Perpendicular

Perpendicular (pronounced pur-puhn-dik-yuh-ler)

(1) Vertical; straight up and down; upright; normal at right angles to a horizontal plane.

(2) In geometry, meeting a given line or surface at right angles.

(3) Maintaining a standing or upright position; standing up; exactly upright; extending in a straight line toward the centre of the earth, etc.

(4) In architecture, noting or pertaining to the last style of English Gothic, prevailing from the late fourteenth to the early sixteenth centuries and characterized by by stiff, rectilinear lines and the use of predominantly vertical tracery, an overall linear, shallow effect, depressed or four-centre arch, fan-tracery vaulting, panelled walls and fine intricate stonework (should be used with an initial capital letter so it’s not confused with being a purely geometric reference).

(5) In rock-climbing, a sharply pitched or precipitously steep mountain face.

(6) Moral virtue or uprightness; rectitude (largely obsolete).

(7) In Admiralty jargon, either of two lines perpendicular to the keel line, base line, or designed water line of a vessel.

(8) In surveying, a device such as a plumb line that is used in making or marking a perpendicular line.

(9) In historic slang, a meal taken while standing at the bar of a tavern (obsolete).

1350–1400: From the Middle French perpendiculaire, from the Old French perpendiculer, from the Latin perpendiculāris (vertical, as a plumb line), the construct being perpendicul(um) (plumb line), from pendēre (to weigh hang) and perpendere (carefully to balance (the construct of which was per- (thoroughly) + pendēre (to hang, cause to hang; to weigh)) from the primitive Indo-European root spen & pen (to draw, stretch, spin) + āris.  The suffix -aris was a form of -ālis with dissimilation of -l- to -r- after roots containing an l (the alternative forms were -ālis, -ēlis, -īlis & -ūlis); it was used to form adjectives, usually from noun, indicating a relationship or a "pertaining to”.  The French borrowing replaced the Middle English perpendiculer(e) and is the source of the modern pendant.  The noun from existed from the 1570s (the earlier noun was the circa 1400 perpendicle) and in astronomy, navigation and related matters, it was in the late fifteenth century the sense of a line "lying at right angles to the horizon" developed from an earlier adverb referring to "at right angles to the horizon.

The noun perpensity (consideration, a pondering, careful attention) appears first to have been used in the early eighteenth century, the construct being the Latin perpens- (past-participle stem of perpendere (carefully to balance) and has since the late nineteenth century been listed either as archaic or obsolete.  Perpendicular is a noun and adjective, perpendicularness & perpendicularity are nouns and perpendicularly is an adverb; the noun plural is perpendiculars.  Although perpendicular describes what nominally is an absolute value, most dictionaries acknowledge the comparative more as perpendicular & the superlative as most perpendicular, reflecting the use of the word to describe also the “quality of that which tends towards”, hence the existence in geometry, mathematics, architecture & engineering of the presumably helpful adjective quasiperpendicular to refer to the mysterious “partially perpendicular”.

In audio engineering, a perpendicular recording is the technique of creating magnetic data storage using vertical as opposed to longitudinal magnetization.  The synonym used in a technical context is orthogonal (independent of or irrelevant to each other).  To most, the idea of the perpendicular is simple but it’s been borrowed to describe some complex concepts such as the perpendicular universe (though these perhaps by definition seem usually to be referred to in the plural as perpendicular universes) which exists to distinguish it from a parallel universe (which must in some way be different).  The perpendicular universe is thus one of the competing notions (some insist these are legitimate theories) of multiple universes which are in some way parallel (as opposed to sequential or circular) though not of necessity perpendicular.  Seems clear enough.

The Perpendicular Pronoun:  The first-person singular pronoun "I"

There is a general rule defining when to use “I” or “me” in a sentence and that is the first person singular pronoun is “I” when it’s a subject and “me” when it’s an object (the subject is the person or thing doing something, and the object is having something done to it and the often quoted example to illustrate the difference is the sentence “I love you”.  “I” is the subject of the sentence. “You” is the object of the sentence (also the object of one's affection).

Lindsay Lohan and her sister Aliana at the Melbourne Cup, 2019.

In most cases it’s easier to deconstruct the sentence than think about the rule.  To work if one should say (1) “Lindsay and I are going to the Melbourne Cup” or (2) “Lindsay and me are going to the Melbourne Cup”, deconstruction confirms (1) is correct because “I am going to the Melbourne Cup” works and “Me is going to The Melbourne Cup” does not.  That’s fine but because “me” is often wrongly used, something of a perception has evolved to suggest it must always be wrong and “I” must always be correct. However, everything depends on the sentence.  It’s correct to say “Lindsay and I both picked the winning horse” but it’s also right to say “A selfie of the winning horse with Lindsay and me”, something which can be checked by redacting either “Lindsay and” or “and me”.

Lindsay Lohan in Falling for Christmas (Netflix, 2022)

Modern English use has anyway actually banished the perpendicular pronoun from places where once it was a marker of the educated.  To say “It is I” remains supported by historic grammatical correctness but sounds now so strange (because the common form is “It’s me”) that many would it’s wrong.  Pedants fret over things like this but the world has moved on and if in answer to the question “Is that you Ali” the response came “This is she”, the antiquated correctness might discombobulate one while “It’s me” would not.

Crop

Crop (pronounced krop)

(1) In agriculture, the cultivated produce of the ground, both while growing and when harvested.

(2) In aggregate, the yield of such produce for a particular season.

(3) The yield of some other product in a season.

(4) A supply produced in a given (not necessarily annual or seasonal) period.

(5) A collection or group of persons or things appearing or occurring together (often as “current crop”, “this year’s crop etc”).

(6) The stock or handle of a whip.

(7) In equine use, variously (1) a short riding whip consisting of a stock without a lash (also called riding crop) or (2) less commonly, the lashing end of a whip, both styles used in the BDSM community.

(8) In zoology, a pouch in the esophagus of many birds, in which food is held for later digestion or for regurgitation to nestlings (also called the craw);  a chamber or pouch in the foregut of arthropods and annelids for holding and partly crushing food.

(9) In agriculture, the act of cropping (including having animals crop by allowing them to eat what’s growing).

(10) A mark produced by clipping the ears (used with cattle and other livestock).

(11) In hairdressing, a close-cropped hairstyle or a head of hair so cut.

(12) An entire tanned hide of an animal.

(13) In mining, (1) an outcrop of a vein or seam or (2) tin ore prepared for smelting.

(14) To cut off or remove the head or top of plants, grass etc; to cut off the ends or part of something; to cut short.

(15) As crop-top (or crop top & croptop), a shirt or top cut high to expose the midriff.

(16) In photography and image manipulation, to cut off unwanted parts of a print, negative or digital image (historically those parts at the edges but the term has long been used for general editing).

(17) The entire tanned hide of an animal.

(18) In medicine and pathology, a group of vesicles at the same stage of development in a disease.

(19) In geology, the shortened form of outcrop.

(20) In architecture, the foliate part of a finial.

Pre 900: From the Middle English crop & croppe, from the Old English crop & cropp & croppa (sprout, or top of a plant, bunch or cluster of flowers, ear of wheat (or other grain), paunch, crown of a tree, craw of a bird, a kidney), from the Proto-West Germanic kropp, from the Proto-Germanic kruppaz (body, trunk, crop), from the primitive Indo-European grewb- (to warp, bend, crawl).  It was cognate with Dutch krop (crop), the German Low German Kropp (a swelling on the neck, the craw, maw), the German Kropf (the craw, ear of grain, head of lettuce or cabbage), the Swedish kropp (body, trunk), the Norwegian kröypa (to bend), the Old Norse kroppr (rump, body) and the Icelandic kroppur (a hunch on the body).  Crop was related to crap and was a doublet of group and croup.  The verb was from the Middle English croppen (to cut, pluck and eat), from the Old English croppian.  It was cognate with the Scots crap (to crop), the Dutch kroppen (to cram, digest), the Low German kröppen (to cut, crop, stuff the craw), the German kröpfen (to crop), the Icelandic kroppa (to cut, crop, pick); the sense of all was literally, to remove the crop (top, head, ear) of a plant.  Crop is a noun & verb, cropping & cropped (cropt was the archaic spelling); the noun plural is crops.

Lindsay Lohan in crop tops.  All these photographs have been cropped to render them in the same aspect ratio.

Crop started modestly enough for a word which evolved to enjoy such a definitional range and use idiomatic form: In the Old English it meant only (1) craw of a bird & (2) rounded head or top of a herb and while the latter is found also in High German dialects, the subsequent developments in the sense of “head or top” generally and of “produce to be harvested from the fields” appear exclusive to English.  The meaning "grain and other cultivated plants grown and harvested" (especially "the grain yield of one year"), having been in Anglo-Latin in the early 1200s, was adopted in Middle English a century later, the sense development thought something which happened under the influence of the early thirteenth century verbal meaning "cut off the top of a plant".  From the notion in agriculture of “top” cam the use to describe the "upper part of a whip" which evolved by the 1560s be the "handle of a whip" (1560s) and thus by 1857 "a kind of whip used by horsemen in the hunting field" (1857).  Unlike traditional whips (which were really one long lash), it proved useful in having a rigid handle and thus could be hand for things like opening gates or other tasks when a wand or stick helped.

Riding crops are a staple device in the BDSM (Bondage, Discipline (although some say Dominance & submission is more indicative of actual practice) & SadoMasochism) community.  The photograph at the right was a "mid-session" promotional shot and has been cropped. 

The general sense of "anything gathered when ready or in season" dates from the 1570s and the idea of the “thick, short head of hair" was from 1795, both developed from the late fourteenth century sense of "top or highest part of anything".  In Middle English, crop and rote (the whole plant, crop and root) was figurative of totality or perfection.  The concept of the crop-circle dates from a surprisingly recent 1974 although they had been noted before.  The verb in the sense of “cut off the top of a plant” evolved from the verb around the turn of the thirteenth century, extended by circa 1350 to animals (originally of sheep) feeding on plants.  The general meaning “to cut off” dates from the mid fifteenth century, used from circa 1600 to refer to the practice of “cutting off a part of the ear of an animal as a mark of identification and ownership”.  In tailoring, as a term to describe the clipping of cloth, it’s been in use since 1711 and surprisingly perhaps, in fashion the staple crop top seems first to have been described as such only after 1984.  Crop and harvest can for many purposes be used interchangeably to refer to a season’s produce.  Yield refers to the return in food obtained from land at the end of a season of growth and can also be used in highly technical ways to measure metrics of specific efficiency and output.  Crop also denotes the amount produced at one cutting or for one particular season while harvest denotes either the time of reaping and gathering, or the gathering, or that which is gathered: the season of harvest; to work in a harvest; a ripe harvest.  Produce once described little more than household vegetables and still has that sense but the use has expanded.

Top before & after: The undesirable part of the photo has been cropped-out.  Lower before & after: The undesirable part of the photo has been edited-out.

In photography and image manipulation, cropping is the cutting off of un-wanted parts of a print, negative or digital image.  Technically, a crop is performed only at the edges and the removal of any other part is an edit by "crop" has long been industry slang for just about any modification.

Crop-up (to sprout, appear apparently without design from below the surface), although now most associated with agriculture was actually a mid-nineteenth century borrowing from mining where it referred to the geological phenomenon of the veins of ore or strata of rock “coming to the surface and becoming visible on the ground", that use noted since the 1660s.  The cropper dates from 1858 (usually as “come-a-cropper”) was a fall, originally from horseback and, as it usually involved the rider being thrown over the horse's head, there was always the connotation of failure but it now refers to a fall of any kind and elicits usually sympathy or myth depending on the severity of injury.  Also based on the idea of “head, sprout or top”, outcrop was first use in geology in 1801 to mean “exposure of rocks at the surface”.  The noun sharecropper (and share-cropper) was coined 1887 to describe the particular form of leasehold used in the southern US whereby a land-holder would lease land to a tenant to plant and harvest, also receiving a defined share of the crop. The noun share-crop came into use in 1867 and was used as a verb by 1871 although the noun sharecropping seems not to have been in use before 1936.  The cash-crop was one produced for sale rather than consumption; a bumper crop was a very good harvest (based on an old meaning of bumper as “big, full to the brim”); and crop rotation was a method of agricultural management designed to preserve the fertility of soil and limit the proliferation of pests; crop dusting was the spraying of crops with fertilizer or insecticide from low-flying aircraft dubbed crop-dusters; the cream of the crop is the best of any particular group.

Sterling

Sterling (pronounced stur-ling)

(1) Of, relating to, or noting British currency.

(2) Someone or something thoroughly excellent in quality; genuine and reliable.

(3) The standard of fineness for gold and silver coin in the United Kingdom, 0.91666 for gold and 0.500 for silver (also called sterling silver: silver having a fineness of 0.925, now used especially in the manufacture of table utensils, jewelry etc).

(4) A former English silver penny (about 240 of which weighed 1lb (0.453kg), thus setting the value of the British pound sterling, a measure which lasted until decimal conversion in 1971).

1250–1300: From the Middle English, possibly under the influence of the Old English steorra (star), from the Proto-West Germanic sterrō, variant of sternō, from the Proto-Germanic sternǭ, from primitive Indo-European hzstḗr.  The Middle English sterling, sterlinge, sterlynge & starling remain however of uncertain origin.  It may well be from sterling (starling (the bird)) which at one time was engraved on one quarter of the coin or perhaps from the Middle English sterre ((star) + -ling) (as in shilling), as some early Norman silver pennies featured stars.  Sterling is a noun & adjective, sterlingly is an adverb and sterlingness is a noun; the noun plural is sterlings. 

Disputes

Lindsay Lohan wearing sterling silver Evil Eye necklace, Los Angeles, April 2011.

Not all etymologists accept the orthodox view, noting the starred coins were not especially common among Anglo-Saxon currency and the stars on them tended to be small.  The alternative theory is that sterling was from the Old French estedre (stater) and the meaning broadened by the 1560s to "money having the quality of the sterling," and by circa 1600 to "English money in general", operating as an adjective from the early fifteenth century.  From the 1640s came the general sense of "capable of standing a test" (as a sound currency would).  The small silver coin (the sterling) was instrumental also in the origin of “pound” as a measure of money, a pound sterling being originally "a pound weight of sterlings" equal to about 240 coins.  Still more imaginative is the theory that the Hanseatic League was the origin for both the definition and manufacture for in its name is the German name for the Baltic (Ostsee (East Sea)) and from this the Baltic merchants were called Osterlings, or Easterlings.  In 1260, Henry III (1207–1272; King of England 1216-1272) granted them a charter of protection and land for their Kontor, the Steelyard of London, which by the 1340s was also called Easterlings Hall, or Esterlingeshalle and because the value of League's money tended to be more stable than that of England, English traders often stipulated their debts should be in pounds of the Easterlings which commercial practice contracted to "'sterling".  Support for this etymology is limited.

Teenage & Teen-age

Teenage (pronounced teen-ige)

In boundary-line construction, a technique of weaving which interleaves brushwood to produce a type of fencing called wattle.  The weave is usually effected horizontally around vertical uprights planted in the ground.

Circa 1700.  The construct was teen + age.  Teen was from the dialectical Kentish variation of tine (enclose within a wattle fence; brushwood for fences and hedges)), from the Middle Dutch tene & teene (plural tenen, diminutive teentje) from the Old Dutch tein & tēn from the Proto-Germanic tainaz, also ultimately the source of twig, which existed in Dutch as twigg.  The –age suffix was from the Middle English -age, from the Old French –age, from the Latin –āticum.  It was used, inter alia, to form nouns with the sense of collection or appurtenance. It was cognate with the French -age, the Italian -aggio, the Portuguese -agem, the Spanish –aje & the Romanian -aj.

Wattle fences built with the teenage method.

Teen-age (pronounced teen-age).

(1) A person aged between thirteen and nineteen.

(2) Of or relating to the characteristics of a teenager.

1911: Used originally in reference to Sunday school classes, the adjectival form teen-aged first noted 1922.  The construct was teen + age.  Teen is from the Middle English -tene, from the Anglian Old English -tēne (a variant was –tīene in West Saxon), from an inflected form of Proto-Germanic tehun (ten).  As a suffix, -teen was used to form the cardinal numbers from thirteen to nineteen, the model being n + ten so, for example, fourteen (4+10) was from the Middle English fourtene, from the Old English fēowertīene, from the Proto-Germanic fedurtehun. It was cognate with the West Frisian fjirtjin, the Dutch veertien, the German vierzehn & the Danish fjorten.  Used in this context as a functional suffix, age (sometimes –age), was from the Middle English age (lifetime, measure of the years), borrowed from the Anglo-Norman age, from the Old French aage & eage (which exists in Modern French as âge), from the (assumed but unattested) Vulgar Latin aetāticum, from the Latin aetātem, accusative form of aetās, from aevum (lifetime), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European hueyu- (vital force).  It displaced the native Middle English elde (age) and the Old English ieldu, eldo & ieldo (age).

Montage of teen-aged Lindsay Lohan photos.

There’s a paucity of material about the specialized form of fence-building called teenage.  Most will go through their lives never reading of the field and thus be never troubled by the distinction between the technique and those of teen-age years.  Usually then it matters not if the word is hyphenated to refer to the latter and even when some possibility of confusion might exist, readers can probably be relied upon to pick up the meaning from context.  Purists still, when writing of the young, the New Yorker magazine continues to insist on a hyphen though whether that's to entice subscriptions from fencing contractors or suggests some concern for baffled readers, isn’t known.

Svelte

Svelte (pronounced svelt or sfelt)

(1) Slender, especially gracefully slender in figure; lithe.

(2) Suave, urbane elegant, sophisticated.

1817: Originally (and briefly) spelled svelt, from the seventeen century French svelte (slim, slender), from the Italian svelto (slim, slender (originally "pulled out, lengthened)), past participle of svellere (to pluck out or root out), from the Vulgar Latin exvellere (exvellitus), the construct being from ex + vellere (to pluck, stretch) + -tus (the past participle suffix).  The ex- prefix was from the Middle English, from words borrowed from the Middle French, from the Latin ex (out of, from), from the primitive Indo-European eǵ- & eǵs- (out).  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek ἐξ (ex) (out of, from), the Transalpine Gaulish ex- (out), the Old Irish ess- (out), the Old Church Slavonic изъ (izŭ) (out) & the Russian из (iz) (from, out of).  The “x” in “ex-“, sometimes is elided before certain constants, reduced to e- (eg ejaculate).  The Latin vellere (which English picked up as a learned borrowing) was the present active infinitive of vellō (I pluck out; I depilate; I pull or tear down), from the Proto-Italic welnō, from the primitive Indo-European wel-no-, a suffixed form of uelh- (to strike), source also of the Hittite ualh- (to hit, strike) and the Greek aliskomai (to be caught).  The Latin suffix –tus was from the Proto-Italic -tos, from the primitive Indo-European -tós (the suffix creating verbal adjectives) and may be compared to the Proto-Slavic –tъ and Proto-Germanic –daz & -taz.  It was used to form the past participle of verbs and adjectives having the sense "provided with".  Latin scholars caution the correct use of the –tus suffix is technically demanding with a myriad of rules to be followed and, in use, even the pronunciation used in Ecclesiastical Latin could vary.  Svelte is an adjective and svelteness is a noun; the comparative is svelter and the superlative sveltest although in practice both are rare and constructions (however unhappy) such as very svelte, most svelte are more common.  Thankfully, sveltesque & sveltish seem not to exist and if they do, they shouldn’t.

Svelte: Lindsay Lohan, Olympus Fashion Week, Bryant Park, Manhattan, February 2006.

Because svelte is intended as a compliment to be extended in admiration, the true synonyms include refined, delicate, graceful, lithe, slender, lean, lissom, slinky, slim, elegant, willowy, waif & sylph-like.  Although can equally (and technically correctly) apply to the same image, words like thin, scrawny and skinny can be used with a negative connotation.  Interestingly, in some Nordic languages, the word has the sense of variations of “thin, hunger, starvation” and is used of a two player card game in which the goal is to "starve" the opponent of all their cards.  Svelte is a word usually applied to people, most often women; while men can be called svelte, most would probably prefer another label.  However, it’s a descriptor which references the slender and the elegant so can be used anthropomorphically and there have been cars which have gone from frumpy to svelte:

The Pontiac Grand Prix: The first generation (1962–1964) (left), the second generation (1965–1968) (centre) and the third generation (1969–1972) (right).

The first Pontiac Grand Prix was among the outstanding designs which emerged from the General Motors (GM) styling studios in the 1960s, truly the corporation's golden era.  The first was built on a full-sized platform and was thus undeniably large but such was the competence of the styling team that the bulk was well-disguised and unless the are other objects in the frame to provide a point of reference, at first glance the sheer size of the thing is not obvious.  Its rather bulbous replacement fares not so well but Pontiac were aware the universe was shifting, their own smaller GTO and the emerging ecosystem of pony cars attracting the buyers wanting high performance while the full-size machines were beginning their path towards increasingly cosseted luxury.  Other full-sized machines however looked better while doing what the Grand Prix did and sales of the second generation weren’t encouraging.  Pontiac changed tack for 1969 and in the third generation produced another classic, a smaller car which relied not on gimmicks or embellishments but simple lines, the long hood working because it was the sole extravagance and one perfectly balanced by what would otherwise have seemed an excessively large C pillar.  It was a high-water mark for Pontiac and a fitting farewell to the 1960s, during which their machines had been some of the industry's most stylish.

Continentals: the Mark II (1956-1957) (left) and the Lincolns, the Mark III-V (1958-1960) (centre) and the fourth generation (1961-1969) (right).

Wanting to create a landmark in style which was as much a reaction to the excesses of the era as it was a homage to mid-century modernism, Ford actually created a separate division to produce the Continental Mark II and in its very sparseness the look succeeded but the realities of production-line economics doomed the project which lasted only two seasons.  Seemingly having decided that good taste didn’t sell, the Continental nameplate returned to the Lincoln line in 1958 and the Mark III-IV-V models were big, some 227 inches (5.8 m) in length and weighing in at 2 ½ tons (2540 kg) or more.  Indisputably flamboyant with an intricate grille atop chrome dagmars, canted headlights partially encapsulated in semi-closed ovoid apertures and embellished with scallops, chrome spears & sweeping cove embossments, the only restraint seemed to be the surprisingly demure fins but with those Ford never succumbed to the lure of the macropterous which made so distinctive the cars from Chrysler and GM during the era.  Even at the time criticized as too big, too heavy and too bloated, the styling nevertheless represented one of the (several) logical conclusions of the trends which had for a decade been evolving but it too was a failure, lasting only three years.  After this there was nowhere to go but somewhere else and in 1961, Lincoln went there, creating a classic shape which would remain in production, substantially unchanged until 1969.  Remembered now for being the car in which John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) was shot, for the suicide doors, and the soon to be unique four-door convertible coachwork, it was a masterpiece of modern industrial design which managed to combine severe lines without any harshness in the shape and was influential, other manufacturers essentially borrowing the motif although none did it better than the original.  Managing the almost impossible, to be big yet svelte, Lincoln in the six decades since produced nothing as good and much that was worse.

The Mark IX was the final iteration of a decade-long line (the Mark VII, VIII & IX, 1951-1961) with a competition history which belied the stately appearance (left) while the Jaguar Mark X (1961-1970 and named 420G after 1967) never realized its potential because the factory refused to fit the Daimler V8 and its own V12 wasn’t ready until after production ended (centre) and the XJ (1968-1986) which, especially when fitted with the V12, may have been the best car in the world (right).

Svelte can be a relative term.  Although the Jaguar Mark X was soon criticized as being too big and bloated, upon release in 1961 it was thought sleek and modern because the car it replaced was stylistically something of an upright relic with its lines so obviously owing much to the pre-war era.  That warmth of feeling soon passed and the Mark X was deemed too big (especially the width) for the home market while in the US where it could have been a great success if fitted with a V8 and air-conditioning as good as a Cadillac, it was neglected because the superior quality of the brakes and suspension meant little under US conditions.  The styling did however provide a model for the slimmed-down XJ, released to acclaim in 1968 and greater adulation still when the V12 arrived in 1972.  The svelte lines aged well, especially on the short-lived two-door, and looked elegant still in 1986 when replaced.  However, the shape meant the hunter became captured by the game, Jaguar reprising the lines until 2009 although none matched the purity of the original.  The 420G was the last of the "big" Jags for while the XJ220 (1992-1944) was slightly wider, it wasn't in the tradition of the "Marks".

Dodge Chargers: 1966 (left) and 1968 (right).

The 1966 Charger featured one of the best interiors of the era, including a full-length centre console and rear-seats with a thoughtful design which folded flat, providing a usefully large storage area.  The highlight however was probably the dashboard featuring Chrysler’s intriguing electroluminescent instruments which, rather than being lit with bulbs, deployed a phenomenon in which a material emits light in response to an electric field; the ethereal glow much admired.  Inside was however the best place to be because it meant one didn’t have to look at the thing; it was chunky and slab-sided and while it could be said another fastback of the time (the truly ghastly Rambler (later AMC) Marlin) was worse, that really was damming with faint praise.  Still, on the NASCAR ovals the shape proved surprisingly slippery and when paired with Chrysler’s Hemi V8, it was a trophy winner.  The welcome restyle of 1968 was transformative and seldom has there been such an overnight improvement.  Ironically though, the svelte lines proved not especially aerodynamic and on the racetrack, the sleek-looking Charger suffered in a way its frumpy predecessor had not, the stylishly recessed grill and the tunnel-effect used around the rear window compromising the aerodynamics and therefore the speed.  It took Dodge two attempts to solve the problem: The Charger 500 flattened both the grill and the rear windows but the instability remained so engineers (conveniently available from Chrysler’s recently shuttered missile division) fashioned a radical nosecone and a high rear wing which served well for the two seasons the modifications were permitted to be homologated for use on the Dodge Daytona in competition.  Ford suffered a similar fate in 1970: the new Torino looked better but the 1969 shape proved more efficient so the racers stuck with last year’s model until a solution was found.

Burkini

Burkini (pronounced boo-r-kee-nee or burr-kee-nee)

A type of bathing suit for women covering the torso, limbs, and head, leaving exposed the face, hands and feet.

2004: The construct was a portmanteau of bur(k)a + (bi)kini (by extraction from bikini, in interpreting the "bi" as a prefix "bi-), thereby creating the new suffix "bur-").  Burka (other spellings including burkha & burqa) was from 1836, from the Hindi बुरक़ा (burqā) (برقع‎ (burqā) in Urdu), from the Persian برقع‎ (borqa), from the Arabic بُرْقُع‎ (burqu).  The -kini was an adoption of the –kini in the Bikini, first noted in 1946.  Although known as the Eschscholtz Atoll until 1946, the modern English name is derived from the German colonial name Bikini, adopted while part of German New Guinea and was a transliteration from the Marshallese Pikinni (pʲi͡ɯɡɯ͡inʲːi), a construct of Pik (surface) + ni (coconut or surface of coconuts).  The alternative spelling is burqini.  Burkini is a noun; the noun plural is burkinis.    The name is proprietary and trademarked name (as Burkini and Burqini) owned by its inventor, Aheda Zanetti (b 1967), a Lebanese-born Australian fashion designer, so technically should be used with an initial capital in that context but lower-case is correct if used in the generic sense to describe similar swimwear.

Lindsay Lohan in burkini, Thailand, April 2017.  Note the exposed feet which would have attracted the disapprobation of Afghan Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

Although most associated with those who adopt the style for religious reasons, it works functionally for anyone seeking to maximise skin protection.  The suits are made of SPF50+ fabric, generally using a finely-knit polyester swimsuit fabric rather than the heavier neoprene used for wetsuits.  The design is intended to respect Islamic traditions of modest dress but its acceptability is debated; few Muftis have seemed impressed and no Ayatollah is known to have commented although it’s known influential Hanafi scholars at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, reject full-body swimsuits as allowable wear in mixed company.  Appeal is however cross-cultural; burkinis proving popular in Israel, among both Jewish-Haredi and Muslims and there is the functional appeal, especially for those with fair skin, of protection from harsh sun.  In France, where there had been controversy since 2009, in 2016 a number of French municipalities banned the burkini, citing concerns about the repression of women.  The Burkini was released in 2004, following Zanetti’s earlier creation, the Hijood (a portmanteau of hijab and hood) designed permit participation in sports by Muslim girls whose practice of observance didn’t allow the clothing traditionally used in the West.

Atrophy & Hypertrophy

Atrophy (pronounced a-truh-fee)

(1) In pathology, a wasting away of the body or of an organ or part, or a failure to grow to normal size as the result of disease, defective nutrition, nerve damage or hormonal changes.

(2) Degeneration, decline, or decrease, as from disuse.

1590–1600: From the earlier Middle French atrophie and Late Latin atrophia from the Ancient Greek ἀτροφία (atrophía) (a wasting away), (derived from trephein (to feed)) from ἄτροφος (átrophos) (ill-fed, un-nourished), the construct being ἀ- (a-) (not) + τροφή (trophḗ) (nourishment) from τρέφω (tréphō) (I fatten).  Atrophic is the most familiar adjectival form.  The a- prefix, a proclitic form of preposition, is from the Ancient Greek ἀ- (not, without) and is used to form taxonomic names indicating a lack of some feature that might be expected.  In Middle English a- (up, out, away) was from the Old English ā- (originally ar- & or-) from the Proto-Germanic uz- (out-), from the primitive Indo-European uds- (up, out); it was cognate with the Old Saxon ā- and the German er-.  The suffix –ia is from Classical Latin from the Ancient Greek -ία (-ía) & -εια (-eia) and was used to form abstract nouns of feminine gender.  It creates names of countries, diseases, flowers, and (rarely) collections of things such as militaria & deletia).  The spelling atrophia is obsolete.  Atrophy is a noun and atrophic is an adjective; the noun plural is atrophies.  The noun atrophication is non-standard and seems to be restricted to the pro-ana community, usually as "self-atrophication".

Self-atrophication: Lindsay Lohan during "thin phase".

In pathology there are specific classes of atrophy including encephalatrophy (atrophy of the brain), fibroatrophy (atrophy of fibres), dermatrophy (atrophy (a thinning) of the skin), lipoatrophy (the loss of subcutaneous fatty tissue), scleroatrophy (Any of various atrophic conditions characterized by a hardening of tissue, including atrophic fibrosis of the skin, hypoplasia of the nails, and palmoplantar keratoderma), hemiatrophy (atrophy that affects only one half of the body) and the mysterious pseudoatrophy (where tissue (typically muscle), appears to have reduced in size or wasted away but the perceived reduction is really caused by factors such as swelling, inflammation, or the presence of fluid in surrounding tissues that make the muscle look smaller than it actually is).  In genetics, atrogene describes any gene which has some influence on atrophy of muscle tissue and in biochemistry atrophins are any of a class of proteins found in nervous tissue.

Hypertrophy (pronounced hahy-pur-truh-fee)

(1) In physiology, the abnormal (but usually non-tumorous) enlargement of an organ or a tissue as a result of an increase in the size rather than the number of constituent cells.

(2) In bodybuilding, an increase in muscle size through increased size of individual muscle cells (responding to exercise such as weightlifting); it is distinct from muscle hyperplasia (the formation of new muscle cells).

(2) Excessive growth or accumulation of any kind.

1825–1835: A compound word hyper- + -trophy.  Hyper is from the French hypertrophie, from the Ancient Greek ὑπέρ (hupér) (over, excessive), from the primitive Indo-European upér (over, above) (from which English gained over), from upo (under, below) (source of the English up). It was cognate with the Latin super- and is a common prefix appearing in loanwords from Greek, where it meant “over,” usually implying excess or exaggeration (eg hyperbole); on this model used, especially as opposed to hypo-, in the formation of compound words.  Hypertrophy is a noun & verb, hypertrophic, hypertrophical, hypertrophous & hypertrophical are adjectives and hypertrophically is an adverb; the noun plural is hypertropheries.  For those for whom the successively multi-syllabic is a fetish or compile scripts for speech therapy practice, there's hypertrophic pulmonary osteoarthropathy (in pathology, a paraneoplastic condition characterised by clubbing and periostitis of the long bones of the arms and legs).

Two “Chernobyl mutant catfish” (left) and one with a human for scale (right).  They're now found in the cooling ponds of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor which in 1986 suffered a meltdown and subsequent explosion.

Their huge size is not a radiation-induced mutation but a result of the absence of a predator since humans were removed from their environment.  As far as is known, radiation-induced mutations very rarely lead to a generalized hypertrophy and it's much more common for an affected specimen to grow “less efficiently” and for a variety of reasons they can be less capable of catching food and thus not live as long as is typical for the species.  The “Chernobyl mutant catfish” which gained their infamy in the early days of the internet were no more the result of nuclear contamination than the “Fukushima mutant wolfish” of the social media age.  Genetically, there’s nothing novel about the size of the bulky inhabitants of the Chernobyl ponds.  While it’s not typical, the wels catfish (Silurus glanis) can weigh over 350 kg (770 lb), examples recorded both in scientific research and by fishers although up to 150 kg (330 lb) is more common for a large example.  So, to describe the big fish as “hypertrophic” is to use the word in a loose way because the growth registered is “extreme” rather than excessive, something made possible by them living without predators, in a suitable habitat with ample food.  With humans no longer killing them, the catfish have become both apex-level predators and scavengers, enjoying fish, amphibians, worms, birds and even small mammals; they appear to eat just about anything (dead or alive) which fits into their large mouths.  They can live for many decades and scientists are monitoring their progress in what is a close to unique experiment.  Thus far, despite some being tested as being some 16 times more radioactive than normal, the indications are they’re continuing happily to feed, re-produce and grow but because the hypertrophied state is function of genetics interacting with an ideal environment, it’s thought unlikely they’ll ever exceed the recorded maximum size.

Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the opposition and leader of the Liberal Party of Australian since May 2022) announces the Liberal Party's new policy advocating the construction of multiple nuclear power-plants in Australia.  The prosthetic used in the digitally-altered image (right) was a discarded proposal for the depiction of Lord Voldemort in the first film version of JK Rowling's (b 1965) series of Harry Potter children's fantasy novels; it used a Janus-like two-faced head.  It's an urban myth Peter Dutton auditioned for the part when the first film was being cast but was rejected as being "too scary".  If ever there's another film, the producers might reconsider and should his career in politics end (God forbid), he could bring to Voldemort the sense of menacing evil the character has never quite achieved.  Interestingly, despite many opportunities, Mr Dutton has never denied being a Freemason.

Caliginous

Caliginous (pronounced kuh-lij-uh-nuhs)

Misty; dim; dark; gloomy, murky (archaic).

1540-1550: From the Middle English caliginous (dim, obscure, dark), from either the Middle French caligineux (misty; obscure) or directly from its Latin etymon cālīginōsus (misty; dark, obscure), from caliginem (nominative caligo) (mistiness, darkness, fog, gloom), of uncertain origin.  The construct of cālīginōsus was cālīgin- (stem of cālīgō or cālīginis (mist; darkness)) + -ōsus or –ous (the suffix meaning “full of, prone to” used to form adjectives from nouns.  The origin of caliginem has attracted speculation, one etymologist pondering links with the Greek kēlas (mottled; windy (of clouds)) & kēlis (stain, spot), the Sanskrit kala- (black) or the Latin calidus (with a white mark on the forehead).  Caliginous is an adjective, caliginousness is a noun and caliginously is an adverb.

Procession in the Fog (1828) by Ernst Ferdinand Oehme (1797-1855), oil on canvas, Galerie Neue Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, Germany.

Lindsay Lohan in Among the Shadows (2019).  In film, using a dark and murky environment can help create an ambiance of gloom and doom, something helpful for several genres, most obviously horror.  Directed by Tiago Mesquita with a screenplay by Mark Morgan, Among the Shadows is a thriller which straddles the genres, elements of horror and the supernatural spliced in as required.  Although in production since 2015, with the shooting in London and Rome not completed until the next year, it wasn’t until 2018 when, at the European Film Market, held in conjunction with the Berlin International Film Festival, Tombstone Distribution listed it, the distribution rights acquired by VMI, Momentum and Entertainment One, and VMI Worldwide.  In 2019, it was released progressively on DVD and video on demand (VOD), firstly in European markets, the UK release delayed until mid-2020.  In some markets, for reasons unknown, it was released with the title The Shadow Within.

Not highly regarded as an example of the film-maker’s art, Among the Shadows is of some interest to students of the technique of editing and continuity.  As spliced in as some of the elements may have been, just as obviously interpolated was much of the footage involving Ms Lohan and while the editing has been done quite well, there are limitations to the extent to which this can disguise discontinuities.  In this case the caliginous atmospherics probably did help the editing process, the foggy dimness providing its own ongoing visual continuity.

Daytime in London during the Great Smog of 1952.

Ghastly things had been seen in the London air before the Great Smog of 1952.  In the high summer of 1858, there had been the Great Stink, caused by an extended spell of untypically hot and windless weather, conditions which exacerbated the awfulness of the smell of the untreated human waste and industrial effluent flowing in the Thames river, great globs of the stuff accumulating on the banks, the consequence of a sewerage system which had been out-paced by population growth, the muck still discharged untreated,  straight into the waterway.

The weather played a part too in the caliginous shroud which for almost a week engulfed the capital early in December 1952.  That year, mid-winter proved unusually cold and windless, resulting in an anti-cyclonic system (which usually would have passed over the British Isles) remaining static, trapping airborne pollutants and forming a thick layer of smog over the city.  The conditions lasted for several days and cleared only when the winter winds returned.  What made things especially bad was that in the early post-war years, most of the UK’s high quality coal was exported to gain foreign exchange.  Despite having been on the winning side in World War II, the cost of the struggle had essentially bankrupted the country and the mantra to industry quickly became “export or die”; thus the coal allocated for domestic consumption was “dirty” and of poor quality.  The official reports at the time indicated a death-toll of some 4000 directly attributed to the Great Smog (respiratory conditions, car accidents, trips & falls etc) with another 10,000 odd suffering some illnesses of some severity.  However, more recent statistical analysis, using the same methods of determining “surplus deaths” as were applied to the COVID-19 numbers, suggested there may have been as many as 12,000 fatalities.  It was the public disquiet over the Great Smog of 1952 which ultimately would trigger the Clean Air Act (1956), which although not the UK’s first environmental legislation, did until the 1980s prove the most far reaching.