Verse

Verse (pronouced vurs)

(1) In non-technical use, a stanza.

(2) A succession of metrical feet written, printed, or orally composed as one line; one of the lines of a poem.

(3) A particular type of metrical line.

(4) A poem or a coherent fragment of a poem (as distinct from prose).

(5) A metrical composition; especially poetically, as involving metrical form.

(6) Metrical writing, distinguished from poetry because it’s defined as inferior.

(7) The collective poetry of an author, period, nation, group etc.

(8) One of the short conventional divisions of a chapter of the Bible.

(9) In music, that part of a song following the introduction and preceding the chorus (may be repeated or there may be several verses); sometimes defined also as those parts of a song designed to be sung by a solo voice.

(1) A line of prose (especially a sentence, or part of a sentence), written as a single line (now rare and used mostly in technical criticism).

(11) Of, relating to, or written in verse.

(12) A subdivision in any literary work (archaic).

(13) A synonym for versify (archaic).

(14) To compose verses, to tell in verse, or poetry (archaic).

(15) In the category system of the Grindr contact app, as a clipping of versatile, a man who enjoys assuming both roles in anal sex.  

Pre 900: From the Late Old English & Middle English verse, vers & fers (section of a psalm or canticle (and by the fourteenth century also poetry)), from the Old French & Old English fers (an early West Germanic borrowing directly from Latin), from the Latin versus (a row, a line in writing, and in poetry a verse (literally “a turning (of the plough)”), the construct being vert(ere) (to turn (past participle of versus)) + -tus (the suffix of verbal action (with dt becoming s)) and related to the Latin vertō (to turn around).  The ultimate root of the Latin forms was the primitive Indo-European wer (to turn; to bend) and the link with poetry is the metaphor of plowing, turning from one line to another as the ploughman turned from one furrow to the next.  Verse was technically being a back-formation from versus and was thus misconstrued as a third-person singular verb verses.

The late fourteenth century verb versify (compose verse, write poetry, make verses) was from the thirteenth century Old French versifier (turn into verse), from the Latin versificare (compose verse; put into verse), from versus, as a combining form of facere (to make), from the primitive Indo-European root dhe- (to set, put).   The transitive sense (put into verse) dates from 1735 and is probably obsolete except in historic use or as a literary device; the related forms are versified; versifying & versifier (existing since the mid-fourteenth century).  Verse is a noun, verb and adjective, versed & versing are verbs.

The English New Testament was in the 1550s first was divided fully into verses in the Geneva version.  The colloquial use in video gaming (typically as “verse him” meaning “to oppose, to compete against” remains non-standard.  The meaning "metrical composition" was first noted in circa 1300.  The use to describe the (usually) non-repeating part of modern songs (between repetitions of the chorus) was unknown until 1918 when the US social anthropologist (who would now be styled an ethno-musicologist) Natalie Curtis Burlin (1875-1921) published Negro Folk-Songs.  That work included a structural analysis of what were then called negro spirituals (now known as gospel music) which noted the distinction between chorus and verse, the former a melodic refrain sung by all which opens the song; the latter performed as a solo in free recitative.  The chorus is repeated, followed by another verse, then the chorus and so on until the final rendition of the chorus ends the song.

In poetry, the blank verse (unrhymed pentameter) was a structure frequently used in English dramatic and epic poetry, the descriptor dating from the 1580s although the form was attested in English poetry from the mid-sixteenth century and was of classical origin.  Definitely not of classical origin was the free verse (an 1869 Englishing of vers libre).  Free verse was controversial then and has remained so since among the tiny sliver of the population which takes any notice of the art.  The modernists generally were welcoming of the relaxation of the devotion to rhyme which the English lyric poets had elevated from art to obsession although they were as apt to condemn works as the literary establishment.  Free verse did not demand any adherence to meter and rhyme but sometimes lines or even whole stanzas so structured would appear in free verse, something which might be thought proto-postmodernism.

Verse, stanza, strophe & stave are all terms for a metrical grouping in poetic composition. Verse is often used interchangeably with stanza, but is properly only a single metrical line although in general use, verse is understood also to mean (1) a type of language rendered intentionally different from ordinary speech or prose and (2) a broader category of work than poetry, the latter historically thought serious, structured and genuinely art.  A stanza is a succession of lines (verses) commonly bound together by a rhyme scheme, and usually forming one of a series of similar groups that constitute a poem (the four-line stanza once the most frequently used in English).  The strophe (originally the section of a Greek choral ode sung while the chorus was moving from right to left) is in English poetry essentially “a section” which may be unrhymed or without strict form and may also be a stanza.  A strophe is a divisions of odes.  Stave is a now rare word meaning a stanza set to music or intended to be sung.  Many of those who read poetry for pleasure rather than analysis are probably unaware of this definitional swamp and it’s doubtful their experiences would be any more enjoyable were they to know.

Grindr and the prescriptive binary

Grindr is an app to help the gay community meet one another.  It has attracted criticism because it historically offered users the choice of defining themselves only as (1) a top (a man penetrating or with a preference for penetrating during homosexual anal intercourse (in gay slang also known as the “pitcher”), a bottom (a man who prefers, begs or demands the receptive role in anal sex with men (in gay slang also known as the “catcher”)) or a verse (a clipping of versatile, the sense being a man who enjoys assuming both roles in anal sex (ie is both pitcher & catcher)).

Top in this context was from, the Middle English top & toppe, from the Old English top (highest part; summit; crest; tassel, tuft; a tuft or ball at the highest point of anything), from the Proto-West Germanic topp, from the Proto-Germanic tuppaz (braid, pigtail, end) of unknown origin.  It was cognate with the Scots tap (top), the North Frisian top, tap & tup (top), the Saterland Frisian Top (top), the West Frisian top (top), the Dutch top (top, summit, peak), the Low German Topp (top), the German Zopf (braid, pigtail, plait, top), the Swedish topp (peak, summit, tip) and the Icelandic toppur (top).  Bottom in this context was from the Middle English botme & botom, from the Old English botm & bodan (bottom, foundation; ground, abyss), from the Proto-Germanic butmaz & budmaz, from the primitive Indo-European bhudhmḗn (bottom).  It was cognate with the Dutch bodem, the German Boden, the Icelandic botn, the Danish bund, the Irish bonn (sole (of foot)), the Ancient Greek πυθμήν (puthmḗn) (bottom of a cup or jar), the Sanskrit बुध्न (budhna) (bottom), the Persian بن‎ (bon) (bottom), the Latin fundus (bottom) (from which, via French, English gained fund). The familiar (and to Grindr essential) sense “posterior of a person” dates from 1794.  Versatile was from the Latin versātilis (turning, revolving, moving, capable of turning with ease to varied subjects or tasks), from versātus, past participle stem of versare (keep turning, be engaged in something, turn over in the mind), past participle of versō (I turn, change), frequentative of vertō (I turn), from the primitive Indo-European root wer- (to turn, to bend).  Grindr’s choice of a clipping of versatile may have been influenced by the meaning noted in English since 1762: “Able to do many things well”.

In May 2022 however Grindr added “side”, a category not unknown in the gay community but distinct from either the A (asexual) or P (pansexual) entries in the LGBTQQIAAOP string.  Deviating from the binary which (long pre-dating Grindr) has tended to define gay culture, sides are said to be those men who derive satisfaction from a range of sexual acts not including anal penetration, preferring instead oral, manual and frictional body techniques which deliver emotional, physical and psychological pleasure.  The general term for these activities is “outercourse”.

Grindr in 2022: Age of the Side.

The term “side” in this context was in 2013 defined by US psychotherapist Dr Joe Kort (b 1963) but it attracted little attention outside the mental health community until he used social media to generate interest and provide both a clearing house for information and facilitate contact between sides not catered for by Grinda and others which traditionally imposed the top/bottom categories as absolute.  The reaction was interesting and sides reported being ostracized or otherwise marginalized by the wider gay community which tended even to refuse to accept men could identify as gay if anal penetration wasn’t part of their expectation, either as top or bottom.  Interestingly, reflecting their different tradition, lesbians seem more accepting of variation in expectations, not putting the same premium on vaginal penetration.  Of course the exclusionary exactitude exists also in the heterosexual world, drawn probably from the long insistence by legal systems that it was the act of penetration (by human organs or other devices) which is the crucial threshold in so many of the gradients of sexual assault in criminal law and Bill Clinton (b 1946, president of the US 1993-2001) was famously assertive in saying he “…did not have sex with that woman” (Monica Lewinsky (b 1973)) on the basis there was no vaginal penetration. 

Dr Kort took the view that defining penetration as the sole criterion for “real” sex was just another heteronormative construct and that in accepting it gay men were allowing themselves again to be victims of a patriarchal hegemony and others pointed out that many who defined as asexual were actually those who indulged in sexual activities other than the penetrative.  Perhaps neutral on the sexual politics, Grindr certainly responded to the metrics.  If thousands were interacting with Dr Kort’s social media presence then there was gap in the market and Grindr was there to fill the gap, “side” in May 2022 added as the third way to be gay, hinting perhaps there was something in the old phrase “bit of a homosexual”.  It’ll be interesting to see if the marginalization earlier noted manifests on Grindr because there’s no evidence to suggest the sides have been welcomed to display themselves as an identifiable group in gay pride events and mental health clinicians have noted a definite gay hierarchy with the tops atop.  The other interesting issue is whether a second P needs to be appended to the LGBTQQIAAOP string to accommodate the platonic because the asexuals are clearly having sex, just not as Bill Clinton defines it.  It’s sex Bill but not as you know it.

Verse by Lindsay Lohan

Not previously much noted for publishing criticism of poetry, modernist or otherwise (although their reporters have been known to gush about the "poetic skills" of footballers), Rupert Murdoch's The Sun on 3 January 2017 did take note of some verse Lindsay Lohan posted on Instagram:

sometimes i hear the voice of the one i loved the most

but in this world we live in of terror

who i am to be the girl who is scared and hurt

when most things that happen i cannot explain

i try to understand

when i'm sitting in bed alone at 3am

so i can't sleep, i roll over

i can't think and my body becomes cold

i immediately feel older.....

 

than i realise, at least i am in a bed,

i am still alive,

so what can really be said?

just go to bed and close the blinds,

still and so on, i cannot help but want to fix all of these idle isis

minds

because,

there has to be something i can figure out

rather than living in a world of fear and doubt

they now shoot, we used to shout.

 

if only i can keep trying to fix it all

i would keep the world living loving and small

i would share my smiles

and give too Many kisses

Vogue

Vogue (pronounced vohg)

(1) Something in fashion at a particular time or in a particular place.

(2) An expression of popular currency, acceptance, or favor.

(3) A highly stylized modern dance that evolved out of the Harlem ballroom scene in the 1960s, the name influenced by the fashion magazine; one who practiced the dance was a voguer who was voguing.

(4) In Polari, a cigarette or to light a cigarette (often in the expression “vogue me up”).

1565–1575: From the Middle English vogue (height of popularity or accepted fashion), from the Middle French vogue (fashion, success (literally, “wave or course of success”)), from the Old French vogue (a rowing), from voguer (to row, sway, set sail), from the Old Saxon wegan (to move) & wogōn (to sway, rock), a variant of wagōn (to float, fluctuate), from the Proto-Germanic wagōną (to sway, fluctuate) and the Proto-Germanic wēgaz (water in motion), wagōną (to sway, fluctuate), wēgaz (water in motion) & weganą (to move, carry, weigh), from the primitive Indo-European weǵh- (to move, go, transport (and an influence on the English way).  The forms were akin to the Old Saxon wegan (to move), the Old High German wegan (to move), the Old English wegan (to move, carry, weigh), the Old Norse vaga (to sway, fluctuate), the Old English wagian (to sway, totter), the Proto-West Germanic wagōn, the German Woge (wave) and the Swedish våg.  A parallel development the Germanic forms was the Spanish boga (rowing) and the Old Italian voga (a rowing), from vogare (to row, sail), of unknown origin and the Italianate forms were probably some influence on the development of the verb.  Vogue & voguer are nouns (voguette an informal noun), voguing is a noun and adjective, vogued is a verb and vogueing & voguish are adjectives; the noun plural is vogues.

All etymologists seem to concur the modern meaning is from the notion of being "borne along on the waves of fashion" and colloquially the generalized sense of "fashion, reputation" is probably from the same Germanic source.  The phrase “in vogue” (having a prominent place in popular fashion) was recorded as long ago as 1643.  The fashion magazine (now owned by Condé Nast) began publication in 1892 and the young devotees of its advice are voguettes.  In linguistics, vogue words are those words & phrases which become suddenly (although not always neologisms) popular and fade from use or becoming clichéd or hackneyed forms (wardrobe malfunction; awesome; problematic; at this point in time; acid test; in this space; parameters; paradigm et al).  Because it’s so nuanced, vogue has no universal synonym but words which tend to the same meaning (and can in some circumstances be synonymous) include latest, mod, now, rage, chic, craze, currency, custom, fad, favor, mode, popularity, practice, prevalence, style, stylishness, thing, trend & usage.

Lindsay Lohan cover, Vogue (Spanish edition), August 2009.

In Cornwall, the hamlet of Vogue in the parish of St Day gained its name from the Medieval Cornish vogue word for a medieval smelting furnace (blowing house); producing much smoke, vogue was also a word used to mean “fog or mist”.  Clearly better acquainted with law than geography, in early 2022 counsel for Condé Nast sent a cease and desist letter to the inn-keeper of the village’s The Star Inn at Vogue pub, demanding the place change its name to avoid any public perception of a connection between the two businesses.  The pub’s owners declined the request and Condé Nast subsequently apologized, citing insufficient investigation by their staff.

1981 Range Rover In Vogue from the first run with the standard stylized steel wheels (left) and a later 1981 In Vogue with the three-spoke aluminum units.

Much of the 1970s was spent in what to many felt like a recession, even if there were only some periods in some places during which the technical definition was fulfilled and the novel phenomenon of stagflation did disguise some of the effects.  Less affected than most (of course) were the rich who had discovered a new status-symbol, the Range Rover which, introduced in 1970 had essentially created the luxury four-wheel-drive (4WD) segment although the interior of the original was very basic, the car’s reputation based on the excellence of the engineering.  So good was the Range Rover, both on and off-road that owners, used to being cosseted in leather and walnut, wanted something closer to that to which they were accustomed and dealers received enquiries about an up-market version.

Lindsay Lohan at the opening of the Ninety years of Vogue covers exhibition, Crillon Hotel, Paris, 2009.

That had been Rover’s original intention.  The plan had been to release a basic version powered by four cylinder engines and a luxury edition with a V8 but by 1970 time and development funds had run out so the car was released with the V8 power-train and an interior so utilitarian it could be hosed out, something which was touted as a competitive advantage although it’s doubtful it was a feature many owners chose to exploit.  However, if the rich were riding out the decade well, British Leyland (which owned Rover) was not and it lacked the resources to devote to the project.  Others took advantage of what proved a profitable niche and the rich could choose from a variety of limited-production and bespoke offerings including long-wheelbase models, four-door conversions, six wheelers and even open-topped versions from a variety of coach-builders such as Wood & Pickett and low-volume manufacturers like Switzerland’s Monteverdi which anticipated the factory by a number of years with their four-door coachwork.

Rendez-vous à Biarritz, Vogue magazine, March 1981.

However, British Leyland was soon subject to one of the many re-organizations which would seek (without success) to make it a healthy corporation and one consequence was increased autonomy for the division making Range Rovers.  No longer forced to subsidize less profitable arms of the business, attention was turned to the matter of a luxury model, demand for which clearly existed.  To test market reaction, in late 1980, the factory collaborated with Wood & Pickett to design a specially-equipped two-door model as a proof-of-concept exercise to gauge market reaction.  The prototype (HAC 414W) was lent to Vogue magazine, a crafty choice given the demographic profile of the readership and the by then well-known extent of women’s own purchasing power and influence on that of their husbands.  Vogue took the prototype to Biarritz to be the photographic backdrop for the images taken for the magazine’s co-promotion of the 1981 Lancôme and Jaeger fashion collections, published in an eight-page advertising spread entitled Rendez-vous à Biarritz in the March 1981 edition.  The response was remarkable and while Lancôme and Jaeger’s launch attracted polite attention, Vogue’s mailbox (which then was letters in envelopes with postage stamps) was overwhelmingly filled with enquiries about the blinged-up Range-Rover.

Vogue's Range Rover In Vogue (HAC 414W) in Biarritz, 1981, all nuts on board or otherwise attached.

Rover had expected demand to be strong and the reaction to the Vogue spread justified their decision to prepare for a production run even before publication and the Range Rover In Vogue went on sale early in 1981, the limited-edition run all replicas of the photo shoot car except for the special aluminum wheels.  The three-spoke wheels (based on the design Ford had used on the 1979 (Fox) Mustang) had actually proved a problem in Biarritz, the factory supplying the wrong lug nuts which had a tendency to fall off, meaning the staff travelling with the car had to check prior to each shoot to ensure five were present on each wheel which would appear in the picture.  Not until later in the year would the wheels be ready so the In Vogue’s went to market with the standard stylized steel units, meaning the brochures had to be pulped and reprinted with new photographs.  Quite how many were made remains unclear.  The factory said 1000 would be built, all in right hand drive (RHD) but many left hand drive (LHD) examples seem to exist and it’s thought demand from the continent was such that another batch was built although this has never been confirmed.  The In Vogue’s exclusive features were:

Light blue metallic (the model-exclusive Vogue Blue) paint with twin broad coach-lines in two-tone grey
High-compression (9.35:1) V8 engine
Transfer box with taller (0.996:1) high ratio
Air conditioning
Polished-wood door cappings
Stowage box between front seats
Map pockets on back of front seats
Fully carpeted load area
Carpeted spare wheel cover and tool kit curtain
Custom picnic hamper mounted in rear load-space
Stainless steel tailgate capping
Black centre caps for the wheels

Condé Nast would later describe the In Vogue’s custom picnic hamper as the car’s piece de resistance.  Demand for the In Vogue far exceeded supply and production runs of various volumes followed before the Vogue in 1984 became the regular production top-of-the-range model for many years (although when sold in the US it was called the Country).  For both companies, the In Vogue (and the subsequent Vogues) turned out to be the perfect symbiosis.

Vogue, January 1925, cover art by Georges Lepape.

From the start, Vogue was of course about frocks, shoes and such but its influence extended over the years to fields as diverse as interior decorating and industrial design.  The work of Georges Lepape (1887-1971) has long been strangely neglected in the history of art deco but he was a fine practitioner whose reputation probably suffered because his compositions have always been regarded as derivative or imitative which seems unfair given there are many who are more highly regarded despite being hardly original.  His cover art for Vogue’s edition of 1 January 1925 juxtaposed one of French artist Sonia Delaunay’s (1885–1979) "simultaneous" pattern dresses and a Voisin roadster decorated with an art deco motif.

One collector in 2015 was so taken with Pepape’s image that when refurbishing his 1927 Voisin C14 Lumineuse (literally “light”, an allusion to the Voisin’s greenhouse-inspired design which allowed natural light to fill the interior), he commissioned Dutch artist Bernadette Ramaekers to hand-paint a geometric triangular pattern in sympathy with that on the Vogue cover in 1925.  Ms Ramaekers toook six months to complete the project and the car is now being offered at auction.

Voisin's extraordinary visions:  1934 C27 Aérosport (left), 1934-1935 Voisin C25 Aérodynes (centre) & 1931 C20 Mylord Demi Berline (right).

There are few designers as deserving of such a tribute as French aviation pioneer Gabriel Voisin (1880–1973) who made military aircraft during the First World War (1914-1918) and, under the name Avions Voisin, produced a remarkable range of automobiles between 1919-1939, encapsulating thus the whole inter-war period and much of the art deco era.  Because his designs were visually so captivating, much attention has always been devoted to his lines, curves and shapes but the underlying engineering was also interesting although some of his signature touches, like the (briefly in vogue) sleeve valve engine, proved a mirage.  Also a cul-de-sac was his straight-12 engine.  Slow-running straight-12 (there is even a straight-14 which displaces 25,340 litres (1,546,000 cubic inches) and produces 107,290 hp (80,080 kW)) engines are actually not uncommon at sea where they’re used in big container ships but on the road (apart from some slow-running engines in military vehicles), only Voisin and Packard ever attempted them, the former making two, the latter, one.  Voisin’s concept was simple enough; it was two straight-6s joined together, end-on-end, the same idea many had used to make things like V12s (2 x V6s) straight-8s (2 x straight-4s) and even V24s (2 x V12s) but the sheer length of a straight-12 in a car presented unique problems in packaging and the management of the torsional vibrations induced by the elongated crankshaft.

1934 Voisin C15 Saloit Roadster.

The length of the straight-12 meant an extraordinary amount of the vehicle’s length had to be devoted to housing just the engine and that resulted in a high number for what designers call the dash-to-axle ratio.  That was one of the many reasons the straight-12 never came into vogue and indeed was one of the factors which doomed the straight-8, a configuration which at least had some redeeming features.  Voisin must however have liked the appearance of the long hood (bonnet) because the striking C15 Saloit Roadster (which could have accommodated a straight-12) was powered by a straight-4, a sleeve valve Knight of 2500 cm³ (153 cubic inch).  The performance doubtlessly didn’t live up to the looks but so sensuous were those looks that many would forgive the lethargy.

Using one of his trademark outdoor settings, Norman Parkinson (1913-1990) photographed model Suzanne Kinnear (b 1935) adorning a Daimler SP250, wearing a Kashmoor coat and Otto Lucas beret with jewels by Cartier.  The image was published on the cover (left) of Vogue's UK edition in November 1959, the original's (right) color being "enhanced" in pre-production editing.  The "wide" whitewall tyres were a thing at the time, even on sports cars and were a popular option on US market Jaguar E-Types (there (unofficially) called XK-E or XKE) in the early 1960s.

More Issues Than Vogue sweatshirt from Impressions.

The Daimler SP250 was first shown to the public at the 1959 New York Motor Show and there the problems began.  Aware the little sports car was quite a departure from the luxurious but rather staid line-up Daimler had for years offered, the company had chosen the pleasingly alliterative “Dart” as its name, hoping it would convey the sense of something agile and fast.  Unfortunately, Chrysler’s lawyers were faster still, objecting that they had already registered Dart as the name for a full-sized Dodge so Daimler needed a new name and quickly; the big Dodge would never be confused with the little Daimler but the lawyers insisted.  Imagination apparently exhausted, Daimler’s management reverted to the engineering project name and thus the car became the SP250 which was innocuous enough even for Chrysler's attorneys and it could have been worse.  Dodge had submitted their Dart proposal to Chrysler for approval and while the car found favor, the name did not and the marketing department was told to conduct research and come up with something the public would like.  From this the marketing types gleaned that “Dodge Zipp” would be popular and to be fair, dart and zip(p) do imply much the same thing but ultimately the original was preferred and Darts remained in Dodge’s lineup until 1976, for most of that time one of the corporation's best-selling and most profitable lines.  The name was revived between 2012-2016 for an unsuccessful and unlamented compact sedan.

Label

Label (pronounced ley-buhl)

(1) A slip of paper, cloth, or other material, marked or inscribed, for attachment to something to indicate its manufacturer, nature, ownership, destination etc.

(2) A short word or phrase descriptive of a person, group, intellectual movement etc.

(3) A word or phrase indicating that what follows belongs in a particular category or classification.

(4) In architecture, a molding or dripstone over a door or window, especially one that extends horizontally across the top of the opening and vertically downward for a certain distance at the sides.  Now variously called a dripstone, label mold or hood mold.

(5) A brand or trademark, especially used by those who distribute fashion items or recorded music.

(6) In heraldry, a narrow horizontal strip with a number of downward extensions of rectangular or dovetail form, usually placed in chief as the cadency mark of an eldest son.

(7) A strip or narrow piece of anything (obsolete).

(8) In chemistry, to incorporate a radioactive or heavy isotope into (a molecule) in order to make traceable.

(9) In computing, a group of characters, such as a number or a word, appended to a particular statement in a program to allow its unique identification.

(10) In English common law, an alternative name for codicil, meaning to amend or append (both now at least obscure, probably obsolete).

1275-1325: From the Middle English label (narrow band, strip of cloth), from the Old English læppa (skirt, flap of a garment), from the Old French label, lambel & lambel (ribbon, strip of cloth, fringe worn on clothes), from the Old Frankish labba (torn piece of cloth), from the Proto-Germanic lappǭ & lappô (cloth stuff, rag, scraps, flap, dewlap, lobe, rabbit ear) from the primitive Indo-European leb (blade).  The word became lambeau (strip, rag, shred, tatter) in Modern French and etymologists suggest there was (with a diminutive suffix) influence from the Frankish labba or some other Germanic source (such as the Old High German lappa (flap), from the Proto-Germanic lapp- (used to form words for loose cloth etc).

The oldest use was the technical term in heraldry ((6) above).  By the late fifteenth century, use had extended to dangling strips of cloth which would now be called ribbons, used as an ornament in dress or the strip attached to a document to hold a seal.  The modern meaning "tag, sticker, slip of paper" dates from the 1670s; the figurative sense of "to categorize" from 1853.  As used to describe the circular paper glued to the center of gramophone records, use began in 1907, less than for years after mass-production began and the record companies came to be known as “record labels” after 1947.  As a verb in the sense of "to affix a label to", use date from circa 1600 ahile the figurative sense of "to categorize" is from 1853 when used in the novel discipline of sociology.  The related forms are labeled, labeling (or labelling) & labelled.

Labelling Theory

A sociological theory of symbolic interactionism, labelling theory’s origins can be traced to the later work of Émile Durkheim, a seminal figure in the discipline.  It suggests attaching a label to someone influences them to behave in conformity with the label.  Sociologists prefer to write with big words and double negatives but one did offer a simplified description of the theory as “…a specific instance of phenomenology.  The theory hypothesizes that if labels are applied to people, especially stigmatizing labels which encapsulate a societal disapprobation of deviation from the construct of the acceptable, this will tend to promote deviant behavior, becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.”  By sociology’s standards of constructed complexity, that was good because it could be understood unlike some of the dense, difficult stuff in the journals although, with the dumbing-down of higher education in the late twentieth century, it became increasingly a discussion among academics.

Not surprisingly, the early work attracted the attention of criminologists who concentrated on the implications of labelling inducing behavior which conformed to the label although, there was nothing in the theory, once deconstructed, which precluded labelling compelling behavior with which an individual could attempt to disprove the label.  For the behavioralists, either was a type of linguistic determinism; it mattered not the direction in which behavior changed.  Few theories in the social sciences have been so criticized on the basis of the perception of structural bias and, given the obvious limitations imposed on any research, it must be acknowledged labelling theory may appear to be inseparable from a political agenda.  Despite the criticisms, labelling theory did contribute to critiques of the treatment of minorities and the way power-elites used constructs of deviance as one of the means with which assert social and economic control.

Sociology seemed a good idea at the time, left to right:  Auguste Comte (1798-1857), Émile Durkheim (1858-1917) and Max Weber (1864-1920).

1927 Bentley 3-Litre (speed model) Red label Sports Roadster (chassis # TN1559).  

Bentley (then a separate operation from Rolls-Royce) produced the 3 Litre model between 1921-1929.  Although there was the odd one-off, the factory offered the 3 Litre in three variants (1) the Blue label which was the standard touring car available in short (SWB, 117.5 in (2,984 mm) add long (130.0 in (3,302 mm)) wheelbase (LWB) forms, the latter introduced in 1923, (2) the more powerful SWB Red label (speed model) made between 1924-1929 and (3), the rare, highly tuned Green label, production of which ran in parallel with the Red label and was offered only on a 108 in (2,743 mm) wheelbase chassis with a factory guarantee that 100 mph (161 km/h) was attainable.  Bentley has on occasion since used the color label scheme for model differentiation.

Johnny Walker formalized their red & black (more have since been added) labels in 1909 although the company had been selling its blends since 1865 with white (soon discontinued) and later red and black labels although the official names were Old Highland Whisky (with a white label), Special Old Highland Whisky (with a red label) and Extra Special Old Highland Whisky (with a black label).  It was reports from retailers that customers seldom used the product name and asked for “the one with the black label” or “the one with the red label” which convinced the distillery to re-label.

Mercedes-Maybach Study, Tokyo Motor Show, 1997, the design concept for what became the doomed Maybach.  Had it been sold as a top-of-the-line Mercedes-Benz it was, it might have been a success.

The concept of "designer label" is very old and evidence of the concept predates antiquity but the connotations of the word "label" as something exclusive or highly priced has probably been understood in its broad commercial sense only since the mid-nineteenth century.  In the narrow technical sense all brands can be considered labels but low-priced, mass-market commodities are rarely considered labels in that particular sense of the word.  There is the odd brand which successfully straddles entire cost spectrums and one used to be Mercedes-Benz, the label applied to everything from diesel taxis, trucks small and large, sports cars, grand prix machines and limousines.  It was a rare example of a prestigious label which didn't have its reputation tarnished by an association with lower priced products and for decades this was understood by the engineers who ran things.  Unfortunately, in the 1990s the company fell into the hands of salesmen, MBAs and such types who, skilled in the marketing of soft drinks and washing power, decided what was needed was a more prestigious brand to sit above Mercedes-Benz.  That was what Toyota did when it created Lexus and there it made sense but for Mercedes-Benz it made no sense at all to suggest that the brand which had been good enough for royalty, popes, dictators and major figures in organized crime was just not sufficiently prestigious.  Using the Maybach name was about as dopy as the concept given few people alive knew the brand nor its hardly illustrious history.  As a machine, the Maybach was a good piece of engineering and though visually undistinguished, the designers really can't be blamed; wind tunnels are dictatorial.  As a label vis-à-vis Mercedes-Benz however, it represented a misunderstanding of the market by those who purported to be experts in such things.  Mercedes-Benz is still recovering from the damage done by the MBAs.

Lindsay Lohan in sweater with her own visage emblazoned in sequins, created by UK fashion label Ashish, London 2014.

Crisp

Crisp (pronounced krisp)

(1) Hard but easily breakable; brittle (applied especially to food).

(2) Firm and fresh; not soft or wilted (applied especially to food).

(3) Brisk; sharp; clear; decided (applied often to the delivery of words).

(4) Lively; pithy; sparkling.

(5) Clean-cut, neat, and well-pressed; well-groomed.

(6) Invigorating; bracing (usually of the air).

(7) Crinkled, wrinkled, or rippled, as skin or hair.

(8) A snack food, made usually from thinly sliced potato (called chips in some markets).

(9) In cooking, a dessert of fruit, as apples or apricots, baked with a crunchy mixture, usually of breadcrumbs, chopped nutmeats, butter, and brown sugar.

(10) In computing theory, not using fuzzy logic; based on a binary distinction between true and false.

(11) In wine criticism, having a refreshing amount of acidity; having less acidity than green wine, but more than a flabby one.

Pre 900: From the Middle English crisp (curly), from the Old English crisp (curly, crimped, wavy" (of hair, wool etc)), from the Latin crispus (curled, uneven, wrinkled; having curly hair); a doublet of crêpe, crispus was from the primitive Indo-European sker- & ker- (to turn, bend) and cognate with crīnis & crista.  The Old French crespir is related but the English forms came via Latin.  Crisp is a noun, verb & adjective, crisply is an adverb, crisper & crispest are adjectives, crisped & crisping are verbs and crispness & crispation ((1) The act or process of curling, or the state of being curled or (2) a slight twitch of a muscle (both archaic)) are nouns.

The sense of "brittle" may have run in parallel with other meanings but wasn’t recorded until the 1520s and didn’t become a commonly used form until the early nineteenth century, the reason for the sixteenth century evolution unknown but presumably based on the characteristics assumed by certain foods when cooked.  The figurative use to describe something (usually someone) having a "neat, brisk, having a fresh appearance" dates from 1814 and the use to speak of air as “chilly or bracing" apparently didn’t appear until 1869, perhaps surprising give the way earlier romantic poets trawled the language for adjectives.  As a noun, crisp was used from the mid-fourteenth century, originally the name of a light, crinkly material formerly used for kerchiefs, veils etc and a few decades later it was applied to a kind of pastry and by the 1820s, it was a common form of speech by cooks (often a jocular euphemism for "burned to a crisp") to describe anything over-cooked.  Potato crisps, although recipes were circulating in the US as early as 1824, first went on sale in 1897, marketed simply as crisps by 1935 although, in the US, crisps began in 1903 to be used in trade names of breakfast cereals.  The verb crisp (to curl, to twist into short, stiff waves or ringlets (of the hair, beard, mane etc)) was a late fourteenth century derivation from either the adjective or else from the Old French crespir or the Latin crispare, both forms from adjectives.  It was use to mean "to become brittle" after 1805.  The adjective crispy dates from the late fourteenth century in the sense of "curly" and from the 1610s it could also mean "brittle".

Crisps, chips and freedom fries

Smith's "limited edition" Lamington chips, 2020.  The market reaction ensured the edition stayed limited.

The English call them crisps which Australians and New Zealanders once also did but the colonies have long instead called them chips.  They’re called chips also in the US and Canada where it makes sense because what the English call chips, they call French fries which, in the antipodes are called chips.  Despite Australians calling both French fries and crisps “chips”, folk seem not confused, life going on as people adjusting as circumstances dictate.  In Australia, as late as 2003, Smiths still called their chips “crisps” but, bowing to the vernacular, they changed and they’re now definitively “chips”.

About the only place where the names of fried potato snacks proved linguistically controversial was the US when, in the run-up to 2003 invasion of Iraq, after finding the French support for the action insufficiently enthusiastic, the chairman of the committee in charge of operations in the Capitol complex ordered the word "French" removed from all menus, French fries becoming freedom fries and French toast, freedom toast.  It was an echo of one of Washington’s earlier linguistic assaults when, upon the entry of the US to the war in 1917 (which was the act which saw it in 1919 named The World War), German measles had been dubbed liberty measles, hamburgers had become liberty steaks and sauerkraut, liberty cabbage.  Then, even German shepherd dogs had been thought subversive and thus re-named Alsatians although there's no record of the Bush White House taking action against French poodles.  From the Quay d'Orsay, the French Foreign Ministry seemed unimpressed, noting they weren’t devoting much attention to potatoes and that French fries were anyway invented in Belgium in the seventeenth century.  In Washington DC, quietly in 2006 the name changes were reversed.

Stocking up on chips: Lindsay Lohan buying Doritos Nacho Cheese chips and other essential groceries, Los Angeles, 2008.  It's not known if her fondness for Doritos (Doritos the singular, plural and collective form, a single chip being "a Doritos chip") was formed or strengthened by them being on the product-placement list for Mean Girls (2004).

Stocking up on crisps: Lindsay Lohan with former special friend, Samantha Ronson, London, 2008.

Technically and legally, Pringles are not potato chips.  In the snack business the Pringle is a curious outlier because although it looks like a potato chip and most consumers probably think of it as one, the word "chip" appears nowhere on the product packaging or the marketing material.  The company used to use the word but, because Pringles are actually dehydrated potato flakes pressed into their distinctive parabolic shape rather than thin slices of potato, other manufacturers objected and the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) agreed, ruling they couldn't be described as "chips".  Procter & Gamble (which then produced Pringles) thought about it and eventually settled on "potato crisp", a label which was continued when in 2012 the brand was sold to the Kellogg Company.  Introduced in 1968, Pringles are popular with many because they are less greasy than the traditional potato chip (or crisp in some markets).  They're produced by combining dehydrated potato flakes with a mix of corn flour, wheat starch & rice flour to which is added a blend of vegetable oils, seasonings, and additives to form a dough which is rolled into thin sheets and cut into the signature shape.  The cut forms are then fried and coated with a layer of seasoning before being packaged in the famous tubular canister.

Apparatus

Apparatus (pronounced ap-uh-rat-uhs (U) or ap-uh-rey-tuhs (non-U))

(1) A group or combination of instruments, machinery, tools, materials, etc, having a particular function or intended for a specific use:

(2) Any complex instrument or mechanism for a particular purpose.

(3) Any system or systematic organization of activities, functions, processes, etc, directed toward a specific goal; applied especially to government and state control to describe systems and bureaucratic organizations, especially those influenced by political patronage

(4) In physiology, a group of structurally different organs working together in the performance of a particular function:

1620–1630: From the Middle English apparatus (a collection of tools, utensils, etc. adapted as a means to some end), from the Latin apparātus (tools, implements, equipment, originally the act of equipping, preparation), noun of state from the past participle stem of apparāre.  The construct was apparā(re) (to prepare) (ap- the prefix usually found on verbs (and their derived nouns or adjectives) with the meaning “around” or “about”) + parāre (prepare) + -tus (the suffix of verb action)).  The Latin apparātus was the perfect passive participle of apparō (prepare) from ad- (to, towards, at) +‎ parō (prepare, provide) from the primitive Indo-European root pere- (to produce, procure").

The two noun plurals apparatus & apparatuses are both correct although the invariant plural, maintaining the Latin inflection in English on a loanword basis, is less commonly used.  However, because the word also has a mass noun sense in English and it often appears in such a way that its number (singular or plural) is disguised by absence of any inflectional or lexical signals as to which of these two senses is intended, readers may parse it in either sense.  Usually, this creates only a slight ambiguity which affects meaning not at all and is significant only in technical matters such as complex devices where the distinction between single and multiple machines needs to be clear.

Lindsay Lohan inspecting a specific-purpose apparatus in Labor Pains (2009).

In the construction of bras, the most obvious specialized cup is that used with nursing bras which feature an arrangement whereby most of the cup’s fabric can be semi-separated from the superstructure, enabling breast-feeding without the need to remove the whole garment.  English borrowed the word brassiere from the French brassière, from the Old French braciere (which was originally a lining fitted inside armor which protected the arm, only later becoming a garment), from the Old French brace (arm) although by then it described a chemise (a kind of undershirt) but in the US, brassiere was used from 1893 when the first bras were advertised and from there, use spread.  The three syllables were just too much to survive the onslaught of modernity and the truncated “bra” soon prevailed, being the standard form throughout the English-speaking world by the early 1930s.  Curiously, in French, a bra is a soutien-gorge which translates literally and hardly romantically as "throat-supporter" although the scarcely more attractive "chest uplifter" is a better translation.  The etymological origin of the modern "bra" lying in a single garment is the reason one buys "a bra" in the same department store from which one might purchase "a pair of sunglasses".

Among bra manufacturers, there are different implementations by which the functionality of a nursing bra's apparatus is achieved but it’s not clear if chest-feeders (the preferred term among the woke to describe those who used to be called “breast-feeding women”) find one approach preferable or if some suit some more than others; it may simply be that for manufacturers the production-line rationalization achieved by being able to adapt the specialized cups to the structures used for conventional bras are compelling, dictating the choice.  Chest-feeders presumably use whichever is most convenient and it may be a choice of some significance given how often heard is the complaint the process is “tiring”.  To those who will never chest-feed it sounds more a pleasant and diverting relaxation than anything tiring but they all say it so it must be true.

Of and by the structure

French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser (1918–1990) published his essay Idéologie et appareils idéologiques d'État (Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses) in 1970.  Fleshing out his earlier "theory of ideology", it was a description of the particular form of state superstructure adopted under post-war capitalism to control the social formation required continuously and perpetually to maintain the productive forces (labour and the means of production & distribution).  Essentially an account of how a human being becomes a self-conscious subject, the work analysed the necessary relationship between state and subject a given economic mode of production might subsist.  It included not only an analysis of the state and its legal and educational systems but also of the psychological relationship which existed between subject and state as ideology.  Althusser held that regimes were able to maintain control by reproducing subjects who believe that their position within the social structure was a natural one, the ideology being one’s function with the apparatus was part of the way the world must function.  The ideology was instantiated by institutions or “ideological state apparatuses” like family, schools and churches which provided developing subject with categories in which they could recognize themselves.

Althusser, in good Marxist tradition, didn’t suggest the imperative was to replace the ideological state apparatuses as a structure but rather that its underlying ideology should be supplanted so that rather than being productive of the bourgeois subject, it became productive of proletarian or communist subjects.  In the half-century since he wrote, there’s been no indication of that happening but the durability of an apparatus can’t easily be predicted on the basis of perception.  When the revolutions of the Arab Spring flared in 2011, it was entirely predictable the state apparatuses in Libya and Egypt would suppress the threat while the weaker, more disparate, Syrian model was vulnerable yet it was Muammar Gaddafi (circa 1942–2011; ruler of Libya 1969-2011) and Hosni Mubarak (1928–2020; president of Egypt 1981-2011) who were overthrown while Bashar al-Assad (b 1965; ophthalmologist and president of Syria since 2000) sits still in in his palace in Damascus.

The idea of the state (corporatist, autocratic, totalitarian or democratic) as an apparatus is neither recent nor controversial and nor is the notion that the mechanism is more typically a number of apparatus which function sometimes in unison, sometimes separately and sometimes in opposition, these occasionally contradictory dynamics able simultaneously to interact.  For those interested in a case study of one famously apparatus-ridden apparatus, Albert Speer's (1905-1981; minister for armaments in the Third Reich 1942-1945) last published work (Infiltration (1981)), although at time turgid and never lively in style, is a valuable account of the actual workings of what was, even in the post-war decades, still often characterized as an efficient administrative unit.  Although some suggested Infiltration was a study of the way the SS (Schutzstaffel (Protection Squadron)), which began as the Führer's small personal bodyguard and evolved into a vast economic, industrial and military apparatus more than two million strong became a kind of "state within a state", while that was the organization's objective (the apparatuses of the Nazi Party, the German state and the SS engaged in a permanent struggle for dominance), the book's alternative title in some markets (The Slave State: Heinrich Himmler's Masterplan for SS Supremacy) is a more accurate precis.  Infiltration is an account of the endless quarrels among contenders for power and rival bureaucracies in the Third Reich, a tale of scheming and plotting, not against the designated national enemy but against one another in the ever shifting battle for for power and influence.  In the wartime UK & US, the prime-minister & president were more effective dictators than ever was the Führer.

Whatever his other gifts (and whether as architect or administrator opinion remains divided), Speer was no great stylist of prose and the reputation his earlier volumes gained for lucidity owe much to the professional journalist who was his editor.  Speer wrote Infiltration unaided unaided and it's no place to start for anyone who wishes to explore the Third Reich but for those familiar with the history, it's an invaluable source and in some aspect, the ultimate cross-reference book.  Certainly, there's never been penned a better portrait of SS leader Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945; Reichsführer SS 1929-1945) and while such a bloodless bureaucrat can never be made to seem anything like a vivid personality, Speer does capture much missed by many.

Trailer of Labor Pains (2009), dubbed in German.