Butterfly

Butterfly (pronounced buht-er-flahy)

(1) Any of numerous diurnal insects of the order Lepidoptera, characterized by clubbed antennae, a slender body, and large, broad, often conspicuously marked wings which are typically closed when the creature is at rest (the adjectival form is lepidopteran).

(2) A person who moves effortlessly from one social situation to another, usually as “social butterfly”.

(3) Someone perceived as unserious and (originally) dressed gaudily; someone flighty and unreliable; a bolter (common between the seventeenth & nineteenth centuries; now archaic).

(4) In competitive swimming, a racing breaststroke, using a dolphin kick, in which the swimmer brings both arms out of the water in forward, circular motions.

(5) In carpentry, as butterfly joint (or wedge), a type of joint or inlay used permanently to hold together two or more pieces of timber, either as something aesthetic (usually with a contrasting color of timber) or merely functional (also known as the bow tie, dovetail key, Dutchman joint, or Nakashima joint).

(6) In sculpture, an X-shaped support attached to an armature.

(7) As butterfly arm, the swinging brackets of a butterfly table.

(8) In film editing, a screen of scrim, gauze, or similar material, for diffusing light.

(9) In cooking or the display of food, to spread open in halves what is being prepared, resembling the wings of a butterfly (the chef’s term being butterflied).

(10) In financial trading, the simultaneous purchase and sale of traded call options, at different exercise prices or with different expiry dates, on a stock exchange or commodity market; historically a combination of four options of the same type at three strike prices giving limited profit and limited risk.

(11) In medical & surgical dressings, a prepared bandage or the use of surgical tape, cut into thin strips and placed across an open wound in a manner which resembles the open wings of a butterfly, holding it closed.

(12) In mathematics and geometry, any of several plane curves that look like a butterfly and known as butterfly curves (transcendental & algebraic).

(13) In chaos theory and the discipline of alternate (counter-factual) history, as butterfly effect, a single event or random change in an aspect of the timeline seemingly unrelated to the primary point of divergence, resulting from the event.

(14) In automotive design (also used on certain airframes and nautical vessels) a style of door hinged from the A pillars (the windscreen frame).

(15) In engineering, a term applied to a number of fittings (butterfly valve, butterfly clamp, butterfly nut) with some resemblance to the open wings of a butterfly.

(16) As a motif, a widely use shape in fields such as architecture, stained glass, visual art and industrial design.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English buterflie, butturflye & boterflye, from the Old English butorflēoge, buttorflēoge & buterflēoge.  It was cognate with the Dutch botervlieg and the German Butterfliege (butterfly).  The construct was (with variations was butere (butter) +‎ fly.  Etymologists note alternative origins for the name.  Either (1) it was first applied to creatures with wings of a notably yellowish hue (perhaps the dominant or single species of the type in an area) or (2) as a response to the belief that butterflies ate milk and butter or (3) the first element may have originally been butor- (beater), a mutation of bēatan (to beat), a reference to the movement of the wings.  The idea of the fragile things as thieves of milk and butter is supported by similar instances in other European languages including the German Molkendieb (butterfly (literally “whey thief”) and the Low German Botterlicker (butterfly (literally butter-licker) & Bottervögel (butterfly (literally “butter-fowl”).  There was also the notion they excreted a butter-like substance, memorably expressed in the Dutch boterschijte (butterfly (literally “butter-shitter”).  Most memorable however is the explanation in the tales of the Brothers Grimm (die Brüder Grimm, Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859)) in which witches disguised themselves as butterflies.  The early forms in Middle English superseded the non-native Middle English papilion (butterfly) borrowed from the Old French.  Butterfly is a noun & adjective, butterflied is a verb & adjective and butterflying is a verb.  The noun plural is butterflies.

Anatomy of the butterfly valve (left), butterfly crochet (centre) & butterfly bandage (right).

Butter was from the Middle English buter & butter, from the Old English butere, from the Proto-West Germanic buterā, from the Latin būtȳrum, from the Ancient Greek βούτῡρον (boútūron) (cow cheese), the construct being βοῦς (boûs) (ox, cow) + τῡρός (tūrós) (cheese).  Fly was from the Middle English flye & flie, from the Old English flȳġe & fleoge (a fly, a winged insect), from the Proto-Germanic fleugǭ (a fly) & fleugon (flying insect), from the primitive Indo-European plewk- (to fly).  It was cognate with the Scots flee, the Saterland Frisian Fljooge, the German Low German Fleeg, the Danish flue, Norwegian Bokmål flue & Norwegian Nynorsk fluge, the Swedish fluga and the Icelandic fluga, the Old Saxon fleiga, the Old Norse fluga, the Middle Dutch vlieghe, the Dutch vlieg, the Old High German flioga and the German Fliege (fly (literally "the flying (insect))).  The Old English fleogende (flying) was from the primitive Indo-European root pleu- (to flow).

Social butterfly Lindsay Lohan in butterfly print swimsuit, Cannes, 2016.

Butterfly was applied first to people circa 1600, originally in reference to vain and gaudy attire, an allusion to often bright and varied colors of a butterfly's wings.  By 1806 it had become a class-based put-down referencing a transformation from a lower social class to something better, invoking the idea of progression from sluggish caterpillar to graceful butterfly (essentially a synonym for bounder).  The reference to flitting tendencies (from one interest, occupation etc) dates from 1873 and the social butterfly (one who moves effortlessly between social encounters and events) emerged in the 1920s.  The swimming stroke was first defined in 1935.  As a general descriptor (butterfly agave, butterfly ballot, butterfly fish, butterfly flower, butterfly plant, butterfly bomb, butterfly keyboard, butterfly chair, butterfly ray, butterfly shell etc), it’s applied wherever the resemblance to the open wings appears compelling.  In culture, the butterfly tends to be more admired than caterpillar which is an earlier stage of their development, the lovely creatures often appearing on fabrics used for clothing and furnishings.

Native to the forests of Central and South America, the Blue Morpho is one of the world’s largest butterflies. The wings are bright blue with lacy black edges, the result of light reflecting off microscopic scales on the back of their wings.  Lovely though the blue appears, it’s often not seen because the underside of this butterfly’s wing is a dull brown which provides a camouflage against predators.  When the wings are closed as the Blue Morpho sits on a tree, it blends in well.

Highly qualified content provider Busty Buffy (b 1996) being adorned with body paint in the shape of a butterfly with open wings.

Butterfly valves came into use in the late 1700s and have been popular since for their ease of manufacture, simplicity of operation and low maintenance.  The butterfly nut appeared in 1869 although in some markets it usually called the wing nut; interestingly, the similar fastener with a male thread is known as a wing screw or wing bolt but apparently never a butterfly screw or bolt, presumably because the delicate butterfly is thought emblematically female.  The phrase “Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?” is from Alexander Pope's (1688-1744) Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot" (1735).  The allusion is to "breaking on the wheel", a form of torture in which victims had their long bones broken by an iron bar while tied to a Catherine wheel, the idea a critique of excessive effort or deployment of resources to solve a simple problem; the less confronting phrase “sledgehammer to crack a nut” means the same thing.  The phrase “butterflies in the stomach” is a descriptive reference to the mild stomach spasms induced by anxiety and dates from 1908.  The butterfly effect is the most celebrated idea from (the somewhat misleadingly named) chaos theory, introduced in the 1972 paper Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas? by US academic meteorologist Edward Lorenz (1917–2008).  Lorenz had developed the theory based on his observations in the early 1960s (in one of the earliest big-data models) that a tiny change in one variable (one of a dozen numbers representing atmospheric conditions) had an extraordinary effect upon long-term outcomes.

1966 Dodge Polara convertible (left) and 1966 Dodge Monaco 500 two-door hardtop (right).

The use of the butterfly motif in industrial design in 1967 became a footnote in legal history in the trial of the boxers Rubin "Hurricane" Carter (1937–2014) & John Artis (1946-2021) for a triple murder committed at the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson, New Jersey.  Evidence presented by the prosecution claimed that witness descriptions of the getaway car matched the hired car Carter was found driving in the vicinity of the Lafayette immediately after the killings, their statements even including a mention of the distinctive butterfly-shaped taillight chrome.  However, although a witness said the rear lights lit up across the back of the getaway car, the taillights on Carter's Dodge Polara, although there was certainly a butterfly chrome surround, lit up only at the edges; it was the more expensive Dodge Monaco which had the extended lights.  In the ever changing swirl of model names and trim levels which characterized the US industry during its golden age (1955-1973), in 1966 the Polara was Dodge’s entry-level full-size model, above which sat the higher-priced Polara 500, Monaco, and Monaco 500.  For some reason (and this was not unusual), the lineup’s nomenclature in Canada differed, being Polara, Polara 440, Polara 880, and Monaco.  In both markets however, it was only the Monaco which featured the extended tail lamps.

1966 Dodge Polara convertible (left) and 1966 Dodge Monaco two-door hardtop (right).

On a dark night, glimpsed by a traumatized witness for a second or two, that may have not been significant because tests did reveal the reflective silver finish on the Polara’s rear panel did indeed appear red at certain angles when the brake lights were activated but the distinction, along with a witness’s correction of this in the 1976 re-trial did lead some to suggest the police might have been coaching witnesses; “hardening the statement” in law enforcement lingo.  That actually aligned with the evidence provided by another witness and the prosecution would later suggest later suggested the confusion was caused by the defense misreading the court transcript.

Maria Callas (1923-1977), backstage after appearing as Madam Butterfly, Civic Opera House, Chicago, 17 November 1955.  Had Cio-Cio-San been this feisty, she'd have kept Pinkerton. 

Bud Daley’s famous AP (Associated Press) photograph of diva Maria Callas, still in her Cio-Cio-San’s kimono, caught her snarling at US Federal Marshal Stanley Pringle, one of eight process servers there to serve her with two summonses.  The image was shot just after she'd left the stage, following her third and final performance in Giacomo Puccini's (1858–1924) Madama Butterfly (Madam Butterfly, 1904) and appeared the next morning on the front page of the Chicago Sun-Times with the headline: “Not So Prim a Donna”.  The article reported her words as: “Chicago will hear about this!  I will not be sued!  I have the voice of an angel!  No man can sue me.”  It transpired however at least one man could sue, the action brought by one Edward “Eddy” Bagarozy, who claimed to be the singer’s agent, an assertion based on a contract dating from 1947; the plaintiff sought (1) specific performance of the contract and (2) in the alternative, damages of US$300,000 (depending on the metrics chosen, equivalent to between US$4-6 million in 2025).  As in many such matters, ultimately, things were settled out of court.

2002 Ferrari Enzo (left) & 2016 Ferrari LaFerrari (right).

Butterfly doors are used on some high-performance cars and not wholly as a gimmick, the advantage being that in such usually low-slung vehicle, they do make entry and exit somewhat easier than scissor doors.  There’s even more functionally on certain competition cars because (1) they allow the carefully-crafted aerodynamics of the canopy to be preserved, (2) the driver can enter and leave the cockpit more quickly and (3) the design allows the structural integrity of the shell to be maximized.  Butterfly doors open upwards and outwards and in that they differ from scissor doors which are hinged to move only upwards, thus offering the possibility of a greater aperture while demanding more lateral clearance.  Exotic doors were seen in a handful of pre-war cars, none of which reached production, but it was the Mercedes-Benz 300SL (W194) race-car of 1952 which brought to public attention the idea car doors could be something different.  Such was the response that the factory used the gull-wing doors when, in 1954, the 300SL (W198) was offered in a road-going version although the engineering, like the concept, was not new, having before been used in both marine architecture and aircraft fuselages.  Similarly, the design elements which underlie butterfly and scissor doors can be found in buildings and machinery dating back in some cases centuries but of late, all have come most to be associated with exotic cars.

1967 Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale

Variations on the theme had appeared on the show circuit for some time before butterfly doors debuted on the Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale in 1967 which was much admired but it was thought the complexity of such things would limit their use to low volume runs such as the Stradale (of which only 18 were built) or one-off styling exercises such as the Alfa Romeo Carabo (1968) which used scissors.  However, scissor doors appeared on the prototype Lamborghini Countach (LP500) and, despite the doubts of some, were retained when the production version was released in 1974.  Since then, gull-wings (which open upward on a horizontal axis, hinged from the roof), scissors (which open upwards, rotating on a horizontal axis, hinged from the front), butterflies (which open upwards and outwards on an axis unaligned to the vertical or horizontal, hinged from the A (windscreen) pillar and dihedrals (scissors which move laterally while rotating ) have become common (relatively speaking) and designers seem intent on adding some new twist which seem sometimes to add no advantage but usually attract publicity (admittedly an advantage in the abstract), the most complex to date being the dihedral synchro helix doors which open forward, slide forward and rotate up.

Mercedes-Benz McLaren SLR Coupé & Roadster (top) and McLaren MP4-12C Coupé & Spider (bottom).

When Mercedes-Benz released the SLR McLaren (2003-2009), in an attempt to make explicit the link with the 300SL, they laid it on with a trowel, the phrase “gullwing doors” appearing in the factory’s original press release no less than seven times, just in case people didn’t get the message.  Nobody was fooled and they’ve always been called butterflies.  One clever piece of engineering was seen when the SLR roadster was released, those butterfly doors made possible by using hinge points along the rather than at the top.  McLaren used a variation of this idea when it released the McLaren MP4-12C (2011-2014), omitting the top hinge which allowed the use of frameless windows even on the roadster (spider).

One of the “butterfly motif” art cars in the “Earthly Paradise” series by Los Angeles-based Japanese artist Hiro Yamagata san (b 1948).

Hiro Yamagata san had planned the “Earthly Paradise” series to consist of 24 Mercedes-Benz 220 Cabriolet A models (W187) but it's said only 22 were completed although to assemble and restore that number of what were then 40-odd year old cars was a reasonable achievement.  That probably is understating things because between 1951-1955 only 1,278 W187 Cabriolet As were bodied by Sindelfingen Karosserie and although most mechanical components were durable and easy to service the braking system was remarkably (and apparently pointlessly) intricate and the body structure contained much timber framing so restoration could be both challenging and time-consuming.  Yamagata san’s artistic aim for the Earthly Paradise series was to “merge beautiful examples of technology with the presence of nature” and the inspiration for the “butterfly cars” came from what he’s seen during his visits to Fiji.  According to notes he provided, the intricately painted images were not part of a “Save the Planet” or “Back to Nature” movement but were intended to remind viewers to “…pay attention to wonders of nature that are all around them--in drops of water, rainbows, skies and gardens.”

Yamagata san’s other “butterfly motif” car (one of two in the series).

After restoration the cabriolets were all re-finished in a roughened matte white acrylic before Yamagata san and his 20 assistants hand-painted the colorful images, based on photographs the artist had taken during his visit to the Fijian islands.  There is nothing unusual in work attributed to an artist coming technically from the hand of others and just as Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, 1483–1520) had a number of highly talented assistants in what was one of the largest and most sophisticated workshops of the High Renaissance and Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) often had a team of writers skilled in emulating “Churchillian prose”, Yamagata’s staff were “following the master”.  The Earthly Paradise project was rumored to have cost some US&20-30 million with each car nominally “priced” at $US1.3 million and although most have spent their post-project existences in museums or private collections, the occasional recent sales have been in the vicinity of US$125,000, somewhat less that would be expected for a meticulously restored W187 Cabriolet A.

1955 Mercedes-Benz 220 (W187) Cabriolet A (note the slightly curved windscreen, introduced during 1953 as a running-change).  Unlike most manufacturers which used the term and sold “Cabriolets”, Mercedes-Benz in the inter-war years codified the variations in the coachwork as Cabriolet A, B, C, D & F.

Introduced in 1951, the W187 (type 220, 1951-1955) looked old-fashioned and were it not for the fared-in headlights (a first for Mercedes-Benz), probably few would have picked one from the pre-war W143 (Type 230, 1937-1941) although, stylistically, it’s less related to the W142 (Type 320, 1937-1942) which gained some infamy from being the model (a Cabriolet B) in which notorious Nazi SS-Obergruppenführer (Lieutenant-General) Reinhard Heydrich (1904–1942; head of the Reich Security Main Office 1939-1942) was assassinated in Prague.  Although visually something of a relic, the drive train was modern, the new SOHC (single overhead camshaft) six cylinder engine (M180) being the unit which in various forms (2.2 litre (134 cubic inch); 2.3 (141), 2.5 (152) & 2.8 (170)), would endure until 1985 and more than any other was what re-established the company’s reputation in the post-war years.

1955 Mercedes-Benz 220 (W187) Coupé A.

Total production was 18,514, the bulk (16,154) being four-door sedans (1951-1954) but there were also 2,360 two door models (Cabriolet A, 1951-1955, (1,278), Cabriolet B (1951-1954, 997) & Coupé A (1953-1955, 85)) and an unusual Offener Tourenwagen Polizei (Open Police Touring Car, 1952-1953), a kind of utilitarian four-door phaeton with a fold-down windscreen, 41 supplied (apparently exclusively) to police forces in the FRG (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany) 1949-1990).  Collectors of course have always preferred the two-door cars with the Cabriolet A the most desirable; despite the tiny numbers of coupés (if fitted with the optional sunroof they were close to twice the price of a sedan), they’ve never been as sought as the convertibles although had they been numerous, Yamagata san might have preferred them for the Earthly Paradise series because the roof would have provided a notable increase in surface area for his art.

1954 Mercedes-Benz 220 (W187) Cabriolet A (a "non-butterfly" car from the series).

The W187 was the first Mercedes-Benz with a radiator shell which essentially was decorative; despite the appearance, the cap on which the three-pointed star sat no longer unscrewed to permit coolant to be added, the “real” cap under the hood (bonnet). Visually, running changes were few although in 1953 a curved windscreen (nothing as dramatic as had appeared that year on the first Cadillac Eldorado) was added to the Cabriolets and the Earthy Paradise series has examples of both those and the earlier “flat screen” cars.  Reflecting the still austere post-war environment (the German Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) had begun but was not then recognized), the W187 (the smaller of Mercedes-Benz six-cylinder cars) wasn’t offered with some of the lower-volume coachwork available on the W142 which also had in the catalogue a four-door Pullman limousine (on a LWB (long wheelbase) with three rows of seats and an additional rear-quarter window), a six-seat Tourenwagen (a four door phaeton), two four door cabriolets (Cabriolet D & Cabriolet F) and a four door Stromlinien-Limousine (streamlined saloon) which picked up styling motifs from the earlier (and very expensive) 500K & 540K Autobahn-Kuriers (Freeway cruisers).

Pro Hart’s 1973 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow (1965-1980), painted by the artist in 1999.

Like Yamagata san, the establishment never accepted Australian Pro Hart an a “serious artist” but his works achieved great popularity and while rarely seen in state galleries, appear often in private collections and rarely are passed-in when offered at auction.  That his Silver Shadow was only one of several Rolls-Royces and Bentleys he owned hints at his success although keeping more than one may have been a way of ensuring one was always available: he lived in the outback town of Alice Springs and the nearest Rolls-Royce dealer was 1,174 miles (1,890 km) away.

In the art business, there’s a distinction between critical and commercial success and although Yamagata san in the 1980s made millions by producing extraordinary popular prints for the “Limited Edition” series sold by Martin Lawrence Galleries, critical acceptance eluded him.  Although “cross-over” between popularity and artistic respectability is possible (witness Andy Warhol), what Yamagata san suffered was a level of “mass-produced” success which saw him confined to commercial publishing.  Being rich but wishing also to be the “right sort” of famous, the artist decided in the early 1990s to become a patron, hoping to transform his image into something of an avant garde figure, his canvases of choice being a number of Mercedes-Benz 220 Cabriolet As from the early 1950s.  An exhibition on that scale obviously would require a big space and to make the point what he had created was legitimately “authentic art”, that space had to be in a mainstream gallery or museum but his problem was his previous approaches to stage a showing had been declined on the basis of him being “too commercial” or, most cuttingly of all, a “shopping centre artist”.

The eight Mercedes-Benz 220 Cabriolet As of the Earthly Paradise series, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, 1994.

Fortunately, the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery was struggling with chronic (and worsening) financial deficits so agreed to display the cars.  According to the artist and exhibition curator, that decision was unrelated to a US$250,000 donation Yamagata san made to a related third-party, both noting the transaction was executed some twelve months after the booking had been confirmed.  The money was used for “other projects” with the artist paying in whole for the “Earthly Paradise” exhibition; the curator confirmed he “…accepted the show on its aesthetic and conceptual merit”, adding he was “always interested in the interface between popular culture and fine art.”  It was a well-promoted showing (banners all over the city and a prized billboard on Sunset Strip) which opened in September 1994, six completed cars displayed with another two “works in progress”.  The critical response was restrained, although he had become a well-connected social success through his philanthropic work including for AmFAR’s campaign for AIDS research and sponsorship of exhibitions at Los Angeles’ MoCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) and New York’s MoMA (Museum of Modern Art).

Andy Warhol's BMW M1 Art Car (Art Car #4).

Yamagata san did become a fixture in the commercial art business and a notable exponent in silkscreen printing as well as being one of the pioneers in the use of holograms and lasers.   He was however never accepted by the establishment as an “artist” and the record price paid for one of his works was the US$30,529 Snowy Montmartre realized at auction in Tokyo in 2016; that was though an outlier, few of his sales achieving more than four figures.  His career though has remained modestly lucrative because his vividly-colored pieces have wide popular appeal with his prints, serigraphs & screen-prints selling in volume for at least hundreds; books have been written explaining why a “pop artist” like Andy Warhol (1928–1987) was deemed a “genius” while Yamagata san remained marooned as a “shopping centre artist”.  To add insult to injury, while his “US$1.3 million” Earthly Paradise cars have in recent years sold for between US$120-125,000 (essentially a discount of some US$30,000 against what would be expected of a diligently restored example which is about what a good quality repaint would cost), the 1979 BMW M1 hand-painted by Warhol in a reputed 28 minutes using 13 lb (5.9 kg) of paint (authenticity guaranteed by his fingerprints being left on several panels) is valued (depending on who is asked) at between US$60-250 million.  That’s quite a spread but the answer is anyway “very expensive” and certainly a premium of many times the US$600-700,000 usually paid for a “non Warhol M1”.  In fairness, the comparison shouldn’t be with a “normal M1” because the Warhol Art Car was a Group 4 race version which ran in the 1976 Le Man 24-Hour endurance classic (its only competitive outing), finishing a creditable sixth and second in class.  A machine wish such a race pedigree would anyway attract a premium but in the art market it’s acknowledged Warhol’s Art Car #4 would be worth many times more, such is the lure of a "celebrity artist".

IBM's 1995 ThinkPad 701.

IBM's ThinkPad 701 series was available during 1995 and was that year's biggest seller in its class, its distinctive feature the "butterfly" keyboard, a design in response to the obviously contradictory demands that laptops be smaller and lighter while still equipped with keyboards big enough comfortably to be used (especially with the big, clumsy fingers of men).  The 701 was marketed in what was then an untypically IBM manner, newspaper advertisements in the run-up to the launch published with nothing but a butterfly in the corner, the IBM logo later added while a few days before the debut, the text "Watch for the announcement" appeared.  Butterfly had actually been the project's internal codename although it had never been intended for use as a product, apparently because IBM's corporate policies didn't permit the use of the names of living.  Still, the use in the teaser advertisements did suggest they planned it to catch on as a nickname and doubtlessly hoped for a better outcome than the last time a codename was picked-up, the unfortunate "peanut" (the PCjr (1984-1985)) not fondly remembered.

IBM Thinkpad 701 commercial, 1995.

IBM's 1995 ThinkPad 701.

The 701 series was well-received and butterfly keyboard much admired.  By 1995, although it was clear to most of the industry that OS/2 (IBM's pre-emptive, multi-tasking operating system (OS)) was unlikely to achieve critical mass in either the consumer or corporate markets but the company continued to try to nudge things along: While the 701s using Intel’s i486 DX2 50/25 MHz CPU (central processing unit) came pre-installed with a combo PC-DOS 6.3 OS & Microsoft Windows 3.11 (Windows for Workgroups) operating environment, those using the i486 DX4 75/25 MHz chip offered the option of a dual-boot so users could choose either the combo or IBM’s OS/2 Warp (3.0).  The main body of the keyboard was a two-piece construction, which, gear-driven by the movement of the lid, spread apart to become a single unit as the laptop was opened, the process reversed as the lid closed.  IBM actually called it the TrackWrite, but it was universally known as the butterfly and so compelling was the design that to this day, one is on permanent display in Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).  Popular though it was, the market moved and the place on the demand curve at a price point which interested IBM was for laptops with larger screens so the need for the butterfly technology vanished, the 701 remaining unique.  Some patents have recently been filed which suggest manufacturers may be planning to release another laptop with a butterfly keyboard but, in an age of ultra-thin devices, it will presumably be a thing of low-tactility and thus lacking the responsiveness which had been one of the most attractive features of the original.

Thirty years after: 2025 Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 (Lenovo part number 21NSCTO1WWAU8).

Although thinner and with many advances internally, at first glance a 2025 Lenovo ThinkPad appears little different from a 1955 (non-butterfly) IBM original.  Like the shark and pencil, the basic laptop design seems to have attained its evolutionary perfection.  Among the features carried over from IBM was the "TrackPoint" (the small, red pointing device in the centre of the keyboard), used to control the on-screen pointer.  IBM made a number of variants of the red rubber cap (“Classic Dome”, “Soft Dome”, “Soft Rim” and (most memorably) “Eraser Head”) but (male) programmers tended to call it “the clit”. 

A descendent of IBM ThinkPad, the original IBM PC-1 (August 1981) was the MRCA (most recent common ancestor) of both and, even now, a few ancient traits remain identifiable.  In 2005, IBM exited the PC (personal computer) and laptop business, selling the lines to Chinese manufacturer Lenovo, including as a transitional arrangement the right to use the IBM brand on the hardware for five years, the last so labelled thus made in 2010.  However, because the ThinkPad and ThinkCentre trademarks were part of the IP (intellectual property) Lenovo acquired, these continue to appear.  The deal in 2005 meant that IBM, which in 1981 had triggered the PC revolution with the release in August of the original PC-1, was no longer a part (although it continued to be active in software and server production) of the industry which (unintentionally) it had played such a part in creating and which transformed the modern world.  Nothing lasts forever.   

Defame

Defame (pronounced dih-feym)

(1) To attack the good name or reputation of, as by uttering or publishing maliciously or falsely anything injurious; still in some jurisdictions classified as slander (in speech or by gesture) or libel (something permanent in some sense including writing, images & broadcasting); calumniate.

(2) To disgrace; to bring dishonor upon (dating from the fifteenth century and now archaic).

(3) To indict or accuse (dating from the fourteenth century and long obsolete).

1275–1325: From the Middle English defamen, from the Old French & Anglo-French defamer (verb) & defame (noun) or directly from the Medieval Latin dēfāmāre, a variant of the Medieval & Classical Latin diffāmāre (related to the Classical Latin dēfāmātus (infamous)) (to spread the news of; to spread by unfavorable report; to slander), the construct being dif- (an alternative form of dis- (the prefix form dif- appearing only when the prefix dis- was added to a word beginning with f, as in difficilis (difficult) from facilis (easy), or diffiteor (deny) from fateor (acknowledge)) + -fāmāre (verbal derivative of fāma (news, rumor, slander)),  It replaced the Middle English diffamen, from the Anglo-French & Old French diffamer or directly from Medieval Latin, source the Latin diffāmō, from fāma (fame; rumor; reputation).  The verb defame (speak evil of, maliciously speak or write what injures the reputation of) dates from circa 1300, from the Old French defamer (which in the thirteenth century became the Modern French diffamer).

The construct in English is de- + fame.  The de- prefix was from the Latin dē-, from the preposition dē (of, from (the Old English æf- was a similar prefix).  It imparted the sense of (1) reversal, undoing, removing, (2) intensification and (3) from, off.  Fame was from the Middle English fame, from the Old French fame (celebrity, renown), from the Latin fāma (talk, rumor, report, reputation), from the primitive Indo-European beh-meh from beh (to speak, say, tell).  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek φήμη (phḗmē) (talk) and related to the Old English bōian (to boast), bēn (prayer, request) & bannan (to summon, command, proclaim).  It displaced the Old English hlīsa.  Defame and its derivatives are defined in law but in general use the vaguely synonymous terms include backbite, besmirch, denigrate, derogate, discredit, disgrace, disparage, malign, revile, scandalize, smear, vilify, asperse, belie, blacken, blister, calumniate, detract, dishonor, knock, pan, roast & scorch.  Defame is a noun and verb, defaming is a verbs, defamer & defamation are nouns, defamingly is an adverb, defamed is a verb & adjective and defamatory is an adjective.

Google LLC v Defteros, Case # M86/2021 on appeal from Supreme Court of Victoria (Court of Appeal) (17 June 2021, VSCA 167).

The High Court of Australia (HCA) recently ruled that in certain circumstances, Google (and presumably every other search engine) is not a publisher, the critical point in this case being that a hyperlink generated in an organic search is “merely a tool which enables a person to navigate to another webpage”.  The case before the country’s highest court was an appeal from Victoria’s court of appeal which in 2021 declined to overturn a defamation finding in favor of a lawyer known for representing underworld figures and others associated with organized crime.  The state courts had found Google was the publisher of a defamatory 2004 newspaper article on the basis its search results were instrumental in communicating the content to readers.  Google had argued providing a hyperlink to content did not constitute publication and therefore it could not be liable for any defamatory material in the piece.  Apart from a discussion of the legal principles, counsel for Google also informed the HCA that were the decision of the lower court to be confirmed, it would have a “devastating” impact on the way the internet operates because it would compel search engines individually to see legal opinion on the billions of results to which hyperlinks are daily generated.  Google maintained it acted on the internet only as a navigator responding to users’ requests for directions and it was (and given the volumes had to be) wholly disinterested in the content of that to which its hyperlinks referenced, the operator of the hyperlinked link being the one which communicates (and thus publishes) the content to the user.

The facts of the case were also interesting in that they played out on a time-scale very different to that of most defamation matters.  Google was notified of the article in February 2016, some eleven years after it was published in the newspaper but it was not until December that year that the link was removed from search.  Interestingly, the “removal request form” submitted in 2016 had alleged the original article was defamatory and that proceedings brought against the newspaper in 2007 had resulted in a settlement at mediation which included the deletion of the article.  There was however no such settlement and proceedings against the newspaper had never commenced.  In 2020, the Supreme Count on Victoria (VSC) ruled the article implied the lawyer’s relationship with certain figures in organized crime had gone beyond a professional relationship to the point of being a confidant and friend and he had thus been defamed.  He was awarded damages of Aus$40,000.

In a 5-2 judgment, the HCA ruled in Google’s favor, finding that search engine’s results “merely facilitated access” to the material and that did not reach the threshold required to amount to publication in a legal sense, the point being that Google “…had not participated in the writing or disseminating of the defamatory matter”.  The other side of the HCA’s judgment was that it rejected the claim that search results “enticed” the person searching to open the provided hyperlink and thus proceed to the material on the basis that the person would already be looking for particular information before the result was received.  That was interesting but a wrinkle was added by one judge who differentiated between an organic hyperlink and a sponsored link in which each click generated advertising revenue which accrued to Google.  That matter however did not come before the lower courts and is thus not considered part of the substantive judgment (the ratio decidendi (reason (or rationale) for the decision) but is a piece of obiter dictum (by the way) which, left hanging in the legal air, might in the future be re-visited and, because it involves the core component of the search engines’ business model, interest will be greater still.  There certainly may be more to explore because the court, having found there was no basis for finding publication because Google had not participated in the writing or disseminating of the defamatory matter, noted that "…there being no publication”, the majority found it unnecessary to consider the defenses raised by the appellant.  That was a shame because it might have been an interesting discussion given Google filed, inter alia, defenses of innocent dissemination and qualified privilege.

There were however dissenting opinions, the most interesting of which at length discussed the actual mechanics of Google’s search engine, the succession of algorithms which interact with its indexes to generate the results seen by users.  In the view of one judge, what these components did constituted an “active and voluntary participation in the process that is in fact directed to making matter available for comprehension by a third party” and was thus an act of publication and that moreover neither the defense of innocent dissemination and qualified privilege, nor the defense of statutory qualified privilege available under Victoria’s Defamation Act 2005 were sustained.  The judge also hinted that a distinction between the results generated by organic search and those of sponsored content was not of necessity clear because of the commercial benefits which Google anyway gained through the operation of the search engine.  The other dissenting judge substantially agreed, adding that the matter of publication before the court would have been impossible without the operation of Google’s algorithms which “intentionally assisted in the process of conveying the words bearing defamatory meaning to a third party” and that publication would not have occurred but for Google’s facilitation.

So, the HCA has issued what is (for now) a definitive ruling on a search engine’s liability for third-party publications to which it has directed users, finding there is none, rejecting even the analogy cited by the lower court of a librarian handing someone a book with a certain page marked, preferring the example of someone in the street being asked for direction to a bookshop which turned out to have on its shelves a book containing a defamatory passage.  It seems inevitable that at least some of the matters raised in Google LLC v Defteros will again be litigated and analogies similes and metaphors will return to the battle.  Whether long-established legal principles can be reconciled with a public policy which would seem to suggest the algorithms of the search engines are acknowledged now to be an essential part of modern life, remains to be seen.

Meet our spokesperson.  With experience in civil litigation and other legal matters, Lindsay Lohan was a good choice to be lawyer.com's spokesperson.

Noted litigant Lindsay Lohan hasn’t enjoyed great success in her defamation suits, even when pursued on the basis of commercial rights.  In 2015, a defamation case against Fox News was dismissed, the judge ruling (perhaps unfairly given the nature of the evidence), "truth is a defense" (and in the US it is an absolute defense).  The case concerned Ms Lohan and her mother and according to their filing, Fox News “falsely, inappropriately, and shockingly” stated, unequivocally and as a “matter of fact” stated “Lindsay Lohan’s mother is doing cocaine with her”.  The judge noted Ms Lohan’s mother is a public figure and that the statements made on Fox News were not made maliciously (in US law two vital points used to determine whether or not something is at law, considered defamatory).  Interestingly Fox News had formally apologized for what they called an “oversight” in airing the piece, noting the evidence later introduced couldn’t verify the claim and that the material had been removed from their archives.

Just a little removed from defamation law was a writ she filed in 2010 against E-Trade in 2010 for using her name in one of their television advertisements without her permission. The commercial, which was played during the Super Bowl, featured a "milkaholic" baby named Lindsay and the basis for the suit was the claim E-Trade as mocking her drug and alcohol-related problems.  In response to the US$100 million claim, E-Trade responded with little more than an explanation that there are in the world, many Lindsays.  After some six months, the lawsuit was withdrawn, the terms of the settlement subject to a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).

Lindsay Lohan returned to court in 2011, suing hip hop artist Pitbull over the lyrics in his song Give Me Everything, which included the line: So, I’m toptoein’, to keep flowin’, I got it locked up, like Lindsay Lohan.  Ms Lohan cited the lyric as a violation of her publicity and publicity rights which caused her emotional distress, claiming the lyrics “includes an unwarranted, unauthorized, and unfavorable mention of [her] name and personality, and allusions to her physical and mental character.”  The judge dismissed on technical grounds the claim made under New York Civil Rights law, adding that the First Amendment anyway affords full protection.  What was more interesting was the discussion of the argument the song was commercial rather than expressive in nature, the judge ruling that even if the work was created for the purpose of “making a profit”, that does not mean her name was “used for advertising or purposes of trade within the meaning of the New York law“ and that, on the facts of this case, even if that were proved, the “isolated nature of the use of her name” (just one line in the song) would “prove fatal” to the claims.  Putbull’s counsel indicated they wished to have the court sanction Ms Lohan for filing a frivolous lawsuit (an abuse of process) but the judge, noting the paucity of case law in this field, said the lack of precedent meant there was no clear indication the case would be doomed and the claim was therefore not so frivolous as to warrant the imposition of a sanction.  Lindsay Lohan thus remained free to litigate, which she did.

Sabot & Clog

Sabot (pronounced sab-oh or sa-boh (French)

(1) A shoe made of a single block of wood hollowed out, worn especially by farmers and workers in the Netherlands, France, Belgium etc.

(2) A shoe with a thick wooden sole and sides and a top of coarse leather.

(3) In military ordinance, a wooden or metal disk formerly attached to a projectile in a muzzle-loading cannon.

(4) In firearm design, a lightweight sleeve in which a sub-caliber round is enclosed in order to make it fit the rifling of a firearm; after firing the sabot drops away.

(5) In nautical use, a small sailing boat with a shortened bow (Australia).

1600–1610: From the French sabot, from the Old French çabot, a blend of savate (old shoe), of uncertain origin and influenced by bot (boot).  The mysterious French savate (old shoe), despite much research by etymologists, remains of unknown origin.  It may be from the Tatar чабата (çabata) (overshoes), ultimately either from the Ottoman Turkish چاپوت‎ (çaput or çapıt) (patchwork, tatters), or from the Ottoman Turkish چاپمق‎ (çapmak) (to slap on), or of Iranian origin, cognate with the modern Persian چپت‎ (čapat) (a kind of traditional leather shoe).  It was akin to the Old Provençal sabata, the Italian ciabatta (old shoe), the Spanish zapato, the Norman chavette and the Portuguese sapato.  The plural is sabots.

Young women in clogs, smoking cigarettes.

Sabot is the ultimate source of sabotage & saboteur.  English picked up sabotage from the French saboter (deliberately to damage, wreck or botch), used originally to refer to the tactic used in industrial disputes by workers wearing the wooden shoes called sabots who disrupted production in various ways.  The persistent myth is that the origin of the term lies in the practice of workers throwing the wooden sabots into factory machinery to interrupt production but the tale appears apocryphal, one account even suggesting sabot-clad workers were simply considered less productive than others who had switched to leather shoes, roughly equating the term sabotage with inefficiency.

Vintage Dutch sabots.

The words saboter and saboteur appear first to have appeared in French dictionaries in 1808 (Dictionnaire du Bas-Langage ou manières de parler usitées parmi le peuple of d'Hautel) suggesting there must have been some use of the words in printed materials some time prior to then.  The literal definition provided was “to make noise with sabots” and “bungle, jostle, hustle, haste” but with no suggestion of the shoes being used in the “spanner in the works” sense suggested by the myth.  Sabotage would not appear in dictionaries for some decades, noted first in the Dictionnaire de la langue française of Émile Littré (1801-1881) published between 1873-1874 and curiously, it’s defined as referencing that specialty of cobbling “the making of sabots; sabot maker”.  It wouldn’t be until 1897 that the use to describe malicious damage in pursuit of industrial or political aims was recorded, anarcho-syndicalist Émile Pouget (1860-1931) publishing Action de saboter un travail (Sabotaging or bungling at work) in Le Père Peinard, which he helpfully expanded in 1911 in the user manual Le Sabotage.  In neither work however was there mention of using sabots as a means of damaging or halting machinery, the sense was always of things done by those wearing sabots, the word a synecdoche for the industrial proletariat.  Contemporary English-language sources confirm this.  In its January 1907 edition, The Liberty Review noted sabotage was a means of “scamping work… a device… adopted by certain French workpeople as a substitute for striking.  The workman, in other words, purposes to remain on and to do his work badly, so as to annoy his employer's customers and cause loss to his employer”.

Clog promotion, H&M catalog 2011.

Clog (pronounced klog or klawg)

(1) To hinder or obstruct with thick or sticky matter; choke up.

(2) To crowd excessively, especially so that movement is impeded; overfill.

(3) To encumber; hamper; hinder.

(4) To become clogged, encumbered, or choked up.

(5) A shoe or sandal with a thick sole of wood, cork, rubber, or the like; a similar but lighter shoe worn in the clog dance.

(6) A heavy block, as of wood, fastened to a person or beast to impede movement.

(7) As clog dance, a type of dance which specifically demands the wearing of clogs.

(8) In British dialectal use, a thick piece of wood (now rare).

(9) In the slang of association football (soccer), to foul an opponent (now rare).

(10) A heavy block, especially of wood, fastened to the leg of a person or animal to impede motion.

(11) To use a mobile phone to take a photograph of (someone) and upload it without their knowledge or consent, the construct being c(amera) + log, a briefly used term from the early days of camera-equipped phones on the which never caught on.

1300s: Of unknown origin, most likely from the Middle English clogge (weight attached to the leg of an animal to impede movement) or from a North Germanic form such as klugu & klogo (knotty tree log) from the Old Norse, the Dutch klomp or the Norwegian klugu (knotty log of wood).  The word was also used in Middle English to describe big pieces of jewelry and large testicles.  The meaning "anything that impedes action" is from the 1520s, via the notion of "block or mass constituting an encumbrance” although it became nuanced, by 1755 builders were distinguishing between things clogged with whatever naturally belonged then and becoming “choked up with extraneous matter”, a distinction doubtlessly of great significance to plumbers.  The sense of the "wooden-soled shoe" is attested from the late fourteenth century, used as overshoes until the introduction of rubber soles circa 1840.  Related forms include the adjective cloggy, the noun clogginess, the verbs clogged & clog·ging and the adverb cloggily.  A frequently used adjectival derivative is anticlogging, often as a modifier of agent and, unsurprisingly, the verb unclog, first noted circa 1600, is also common.

Lindsay Lohan in Gucci Black Patent Leather Hysteria Platform Clogs with wooden soles, Los Angeles, 2009.  The car is a 2009 (fifth generation) Maserati Quattroporte leased by her father.

Clogs were originally made entirely of wood (hence the name), the more familiar modern form with leather uppers covering the front being noted first in the late sixteenth century but may have been worn earlier.  Long popular with men working in kitchens (always with a rubber covering on the sole), the first revival as a fashion item occurred circa 1970, primarily for women and clog-dancing, a form "which required the wearing of clogs" is attested from 1863.  There are now a variety of variations on the clog sole including the Tengu geta, having a single tooth in the centre and the Albarcas which features extensions something like a three-legged stool.  None look very comfortable but their users appear content.

Lindsay Lohan's promotion for the collaboration between German fashion house MCM & Crocs, introducing the "pragmatic" Mega Crush Clog.  Not that there was ever much doubt but now we know clogs can be "pragmatic".

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 the sense of "higher") 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

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.