Taxi

Taxi (pronounced tak-see)

(1) A shortening of taxicab (itself a truncation of taximeter cab), traditionally a light vehicle usually fitted with a taximeter, available for hire (with its driver) to carry passengers to a specified destination; a taxi-truck extends the same concept to freight.

(2) To ride or travel in a taxicab

(3) In aviation, to cause (an aircraft) to move along the ground under its own power, especially before take-off and after landing, or to cause an aircraft to move along the ground in this way.

(4) In military slang, the act of transporting troops or the helicopter or plane used for the transport.

1907: A shortened form of taximeter cab, taximeter (automatic meter that records distance and fare) from the French taximètre, from the German Taxameter, from Taxanom, the construct a coinage based on Taxe (tax, charge or scale of charges), from the Medieval Latin taxa (tax, charge) + meter.  Ultimately however, taxi may be traced back to the Ancient Greek τάξις (taxis) from τάσσω (to place in a certain order (in the sense of “commanding an orderly battle line” or “ordaining the payment of taxes”) to the extent that ταξίδι (taxidi) ("journey" in Modern Greek) originally denoted an orderly military march or campaign (an "operation whereby displaced parts are put back in their natural situation”) noted in 1758 in the Medical Latin , a verbal noun of tassein (arrange), from the primitive Indo-European root tag- (to touch, handle).  Meter (also metre) in this sense was from the Old English meter (versification), from the Latin mētrum, from the Ancient Greek μέτρον (metron) (meter, a verse; that by which anything is measured; measure, length, size, limit, proportion) from the primitive Indo-European root me- (to measure).  It seems the word was in the early fourteenth century re-borrowed after a three-century gap in recorded use, from Old French metre, with the specific sense of "metrical scheme in verse" from the Latin mētrum and it has since been part of a structural language of poetry as well as the general sense related to “measure”.  The taximeter, originally a mechanical (clockwork) device, was later electro-mechanical and finally electronic, was the means by which the distance travelled was recorded and the fare calculated.

Stuffed: A tiger, reputedly a thirty-year old male which died from natural causes while in captivity.

In use since 1820, taxidermy (the stuffing of animal carcases for purposes of display) combines taxi in classical sense of "arrangement, an arranging with derma (skin, from the primitive Indo-European der-(to split, flay, peel), the idea again being an "operation whereby displaced parts are put back in their natural situation”;  Reflecting the popularity of big-game hunting and the volume of dead animals increasingly available to display as trophies, the profession of taxidermist was first noted in 1827.  Taxonomy (the nomenclature of the science of classification in zoology, botany etc), dates from 1819, from the (1813) French taxonomie and was an (irregular) formation from the Ancient Greek taxis (ie the sense of “arrangement") +  -nomia (method), the related forms being taxonomic & taxonomist.

Dating from 1766, cabriolet (light two-wheeled chaise, a type of horse-drawn carriage), was from the French cabriolet, from the Italian cabriole & cabriole (horse caper) +‎ -et.  Cabriole & cabriole were from the Latin capreolus (wild goat), from the primitive Indo-European kápros (buck, he-goat) and related to the Old Norse hafr (he-goat), the Old English hæfr, the Welsh gafr and the Old Irish gabor.  The seemingly strange relationship between the Latin capreolus (roebuck; wild goat) and the eighteenth century horse-drawn carriage is explained by the French cabriole (little caper) a meaning derived from its light movement, from cabrioler (to leap, caper), from the Italian capriolare (to somersault), from the Latin capreolus (roebuck; wild goat), the idea being of something light and agile in movement.  The larger, more upscale version of the lightweight carriages the French named cabriolet, “cab” being the common form in the vernacular.  The –et suffix, indicating diminution or affection, was borrowed from Old French -et, and its feminine variant -ette, both derived from the Late Latin -ittus (and the other gender forms -itta, -ittum).

1966 Mercedes-Benz 300 SE Cabriolet.

In the collector-car market, the Mercedes-Benz W111 (1961-1971) & W112 (1962-1967) remain coveted and, as is usually the case, it's the convertibles which are most sought after, even though the cabriolet lacks the coupé's lovely roofline.  Pedants note that although the two-door W111s & W112s are technically a Coupé B & Cabriolet B in the factory's naming system, they're never referred to as such because no other configuration was offered in the model.  The W112 (300 SE) is of interest too because of the chrome moldings around the wheel arches, a feature which had been seen on some earlier cars and would be shared by the 600 Grosser (W100, 1963-1981).  Criticized by some when they appeared on the 600, the additional chrome on the W112 wasn't to everyone's taste (and it was a "delete option" when new) but it clearly had an enduring appeal because for decades after-market suppliers found a read market among those with later model Mercedes-Benz, BMWs, Jaguars and some others.  This is not approved of by the purists and whether in chrome, stainless steel or anodised plastic (!) it makes not difference: the originality police insist if it wasn't done by the factory, it shouldn't be done.

1971 Mercedes-Benz 280SE 3.5 Cabriolet (a converted coupé).

This is one really to upset the originality police because (1) it started life as a coupé, (2) the chrome wheel-arch moldings were never available on this model and (3) the (Fuchs Bundts) aluminium wheels have been chromed (and may anyway be reproductions).  Such is the price premium the cabriolets command compared with the coupés, over the years, many have been tempted to cut but exactly to replicate what the factory did is harder than it sounds.   

The application of cabriolet to describe convertible cars emerged in the early years of the continental motor industry because of the conceptual similarity to the earlier, light horse-drawn two-seater carriages but as the years went by, although there was never all that much exactitude in the nomenclature, the terms to describe the variations in convertible coachwork became merely model names (except for the much later targa which Porsche had the foresight to register as a trademark) and if a car was called a roadster, drophead coupé, phaeton, cabriolet or landau, it was an indication only that the roof could (usually) be removed or folded back.  One exception to that was Daimler-Benz which tightly defined the specifications of roadsters and landaulets and, with Teutonic thoroughness, in the mid-twentieth century codified the five variations of Mercedes-Benz cabriolets as Cabriolet A, B, C, D & F (if ever there was a Cabriolet E, the factory’s definition has never surfaced.

The taxicabs of Paris were first equipped with meters in 1898; originally called taxibread, they were renamed taximètres in 1904 and the first six-hundred petrol (gas) powered New York taxicabs were imported from France (then the world’s largest producer of automobiles) in 1907, the name “taxicab” borrowed from London where it had been in used for some time.  Fake news soon emerged, reports circulating in the New York press that the handy new vehicles were named after Franz II von Taxis of the house of Thurn and Taxis (1514-1543; postmaster for Philip of Burgundy) and his nephew Johann Baptiste von Taxis (1470-1541; Postmaster-General of the Holy Roman Empire).  Both were innovative in instituting in Europe (for the first time since the Roman Empire) fast and reliable postal services and on some routes passengers were also able to purchase seats so while the Taxis’ did provide taxi services in something close to the modern sense of the word, they never used the word “taxi” for service or the vehicles.  They did however for centuries keep the lucrative postal business in family hands.

The word taxi spread quickly around the world and exists as a borrowing in many languages but some tongues localized the spelling including Burmese (takka.ci), Cantonese (的士 (dik)), Mandarin (的士 (dīshì or díshì), Irish (tacsaí), Japanese (タクシー (takushī)), Korean (택시 (taeksi)), Malay (teksi), Welsh (tacsi), Yiddish (אַקסי‎ (taksi)), Yoruba (takisí & tasín), Asturian (tasi), Basque (taxilari & taximetro), Catalan (taxista), Czech (taxík), Danish (definite singular taxien, indefinite plural taxier, definite plural taxierne), Dutch (taxietje (as a diminutive & taxichauffeur (the driver) & Indonesian (taksi (a colonial descendent from the Dutch)) although with these, the English taxi often peacefully co-exists.

Hansom Cabs, New York City, 1900.

The Hansom cab was a two-wheeled horse-drawn carriage, named after its designer, English architect Joseph Hansom (1803–1882), founder of the architectural journal The Builder (1843) and noted for his work in the Gothic Revival style and . He patented the Hansom cab in 1834 and it became instantly popular, being more compact, faster and more manoeuvrable than the hackney cabs (pulled by Hackney horses) it replaced and safer too, the centre of gravity considerably lower.  What convinced many operators to switch was that the Hansom cab was light enough to be pulled by a single horse, lowering operating costs by at least 40% and their small size made accessible many more parts of London’s tight and congested nineteenth-century streets.  Within two years they had spread to the continent, throughout the British Empire and to the United States and after clockwork mechanical taximeters (then called taxameters) were in 1894 added to measure fares, the name became taxicab.  To this day, they’re still sometimes incorrectly called “handsome cabs”.

In aviation, taxi was a slang use, an allusion to the way a taxi driver slowly cruises when looking for fares, applied to an airplane “taxiing" slowly along the tarmac coming from or going to the runway.  At some airports, designated parts of the tarmac are still designated as taxiways, a word which seems not to have been otherwise adopted although runway is now often used in the fashion industry, the traditional catwalk seen by some as too gender-loaded.  Another adoption which didn’t endure was the 1930s “taxi dancer” (a woman whose services (as a dance partner) were available for hire at a dance hall).

Checker taxicab, circa 1974.

Immortalized over decades by their appearances in film and television, for decades the usually yellow (Dupont M6284 yellow was the actual paint-code) Checker was the taxicab which dominated the US market.  They were not retired from service until 1999, their appearance almost unchanged from the last major styling in 1959 and the final tranche in taxi service had covered more than a million miles (1.6m km), a reasonable achievement for a life spent mostly in the confines of cities.  The company in its modern form emerged just in time to suffer the effects of the great depression in the early 1930s but it survived and, although producing vehicles only in small volumes which never exceeded a few thousand a year, it remained profitable until the 1970s when the recession and two oil shocks threatened survival, it not being obvious that the capital could be raised to develop a new, more fuel-efficient generation of taxis.  At the same time, under pressure from operators, cities were de-regulating the technical requirements for taxis, meaning the mass-produced mainstream models from the major manufacturers could be added to fleets.  Cheaper to produce and buy, their adoption was the death knell for Checker and production ceased in 1982, the company continuing as a part supplier until finally shuttered in 2010 in the wake of the recession which followed the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).

Checker Marathon advertising, 1960s.

As well as the taxicab which was for six decades the mainstream line, between 1960-1982, Checker also sold a consumer version as the Marathon, aimed at the private buyer who was prepared to sacrifice the advantages of more modern designs for the virtues of the taxi (robustness, timelessness (albeit circa 1955) and interior space).  So dated was the appearance that Checkers built in the 1970s were often used in film and television even though the productions were depicting periods from earlier decades and in films set during the Cold War, they were popular as convincing substitutes the cars of Eastern Bloc apparatchiks.  The Marathon was available as a sedan or station wagon and even a few long-wheelbase limousines were built although in an age of stylistic exuberance, there was little demand for something which echoed the stolid lines of the early 1950s.

Most distinctive however were the six and eight-door Aerobuses aimed at the resort-hotel and airport shuttle business.  Available (off and on) between 1962-1977 and never built in great numbers, the eight-door models were the most numerous and both could be ordered as station wagons which Checker marketed sometimes as the “nine-door”, a European practice which counted the tailgate.  Surprisingly, despite the startlingly elongated appearance, there were few engineering challenges in developing and producing the Aerobus, the Marathon’s X-section reinforced frame was as sturdy as many light trucks and with a body made with heavy gauge steel, the lengthening process detracted little from structural integrity.  The affected central section was unchanged for its entire life and the anyway hardly expensive costs of development were amortized long before production ceased in 1977, something induced by a collapse in demand, not inherent unprofitability.

The Checker Limousine was an interesting venture into a market segment which did exist, even if not generally acknowledged.  There had always been those who easily could afford to buy a Cadillac yet instead drove Buicks or Oldsmobiles and their reasons varied.  Some eschewed ostentation, some (with conspicuous visibility to customers or clients) preferred to appear just prosperous enough to inspire confidence and others just couldn't see the additional value for the extra cost.  Checker thought they might be able to carve a niche in this segment and in 1963, announced what they would come to advertise as the "Custom Limousine" (although the initial publicity material described it as the "Marathon Town Custom"), built on a 129 inch (3277 mm) wheelbase, a 9 inch stretch of the standard platform, all the additional space gained by the rear compartment.

For Checker, it was neither a novel nor an expensive project, the engineering for the six and eight-door Aerobuses (1962-1977), respectively on 154½ inch (3924 mm) & 189 inch (4801 mm) wheelbases proving the robustness of the chassis and, in the tradition of the company, there was no attempt to offer the luxurious interior appointments familiar in most limousines although the quality of the upholstery was better and accessories like power windows were available; perhaps it was thought the divider isolating passengers from the chauffeur and the option of a vinyl roof was distinction enough.  There was though the luxury of space and an ease of ingress and egress which increasingly had been sacrificed as Cadillacs, Lincolns and Imperials had become lower.  With its flat floor and high roof, that might have been attractive for the older demographic of men who might have been tempted, many of whom presumably still wore hats, something they could leave on when seated, a design aspect last championed by Chrysler in the early 1950s.  Essentially, the Checker Limousine was little different in appearance to the to the GAZ-13 Chaika (Seagull), built in the USSR between 1959-1981 by Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod (GAZ, Gorky Automobile Plant), almost exclusively for well-connected apparatchiks in the Communist Party.  A pastiche of early-mid 1950s US styling trends, most consider it owed its greatest debt to the Packards of the era though whether this was in genuine admiration or a nod to comrade Stalin’s fondness for the marque isn't known.

The Checker Limousine however never approached the GAZ either in the volume made nor longevity.  Priced (perhaps optimistically) low in the range of (non-limousine) Cadillacs, production didn't reach far into two figures and after three lacklustre seasons (1964-1967), the model was withdrawn from the list although Checker probably did amortize the investment, the 129 inch wheelbase platform re-cycled (the limousine's A19E chassis code changed to A12E for the purpose) to create a taxi version with seating for an additional two or three.  In Australia, that approach appealed to both Ford and GMH (General Motors Holden) which, in small volumes for the taxi and hire-car industries, offered cheaper, less well appointed, versions of their long-wheelbase executive models (respectively as the Fairlane Custom and the Statesman), an approach which lasted until the mid 1970s.

Long-time New York City taxi customer, Lindsay Lohan.

Habitué

Habitué (pronounced huh-bich-oo-ey or huh-a-bee-twey (French))

(1) A frequent or habitual visitor to a place.

(2) Casual term for someone so bone-idle they stay in bed long after the hour most decent folk arise.

(3) A person thought (or self-described as) especially competent to pass critical judgments in an art, particularly one of the fine arts, or in matters of taste.

1818: An English borrowing from the French habitué (to frequent), noun use of masculine past participle of habituer (accustom), from the Late Latin habituāre (to bring into a condition or habit of the body; to habituate), from habitus (condition, appearance, dress), originally the past participle of habers (to have, hold, possess; wear; find oneself, be situated; consider, think, reason, have in mind; manage, keep), from the primitive Indo-European ghabh- (to give or receive) and later the perfect passive participle of habeō (have)); the plural form is habitués.

Never assimilated into English

Borrowed from the Modern French, habitué is ultimately a fork of the Late Latin habeo (have) which was productive in many European languages.  It entered the Proto-Italic as habēō or haβēō although the latter may come from a primitive Indo-European word meaning “to grab, to take”; it’s related also to the Old Irish gaibid (to take, hold) and the Polish gabać (to grab, snatch).  Despite the similarity in both form and meaning, the English “have” is not a cognate, related instead to the Latin capiō (to take).  Some of the oldest attestations are the works of Plautus (circa 254-184 BC) and the Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus (186 BC). The Umbrian cognate hab- exists in the Iguvine Tablets (oldest of the third century BC tablets) and the Oscan cognate haf- is in the Tabula Bantina (89 BC).

Habitué illustrates the conventions of English which operates to define whether foreign words in common use are absorbed or remain alien.  Habitually the adverb and habitual the verb are both commonly used English words spelled in conventional English phonetics.  Habitué is spelled with an accented é (accent acute) and a correct pronunciation depends on following the French rule; it’s thus still a foreign word used in English enough to avoid obsolescence yet not sufficiently for either spelling or pronunciation further to have been anglicized.

Another re-boot.  Shoe shop habitué Lindsay Lohan assesses the heel &  sole.

At one end of the market, habitué is used by some to describe patrons of high-priced shops, art galleries, the opera et al when they feel a word like “customer” might be thought a bit common.  At the other end, it’s a favorite of police prosecutors, who, enjoying the juxtaposition of language, describe someone who not infrequently enjoys the services of prostitutes as “a habitué of brothels”.

Honeymoon

Honeymoon (pronounced huhn-ee-moon)

(1) A trip taken by a newly married couple.

(2) A period of a month or so immediately after a marriage.

(3) By extension, any period of blissful harmony.

(4) Any new relationship characterized by an initial period of harmony and goodwill.

(5) In politics, as honeymoon period, a period of heightened popularity enjoyed by a new leader or government.

(6) To spend one's honeymoon (usually followed by in or at); to take a honeymoon.

(7) As second (and presumably third and beyond) honeymoon, a holiday which is intended to capture something of the feeling of the first. 

1540–1450: A compound word, the construct being honey + moon, from the earlier hony moone (though most etymologists suspect that in the oral tradition it was much older).  Honeymoon may be compared with the Middle Low German suckermânt (honeymoon (literally “sugar-month”) and the German Low & German Hönnigweken (honeymoon (literally “honey-weeks”). The German Honigmond, the French lune de miel and the Turkish balaki are all calques of the English term and one intriguing German variation is the plural flitterwochen, the construct being flitter (tinsel) + wochen (week), presumably an allusion to the insubstantial and fleeting nature of a couple’s early affections.  Babymoon and family moon were constructions in line with the original cynical sense of honeymoon the idea that the joy brought by a new-born soon fades as the demands of parenthood become apparent.  Honeymoon is a noun, verb & adjective, honeymooner a noun, honeymooning a noun, verb & adjective and the (simple past tense and past participle) honeymooned is usually a verb but can be applied adjectivally; the noun plural is honeymoon.  As a modifier it’s associated with forms such as honeymoon suite, honeymoon cottage etc.

The pre-900 honey (a viscous, sweet fluid produced from plant nectar by bees and often used to sweeten tea or to spread on baked goods and (by extension) used often to describe anything literally sweet, smooth or in some way desirable (animal, vegetable or mineral)) was from the Middle English hony &  honi, from the Old English hueng & huniġ, from the Proto-West Germanic hunag, from the Proto-Germanic hunagą (related to the Old Norse hunang, the Old Saxon hanig, the West Frisian hunich and the German Honig), from the earlier hunangą (related to the Swedish honung), from the primitive Indo-European kn̥honk-o-s, from kn̥hónks. It was cognate with the Middle Welsh canecon (gold), the Latin canicae (bran), the Tocharian B kronkśe (bee), the Albanian qengjë (beehive), the Ancient Greek κνῆκος (knêkos) (safflower; yellowish), the Northern Kurdish şan (beehive), the Sanskrit kánaka- (gold) and the Northern Luri گونج‎ (gonj) (Bee).  Honey has been productive in English phraseology and word creation including honeybee, honeybun, honeycreeper, honeydew, honeyeater, honeypot & honeysucker.  The alternative spelling was hunny.

The pre-900 moon (with an initial capital the Earth's only permanent natural satellite and without, the technical term to describe other such bodies in the universe) was from the Middle English mone, from the Old English mōna (moon), from the Proto-West Germanic mānō, from the Proto-Germanic mēnô (moon), from the Gothic mena, from the primitive Indo-European mḗhn̥s (moon, month), probably from meh- (to measure).  It was akin to the Old Frisian mōna, the German Mond (moon), the Latin mēnsis (month), the Ancient Greek mḗnē (moon) and the Sanskrit māsa (moon, month).  Poetically, it refers to a month, particularly a lunar month, a measure of time used by pre-modern cultures, surviving in modern use as “many moons” (a long time).  In cartomancy, the moon is the thirty-second Lenormand card and since the emergence of crypto-currencies has been used to describe a rapid increase in value of a coin or token.  Moon has been productive in English phraseology and word creation including ask for the moon, blood moon, blue moon, moonbounce, moonbow, moonless, moonlet, moonstruck, moonwake, moonwalk & moonsick.

Lindsay Lohan on honeymoon at the Bodrum EDITION on the Turkish Riviera, July 2022.  The choice of orange and blue swimwear may not have been in memory of the Gulf livery in which Ford GT40s (left) & Porsche 917s (right) raced during the 1960s & 1970s but both were good choices.

In English, although honeymoon always denoted the period of time following a wedding, the idea now is honey in the sense of sweetness, the first fine careless rapture of love, the happy time in a marriage before reality bites.  However, the original reference was a more cynical reference to that first affection waning like the moon.  Fortunately, the later (attested since 1546), more romantic interpretation prevailed and the meaning is now (1) the first month after marriage", which tends to be the sweetest or (2) dating from circa 1800, the holiday the couple take immediately after the ceremony which, for some, will also be the consummation.  The timing of that consummation could be significant, some claiming (though the evidence is slight) that the honeymoon is a relic both of (1) the old tradition of elopement and (2) marriage by capture, both practices during which the couple (happy and not) went into hiding to avoid reprisals from relatives, the plan being that by the end of the month, the woman would be with child, thus rendering the marriage immune from annulment by the Church.  Whatever the origin, the tradition of a honeymoon crossed the English Channel, known from the 1820s in France as the voyage à la façon anglaise (English-style voyage).  Whether by coincidence or as a product of opportunistic commerce, the adoption on the continent became part of the new industry of (relatively) low-cost mass tourism and honeymoon tours (sometimes in groups) were among the first examples of packaged tourism where transportation, accommodation and sight-seeing were bundled and sold at a fixed price.  

A most attractive tale from ancient Babylonia, though not one all historians accept is that upon marriage, a bride’s father would supply all the “honey kash” (a type of beer to which honey and sweet herbs were added) the groom could drink for one month after the wedding and, because the calendar was lunar based, this month was referred to as the “honey moon”.  Many anthropologists too doubt the story but Persian does have the similar ماه عسل (Māh-e Asal) ("month of honey" or "moon of honey").

Just as the Medieval period was a source of many Greek “myths” reputedly from antiquity, in the nineteenth century, encouraged by the popularity the works of Richard Wagner (1813-1883) had lent to the Norse legends, new “legends” were created, one borrowing from Ancient Babylonia and claiming the source of honeymoon was the “custom of the higher order of the Teutones to drink Mead (or Metheglin, a beverage brewed with honey and, in genuine Norse mythology, the nectar the Valkyries serve in Valhalla to the fallen warriors), for thirty days after every wedding.  Long discredited by historians, the fanciful tale still occasionally is quoted.

The high priest of Haitian voodoo, Max Beauvoir (1936-2015) and a relief painting depicting a voodoo ceremony, Port au Prince, Haiti, February 2010.  Mr Beauvoir was a biochemist before succeeding his grandfather as a Voodoo priest, attaining eventually the title of Supreme Servitur (supreme servant), one of the high titles in the Voudou priesthood.

In December 1975, Bill and Hillary Clinton spent part of their honeymoon in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.  The honeymoon seems to have been a success although in his autobiography, Mr Clinton did note the “…most interesting day of the trip…” was when they both witnessed a voodoo ceremony conducted by voodoo-priest Max Beauvoir, the highlight apparently when a woman bit the head off a live chicken.  Helpfully, Mr Beauvoir also gave the honeymooners what Mr Clinton described as a "…brief course in voodoo theology" (and since that day, crooked Hillary Clinton has never denied practicing voodoo).  Mr Clinton described the rituals:

"After several minutes of rhythmic dancing to pounding drums, the spirits arrived, seizing a woman and a man.  The man proceeded to rub a burning torch all over his body and walk on hot coals without being burned.  The woman, in a frenzy, screamed repeatedly, then grabbed a live chicken and bit its head off.  Then the spirits left and those who had been possessed fell to the ground."

He added that the experience had profoundly transformed his understanding of God and human nature, the way “…different cultures try to make sense of life, nature, and the virtually universal belief that there is a nonphysical spirit force at work in the world."  "The Lord works in mysterious ways" he added.

Teal

Teal (pronounced teel)

(1) Any of several species of small dabbling, short-necked freshwater ducks (such as the Eurasian Anas crecca (common teal)), of worldwide distribution and related to the mallard, travelling usually in tight flocks and frequenting ponds, lakes and marshes.

(2) A color, a medium to dark greenish blue, often mixed with traces of azure, beryl, cerulean, cobalt, indigo, navy, royal, sapphire, turquoise & ultramarine, also called teal blue and (rarely) tealturquoise, peacockblue or blueteal.

(3) As TEAl, the abbreviation of triethylaluminium (in organic chemistry, a volatile organometallic compound (Al₂(C₂H₅)₆ or Al₂Et₆) used in various chemical processes and as an ignitor in rockets and jet engines.)

(4) As TEAL, the (historical) initialism of Tasman Empire Airways Limited, the forerunner to Air New Zealand.

(5) A collective descriptor informally adopted to refer to certain nominally independent candidates contesting certain electorates in the 2022 Australian general election.

1275-1375: From Middle English tele (small freshwater duck), probably from the (unrecorded) Old English tǣle and cognate with the Middle Low German tēlink, from the from West Germanic taili, from the West Frisian tjilling (teal) and the Middle Dutch tēling (teal (source of the Modern Dutch taling)).  The Middle Low German tēlink, was from the Proto-Germanic tailijaz, of unknown ultimate origin, with no cognates outside of Germanic.  As the name of a shade of dark greenish-blue resembling the color patterns on the fowl's head and wings, it is attested from 1923 in clothing advertisements, thereby joining the long list of variations of descriptions of the variations in the shades of blue including: blue; Alice blue, aqua, aquamarine, azure, baby blue, beryl, bice, bice blue, blue green, blue violet, blueberry, cadet blue, Cambridge blue, cerulean, cobalt blue, Copenhagen blue, cornflower, cornflower blue, cyan, dark blue, Dodger blue, duck-egg blue, eggshell blue, electric-blue, gentian blue, ice blue, lapis lazuli, light blue, lovat, mazarine, midnight blue, navy, Nile blue, Oxford blue, peacock blue, petrol blue, powder blue, Prussian blue, robin's-egg blue, royal blue, sapphire, saxe blue, slate blue, sky blue, teal, turquoise, ultramarine, Wedgwood blue & zaffre.  The noun plural is teal or (especially collectively), teals; the spelling teale is obsolete.

TEAL Lockheed L-188 Electra ZK-TEB 1963 (left) & 1965 (right).  The TEAL livery was retained when the corporate name was changed in 1965, the aircraft not immediately re-painted, “Air New Zealand” replacing “TEAL JET PROP” on the fuselage as required by the rules of the Convention on International Civil Aviation (1944).

The airline TEAL (Tasman Empire Airways Limited) emerged from the Tasman Sea Agreement, an intergovernmental treaty between the Australia, New Zealand and the UK, concluded in London early in 1940.  The purpose of the operation was to provide for the trans-Tasman traffic of passengers, cargo and mail, something which had been disrupted by the outbreak of hostilities in 1939.  In the manner of a number of wartime agreements, the treaty contained a sunset clause which stipulated a termination within three months of the end of the war with Germany but such was the state of post-war civil aviation that arrangements were carried over and pre-war practices did not return to the trans-Tasman route until 1954.  As part of that re-organization, the shareholdings, which previously had been spread between the New Zealand Government (20%), Union Airways (19%), BOAC (38%) and Qantas (23%), were dissolved and the two governments assumed co-ownership until 1961 when both decided to maintain separate national carriers, TEAL and Qantas, the relationship having been strained since the Australians had insisted TEAL order the turboprop Lockheed Electra to maintain fleet standardization with Qantas while the New Zealanders wanted to upgrade to jets.  In 1965, TEAL was re-named Air New Zealand.

Lindsay Lohan in teal, Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards (2004, left), publicity shot in Greece (2019, centre) & premiere of Mean Girls (2004).

Trooping the color: The teal mafia out campaigning in the Wentworth electorate, Australian general election 2022.

The so-called “teal independents” are a number of nominally independent candidates contesting certain electorates in the 2022 Australian general election.  The teal candidates on which there has been much focus are almost all professional women drawn from outside professional politics, contesting nominally “safe” Liberal Party seats in which there’s a higher than average interest in progressive issues, especially climate change.  The use of the color teal is thought an allusion to the mixing of blue and green, blue a reference either to the “blue-blood” demographic profile of the electorates or it being the traditional color associated with conservative politics and green the environmental consciousness which the teals are making a focus of their campaigns.  Former Liberal Party prime-minister John Howard (b 1939; prime-minister 1996-2007) was not impressed by the practice of styling the teals as “independents”, claiming it was misleading given the source of some of their funding and logistical support from entities which would in the US be understood as PACs (political action committees), entities which combined lobbying with activism on specific issues.  Mr Howard suggested the teals were merely “…posing as independents” and were really “…anti-Liberal groupies”, their aim being “…to hurt the Liberal party, not to represent the middle ground of their electorates” adding “They don’t represent disgruntled Liberals.  They represent a group in the community that wants to destroy the Liberal government. It’s as simple as that.”

Flags of the Australian Liberal Party & Australian Labor Party.

Mr Howard was right in that the consequences really are simple as that: if a sufficient number of teals are successful, they will hurt the Liberal party and destroy the Liberal-National coalition government but where the teals would differ from the former prime-minister is in not conflating cause with effect.  The teal candidates have well expressed (if not especially detailed) policy objectives and are seeking to destroy the government because they wish to see alternative policies pursued and about that, voters will agree, disagree or remain indifferent.  What attracted most attention however was Mr Howard’s choice of the word “groupies” to refer to the (mostly female) teals, one critic noting an analysis of the composition of the four ministries he formed while prime-minister did suggest he was inclined to appoint women to the “touchy-feely” portfolios dealing with people while the men got the meatier appointments.  That aside, he does have a point about the word “independent” being misleading.  Historically, in Australia, it’s been understood as meaning a candidate for or member of a parliament who is not a member of a political party (within the legally-defined meaning).  That the teals are not but, though not a conventional party, the teal thing is clearly a concept, a movement or something else beyond a mere state of mind and parts of it are a framework providing the candidates with financial and administrative assistance in a more structured way that that of local volunteers.  The teals (not all of whom use the color in their advertising, one in particular running a “pink” campaign) have also been the victims of some ambush marketing, complaining that others were now muddying the waters by sending out teal-colored flyers.  They might have some difficulty in enforcing an exclusivity of right on a color, about the only restriction enforced is on purple which can’t be used in circumstances where it might be confused with something from the Australian Electoral commission which most jealously guards its purple.  Nor is some fluidity of meaning unknown in Australian politics.  During the 1970s and 1980s, in the Victorian Labor Party, although an apparent contradiction in terms, a faction was formed called the “Independents”, a faction self-described by its members as being a faction for those “who disliked factional politics”.  It was novel then and unthinkable now but happened at a time when the Left had been neutralized by federal intervention and the Right was still obsessed with the DLP (the even more right-wing Roman-Catholic breakaway) and the Cold War.  There was a gap in the market.

Flags of the Australian National Party & the Australian Greens.

Teal as blend of blue and green imparting political meaning works in Australia because the use of the colors red (of the left), blue (of the right) & green (of the greenies) is well understood.  Even the historic association of the National Party with green doesn’t cause confusion.  The National Party (originally the Country Party and briefly in some places the National-Country Party), had always used green to reflect their agrarian origins but adapted well in the 1980s to the emergence of formalized Green parties (which of course chose green for semiotic purposes).  Pragmatists, the Nationals, operating as usual like horse-traders and soft-drink salesmen, settled on a slightly darker shade with gold lettering, the traditional Australian sporting livery.  Briefly, the Nationals had flirted with shades of brown, the idea being to convey “the people of the soil” but the idea was quickly abandoned, not because brown was so associated with the Nazis (the Braunes Haus (Brown House) was their early Munich headquarters and the Surmabteilung (the SA and literally "Storm Detachment" but usually called storm-troopers) were street thugs known as the “brownshirts” because of their uniform) but because brown is such an unappealing colour and difficult for graphic artists to handle.         

Crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) liked teal pantsuits and retained a fondness for the shade, even as the cut of her clothes became more accommodating.

The origin of red being associated with the politics of radicalism and revolution is generally assumed to date from the use in the French revolution where the idea was to represent the blood spilled in the overthrow of the ancien régime although the shade used should perhaps have been darkened a little in the years that followed as the revolution began “to consume its children”.  Around the planet, colors are widely used as political identifiers and, with different traditions of use and history of origin, there’s a wide divergence of meaning; what a color in one country conveys can mean the opposite in another.  There’s also the point that at one, important level, a color is just a color and the choice, even for political purposes, may be purely on aesthetic grounds:  Hitler made no secret that he choose red, white and black as for the early depictions of the swastika and other Nazi imagery because his ideological opponents, the communists, had used it with such success.  Among the best known color adoptions are orange and green in Ireland, yellow and red in Thailand and black by the so-called Islamic State (داعش, Dāʿish) and a number of Islamist and Islamic fundamentalist movements (as a symbol of jihad), saffron in India because of the traditional association with Hinduism and the Hindu nationalist movement.  The association of certain blue & red with political parties or ideologies is fairly consistent in the English-speaking world except for the curious pattern of use in the United States.

Flags of the US Republican Party (Elephants) & US Democrat Party (Donkeys).

In the US, although the idea of blue states (Democrats) and red states (Republicans) is now entrenched as part of the political lexicon, it's been that way only for two decades odd.  Red and blue had long been used to illustrate the US electoral map but there was never any consistency in how they were allotted to the parties and in some elections, different television networks might use them differently or even use different colors entirely, one of the considerations being what worked best on the then novel medium of color television.  The other influence was possibly political culture, there being in the US little tradition of a mainstream, radical party of the left so the red-blue contrast as it was understood elsewhere in the English-speaking world didn't register in the same way.  It was in the 2000 presidential election that the television networks agreed to standardize the red and blue designations for Republicans and Democrats, the incentive simply one of convenience in the reporting of the drawn-out Electoral College numbers that year.  As the red and blue imagery flowed across screens for weeks before the numbers were settled, the color associations became set in stone.

Shades of purple, the US 2004 presidential election: outcomes from Electoral College represented by state (left) and county (right). 

The idea of the US as a divided society of red states (emblematically the fly-overs) and blue states (with populations on the corrupting coastlines) is graphically illustrated when the states are colored according to the winner-takes-all system electoral college system but if the red-blue map is instead constructed county by county, a more nuanced spectrum emerges as one that is in shades of purple (purple a mix of red & blue as teal is of green & blue).  The US is a country of divisions and many of the cleavages are cross-cutting but the state by state maps do exaggerate the extent of the political polarization.

2021 McLaren GT Coupé in teal (Serpentine in the McLaren color chart).