Nit

Nit (pronounced niht)

(1) The egg of a parasitic insect, especially of a louse, often attached to a hair or a fibre of clothing or the young of such an insect.

(2) In physics, a unit of luminous intensity equal to one candela per square meter (abbreviation: nt).

(3) Slang term to describe those thought unintelligent (a clipping of "nitwit").

(4) As "nitpicker", a description of those who look for minor, unimportant faults or defects (also used in computing as a slang term for debuggers, those who specialise in finding errors in code).

(5) In digital electronics, an increment of data equal to 1.44 binary digits.

Pre 900: From the Middle English nite, from the Old English hnitu, from the Proto-Germanic hnits; cognate with the Dutch neet, the German niss & nisse and the Norwegian nit.  Root was the primitive Indo-European nid, ḱnid & ḱonid; related were the Scottish Gaelic sneadh, the Lithuanian glìnda, the Polish gnida, the Albanian thëri, and the Ancient Greek κονίς (konís).  As used to describe brightness, the use of nit is derived from the Latin nitor (brightness) & nitere (to shine) and was created in the early 1950s as a useful way of defining the luminosity of television displays.

Candlepower

Competition cars used at night need many nits.  The light generated by the array of auxiliary headlamps used to be measured in the hundreds of thousands of candlepower.

Now obsolete, candlepower (cp) was the historic unit of measure for luminous intensity.  It expressed luminosity (level of light intensity) relative to the light emitted by a candle of a specific specification and was first defined in the UK by the Metropolitan Gas Act (1860).  The candle chosen was made of Spermaceti, extracted from the heads of sperm whales.  Under the auspices of the Commission for Illumination (Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage (CIE)), the standard was revised in 1921 to use a carbon filament incandescent lamp and again in 1937 using liquid platinum.

In 1948, the International Standards Organization (ISO) introduced an international standard (SI) named candela (cd) which replaced candlepower, one candlepower being about 0.981 candela; because the values were close, in general use the word candlepower is still often used interchangeably with candela although the latter is the standard in scientific discourse and most industrial applications.  The nit (nt) is a non-SI name also used for this unit (1 nt = 1 cd/m²).  It lacks the transportability of precision needed for scientific use but is ideal for describing the brightness of display devices such as monitors or televisions.  Modern consumer desktop LCD displays had a luminance between 200-350 nits and high-definition LED televisions and display arrays range from 450 to around 1500 nits.  One use of NIT as an acronym was the high-school slang "new in town" so, just arrived from Africa (it was never made explicit which country),  Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) in Mean Girls (2004) was a NIT. 

Basic

Basic (pronounced bey-sik)

(1) Of, relating to, or forming a base; fundamental.

(2) In chemistry, pertaining to, of the nature of, or containing a base; alkaline.

(3) In metallurgy, noting, pertaining to, or made by a steelmaking process (basic process) in which the furnace or converter is lined with a basic or non-siliceous material, mainly burned magnesite and a small amount of ground basic slag, to remove impurities from the steel.

(4) In geology, descriptor of a rock having relatively little silica.

(5) In military use, the lowest or initial form of anything (chiefly US).

(6) Of things elementary in character, essential, key, primary, basal, underlying.

(7) As a computer industry acronym, (BASIC and its forks, QBASIC, BASICA etc), a long-lived programming language: B(eginner's) A(ll-purpose) S(ymbolic) I(nstruction) C(ode).

(8) As "basic bitch", a subset of females deemed uninteresting on the basis of their tastes in pop culture being wholly mainstream.  It began as a derogatory term but was also adopted (as a form of "inverse snobbery") by some as their "group identifier".  The use seems to date from circa 2005.

1832:  The word came originally from chemistry, the construct being base + ic, but has since been adopted by or applied in just about every field imaginable.  Base in this sense (something from which other things extend; a foundation; a supporting, lower or bottom component of a structure or object) was from the Middle English base, bas & baas, from the Old French base, from the Latin basis, from the Ancient Greek βάσις (básis).  In scientific use there exists a wealth of derived technical forms including gnathobasic, heptabasic, hexabasic, macrobasic, mesobasic, microbasic, monobasic, multibasic etc.  The -ic suffix was from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); A doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically; in English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound with a name ending in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).  The programming language was created in 1964 by two US-based computer scientists, Thomas Kurtz (1928-2024) and Hungarian-born John Kemeny (1926-1992).  Basic is a noun & adjective, basicity & basicness are nouns, abasic, basical & bibasic are adjectives and basically is an adverb; the noun plural is basics.

The Basic Bitch

Basic bitch, often clipped to the (sometimes affectionate) basic, is a pop-culture term of US origin.  Although use outgrew the origins, it was intended as a pejorative descriptor of white, middle class females with boringly predictable, mainstream tastes in consumer goods and culture.  Although basic's comparative is "more basic" and the superlative "most basic", English users are imaginative and when needing emphasis coined "uber basic" and "ultrabasic", the latter a repurposing from geology where it's a synonym for ultramafic (igneous rocks containing magnesium & iron with only ting quantities of silica, such as those found in the Earth’s mantle).  The most pleasing collective for was "basic bitch brigade although Urban Dictionary helpfully fleshes out some alternatives.  Variously interpreted as a variation on the earlier airhead, a general expression of misogyny and another unsuccessful attempt to invent a term white people would find offensive, basic bitch briefly generated a sizable critique.  Although expressions of disapproval of materialist consumer culture had became common even before publication of Canadian-born US economist J.K. Galbraith's (1908–2006) The Affluent Society (1958) made it a bit of a thing, "basic bitch" appears to have offended just about all the usual suspects in the grievance industry.  Feminists found it misogynistic and weren’t at mollified by the emergence of a term of male equivalence (basic bro), their general position probably demanding the cancelling of all cultural feminine signifiers.  To them, the specifics were tiresomely irrelevant; "basic bitch" just another way to demean women.  The left generally agreed, arguing it was unhelpful to target a stereotype of late capitalist femininity rather than adhere to their critique of consumer culture.  Western capitalism, neutral on the squabble, soon commodified:

Basic Bitch Palette Kit by M·A·C Cosmetics, one of six in the M·A·C Girls collection (the companion products including Mischief Minx, Prissy Princess and Power Hungry).

Less predictable was the race-based criticism.  Basic bitch was considered yet another attempt to create a term of disparagement to describe the white folk which they would find actually offensive and in that, like all previous attempts, it didn’t work.  However, it clearly made sense only if applied to white, middle-class females so had the effect of creating yet another exclusive enclave of white privilege and one which, by definition, excluded other ethnicities, even if becoming a basic bitch was their aspiration.  First noted in 2005 in a sub-set of popular music, "basic bitch" entered mainstream use circa 2009 and use appears to have peaked in 2014 although term may persist because it references a mode of behavior rather than anything specific to a time or place; it’s thus adaptable and generationally transferrable.  It’s also an amusing example of one aspect of how Sisyphean battles in the pop-culture wars are waged.  Really, all those who used alliterative "basic bitch" were asserting was: “our taste in pop music is better than their taste in pop music”.

In the matter of Judge Eugene Fahey

Lindsay Lohan v Take-Two Interactive Software Inc et al, New York Court of Appeals (No 24, pp1-11, 29 March 2018) was a case which took an unremarkable four years from filing to reach New York’s highest appellate court; Lindsay Lohan’s suit against the makers of video game Grand Theft Auto V was dismissed.  In a unanimous ruling in March 2018, six judges of the New York Court of Appeals rejected her invasion of privacy claim which alleged one of the game’s characters was based on her.  The judges found the "actress/singer" in the game merely resembled a “generic young woman” rather than anyone specific.  Unfortunately the judges seemed unacquainted with the concept of the “basic white girl” which might have made the judgment more of a fun read.

Beware of imitations: The real Lindsay Lohan and the GTA 5 ersatz, a mere "generic young woman".

Concurring with the 2016 ruling of the New York County Supreme Court which, on appeal, also found for the game’s makers, the judges, as a point of law, accepted the claim a computer game’s character "could be construed a portrait", which "could constitute an invasion of an individual’s privacy" but, on the facts of the case, the likeness was "not sufficiently strong".  The “… artistic renderings are an indistinct, satirical representation of the style, look and persona of a modern, beach-going young woman... that is not recognizable as the plaintiff" Judge Eugene Fahey (b 1951) wrote in his ruling.  Judge Fahey's words recalled those (in another context) of Potter Stewart (1915–1985; associate justice of the US Supreme Court 1958-1981) who in Jacobellis v Ohio (378 U.S. 184 (1964) wrote: “I shall not today attempt further to define… and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so.  But I know it when I see it…”  Judge Fahey knew a basic white girl when he saw one; he just couldn't name her.  Lindsay Lohan's lawyers did not seek leave to appeal.

Concupiscent

Concupiscent (pronounced kon-kyoo-pi-suhnt or kong-kyoo-pi-suhnt)

(1) Lustful or sensual.

(2) Eagerly desirous.

1400–1450: From the Latin concupīscent, stem of concupīscēns, present participle of concupīscere (to conceive ardent desire for), the construct being con + cup (stem of cupere) (to desire) + īscent, variant of ēscent (a suffix of adjectives borrowed from Latin, where it had an inchoative force; often corresponding to verbs in esce and nouns in escence).  For turgid poets, and there have been a few, the most used Latin forms were concupiscentem, concupīscere and concupiscence.  The most usually cited modern derivation is Cupid (Latin Cupīdō, meaning "desire"), in classical mythology, the god of desire, erotic love, attraction and affection.  Poets good and bad can’t resist concupiscent because (1) lots of them like big words and (2) there are many words in English with which to rhyme.

Of sin

For Saint Augustine (354-430), who explored the matter in Confessions (394-400), concupiscence was a damnable word with which to refer to sinful lust.  It was the sin of the temptress Eve in the Garden of Eden which was carried by concupiscence, or as Augustine preferred, "hurtful desire".  From her wanton caresses in Eden was man condemned to descend to a massa damnata (a condemned crowd, a mass of perdition).  As Adam and Eve sinned, all was corrupted and their descendants now live in sin, an inescapable conclusion because in Eden, the two were all humanity and therefore all who followed inherited the original sin.

A thousand-odd years later, Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), while not disputing Augustine, used the word to differentiate between his two flavors of "sensuality".  There was the concupiscible, which he characterized as the instincts of pursuit and avoidance and the irascible, describing the instincts of aggression and defense.  To the former he ascribed joy and sadness, love and hate, desire and repugnance; to the latter, anger, daring and fear, hope and despair.

Pulchra sunt, condemnabitur: The sinful Lindsay Lohan.

Concubine

Concubine (pronounced kong-kyuh-bahyn)

(1) A woman who cohabits with a man without benefit of marriage, especially one regarded as socially or otherwise subservient.

(2) In jurisdictions which permit polygamy, a secondary wife, often of inferior rank.

(3) A woman residing in a harem and kept (with others), as by a ruler, for wifely purposes.

1250-1300: From the Middle English concubine (a paramour, a woman who cohabits with a man without being married to him) from the Anglo-Norman concubine, from the Latin concubīna, derived from cubare (to lie down), the construct being concub- (variant stem of concumbere & concumbō (to lie together)) + -ina (the feminine suffix).  The related forms are concubinage, concubinary & concubinal.

The status of paramour (a woman who cohabits with a man without benefit of marriage) existed in Hebrew, Greek, Roman and other civilizations, the position sometimes recognized in law as "wife of inferior condition, secondary wife" and there’s much evidence of long periods of tolerance by religious authorities, extended both to priests and the laity.  The concubine of a priest was sometimes called a priestess.

Under Roman civil law, the parties were the concubina (female) and the concubinus (masculine).  Usually, the concubine was of a lower social order but the institution, though ranking below matrimonium (marriage) was a cut above adulterium (adultery) and certainly more respectable than stuprum (illicit sexual intercourse, literally "disgrace" from stupere (to be stunned, stupefied)) and not criminally sanctioned like rapere (“to sexually violate” from raptus, past participle of rapere, which when used as a noun meant "a seizure, plundering, abduction" but in Medieval Latin meant also "forcible violation").

Depictions of concubines in the Egyptian and Persian courts.

Concubinage is, in the west, a term largely of historic interest.  It describes a relationship in which a woman engages in an ongoing conjugal relationship with a man to whom she is not or cannot be married to the full extent of the local meaning of marriage.  This may be due to differences in social rank, an existing marriage, religious prohibitions, professional restrictions, or a lack of recognition by the relevant authorities.  Historically, concubinage was often entered into voluntarily because of an economic imperative.  In the modern vernacular, wives use many words to describe their husbands’ mistress(es).  They rarely use concubine.

Swap

Swap (pronounced swop)

(1) To exchange, barter, or trade, as one thing for another.

(2) To substitute (one thing) for another (sometimes used in the forms swap-out & swap-in).

(3) To make an exchange.

(4) In finance, the verbal shorthand for a number of transactions (credit default swaps, currency swaps etc).

(5) In computer programming, exchanging two variables in the memory of a computer

(6) In computer operating systems, as swap partition, a partition of the physical data storage media used for paging to augment random access memory (RAM).

(7) In instrumentation as the acronym SWAP (Sun Watcher using Active Pixel System Detector and Image Processing), a space instrument used on solar satellites.

(8) In instrumentation as the acronym SWAP (Solar Wind At Pluto), a space instrument used in the observation of Pluto (which should still be a planet).

(9) In international development as the acronym SWAp (Sector-Wide Approach), a paradigm in the sector.

(10) In Cambridge University slang, a social meal at a restaurant between two university societies, usually involving drinking and banter; commonly associated with fining and pennying; the crewdate is the Oxford University equivalent.

(11) As swapling, an infant or child secretly exchanged for another; a changeling.

Circa 1200: From the Middle English swappen (to swap (the original meeting was “to hurl, to strike, strike hands (in bargaining the terms of an exchange)”) and cognate with the dialectal German schwappen (to slosh, slop, to clap, box (the ears)).  The origin is murky but it was probably from the Old English swappian, a secondary form of swāpan (to swoop) and may be compared with the Middle English swippen (to strike, hit), from the Old English swipian (to scourge, strike, beat, lash) which was in some way connected with the Old Norse svipa (to swoop, flash, whip, look after, look around).  Acronym finder has 37 entries for SWAP, the most obviously useful including (1) Solution Without A Problem, (2) Space, Weight And Power, (3) Shared Wireless Access Protocol, (4) Severe Weather Avoidance Protocol, (5) Sheriffs' Work Alternative Program, (6) Solar Wind Analyzer around Pluto & Stewart Warner Array Program (Stewart Warner a famous name in gauges and instrumentation) while some truly are niche such as Special Whatchamcallit Affectionately Pinned (used by Girl Scouts).  The alternative spelling, restricted mostly to the UK, is swop.  The noun swappist (used in a surprising number of sub-cultures) is non-standard while the noun swapsies provided the model for the later funsies (just for fun (ie not serious; not for financial gain)).  Swap is a noun & verb, swapper & swapling are nouns, swapped is a verb, swapping is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is swaps.

The seemingly strange etymological path from Middle English swappen ("to hurl" or "to strike") to the modern meaning of “swap” is thought to be an allusion to striking hands together when making an exchange, the handshake sealing the deal (ie the swap) as it were; the evolution of the word thus imitative of the sound of hitting or slapping.  The origin of swappen was the Middle English swippen (to strike, hit), from the Old English swipian (to scourge, strike, beat, lash), from the Old English swappian, a secondary form of the Old English swāpan (to swoop), from the Old Norse svipa (to swoop, flash, whip, look after, look around) which begat also swipe.  The verb (circa 1200) was the first form in the sense of "to strike, strike the hands together.  The sense of "to exchange, barter, trade" dates from the 1590s, the noun in this sense first recorded in the 1620s. Although swap-meets are an ancient institution of the barter economy known to many cultures and pre-dating antiquity, the term “swap-meet” seems not to have existed prior to 1968 when added to American English.

Bill Clinton (b 1946; US president 1993-2001) leaving the Martha's Vineyard Annual Swap Meet.

In 1890, the US Board on Geographic Names (BGN) introduced a policy avoiding the use of apostrophes in the possessive form in place names, the intent being: (1) a standardization convention to remove confusion, (2) to simplify the printing of maps by ensuring there were fewer clashes with special characters and (3) to remove another source of imaginative interpretation by lawyers.  An additional benefit was realized when computer databases began to be created and, especially in the early post-war years, many problems in indexing and formatting were avoided by restricting entries to letters & numbers.  The BGN does make the odd exception in the case of places of historical significance and Martha's Vineyard was one of the few places to emerge with apostrophe intact.

Swap files and operating systems

A swap file (known also as virtual memory) is a file (with special attributes) stored on a HDD (hard disk drive) or SSD (solid state drive) where data is written if the physical random access memory (RAM) available becomes insufficient for the stable functioning of the operating system.  RAM is preferable for operations because, being essentially static electricity, it is so much faster than even the fastest forms of HDD or SSD.  Older versions of Microsoft Windows used pagefile.sys as a page file but since Windows 10, the function has been split into pagefile.sys and swapfile.sys which by default reside in the root of the system (c:\) drive and, for good reason, are hidden from the user.  Pagefile.sys stores data from installed (third-party) applications while swapfile.sys handles data from Windows and applications installed from the Microsoft Store.  In years gone by, there were advantages to be had in terms of speed and storage by tweaking swapfile settings (the size and the volume on which it sat) and some disabled it entirely if they had a surfeit of RAM.  Those with long memories will recall even a time when Windows permitted a choice between a temporary and permanent swap file and there were reasons why one could be preferable to the other.  However, with modern versions of Windows, it shouldn’t be disabled because many applications require it to exist and without one, simply won’t start.  For what most people do most of the time, it’s best to ignore the settings and just allow the operating system to set the configuration, even though on a machine with much RAM, the swap file is seldom used.

However, for nerds and megalomaniacs, it remains possible to tinker although, unless simulating one’s own thermonuclear explosions or modelling the global climate, few are likely to notice much difference.  It needs to be done with caution because if the swap file is too big then system will slow because RAM is often ignored whereas if it is too small, there comes a point at which that becomes functionally the same as disabling the feature.  Computer magazines used to publish ways to calculate the ideal size, either by (1) a calculation based on the size of the hard drive and installed RAM and (2), a calculation which involved assessing a typical use of physical RAM but most now concede that on modern PCs (ie 8 or more GB RAM), it’s best to allow the operating system handle the allocation.  Users can still experiment but Microsoft cautions the swap file size should never be set to more than twice the size of physical RAM; instability is assured.  There are different rules and parameters for Windows Server; because of the way Windows is written, there are special settings and system administrators have to make allowances so in event of system crashes, there’s sufficient space for dump files which can reveal much.  For those who don’t, in another context, wish anything to be revealed, page files can be encrypted although, while secure, that does impose some overhead on disk IO (input/output).

Under Linux, the golden rule long was a swap size should be double the installed RAM but that hardly applies to modern machines, indeed, on some boxes, that may no longer even be possible.  Many Linux distributors are actually silent on the matter, perhaps reflecting the not improbable assumption their users are nerdier than the Windows crowd and will likely work things out themselves but some do provide guidance.

(1) Red Hat suggest a swap size of 20% of RAM for modern systems (which they define as 4GB or more RAM).

(2) CentOS suggests (2a) twice the size of RAM if RAM is less than 2 GB or (2b) size of RAM + 2 GB if RAM size is greater than 2 GB.

(3) Ubuntu notes (3a) if hibernation is used, a swap of the size of RAM plus the square root of the RAM size is necessary, (3b), if RAM is less than 1 GB, swap size should be at least the size of RAM and at most double the size of RAM & (3c) if RAM is more than 1 GB, swap size should be at least equal to the square root of the RAM size and at most double the size of RAM.

In their dark hearts, all the Unix guys really long for the world of the early mainframes where the distinctions between memory and storage space really didn’t exist and for most users, the same thing applies under Linux: usually it’s best just to let the system decide.

Swap Films

Swap Movie DVD twin-packs: The Parent Trap and Freaky Friday.

“Swap” films are a common trope in commercial cinema, done so often one wonders if the screen-writers might not be ungrateful were the scripts for such things handed to AI (artificial intelligence) bots; it must be a thankless task to try to come up with some original take on the concept.  Probably, every twenty-odd years, scripts could be recycled and few except pedantic critics would notice.  Swap films with the Freaky Friday title have appeared four times since 1976 (another is threatened) and at least two others have been made which follow variations of the plotline.  The Parent Trap franchise is built around a different sort of swap, one which doesn’t depend on any aspect of the supernatural.  Using the title there have been two feature-length films and three made television features with Disney said to have another release in the pipeline.  This swap theme (two characters changing places for some purpose) has been used in fiction (in print and on screen) literally dozens of times in genres as varied as satire, rom-coms (romantic comedy), fantasy and horror.

Transom

Transom (pronounced tran-suhm)

(1) In architecture, a crosspiece separating a door or the like from a window or fanlight above it.

(2) In glazing, a window above such a crosspiece, also called transom light, transom window or fanlight.

(3) A crossbar of wood or stone, dividing a window horizontally.

(4) A window so divided.

(5) In naval architecture, a flat termination to a stern, above the water line.

(6) In shipbuilding, a framework running athwartships (from one side to the other of a vessel at right angles to the keel) in way of the sternpost of a steel or iron vessel, used as a support for the frames of the counter.

(7) In the design of artillery pieces, a metal piece connecting the sidepieces of the tail or the cheeks of a gun carriage.

1325–1375: From the late Middle English traunsum and traunsom, an evolution of the Middle English transyn (crossbeam spanning an opening, lintel).  It was probably dissimilation from the Latin trānstrum (crossbeam, especially one spanning an opening), the construct being trāns (from the primitive Indo-European terh (through, throughout, over) and tere (cross over, pass through, overcome) which was cognate with the English through, the Scots throch (through), the West Frisian troch (through), the Dutch door (through), the German durch (through), the Gothic þairh (through), the Albanian tërthor (through; around) and the Welsh tra (through) + trum (the instrumental suffix).  The Old French traversin (crosspiece) was derivative of travers (breadth) and drawn from the Middle French traversayn and the Old French traversing.  The meaning "small window over a door or other window" was first recorded in 1844.

Windows

In architecture, used for both external and interior work, a transom is a transverse horizontal crosspiece separating a door from the window above and, in modern application, may be structural or merely decorative.  A similar device, if installed vertically is a mullion.  The adoption in England of the more evocative synonym fanlight followed the early Victorian fashion of forming transom windows in a semi-circular shape, the ribs segmenting the slats to resemble a folding hand fan.

Although now almost always a decorative affectation, the origin lies in architectural necessity at a time when structural engineering was less advanced.    In early Gothic ecclesiastical work, transoms were used in the unglazed windows of belfries or spires where they strengthened the mullions in the absence of the iron stay bars of glazed windows.  In the later Gothic, and especially the Perpendicular Period, transoms became common in many designs of windows, whether or not a structural need.

Lindsay Lohan at the stage door of the Playhouse Theatre London, June 2014 for rehearsals for Speed-the-Plow (1988) by David Mamet (b 1947).  This is a two-panel transom.

Front door of the UK prime minister's residence at 10 Downing Street.  This style of transom window is called a fanlight.

Viscount

Viscount (pronounced vahy-kount)

(1) In the peerage of the UK, a nobleman ranking below an earl and above a baron.

(2) In medieval Europe, the deputy of a count.

(3) In historic English use, a sheriff.

(4) In the 華族 (Kazoku) (Magnificent/Exalted lineage), a rank in the hereditary peerage (1869-1947) of the Empire of Japan (1868-1947), the system emulating the English structure.

(5) In the UK and some European countries, a secondary title of the higher ranks of nobility, used by the sons of the primary title holders (and in Europe, sometimes by the younger brother of a count).

(6) In lepidopterology, any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Tanaecia (other butterflies in the genus are earls & counts).

1350–1400: From the Middle English viscounte, from the Anglo-French & Old French visconte (which in modern French became vicomte), from the Medieval Latin vicecomitem, accusative of vicecomes, the construct being vis- (vice) (deputy) + comes (a Roman imperial courtier or trusted appointee, source of the modern “count” (although the word originally meant "companion").  The title is called a viscountcy and the feminine form is viscountess.  In the peerage system, the symbol is “V” the abbreviations are “Vis” & “Visc” and the contractions are “Visct” & “Vte”.  Viscount, viscountess, viscountship, viscountcy & viscounty are nouns and viscountal, vicecomital, vicontiel & viscomital are adjectives; the noun plural is viscounts.

The first counts were created during the Carolingian Empire (800-888; the first epoch of the aggregation which became the Holy Roman Empire which would endure until 1806).  The functions undertaken by the counts varied greatly according to the military and economic demands to their region but they were essentially governors with both administrative and military responsibilities.  Viscounts (ie vice (deputy) counts) were appointed to assist the counts; although the office carried with it no authority, the viscounts exercised powers delegated by the count, often serving as magistrates administering justice in minor civil and less serious criminal matters.  Unlike later places when they would enjoy a place in the formalized structures of the systems of hereditary peerages, neither count nor viscount was an inheritable title, kings having no wish to create centres of independent political or economic power; the counts and viscounts were to remain dependent on the king and remained in office only at his pleasure.  By the late tenth century, the title of viscount spread to areas under Norman rule, this time exercising the delegated authority of their duke and as early as the mid 1200s, at least some viscountcies had become hereditary.

Malay Viscount (Tanaecia pelea) butterfly, Hala Bala, Narathiwat, Thailand, photographed by Peter Ericsson with Canon EOS 7D Mark II (left) and Lindsay Lohan in Positano Embroidery Print Maxi Dress in latte & white, illustrating the classic Viscount coloring, rendered by Vovsoft as pen drawing (right).

As a rank in British peerage, it dates from 1440, initially a royal appointment as sheriff but as in France, evolved into a hereditarily title but so intricate is the UK's order of precedence even Victoria (1819–1901; Queen of the UK 1837-1901), who had recently assumed the throne, must have found the layers perplexing and so felt compelled to ask her prime-minister (Viscount Melbourne (1779–1848; Prime Minister of the UK 1834 & 1835-1841) about peers who would attend the coronation ceremony, noting in her diary: "I spoke to Ld M. about the numbers of Peers present at the Coronation, & he said it was quite unprecedented.  I observed that there were very few Viscounts, to which he replied 'There are very few Viscounts,' that they were an old sort of title & not really English; that they came from Vice-Comites; that Dukes & Barons were the only real English titles; — that Marquises were likewise not English, & that people were mere made Marquises, when it was not wished that they should be made Dukes."

Portrait of Viscount Melbourne (1844), oil on canvas by John Partridge (1789–1872; portrait painter-extraordinary to the Queen, 1838-1842), National Portrait Gallery, London.

Marquess entered the system from the Old French marchis (ruler of a border area), from marche (frontier), from the Middle Latin marca (frontier), the significance of that to the English peerage being that the border of a Marquess’s lands were those which bordered potentially hostile territory and the holder, responsible for defense, was thus more important to the Crown that those whose holding lay behind the lines.  The aristocrats without the responsibility of border security were styled as barons, viscounts or earls although Melbourne chose not to burden Victoria with the etymology of earl.  Count was from the Old French conté or cunté (denoting a jurisdiction under the control of a count or a viscount (the modern French comté)) but, after the Norman conquest, the Norman French title count was abandoned and replaced with the Germanic “eral”, the entirely speculative but pleasing suggestion being the unfortunate phonetic similarity with “cunt” although the wives of earls continued to be styled “countess”; perhaps the patriarchy of the time were displaying some typical male humor.  Earl was from the Middle English erle & erl, (a strong man) from the Old English eorl, from the Proto-Germanic erlaz (related to the Old Norse jarl, the Old High German & Old Saxon erl), from the Proto-Germanic erōną & arōną (related to the Old Norse jara (fight, battle)), from the primitive Indo-European h₃er- (related to the Latin orior (to rise, get up), from the Ancient Greek ὄρνυμι (órnumi) (to urge, incite) and related to the Avestan ərənaoiti (to move), the Sanskrit ऋणोति (ṛṇóti) (to arise, reach, move, attack.  Earl also ultimately displaced the unrelated ealdorman (alderman) which, in Anglo-Saxon Britain, was applied to those men enjoying political ranking second only to the King; over the centuries, the Danish eorl was substituted and that evolved into the modern earl.

Vickers Viscount ZK-BRD of New Zealand’s National Airways Corporation (NAC) on first publicity flight, 1957.

The Vickers Viscount was produced between 1948-1963 by the British concern Vickers-Armstrongs.  One of a number of the products which emerged from the specifications and design requirements laid down by the many committees the British government established after 1942 to plan for the post-war world, it was medium-range turboprop civilian airliner, the first of its type.  A versatile design and sufficiently robust to operate in environments with severe climatic variations and rough airstrips, it was sold to operators around the world, attracted to its comfort (a pressurized cabin then quite a novelty), speed and low running costs.  By the time the last was delivered in 1963, 445 had been sold, an impressive number given the volumes of airframes in civil aviation were a fraction of in service today.  For decades a reliable workhorse with an enviable safety record, the last Viscount wasn't retired from commercial passenger service until 2009, over sixty years after the first flight.

Vickers Vanguard G-APEL of British European Airways (formed in 1946 as the British European Airways division of BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation), 1964.

In the late 1950s, Vickers would take the Viscount's fundamental design and render it as the larger, faster Vanguard, the rationale being that in the short-medium range, hundred-seat sector, there would continue to be a market for turboprop airliners, their lower operating costs off-setting their speed disadvantage.  That proved not to be the case and in the sector jets prevailed while the turboprops found a role, which endures to this day, in smaller airframes.  The Vanguard entered service in 1960, the timing especially unfortunate as it coincided with the newest generation of jet-airliners better suited to the rapidly expanding short and medium haul market in what was by them the rapidly expanding field of civil aviation.  Consequently, only a few dozen Vanguards were built but they proved as durable and practical as the Viscount and most were converted to freighters and re-christened (as Cargoliner or Merchantman depending on the operator).  Tough and versatile, the freighters proved popular in both Europe and Africa and remained in service until 1996.

General Motors and the Viscount

GMOO (General Motors Overseas Operations), 1956. 

For many reasons, globalization has become a political issue and one of the paradoxes of the process is there are few issues more "local" than globalization, partly because, as an "issue", globalization really is a construct with a meaning which can vary depending on the purposes of whoever might be finding it a useful tool.  Globalization was something which evolved over several centuries and had achieved a remarkable footprint until interrupted by World War I (1914-1918) and because of (1) the political and economic difficulties of the inter-war years (1919-1939) and (2) the more regulated financial system constructed in the mid-late 1940s, it wasn't until late in the twentieth century that a kind of "Globalization 2.0" emerged.  That's what became so controversial (to both the left and populist right) and although an economic construct, it's now one of the theatres of the culture wars.  However, for most of the twentieth century there were many "mini-globalizations" and the worldwide structure of GM (General Motors) was an example of what came to be known as corporate "multi-nationalism", something which attracted many critiques and the corporations became sensitive about the connotations the word had come to attract: In the 1970s the Ford Motor Company's Lee Iacocca (1924–2019) explained the arrangement was better thought of as "internationalism".  Quite how that was different he never made clear and few were fooled.

GM Viewing Auditorium.

In the mid-1960s, with the long, post-war boom at its apex, GM was at its most optimistic and, if not indulgent, was at least receptive to the ideas of its overseas divisions, Opel in the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany, the old West Germany), Vauxhall in the UK and Holden in Australia, then clustered in a unit called GMOO (General Motors Overseas Operations).  Computers were by then widely used in the industry for production and inventory processes but in the pre-CAD (computer aided (or assisted) design), styling and design was still something done by hand and for final evaluations, full-scale models were rendered in clay or fibreglass.  As part of design process, GM maintained an indoor “Viewing Auditorium” and outdoor “Viewing Terrace”, opened in 1956, where the full-scale models were assessed, often parked next to cars which were either competitors or sometimes just for inspiration.

Vauxhall FD Viscount (FWD) design proposal (D-68927 22 Mar 1966).

One model considered for release in 1969 was a new platform for Vauxhall’s large range, including the top-of-the-range Viscount.  Two radically different proposals were pursued, one with front wheel drive and, as the sessions at the auditorium progressed, increasingly over-wrought styling cues from some of the more lamentable of the era, including rear-wheel spats (technically called fender skirts), the attraction of which some of Detroit’s designers could not for decades shake.  Fortunately, the economics of the approach couldn’t be made to work and attention turned to the second proposal which was to base the Viscount on the German Opel KAD (Kapitän, Admiral, Diplomat) range.

Opel Diplomat design proposal D-77114 in the GM Viewing Auditorium, 15 December, 1968.

The Opel KAD range was really rather good and what ended up being released in 1969 as the range-topping Diplomat even had what was then still something of a novelty in Europe: a V8 engine, Opel plucking the 327 cubic inch (5.3 litre) small-block Chevrolet from the GM parts bin.  Augmenting this was a de Dion rear axle, a non-independent but usefully sophisticated arrangement uniquely suited to torquey US V8s, the great benefit of which was in all circumstances ensuring the rear wheels remained in parallel.  By the standards of the age it was a good car but it never succeeded in creating the perception it was a competitor for the Mercedes-Benz models at which it was aimed, nor the bigger BMWs which were moving increasingly up-market.  After the first oil-crisis in 1973, it was considered for US production as a smaller Cadillac but for a number of reasons, the project proved abortive, it being prohibitively expensive to integrate the German body-engineering into Detroit’s production system.  Cadillac instead created the first generation Seville (1976-1979), using a long-wheelbase and much modified version of the Chevrolet Nova's platform (itself based on the Camaro) which was sufficiently well-executed to hide its origins to all but the most knowledgeable.  It was expensive but well-received and, given what was possible in the difficult "malaise era", probably only a de Dion rear end would have improved the thing.

Vauxhall FD Viscount design proposal D-77841 in the GM Viewing Auditorium, 30 June 1967.

The KAD platform would have been suitable for what Vauxhall envisaged as the Viscount’s market position but the economics of adapting it to right-hand drive and using Vauxhall’s existing 3.3 litre (201 cubic inch) straight, in addition to the styling changes deemed necessary meant, given the anticipated sales volumes, profitability was never likely.  It was a different time and the UK was not then a member of the European Economic Community (EEC 1957-1993 which evolved into the modern European Union (EU); it was in English speaking countries also known as the European Common Market (usually just as the “common market”)) and UK laws required local production.  In late 1967, the proposal for a Viscount platform was vetoed and the programme cancelled.

Vauxhall PC Viscount, 1967.

As a separate platform, the Viscount project never proceeded even to prototype stage but the name did live on.  The Viscount introduced in 1966 was a gorped-up (gorp is what the industry used to call bling) version of the cheaper Cresta) and it remained in production until 1972, it’s place at the top of the range assumed by the Ventura, a gorped-up version of the smaller Victor.  Vauxhall would not return to the executive car market until later in the decade when, with the UK now in the EEC, the economics of platform-sharing with Opel became viable.