and France's Société d’Etudes et de Réalisations Automobiles (SERA, the Society for the Study of Automotive Achievement) was formed to explore a design combine the slipperiness of the 917-LH with the stability of the 917-K.  Porsche actually had their internal styling staff work on the concept at the same time, the project being something of a Franco-German contest.  The German work produced something streamlined & futuristic with fully enclosed wheels and a split rear wing but despite the promise, the French design was preferred.  The reasons for this have never been clarified but there may have been concerns the in-house effort was too radical a departure from what had been homologated on the basis of an earlier inspection and that getting such a different shape through scrutineering, claiming it still an “evolution” of the original 917, might have been a stretch.  No such problems confronted the French design; SERA's Monsieur Charles Deutsch (1911-1980) was Le Mans race director.  On the day, the SERA 917 passed inspection without comment.

Porsche 917-20, Le Mans, 1971.

At 87 versus 78 inches (2.2 vs 2.0 m), the SERA car much wider than a standard 917K, the additional width shaped to minimize air flow disruption across the wheel openings.  The nose was shorter, as was the tail which used a deeper concave than the “fin” tail the factory had added in 1971.  Whatever the aerodynamic gains, compared to the lean, purposeful 917-K, it looked fat, stubby and vaguely porcine; back in Stuttgart, the Germans, never happy about losing to the French, dubbed it "the pig".  Initially unconvincing in testing, the design responded to a few tweaks, the factory content to enter it in a three hour event where it dominated until sidelined by electrical gremlins.  Returned to the wind tunnel, the results were inconclusive although suggesting it wasn't significantly different from a 917K and suffered from a higher drag than the 917-LH.  It was an indication of what the engineers had long suspected: the 917K's shape was about ideal.

Porsche 917-20, Le Mans, 1971.

For the 1971 Le Mans race, the artist responsible for the psychedelia of 1970 applied the butcher’s chart lines to the body which had been painted pink.  In the practice and qualifying sessions, the Pig ran in pink with the dotted lines but not yet the decals naming the cuts; those, in a font called Pretoria, being applied just before the race and atop each front fender was a white pig-shaped decal announcing: Trüfel Jäger von Zuffenhausen (the truffel hunter from Zuffenhausen); the Pink Pig had arrived.  Corpulent or not, in practice, it qualified a creditable seventh, two seconds slower than the 917-K that ultimately won and, in the race, ran well, running as high as third but a crash ended things.  Still in the butcher's shop livery, it's now on display in the Porsche museum.

Porsche 917-20, 1971.

Scuttlebutt has always surrounded the Pink Pig.  It's said the decals with the names of the cuts of pork and bacon were applied furtively, in the early morning of the race, just to avoid anyone asking they be removed.  Unlike the two other factory Porsches entered under the Martini banner, the Pink Pig carried no Martini decals, the rumor being that the Martini board refused to associate the brand with the thing.  Finally, although never confirmed by anyone, it's long been assumed the livery was created, not with any sense of levity but as a spiteful swipe at SERA although it may have been something light-hearted, nobody ever having proved Germans have no sense of humor.

Porsche 917KH, 1971.

Using the 917KH (Kurz (Short)), the factory team in 1970 gained Porsche its first outright victory in the Le Mans twenty-four classic.  In the following year's race, Martini Racing won using a 917KH with a similar specification, running this time in the standard corporate livery.  The refinements to the 917K's aerodynamic properties had tamed whatever idiosyncrasies remained from the fast but unstable original and with still could have been extracted from the enlarged flat-12 but with the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (International Automobile Federation)), international sport’s dopiest regulatory body, again changing the rules, the run in 1971 would prove to be the 917’s last official appearance at Le Mans.

Porsche 917-10, 1972.

Although the bloodless bureaucrats at the FIA probably thought they'd killed off the 917, there was still much potential to be exploited and Porsche now devoted the programme to the Can-AM (Canadian-American Challenge Cup), conducted on North American circuits for unlimited displacement sports cars.  Run under Group 7 regulations, what few rules there were mostly easy simultaneously to conform with while ignoring which it why the Can-Am between 1966-1973 is remembered as one of the golden eras of the sport.  Now turbocharged (as 917-10 & 917-30), in their ultimate form the cars were tuned in qualifying trim for some 1500 horsepower and raced usually with over 1000.  So dominant were the 917s that the previously successful McLaren team withdrew to focus on Formula One and there were doubts about the future of the series but as it turned out, the interplay of geopolitics and economics that was the first oil crisis meant excesses such as unlimited displacement racing was soon sacrificed.

Porsche 917K-81 (Kremer).

However, the 917 was allowed one final fling as an unintended consequence of rule changes for the 1981 sports car season which although never intended as a loophole through which the now ancient Porsche could pass, for one team the chance to again run the 917 at Le Mans proved irresistible.  The factory had retired the 917 after its win in the 1973 Can-Am, moving to the 936 platform for 1975 and while aware of the implications of the rule changes, weren't tempted by what they regarded a nostalgic cul-de-sac but Kremer Racing were intrigued and, with factory support, built a new 917 to Group 6 specifications (enclosed bodywork and a 5.0 litre flat-12), labeling it the 917K-81.  Using Kremer own aluminium spaceframe, at the 1981 Le Mans 24 hour it was fast enough to qualify in the top ten and run with the leaders until a suspension failure forced retirement (the car eventually classified: 38th, DNF (did not finish).  The pace displayed was sufficiently encouraging for the car to be entered in that year's 1000 km event at Brand Hatch where it proved fast but, lacking the factory support, also fragile and it again recorded a DNF.  That was the end of the line for the 917.

Prandial

Prandial (pronounced pran-dee-uhl)

Of or relating to a meal, especially dinner (sometimes affected, jocose or facetious).

1810-1820: From the Late Latin prandialis or the Classical Latin prandium (late breakfast; lunch), perhaps from the primitive Indo-European pr̥hemós (first), from prehe- + -edere (to eat) (originally, the primitive Indo-European ed- root (to eat) meant originally "to bite") + the Latin -ium (the suffix forming nouns), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European -yós (suffix forming adjectives from noun stems) +‎ -al (the suffix forming adjectives).  It’s never been clear why the meaning shift from the Classical Latin meaning (late breakfast; lunch) to the later (dinner) happened.  Now, prandial is used almost exclusively as (a usually jocular or affected) pre-prandial or post-prandial (often plural), a reference to before or after-dinner drinks (ie the various forms of "prandial" have become code for "drinking alcohol").  Prandial is an adjective and prandially is an adverb.

Lindsay Lohan enjoying a pre-pradial.

The first use of the adjective postprandial (now usually as post-prandial) seems to have been by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) in 1820 to convey the meaning "happening, said, done etc; after dinner".  The first known instance of preprandial (also pre-prandial) (before dinner) is in a letter of 1822 by the poet Charles Lamb (1775–1834) to Coleridge: “Why you should refuse twenty guineas per sheet for Blackwood’s or any other magazine passes my poor comprehension. But, as Strap says, you know best.  I have no quarrel with you about præprandial avocations—so don’t imagine one.”

Prandial, pre-prandial & post-prandial now belong to the roll-call of words described variously as "useless", "potentially misleading" or "pretentious".  To invite one's dinner companion to a "post-prandial is harmless if it's between linguistically consenting adults but because many educated people would have no idea what was be suggested, an offer of an "after-dinner drink" is usually a better idea.  Despite all that, for some word nerds, the the adverbs preprandially (in a preprandial manner; before a meal, especially dinner) & postprandially (in a postprandial manner; after a meal; especially, after dinner) may prove irresistible. 

Henry Fowler’s list of working & stylish words.

The stern Henry Fowler (1858–1933) in his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) included an entry which listed examples of “working & stylish words” which opened with the passage: “No one, unless he has happened upon this article at a very early stage of his acquaintance with this book, will suppose that the word “stylish” is meant to be laudatory.”  He went on to say there was a place for such forms “…when they are used in certain senses…” but made it clear that for most purposes the plain, simple “working word” is the better choice.  He offered the example of “deem” which in law has a precise and well understood meaning so is there essential but it’s just an attempt at stylishness if used as a substitute for “think”.  Other victims of his disapproving eye included “viable” which he judged quite proper in the papers of biologists describing newly formed organisms but otherwise a clumsy way of trying to assert something was “practicable” and “dwell” & “perchance” which appeared usually as “…conspicuous, like and escaped canary among the sparrows.”  Henry Fowler liked stylish phrases but preferred plain words.  Fowler completed his text by 1925 and things have since changed, some of the “stylish” cohort seemingly having become “working” words, possibly under the influence of the use in computing and other technologies, their once specialized sense migrating into general use because the language of those industries became so common.  Although he did twenty years before the first appeared, one suspects he’d not have found Ferraris “stylish” and would probably have called them “flashy” (in the sense of “vulgar ostentation” rather than “sparkling or brilliant”); dating from the mid sixteenth century, “flashy” would seem to have a suitably venerable lineage.

Protagonist

Protagonist (pronounced proh-tag-uh-nist)

(1) The leading character or hero of a performance or literary work.

(2) A proponent for or a political or other cause (from an incorrect construction but now widely used).

(3) The leader or principal advocate of a political or other cause.

(4) The first actor in ancient Greek drama, who played not only the main role, but also other roles when the main character was off-stage and was thus first amongst deuteragonists and tritagonists.

1671: From the Ancient Greek πρωταγωνιστής (prōtagōnistḗs) (actor who plays the first part; principal character in a story, drama), the literal translation being “first combatant” and according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the word first appeared in English in 1671 in the writings of the English poet, literary critic, translator and playwright John Dryden (1631–1700).  The construct was πρῶτος (prôtos) (first) + ἀγωνιστής (agōnistḗs) (one who contends for a prize; a combatant; an actor), from the primitive Indo-European root per (forward (hence "in front of, first, chief")) + agōnistēs (actor, competitor), from agōn (contest), from the primitive Indo-European root ag- (to drive, draw out or forth, move).  The link between the two is the notion of one who contends for some prize in a contest (agōn).  The general meaning "leading person in any cause or contest" is from 1889. The mistaken sense of "advocate, supporter" (1935) is from misunderstanding of the Greek prōt- meaning the same as the Latin pro- (for; in favor of) (thus the comparison with antagonist).  The Deuteragonist "second person or actor in a drama", is attested from 1840.  The general meaning "leading person in any cause or contest" seems first to have been used only as late as 1889.  Linguistic sloppiness saw some, by 1935, add the sense of "advocate or supporter", probably from a misreading of the Greek prōt & prōtos, either equating or confusing it with the Latin pro (for).  More than tolerated, it seems in English to have become a standard meaning and is often used in sub-electoral politics.  The relatively rare silver medallist, the deuteragonist (second person or actor in a drama), is attested from 1840.

The protagonist’s opponent is the antagonist (from the Ancient Greek ἀνταγωνιστής (antagōnistḗs) (opponent)) and in classical Greek drama, the protagonist was the hero, the antagonist the villain.  A protagonist was central to the plot, although, there could be sub-plots, each narrative with its own protagonist.  There were plays with two protagonists tangled in one plot, but that happened where the first had died, the second then assuming the role.  Some playwrights would introduce false protagonists, soon to vanish.  Modern material (as opposed to the modernist), does not always adhere to the classical Greek form.  For content-providers, especially on screens, having multiple protagonists within the one plot is far from unusual.

In his highly recommended book The Surgeon of Crowthorne (1998), historian Simon Winchester (b 1944) noted the dispute between two of the great authorities in the matter of the English language: the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Henry Watson Fowler (1858–1933), author of A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926).  The OED quoted Dryden’s passage from 1671 (the first known instance in English of “protagonist”) in which the poet used the word in the plural whereas, as Henry Fowler well knew, in any Greek drama there could only ever be one protagonist.  It had of course always been possible for a critic to write about protagonists if comparing two or more productions but that was a function of syntax, not meaning.  Henry Fowler disapproved of much which was modern and in the matter of a play with two protagonists, he rules not only was that wrong but also “absurd” because, a protagonist being the most important figure in the text, there couldn’t be two: “One is either the most important person or one is not”.  So Fowler’s entry of 1926 and the OED’s of two years later stood for decades as contrary judgements, factions in support of one or the other presumably forms from the handful of earnest souls on the planet who care about such things.  When Sir Ernest Gowers (1880–1966) revised A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (the second edition published in 1965), he retained Fowler’s original condemnatory paragraphs but added a coda, noting the original sense from Antiquity but acknowledging that in a dynamic, living language like English, meanings can shift and words can be re-appropriated, adding that in the case of “protagonist”, it seemed “The temptation to regard protagonist as the antonym of antagonist seems irresistible…”  In 1981 when the OED published one of their supplements, it was made clear Fowler was correct if the word is used in the context of Greek theatre (for which it was coined) but that English had moved on and there had for at least centuries been works of fiction with two or more characters of equal importance and it was both convenient and well understood by all when they were so labelled.            

Lindsay Lohan, vampiric protagonist

Directed by Tiago Mesquita with a screenplay by Mark Morgan, Among the Shadows is a thriller which straddles the genres, elements of horror and the supernatural spliced in as required.  Although in production since 2015, with the shooting in London and Rome not completed until the next year, it wasn’t until 2018 when, at the European Film Market, held in conjunction with the Berlin International Film Festival, that Tombstone Distribution listed it, the distribution rights acquired by VMI, Momentum and Entertainment One, and VMI Worldwide.  In 2019, it was released progressively on DVD and video on demand (VOD), firstly in European markets, the UK release delayed until mid-2020.  In some markets, for reasons unknown, it was released with the title The Shadow Within.

It was Lindsay Lohan’s first film since The Canyons (2013).  In Among the Shadows, she plays a character married to an EU politician, a hint it’s somewhere on the horror continuum, the twist being she’s also a vampire.  Which makes sense.  When you think about it.  What unfolds is a murky mix of political intrigue and mass-murder in which the vampire and a woman with her own secrets are thrown together as protagonists struggling to stop the politician being horribly slaughtered by a pack of werewolves.

That may have been the flaw in the plot.  A film in which most of the members of the European Council, European Commission and (perhaps especially) the European Parliament are murdered by werewolves, preferably in the bloodiest ways imaginable, would probably have been a blockbuster.  Even without social distancing, from Bristol to Berlin, the queues outside cinemas would likely have stretched for blocks.  As it was, without the bodies of eurocrats piled high, critical and commercial reaction was muted, some interesting technical points raised about the editing and even the sequence of filming.  Still, it’s Lohan-noir, Lindsay as a vampire, gruesome killings, werewolves and a Scottish detective, just the movie for a first date during a pandemic.  There is a trailer.