Belvedere

Belvedere (pronounced bel-vi-deer or bel-ve-de-re (Italian))

(1) In architecture, a building, or an (often turret-like) feature of a building, designed and situated to look out upon a pleasing scene.

(2) A cigar, shorter and with thinner ends than a corona.

(3) A palace in Vatican City, Rome, now housing an art gallery.

(4) As Fort Belvedere (formerly Shrubs Hill Tower), a country house in Surrey, England, famously the site of the abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936.

(5) A widely used name for localities and structures.

Adopted in English in the sense of a “raised turret or open story atop a house” from the Italian belvedere (literally “a fair (ie beautiful) sight”), the construct being bel(lo) (beautiful), from the Latin bellus (beautiful, fair) + vidēre (to see; a view, sight), from the primitive Indo-European root weid- (to see).  The pronunciation is thought to have been influenced by the French form of the word.  The perhaps opportunistic but enduring noun gazebo is said by some to be a facetious formation, the construct being gaz(e) (from the Middle English gasen; akin to the Swedish dialectal gasa and Gothic usgasjan (to terrify) which English gained in the sense of "to stare intently or earnestly") + -ebo (the Latin first person singular future tense suffix, on the model of belvedere.  That’s an attractive etymology but the Oxford English Dictionary dismisses the theory, saying it’s a corruption of a word from the orient, possibly the Arabic قَصَبَة‎ (qaṣaba) (source of the familiar casbah).  Belvedere is a noun; the noun plural is belvederes.

In architecture, the word "tower" is used loosely but technically a tower should rise from ground-level to its conclusion whereas a turret begins part-way up a building, most commonly at a corner.  Historically a turret was something on a small scale (relative to the building on which it sat) and usually little more than ornamental (although for centuries many were part of the defensive system of a fort or castle, both as an observation and fire-point) while a belvedere's sole purpose should be to offer a commanding view of some pleasant vista.

Belvédère du Rayon Vert, Cerbère, France

Closed in 1983, the art deco Belvédère du Rayon Vert is a former hotel in Cerbère, France, built between 1928 and 1932.  What was known as “ocean liner” style was at the time popular in interior decorating but, taking advantage of the shape of the available land, the architect Léon Baille (1828-1932) extended the nautical idea to the whole building which follows the lines of a ship and borrowing further from the decks of ocean liners, a tennis court sat on the roof.  One of the nation’s protected historic monuments, some of the rooms have been restored as apartments and tours are conducted during the holiday season.

The Plymouth Belvedere

The use of the Belvedere name by the Chrysler’s corporation low-priced (and now defunct) Plymouth brand is illustrative of the practice of the US industry in the mid-late twentieth century to create a prestige model which gradually would be moved down the hierarchy as other names were introduced at the top of the range.  The Belvedere nameplate also shifted between market segments, moving from the full-sized to the intermediate platform as Detroit’s offerings began to proliferate as the public (sometimes by economic necessity) began to prefer smaller cars.

1951 Cranbrook (left), 1951 Cranbrook Belvedere (centre) and 1956 Belvedere (right).

Plymouth introduced the Belvedere name in 1951 for the new, two-door hardtop version of Cranbrook line, Plymouth’s first model with the style which would for a quarter-century be a signature of Detroit’s more expensive cars.  In 1954, the name ceased to be an option and the Belvedere supplanted the as Cranbrook as the top-of-the-range model, offered now in all available body-styles (sedans, hardtops, station wagons, and convertibles) in a mix of two and four-door configurations.  The 1951 line looks frumpy now and even then was considered bulbous compared with the more modernist lines coming from the Ford and General Motors (GM) design studios but Chrysler at the time was run by a chief executive who dictated their products had to be able to driven “by a man wearing his hat”.  That view was abandoned for the 1955 models and the refinements which followed the next year were emblematic of the longer-lower-wider dictum which would dominate the industry for a generation.

1957 (left), 1960 (centre) and 1961 (right) Belvederes.

The 1957-1960 Belvederes are among the best remembered from Detroit’s crazy macropterous years, and are related to the final iteration on the 1961 Imperial which featured the tallest fins of the era although it’s the extravagance of the 1959 Cadillac which is most famous.  The 1957 Plymouths, released with the advertising slogan “Suddenly it’s 1960” created a sensation but unfortunately, although immediately popular, the quality control was patchy (like some of the paintwork) and Chrysler's reputation would for years suffer.  The styling lasted until 1961 by which time the craze was over and the big fins looked dated but the replacement was truly bizarre.  Sales suffered but so low is the survival rate of the 1961 Belvederes their very scalloped weirdness has made them a collectable.

1962 (left), 1963 (centre) and 1964 (right) Plymouth Belvederes.

Acting on misunderstood rumors (which some insist was industrial espionage) about what the competition was doing with their full-sized lines, Plymouth "downsized" the Belvedere for 1962, something which in little more than a decade would make sense but it was out of tune with the early 1960s.  That was a shame because the engineering of the cars was solid and many of those who did buy the things expressed satisfaction with the reduced exterior dimensions, noting there was little loss in interior space and those who definitely found an advantage in the lower weight and more agile handling were drivers using Belvederes in competition, the cars successful on both circuits and drag strips.  The styling however was again unfortunate and was soon toned-down; it didn’t become quite as bland as the 1961 Chevrolet (a reaction to the excesses of their 1959-1960 “bat-wings”) which was described as “looking a little like every car ever built” but it was certainly inoffensive.

1966 Belvedere (left), 1969 Hemi Roadrunner (centre-left), 1970 Superbird (centre-right) and 1970 Superbird in NASCAR trim (right)

With the restoration of a full-sized model to the range in 1965, the Belvedere was maintained in the increasingly important intermediate sector (similar in to dimensions to what the full-size cars had been before they became bloated in the mid-late 1950s).  A new trim package called the Satellite was added (a la what the original Belvedere had in 1951 been to the Cranbrook) and, responding to the increased demand for muscle cars, the high-performance GTX was created.  The line was restyled in 1968 using an interpretation of the then popular “coke-bottle” look and it was on this platform that the Roadrunner was built.  The Roadrunner essentially combined a stripped-down, basic Belvedere with the high performance engines and, stripped of any luxury fittings, it was cheaper as well as lighter.  Able to be configured to outperform even the GTX and offered at a price which on any cost/performance analysis was a bargain, it was an immediate hit and the line soon proliferated, Roadrunner convertibles and additional engines soon offered.  The Belvedere's final fling was also its apotheosis, the be-winged Roadrunner Superbird, offered only in the 1970 model-year as a homologation exercise to qualify the aerodynamic improvements for use in competition.  That year however marked the swansong of the Belvedere name, Satellite preferred as it was more in accord with the space age.

Miss Belvedere as now displayed (left), being lowered into her capsule in 1957 (centre) and as exhumed in 2007 (right).

The 1957 Belvedere was used in one of the larger and more unusual time-capsules.  Named Miss Belvedere as part of the city of Tulsa's “Tulsarama” Golden Jubilee Week festivities celebrating Oklahoma's fiftieth year of statehood, the car was on 15 June 1957 sealed in an underground vault to be opened a half-century later.  Intended as a prize to whomever came closest to guessing Tulsa's population in 2007, cognizant of the fears of nuclear war prevalent at the time, the enclosure was built to withstand hydrogen bombs being detonated in the vicinity.  Unfortunately, less attention was given to making things watertight and, when opened in 2007, the Miss Belvedere was found to have spent much of her fifty years wholly or partially submerged, the result muddy and rusty mess.  Some attempts were made to clean the worst of the damage in the hope a restoration might be possible but ultimately it was determined it was beyond salvation and she's now displayed as a dilapidated relic of a troubled yet optimistic age.

McMansions in their natural habitat.

Rightly or wrongly, many object to McMansions (the large, over-styled, essentially mass-produced houses built for the upper middle-class anxious to flaunt their wealth).  This is often an objection to conspicuous consumption and an extravagant use of resources but students of architecture focus on the confused mix of motifs which so often litter the structures with as many architectural clichés from palaces or castles as can be crammed into the space with little regard for scale or any sense of integrity.  On McMansions, it’s not unusual to see a mix of Corinthian columns, towers, turrets, belvederes, French doors, Gothic arches, flag-poles, stained glass, transom windows, balconies and porticos.  Much of the criticism probably is an expression of resentment that people with poor taste are able to afford such things but as a general principle, in architecture an emphasis on proportion and restrained elegance will tend to be more admired.

Fort Belvedere (formerly Shrubs Hill Tower), a country house in Windsor, Surrey, famously the site of the abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936 (left) and Belvedere Palace, Vienna (right).

Lindsay Lohan attending V Magazine, Marc Jacobs & Belvedere Vodka event, Hiro Ballroom, New York City, September 2009.

Tenterhook

Tenterhook (pronounced ten-ter-hook)

(1) One of the hooks or bent nails that hold cloth stretched on a tenter.

(2) As “on tenterhooks”, in a state of uneasy suspense or painful anxiety.

1470–1480: A compound word tenter + hook.  Tenter (wooden framework for stretching cloth) is from the circa 1300 Middle English tenter and is of uncertain origin but thought probably borrowed from Latin via Old French (although the evolution of the ending is wholly obscure).  The source was the Latin tentorium (tent made of stretched skins) from tentus (stretched), a variant past participle of tendere (to stretch), from the primitive Indo-European root ten- (to stretch).  Hook is pre-900, from the Middle English hoke, from the Old English hōc, from the Proto-Germanic hōkaz (which influenced also the West Frisian & Dutch hoek (hook, angle, corner), the Low German Hook, variant of hakô (hook), the West Frisian heak and the Dutch haak (hook)).  It’s probably ultimately from the primitive Indo-European kog-, keg- & keng- (peg, hook, claw).

Tenterhooks.

The plural form tenterhooks (one of the hooks that holds cloth on a tenter) was noted first in the late fifteenth century but the figurative phrase “on tenterhooks” is from 1748 and its more evocative imagery meant it soon supplanted “to be on tenters” which had been in use since the 1530s.  The phrase “on tenterhooks” came to mean “being in a state of tension, uneasiness, anxiety, or suspense” figuratively stretched like the cloth on the tenter.  Improvements in the design of machines means tenterhooks are no longer widely used in cloth manufacturing, the word tenterhook is now used almost exclusively used in the metaphorical sense.

Those on tenterhooks waiting for new Lindsay Lohan content were glad to learn of the two-film deal with Netflix, Falling for Christmas released in November 2022 while Irish Wish is scheduled for debut in 2023.

The phrase “on tenterhooks” is one of the most misspoken in English, often pronounced as “tenderhooks”.  Only “Parthian shot” suffers more, rendered frequently as “parting shot”, a more understandable mistake given the context.

Adhesive

Adhesive (pronounced ad-hee-siv or ad-hee-ziv)

(1) Something coated with glue, paste, mastic, or other sticky substance (which may be intended for either temporary or permanent purposes); a substance that causes something to adhere, as glue or rubber cement.

(2) Figuratively, tenacious or clinging.

(3) Sticking fast; sticky; apt or tending to adhere; clinging.

(4) In physics, of or relating to the molecular force that exists in the area of contact between unlike bodies and that acts to unite them.

(5) The quality or degree of stickiness in the physical sense; relating to adhesion.

(6) In philately, a postage stamp with a gummed back, as distinguished from one embossed or printed on an envelope or card.

1660s: The adjective meaning “sticky, cleaving or clinging” was from the French adhésif, from the Latin adhaesivus, from adhaereō (supine adhaesum). The French construct was formed from the Latin adhaes-, past-participle stem of adhaerere (stick to), the source also of adherent.  The noun was derived from the adjective and emerged in 1881, original as a descriptor of postage stamps (as a clipping of the original (1840) adhesive stamp, the word later adopted in philately as a technical distinction between the classic stick-on stamps and other types.  Around the turn of the twentieth century, it was used in the general sense of "a substance that causes to adhere", as a point of differentiation from simple glue.  The spelling adhæsive is obsolete.

Because of the use in engineering, science, industry & commerce, adhesive is a popular modifier, the forms including adhesive capsulitis, adhesive tape, hot melt adhesive, self-adhesive, adhesive bra, adhesive bandage, adhesive binding, adhesive plaster & adhesive tape.  Words related to adhesive (in the physical or figurative sense depending on context) sense include gummy, sticky, adherent, holding, hugging, pasty, adhering, agglutinant, attaching, clinging, clingy, gelatinous, glutinous, gooey, gummed, mucilaginous, resinous, tenacious, viscid & viscous.  Adhesive is a noun & adjective, adhesion is a noun, adhesively is an adverb and adhesiveness is a noun; the noun plural is adhesives.

Very Abstract

Piet Mondrian’s (1872-1944) 1941 New York City 1 is an abstract piece created with multi-colored adhesive tape.  First exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in 1945 and hung since 1980 in the Düsseldorf Museum as part of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen’s collection, recently it was revealed for the past 77 years it has been hanging upside down.  The work is unsigned, sometimes an indication the artist deemed it unfinished but Mondrian left no notes.

Mondrian’s 1941 New York City 1 as it (presumably correctly) sat in the artist's studio in 1944 (left) and as it was since 1945 exhibited (upside-down) in New York and Düsseldorf (right).  Spot the difference. 

The decades-long, trans-Atlantic mistake came to light during a press conference held to announce the Kunstsammlung’s new Mondrian exhibition.  During research for the show, a photograph of Mondrian’s studio taken shortly after his death showed the work oriented in the opposite direction and this is being treated as proof of the artist’s intension although experts say the placement of the adhesive tape on the unsigned painting also suggests the piece was hung upside down.  How the error occurred is unclear but when first displayed at MOMA, it may have been as simple as the packing-crate being overturned or misleading instructions being given to the staff.  However, 1941 New York City 1 will remain upside because of the condition of the adhesive strips.  “The adhesive tapes are already extremely loose and hanging by a thread,” a curator was quoted as saying, adding that if it were now to be turned-over, “…gravity would pull it into another direction.  And it’s now part of the work’s story.”

1941 New York City 1, in the Paris Museum of Modern Art.

The curator made the point that as hung, the interlacing lattice of red, yellow, black and blue adhesive tapes thicken towards the bottom, suggesting a sparser skyline but that “…the thickening of the grid should be at the top, like a dark sky” and another of Mondrian’s creations in a similar vein (the oil on canvas New York City I (1942)) hangs in the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris with the thickening of lines at the top.  Whether Mondrian intended 1941 New York City 1 to be part of his oeuvre or it was just a mock-up in adhesive tape for the oil-on canvas composition to follow isn’t known, artists having many reasons for leaving works unsigned.

Conventional "backless" bras.

The term "backless bra" can be misleading in that most of them aren't actually built without a back-strap; rather the strap is engineered in a variety of ways to sit well below the shoulder-blades, usually somewhere around the lower back.  Often that's enough to suit the outfit with which it's being paired but sometimes there's a need to expose the whole back and here an adhesive bra can be the solution.  Adhesive bras (single-use and re-usable and sometimes called "stick-on bras" or "stickies") are specialized devices which have a large part of the surface-area facing the skin coated with a medical-grade adhesive.  Made usually from silicone or polyurethane and available in a variety of designs (in one and two-piece configurations), almost all are strapless or backless and the variations in design exist to accommodate the different clothes under which the bra will be worn.  One chooses one’s adhesive bra cognizant of the dress or top to be worn, the idea being that once dressed, only skin should be visible.  In cases where no commercial available adhesive bra is quite right, a variety of medical-grade tapes (sold as tit-tape, skin-tape, boob-tape et al) are available including double-sided versions which can hold the fabric of clothes in place.  There have the advantage of being able to rendered in whatever shape is required but can be difficult to apply single-handedly although boyfriends and girlfriends should be anxious to assist.  Experts suggest avoiding the cheapest on the market because some of there are not medical grade and there's the risk of minor skin damage and consequent infection.

For those (regardless of size) who don’t require lift and need only to minimize lateral movement, the two-piece units (which can use a central coupling depending on the outfit) are ideal because they are available in versions with a smaller surface area, some of which use a higher percentage of the adhesive material to adhere to skin below the bust-line which can be helpful.  These are essentially a modern variation of the pasties (adhesive patches worn over the nipples by exotic dancers) from the late 1950s with some structural engineering added to enhance support.

Most two-piece adhesive bras are a pair of stand-alone units but some offer the option of centre-adjustments.  The methods vary, some using Velcro, the familiar hook & eye combination or buckles but the most popular type use shoe-lace style ties.  The scope of adjustment offered is not only lateral (forcing the flesh towards the centre) but also vertical (forcing the flesh upwards), both movements enhancing cleavage and this permits the same bra to be used for more than one style of outfit.

Although mostly associated with backless and strapless styles, adhesive bras are also available which accommodate plunging necklines.  The two-piece units allow designers to display a cut to the waist but more modest renditions, optimized for cleavage, use a kind of cantilever, usually called the “plunge”.

Adhesive bras use rather than defy the laws of physics and there are limits to the volumes which can be accommodated.  As a general principle, as the movable mass (and in this case there’s not always a direct correlation between weight and volume) increases the surface area of the adhesive material which adheres to skin above the effective centre of gravity (essentially the pivot point) should increase.  That means larger sizes can be handled for backless dresses and even plunges are possible but it won’t be possible always to display the skin on the upper poles and designs required to secure a greater mass can be less comfortable because they often include some variation of an underwire to guarantee structural integrity.

Lindsay Lohan adhesive stickers.

Wolfram & Tungsten

Wolfram (pronounced wool-fruhm or vawl-fruhm)

In chemistry, another name for tungsten.

1750–1760: From the German Wolfram (originally, wolframite), the construct probably Wolf + -ram, representing the Middle High German rām (the Modern German Rahm) (soot, dirt) and formed on the model the proper name, Wolfram.  The speculation is it was used pejoratively of tungsten because it was thought inferior to the point of worthlessness compared with the tin ores with which it is often found and its presence actually diminished the quantity of tin produced through smelting, thus the dismissive term, "wolf-raven".

Tungsten (pronounced tuhng-stuhn)

(1) In chemistry, a rare, metallic element.  Symbol: W; atomic number: 74; atomic weight: 183.85; specific gravity: 19.3 (20°C).

(2)  An alternative name for wolfram.

1780: From the Swedish tungsten (calcium tungstate) (scheelite), the construct being tung (heavy) + sten (stone).  The Swedish tung was from the Old Norse þungr, from the Proto-Germanic þunguz; sten was from the Old Swedish sten, from the Old Norse steinn, from the Proto-Norse ᛊᛏᚨᛁᚾᚨᛉ (stainaz), from the Proto-Germanic stainaz, ultimately from the primitive Indo-European steyhz-.  Tungstenic is the adjectival form.  The word tungsten was coined by Swedish chemist Karl Wilhelm Scheele who first identified the metal in 1780.

Lindsay Lohan wearing a 19mm Cartier Tank Americaine in 18 karat white gold with a quartz movement and a silver guilloche dial with Roman numerals.  The Cartier Tank Americaine is also available in Tungsten.

Highest melting-point

Occurring principally in wolframite and scheelite, tungsten is a hard, gray to white metallic element with a high resistance to corrosion and has the highest melting point of all elements (3410°C ± 20°; boiling point 5,900°C), retaining its strength even at high temperature.  It's was used to increase the hardness and strength of steel used in applications like electrical contact points, X-ray targets, high-speed cutting tools and electric-lamp filaments.  Tungsten's chemical symbol is “W”, drawn from its other name wolfram which comes from wolframite, the element in which it was discovered.  Wolframite means "the devourer of tin" in the disparaging slang of the time because it interferes with the smelting of tin, once considered much more valuable and in its original German form can be translated as “little value”.

Tungsten also has a much older name.  In 1556, German mineralogist and metallurgist Georgius Agricola (1494–1555) discovered a mineral between the tin ore and corroded it completely, leaving a foam.  Due to this characteristic it was said that the tin disappeared as if eaten by a wolf, so this mineral was called wolframite (“wolf foam” or “wolf rahm”, in German).  However, in 1783, Spanish chemist Fausto de Elhuyar (1755–1833) and his brother, chemist and mineralogist Juan José Elhuyar Lubize (1754–1796) discovered the element that formed wolframite was the same that formed tungsten, the difference being they were able to separate the two.

Wedding of Prince Harry (b 1984) and Meghan Markle (b 1981), Saturday 19 May 2018, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, London.

The entertaining, if not always reliable (the Friday Times is better), Pakistani site thenews.com.pk in 2021 reported Prince (King since September 2022) Charles (b 1948) had bestowed upon his daughter-in-law Meghan Markle (now “the difficult” Duchess of Sussex) the nickname "tungsten".  Nicknames have long been popular among the British aristocracy and have included such monikers as “duck”, “mule” and “melons” so for the duchess, it could have been worse.  Quite which of the qualities of tungsten Prince Charles had in mind isn’t known so it’s impossible to say whether he was impressed, intrigued or incandescent.  It’s all a matter of which of tungsten’s characteristics moved his thoughts because it (1) has the highest melting point of all metals, (2) is the heaviest metal known to have a biological role (some bacteria using tungsten in an enzyme to reduce carboxylic acids to aldehydes), (3) is strong and durable, (4) is highly resistant to corrosion and (5) has the highest tensile strength of any element.  However, its strength comes when it’s rendered into compounds whereas (6) pure tungsten is very soft.  So it’s hard to say but when told her father was unable to attend, Prince Charles volunteered to walk the bride down the aisle and give her away so there’s that.

Architectonic

Architectonic (pronounced ahr-ki-tek-ton-ik)

(1) Of or pertaining to the principles of architecture, design and construction.

(2) In figurative use in the social sciences (especially political science and sociology), those things foundational or fundamental; supporting the structure of a morality, society, or culture.

(3) As a descriptor outside the field of architecture, denoting, relating to, or having architectural qualities, especially in its highly organized manner or technique of structure.

(4) In metaphysics, of or relating to the systematic classification of the totality of knowledge.

(5) In artistic composition, having a clearly defined structure, especially one artistically pleasing.

1635-1645 From the Latin architectonicus (of architecture), from the Ancient Greek ἀρχιτεκτονικός (arkhitektonikós) (pertaining to a master builder), from ἀρχιτέκτων (arkhitéktōn) (architect).  Interestingly, in surviving Greek texts, the most commonly-used forms appears to be arkhitekton (chief workman).  As technology improved it became possible to observe physical objects at smaller scales, even down to the sub-atomic level.  What was seen was of course inherently structural so architectonic was co-opted by many fields which created their own words including receptorarchitectonic (in anatomy & biology, relating to the architectonics of receptors, neuroarchitectonic (the architectonics of nerves and the nervous system) and nanoarchitectonic (the design of nanotechnology devices or the architectonic of nanoscale architecture) and politico-architectonic (in structuralism and urban planning, the analysis of purpose of individual elements).  The adjective architectonical dates from the 1590s.  Architectonic is a noun & adjective, architectonically is an adverb and architectonical is an adjective; the noun plural is architectonics.

In English, use in the metaphysical sense (pertaining to systematization of knowledge) dates only from 1801, the allusions to the origins in Antiquity something of a retrospective Enlightenment discovery.  The division of what in Antiquity tended to be called “the sciences” (ie about any field of knowledge to which any form of method could be applied) into ancillary and architectonic is often described as Aristotelian because it was in the surviving texts of Aristotle (384-322 BC) that the concept is both so prevalent and obvious but it was Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) who, in Critique of Pure Reason (1781), provided framework in its modern understanding, architectonics being the study both of a system and the processes of its construction.  Kant’s contemporary, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), was a philosopher who contributed much to the understanding of the implications of the architectonic, perhaps because as well as his interest in metaphysics, he was a composer and something of a critic of architecture.

Six of the Painterly Architectonic set (1916-1918) in oil by Lyubov Popova (1889-1924).

Painterly Architectonic was a series of works by Russian & Soviet avant-garde artist Lyubov Popova.  Thematically, she explored the effects of color and shape on individual parts of a whole, overlaying the representations of the objects after the manner of collage.  The paintings distort space within the square and rectangular frames, right angles, vertical and horizontal lines almost all shunned in seas of slants and diagonals.  Travelling in Western Europe in the years before World War I (1914-1918), Popova was stunned by the Cubist and Futurist works she saw in France & Italy and these ideas she took back to Moscow, her focus on the interrelationships between individual parts.  In 1916 Popova declared herself a "Suprematist", a term coined a year earlier by Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935) another member of the Russian avant-garde who explained it described an art which rejected painting’s historic devotion to representation, focusing instead on the supremacy of pure artistic feeling.  After the October Revolution in 1917, it became a movement, many artists believing a revolutionary society demanded a radically new artistic language. In that they were probably right but in comrade Stalin’s (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) time, they would find the vocabulary was limited.

Voodoo

Voodoo (pronounced voo-doo)

(1) A polytheistic religion practiced chiefly by those in or from the Caribbean deriving principally from African cult worship and containing ritualistic elements borrowed from the Catholic religion.

(2) A person who practices this religion.

(3) A fetish or other object of voodoo worship.

(4) A group of magical and ecstatic rites associated with voodoo.

(5) Generalized slang term for black magic; sorcery.

(6) Of or pertaining to, associated with, or practicing voodoo.

(7) In informal use as pejorative adjective applied as a critique of anything characterized by deceptively simple, almost as if magical, solutions or ideas.

1850s: A creation of US English derived from several words in the Louisiana Creole French vandoux, vandoo and vodun, from the Haitian Creole vodou, the exact origin of which remains uncertain but etymologists conclude the source was West African, such as Ewe vódũ (deity, idol), the Fon vòdún (fetish) or vodũ which existed in a number of Kwa languages although in the anthropological record there are references to Vandoo, said to be the name of an African deity, from a language of Dahomey).  The documentation is sparse but the researchers also recorded vodun (a fetish connected with snake worship in Dahomey) which they linked to vo which had the senses of “to be afraid” & “harmful”.  Use as a verb was first noted in 1880.

Slavery in the Caribbean had the interesting effect of bringing the religious practices of enslaved West Africans into contact with the ritualistic Roman Catholicism practices in the French and Spanish colonies, and structurally, there were striking similarities, the absorption of the Church’s influence (in form if not theology) resulting in distinct New World religions like Haitian Vodou and Louisiana Voodoo.  Voodoo is best known as a form of animism involving trances and other rituals including communicating with the souls of the dead and it remains widely practiced in the Caribbean.  The late nineteenth century word Hoodoo is thought a variation and it may have been an imperfect echoic but there are specialists who list it as a separate practice derived from the Vodun of Benin, Togo, and Burkina Faso (formerly the Upper Volta).  The words Voodoo and Hoodoo interact in practice, a Hoodoo often a physical object said to be vested with magical powers or qualities as a result of some Voodoo ritual.  For some time, the common name in English for all these religious traditions was Voodoo and it remains part of the modern English vernacular (sometimes figuratively (eg voodoo economics)) but the capitalized proper noun Voodoo should be used only to describe the religion as practiced in Louisiana, the spellings Vodou and Vodú correct if referring to the traditions in Haiti and Cuba respectively.

However, Voodoo was appropriated by popular culture to describe a number of practices both poorly understood and deliberately exoticized in the West.  In some cases, there were pure inventions and spiritual practices involving charmed objects inspired imaginative authors and script-writers to create the so-called “voodoo doll,” despite there being no record of stabbing an effigy with pins in Africa, the Caribbean or the US slave states.  Hollywood also embraced the zombie.  In Vodou, the zombie is a living but soulless individual whose free will has been taken by a powerful sorcerer or bocor, not the risen dead monster depicted in films, books, and video games.  Ultimately, use of the word voodoo is complicated by widespread familiarity with the appropriated, secular, pop culture mythology of the entertainment industry—a mythology that poorly represents or directly conflicts with the authentic religious and historical core of Voodoo and related spiritual traditions such as Vodun, Vodou, and Hoodoo.

Crooked Hillary Clinton voodoo doll (2016).  Crooked Hillary Clinton has never denied practicing voodoo.

In the 2016 US presidential election, there were plenty who hated one or other of the candidates and a good many who found the choice uninspiring.  These three target markets were served by artist Shane Bugbee (b 1968) who offered voters a practical device with which to visit a plague on either or both their hoses: Donald Trump and crooked Hillary Clinton voodoo dolls.  Hand-made in the US (a small contribution to making America great again (MAGA)) with a screen printed appliqué, each stood six inches (150 mm) tall and was supplied with a handful of stick pins although the blood-thirsty who wished to inflict more severe injuries could certainly use their tools, instruments or devices of choice.  No information was provided as to flammability but anyone wishing to see crooked Hillary burned at the stake (the Lord forbid) wasn’t discouraged from trying.  Each voodoo doll was produced in a run of 666 hand-numbers editions and listed at US$13 each or US$20 for the pair.

In 2005. Mattel released a Lindsay Lohan doll, the accessories including a velvet rope, popcorn, a director's chair, make-up case, designer handbag, shoes, clothes and jewelry.  The doll could be re-purposed for anyone wanting a Lindsay Lohan voodoo doll (the Lord forbid).

Technically, what is in popular culture called a voodoo doll should probably be called a hoodoo doll or even just a hoodoo because it is an inert object transformed by a spell or other ritual.  Although Voodoo priests have for decades confirmed the use of effigies for this purpose has no part in their traditions, the practice does exist in other cultures and voodoo dolls are widely available in shrink-wrap while for those who prefer to make their own, instruction sets are downloadable.  For those with a doll, the process is much the same as the process of consecration familiar in many Christian denominations in that once the ritual of choice is performed, doll becomes voodoo doll.  When it has served its purpose, it may be returned to an inert status by the appropriate ritual (the equivalent of the act of de-consecration).

The Love Me or Die by C W Stoneking

I studied evil, I can't deny,

Was a hoodoo charm called a Love Me or Die,

Some fingernail, a piece of her dress,

Apocathery, Devil's behes'

I will relate, the piteous consequence my mistake,

Fallin slave to passin desire,

Makin' the dreaded Love me or Die.

 

Against a Jungle primeval green,

She had the looks of a beauty queen

No bangles or chain, wearin' broken shoe

Seventy-five cent bottle perfume.

I said, "Good mornin", I tipped my hat,

All the while I was cunning like a rat,

Smilin gaily, looked her in the eye,

I felt in pocket, the Love me or Die.

 

My past history, one to behold,

I studied magic from days of old,

Membership, secret societies,

Power and wealth in my family

But Matilda, Darling,

Why you don't take my wedding ring,

Like a demon under the floor,

I buried the hoodoo down the back door.

 

Lawd, word broke through the town,

That a fever strike Matilda down,

Nine thirty, the doctor arrive,

Priest come runnin, quarter to five.

Standin in the weeds early next day,

I saw the meat wagon rollin away,

I seen Matilda layin in the back,

Her old mother wearin a suit of black

 

Sound the trumpet, and bang the drum,

I wait for me judgement to come,

I know her spirit is down beneath,

I hear the weepin and gnashing of the teeth.

Flames of Hell licks at my feet,

In the shadow of the Jungle I feel the heat,

Matilda's waiting in Hell for me too,

All cause she died from a bad hoodoo.

Hoodoo

Hoodoo (pronounced who-do)

(1) A set of spiritual practices and traditions created and concealed from slave-owners by enslaved Africans in North America, based on traditional African beliefs.  Practiced predominantly in the south-east US, its identifiable features include folk magic, rituals of protection, herbal medicine, charming of objects, and ancestor veneration.

(2) In casual use, bad luck, or a person or thing that brings bad luck, not necessarily associated with the supernatural; to jinx, to bring bad luck or misfortune.

(3) In geology, a pillar of rock, created by various forces of erosion (also known as spires of rock, fairy chimneys, earth pyramids (and in particular formations) tent rocks).

1870: A creation of US English meaning "one who practices voodoo", apparently a variant of Voodoo.  The meaning "something that causes or brings bad luck" seems to have emerged in the 1880s and it was being used as a verb by 1886.  Interestingly, in 2002, it was documented also as a distinctly non-religious American folk magic.  Until the late twentieth century, hoodoo was spelled with & without an initial capital letter in a most inconsistent matter, both forms sometimes appearing in the one document.  The modern practice (which seems compelling) is to capitalize in when the word is used in the context of the spiritual practice or the cultural identification but to use all-lowercase when referring to the geological formations or used as casual slang (perhaps surprisingly, there’s been little apparent interest in proscribing hoodoo in this sense on the grounds of cultural appropriation).  Hoodoo is a noun & verb, hoodooed & hoodooing are verbs and hoodooism is a noun; the noun plural is hoodoos.

The first known instance of Hoodoo in English was in 1870 but the origins are wholly speculative, etymologists concluding it was probably an alteration of voodoo, a word drawn from the Ewe and Fon languages of Ghana and Benin which reference a divinity although the Akan odu (medicine) may be related and there’s also the possibility of a link to the Hausa hu'du'ba (resentment and retribution).  Less likely, but not impossible is that it’s from the variant Hudu (spirit work) in the Ewe language spoken in Ghana and Togo.  The link with Voodoo however is most convincing because Hoodoo was as early as the late nineteenth century identified as an African dialect with practices similar to the mysteries of Obi (Obeah) in the Caribbean.

Pre-production de Havilland Comet (DH 106) with the original, square windows, England, 1949 (left) and Comet 4 (Registration G-APDN) in BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation (1939-1974 which in 1974 was merged with BEA (British European Airways) and others to later become BA (British Airways)) livery, Tokyo (Haneda International (HND / RJTT)), Japan October 1960.

The term hoodoo is often attached to objects thought jinxed.  When the de Havilland Comet (DH 106; the first commercial jet airliner), within a year of its first flight in 1949, began to suffer a number of catastrophic in-flight accidents, newspapers wrote of the “Comet hoodoo”, something encouraged because, in the pre “black-box” era, analysis of aviation incidents was a less exact science than now and for some time the crashes appeared inexplicable.  It was only when extensive testing revealed the reason for the structural failures could be traced to stresses in the airframe induced aspects of the design that the hoodoo was understood to be the operation of physics.  Other manufacturers noted the findings and changed their designs, Boeing's engineers acknowledging the debt they owed to de Havilland because it was the investigation of the Comet's early problems which produced the solutions which helped the Boeing 707 (1957) and its many successors to be the successful workhorses they became.  As a footnote, by the time the Comet 4 was released in 1958 the problems had been solved but commercially, the project was doomed and reputational damage done.  Between 1949-1964, barely more than 100 were sold although many did provide reliable service until 1981 and the airframe proved adaptable, dozens of military variants produced, the most notable being the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod, a maritime patrol version which was in service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) until 2011.

It’s because of the lessons learned from the Comet hoodoo that the apertures of airliner windows have rounded edges, the traditional four-cornered openings creating four weak spots prone to failure under stress.  Lindsay Lohan demonstrates. 

Pre-dreadnought battleship, USS Texas ("Old Hoodoo"), 1898.  Note the sailors' washing hanging from the railings, a long naval tradition.   

Sailors are said to be notoriously superstitious and probably didn’t need much persuasion to call the USS Texas “Old Hoodoo”.  The US Navy’s first (pre-dreadnought) battleship, she was commissioned in response to the naval arms race which developed in the Americas in the late nineteenth century although, despite the tensions, construction was undertaken as what would seem a leisurely pace; ordered in 1886, it wasn't until 1889 the keel was laid down and when finally commissioned in 1895, although not yet obsolescent, she was hardly in the forefront of naval architecture.  The ship's accident-prone reputation was well deserved and had started early with incidents of grounding, flooding (drowning three of the crew) and a collision with a dock.  However, she rose to the occasion and provided sterling service during the Spanish–American War (1898) but, ironically, her reputation was such that the Navy decided to use the now storied name for a new dreadnought, the USS Texas (BB-35), commissioned in 1914 and later declared a national historic landmark (and now the last surviving World War I (1914-1918) era dreadnought).  As sailors know, it’s bad luck to change the name of a ship and now named the USS San Marcos, the old Texas proved it so.  Towed as a hulk to shallow waters in Chesapeake Bay, resting on the bottom, she became an increasingly battered target ship, the US Navy using her for gunnery practice until the late 1940s.  Increasing water traffic however meant the hulk had become a navigational hazard and most of the remains were removed as scrap in 1959.

Hoodoos short (left), tall (centre) and clustered (right), Arizona, south-west US.

In geology, a hoodoo (also known as spires of rock, fairy chimneys, earth pyramids (and in particular formations) tent rocks) is a tall, typically thin, spire of rock formed by the processes of erosion (wind, rain, floods) and are forms usually of a relatively soft rock (such as sandstone) topped by harder stone which better resists the forces of nature.  Mostly, they exist within sedimentary rock and volcanic rock formations.  Hoodoos can be only a few feet high or exceed the level of multi-storey buildings and the shape they assume is wholly dictated by the composition of the rocks from which they’re formed, the erosional patterns differing according to the hardness of the material.  The introduction of the word hoodoo to geology seems to have happened in the late nineteenth century at the time when it had entered the vernacular to describe both the rituals of certain folk magic and the sense of doom or bad luck.  As the more remote regions of the western US were explored, the rocky structures were noted to be of not dissimilar spiritual significance to First Nations peoples and in some cases literally to be the petrified remains of those punished by the gods for their transgressions.

In the natural environment, temperature can also create structures with a hoodoo-like appearances.  Trees in Finland (left), a frozen fountain in Shevchenko Garden, Kharkiv, Ukraine (centre) and frozen Geyser in Letchworth State Park, New York with volcano-like flow maintained at the top (right).