Mainline

Mainline (pronounced meyn-lahyn)

(1) A slang term for the intravenous (injected directly into a vein as opposed to subcutaneous (skin popping)) use of injectable drugs (historically associated most with opium and its derivatives, especially heroin);  a principal or prominent vein into which a drug can be injected.

(2) To use, enjoy or imbibe something without restriction.

(3) The normal, established, or widely accepted position; major (a synonym of mainstream although without any of the the negative connotations mainstream has in recent years acquired.

(4) In rail transport (1) of or pertaining to the principal route or line of a railway or (2) of or pertaining to a surface railway as distinct from an underground, elevated or light rail one (originally as main line or main-line).

(5) In computing, to integrate (code etc) into the main repository for a software project, rather than separate forks.

(6) In civil aviation, an airline's main operating unit, as opposed to codeshares or regional subsidiaries (by extension from the railroad use).

(7) As Mainlinie (line of the Maine), a (historical and political) boundary between northern and southern Germany, roughly following the River Main.

(8) In chess, of a sequence of opening moves, the principal, most important, or most often played variation of such (ie the "main line", the orthodox sequence of opening moves considered to be "best play").

(9) In foodie slang, voraciously to consume.

(10) In longline fishing, the central line to which the branch lines with baits are attached.

(11) In plumbing, the pipeline carrying wastewater to the public drains or a septic tank.

(12) In the US and Australia, related but different models of Ford cars sold during the 1950s.

1841 (1933-1934 as applied to injectable drugs): All senses of mainline (sometimes variously as main-line or with initial capital) are Americanisms and a compound of main + line.  Main is from the Middle English mayn, main, maine, mæin & meyn, from main (noun) and related to the Old English mægen (strong, main, principal) and the Old Norse megn & megenn (strong, main).  It was cognate with Old High German megīn (strong, mighty) from which Modern German gained Möge & Vermögen (power, wealth) and akin to the Old English magan (to be able to).  Line is from the Middle English line & lyne, from Old English līne (line, cable, rope, hawser, series, row, rule, direction) from the Proto-Germanic līnǭ (line, rope, flaxen cord, thread) from the Proto-Germanic līną (flax, linen), from the primitive Indo-European līno (flax).  Influenced in Middle English by the Middle French ligne (line), from Latin linea, it was cognate with the Scots line (line), the North Frisian liin (line), the West Frisian line (line), the Dutch lijn (rope, cord), the German Leine (line, rope), the Danish line (rope, cord), the Swedish lina (line, rope, wire) and the Icelandic lína (line). It was related also to Dutch lijn (flax), the German Lein (flax, linen), the Gothic lein (linen, cloth), the Latin linea (linen, thread, string, line) & linum (flax, thread, linen, cable), the Ancient Greek λίνον (línon) (flax, linen, thread, garment), the Old Church Slavonic линъ (linŭ) (flax), the Russian лён (ljon) (flax), the Lithuanian linai (flax) and the Irish līn (lion) (flax).  The oldest sense of the word is "rope, cord, thread"; from this the senses "path" & "continuous mark" were derived.  Mainline is a noun in the sense of railways and a verb (used without object) if injecting drugs; those doing the latter known, inter alia, as "mainers" or "mainliners", the mainlined not infrequently ending up on a pathologist's autopsy table.  Mainline is a noun, verb & adjective, mainliner is a noun and mainlinging & mainlined are verbs; the noun plural is mainlines.

1952 Ford Mainline Business Coupe (US).

Ford in the US produced the Mainline between 1952-1956.  It was the base-model of its three tier offering (Ford at that time manufacturing in the US offering just a single range of passenger cars), the more highly specified models being the Customline and Crestline.  The name was dropped for 1957 when the Custom nameplate was introduced although this had nothing to do with the association of “mainline” with injecting drug users.  Although that connection had existed since 1933, it would be until well into the 1960s it came into common use in this sense.  In the US, the Mainline was offered as two & four door sedans and station wagons (the latter which in England was sometimes called a shooting brake) and two door coupé (the convertibles were restricted to the more expensive lines).

1956 Ford Mainline "Coupé Utility" (Australia).

However, Australia was a smaller market and neither the three trim options nor all the body styles were offered, sales between 1952-1959 restricted to the four-door Customline, a limited number of station wagons and a locally developed “coupé utility”, a kind of light pickup which had been a feature of the Australian market since the 1930s.  The coupé utility used the Mainline name and was built on the station wagon chassis with the addition of the convertible’s X-member to permit the higher load carrying capacity, a further quirk being the Australian Fords continued until 1954 to use the old flathead V8 which had ceased to be used in the US in 1953, local models not adopting the new overhead valve (OHV) Y-Block V8 until 1955.  The Mainline remained in the Australian lineup until 1959 when the new Fairlane replaced the big car but Ford didn’t develop a coupé utility version, this body style offered on the compact platform the next year when the Falcon (1960-2016) entered local production.

Map of southern England's Great Western Main Line. 

Main Line had since 1841 been used generally to mean "principal line of a railway" and the Main Line was once Philadelphia's most desired suburban district.  Once just another rural hamlet, in the 1870s & 1880s it was transformed by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company which built expensive housing developments and hotels, hence the association of "Main Line" with the meaning "affluent area of residence", noted by 1917 and eventually used in that sense without capital letters and as the single-word mainline.  Essentially creating a fashionable suburb, the Railroad's urban development project linked Philadelphia to Paoli along the Paoli Local train-line via the station stops Overbrook, Merion, Narberth, Wynnewood, Ardmore, Haverford & Bryn Mawr.  Eventually, the Main Line connected Philadelphia with Pittsburgh via Harrisburg but was later split into two lines, Amtrak's Philadelphia to Harrisburg Main Line and the Norfolk Southern Railway's Pittsburgh Line.

An emulation of Lindsay Lohan's vascular system; the thicker veins and arteries being the "main lines" (left) and Philadelphia's rail network, again (following the same practice), the thickest lines indicate Main Line status (right).   

The original slang among drug users, dating from 1933 used mainline as a noun, referring the principal or prominent vein into which a drug was most effective injected.  The verb in the sense of "inject (drugs) intravenously" was noted the following year although the associated verb mainlining didn't enter regular use until the mid-1960s and the unfortunate companion verb mainlined (dead from a drug overdose) soon followed, used in that sense by Mimi Fariña (1945–2001) for the Joan Baez (b 1941) song In the Quiet Morning (1970) which noted the death of Janis Joplin (1943–1970).  Joplin's death, although technically caused by an impact injury, happened under the influence of heroin.  Counterintuitively, despite injecting drug-use being so obviously associated with veins and arteries, it seems it was the imagery of main and secondary railway lines rather than the human vascular system (also called the circulatory system) that prompted the simile of mainline in drug-related slang.  It was probably because of the general familiarity with the word being used to describe train tracks and the often-seen graphical representation of them at stations and in carriages.  Even in medicine, mainline appears hardly used by physicians when speaking of arteries and veins, the term apparently not useful within the profession because of the need for precision when discussing such things although it may be handy for pathologists who tend often to work in retrospect.  However, there are citations where physicians and neurologists have adopted a similar metaphor (based perhaps on the rabbit warrens that are hospitals) to  explain the process of the brain using the “back passages” to restore blood-flow to areas affected by a stroke which has blocked the “main passage”, again drawing on the idea of primary and secondary lines.

In the Quiet Morning by Mimi Farina © Universal Music Publishing Group, recorded by Joan Baez (1970).

In the quiet morning, there was much despair

And in the hours that followed, no one could repair

That poor girl, tossed by the tides of misfortune

Barely here to tell her tale, rolled in on a sea of disaster

Rolled out on a mainline rail

She once walked tight at my side, I'm sure she walked by you

Her striding steps could not deny, torment from a child who knew

That in the quiet morning, there would be despair

And in the hours that followed, no one could repair

That poor girl, she cried out her song so loud

It was heard the whole world round, a symphony of violence

The great southwest unbound

La la la la la la la

La la la la la la la

La la la la la la la la la

La la la la, la la la

In the quiet morning, there was much despair

And in the hours that followed, no one could repair

That poor girl, tossed by the tides of misfortune

Barely here to tell her tale, rolled in on a sea of disaster

Rolled out on a mainline rail

La la la la la la la

La la la la la la la

La la la la la la la la la

La la la la, la la la

Hot Dog

Hot dog (pronounced hot-dawg)

(1) A frankfurter.

(2) A sandwich consisting of a frankfurter (or some sort of sausage of similar shape) in a split roll, eaten usually with (1) mustard, sauerkraut & relish or (2) mustard & ketchup.

(3) Someone who performs complex, showy, and sometimes dangerous manoeuvres, especially in surfing or skiing (hotdogging sometimes a defined class in competition).

(4) Someone thought a show-off, especially in sporting competition.

(5) In informal use, an expression of joy, admiration or delight (occasionally also used ironically in the manner of “that’s great”).

(6) In New Zealand, a battered, deep-fried sausage or saveloy on a stick (essentially the same concept as the US corn dog and the Australian Dagwood dog).

(7) In slang, the human penis, a variation of which is the “man sausage”.

(8) In slang, a sexually suggestive physical gesture involving hip movement (usually as hotdogging).

1894: A coining in US English for commercial purposes, the idea being the vague resemblance of the sausage to a dachshund dog, the “hot” from the traditional use of mustard as a condiment although there’s evidence the early suspicion some hot dogs included actual canine meat weren’t entirely without foundation.  The use as (1) an interjection expressing joy, admiration or delight was another US creation dating from around the turn of the twentieth century (the circumstances unknown) and (2) a descriptor of someone who performs showy, often dangerous stunts was also an Americanism from the same era.  It seems to have begin in sport and is still widely used but has become best known for its use in skiing and surfing where it’s institutionalized to the extent some competitive categories have been named thus.  The variation “hot diggety dog” (also clipped to “hot diggety” was used in the same sense as the interjection “hot dog”, the interpolated “diggety” there for emphasis and rhetorical effect.  The slang synonyms (mostly in the US and not applied exclusively to hot dogs) have included “tubular meat on a bun”, “frank”, “frankfurt”, “frankfurter”, “glizzy”, “pimp steak”, “tube steak”, “wiener”, “weeny”, “ballpark frank”, “cheese coney”, “cheese dog”, “Chicago-style”, “Chicago dog”, “chili dog”, “Coney Island”, “corndog”, “footlong”, “junkyard dog”, “not dog”, “pig in a blanket”, “steamie” “veggie dog” & “frankfurter in a bun”.  In informal use, both single word contractions (hotdog) and hyphenated forms (hot-dog, hot-dogger etc) are common and “hot dog!” as an interjection is heard in the US, especially south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Extra mustard: Lindsay Lohan garnishing her hot dog, New York, 2010.

The construct was hot + dog.  Hot was from the Middle English hot & hat, from the Old English hāt, from the Proto-Germanic haitaz (hot), from the primitive Indo-European kay- (hot; to heat) and was cognate with the Scots hate & hait (hot), the North Frisian hiet (hot), the Saterland Frisian heet (hot), the West Frisian hjit (hot), the Dutch heet (hot), the Low German het (hot), the German Low German heet (hot), the German heiß (hot), the Danish hed (hot), the Swedish het (hot) and the Icelandic heitur (hot).  Dog was from the Middle English dogge (source also of the Scots dug (dog)), from the Old English dogga & docga of uncertain origin.  Interestingly, the original sense appears to have been of a “common dog” (as opposed one well-bred), much as “cur” was later used and there’s evidence it was applied especially to stocky dogs of an unpleasing appearance.  Etymologists have pondered the origin:  It may have been a pet-form diminutive with the suffix -ga (the similar models being compare frocga (frog) & picga (pig), appended to a base dog-, or doc-(the origin and meaning of these unclear). Another possibility is Old English dox (dark, swarthy) (a la frocga from frog) while some have suggested a link to the Proto-West Germanic dugan (to be suitable), the origin of Old English dugan (to be good, worthy, useful), the English dow and the German taugen; the theory is based on the idea that it could have been a child’s epithet for dogs, used in the sense of “a good or helpful animal”.  Few support that and more are persuaded there may be some relationship with docce (stock, muscle), from the Proto-West Germanic dokkā (round mass, ball, muscle, doll), from which English gained dock (stumpy tail).  In fourteenth century England, hound (from the Old English hund) was the general word applied to all domestic canines while dog referred to some sub-types (typically those close in appearance to the modern mastiff and bulldog.  By the sixteenth century, dog had displaced hound as the general word descriptor. The latter coming to be restricted to breeds used for hunting and in the same era, the word dog was adopted by several continental European languages as their word for mastiff.  Unmodified, the English Hot Dog has been borrowed by dozens of languages.  Hot dog is a noun, verb & adjective, hotdoggery & hotdogger are nouns, hotdogging & hotdogged are verbs; the noun plural is hot dogs.

For the 2016 Texas State Fair, the manufacturer went retro, reviving the "Corny Dog" name although, in a sign of the times, vegetarian dogs were available.

The corn-dog (a frankfurter dipped in cornmeal batter, fried, and served on a stick), although the process was patented in 1927, seems to have come into existence between 1938-1942 (the sources differ with most preferring the latter) but it received a lexicographical imprimatur of when it began to appear in dictionaries in 1949 and it was certainly on sale (then as the “corny dog”) at the 1942 Texas State Fair.  In Australia, the local variation of the US corn dog is the Dagwood dog (a batter-covered hot dog sausage, deep fried in batter, dipped in tomato sauce and eaten off a wooden stick), not to be confused with the “battered sav”, a saveloy deep fried in a wheat flour-based batter (as used for fish and chips and which usually doesn’t contain cornmeal).  The Dagwood Dog was named after a character in the American comic strip Blondie.  Dagwood, Blondie’s ineptly comical husband, did have a dog albeit not one especially sausage-like and it may simply have been it was at the time the country’s best known or most popular cartoon dog.

The hot dog as class-identifier: David Cameron showing how smart folk handle a hot dog while on the campaign trail, April 2015.

After leaving Downing Street, Harold Macmillan (1894–1986; UK prime-minister 1957-1963) visited Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1969-1969) in the White House and was served lunch, a meal the former prime-minister found so remarkable that in his six-volume memoirs it warranted a rare exclamation mark: Hotdogs!  He didn’t comment further but it’s assumed his experience of the culinary treat must have been the Old Etonian’s first and last.  The hot dog certainly can be political, David Cameron (b 1966; UK prime-minister 2010-2016 and another Old Etonian) attracting derision after being photographed eating his hot dog with knife and fork, something declared “out-of-touch” by the tabloid press which, while usually decrying the class system, doesn’t miss a chance to scorn toffs behaving too well or chavs too badly.  Cameron had other problems with takeaway snacks, caught being untruthful about his history of enjoying Cornish pasties, another working class favourite.  So it would seem for politicians, hot dogs are compulsory but only if eaten in acceptable chav style.

Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) and David Cameron eating hot dogs (both in approved manner) at a college basketball game between Mississippi Valley State and Western Kentucky, Dayton Arena, Ohio, March 2012 (Western Kentucky won 59-56) (left) and UK Labour Party Politician Ed Miliband (b 1969) enjoying what came to be known as "the notorious bacon sandwich", May 2014 (right).  Mr Miliband didn't attend Eton and some of his high school education was undertaken in the US so presumably he knows how to handle a hot dog.  If not, he has no excuse. 

Curiously, Mr Cameron, had some three years earlier undergone "hot dog eating training", supervised by President Obama, noted for his expertise (both theoretical and practical) in the subject.  So he knew how it should be done and immediately there was speculation he resorted to knife & fork to avoid any chance of something like Ed Miliband's "notorious bacon sandwich" moment, something which had resulted in ridicule and a flood of memes after the photograph was published by the Murdoch tabloid The Sun on the eve of a general election.     

Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the opposition and leader of the Australian Liberal Party since May 2022) enjoying a Dagwood dog in three aspects, Brisbane Exhibition (Ekka), Australia, 2022.  On seeing the photos, Mr Dutton observed of such things: "There is no good angle".  In Australia, it’s probably good for a politician to be known to eat Dagwood dogs but not necessarily be photographed mid-munch.  Interestingly, despite many opportunities, Mr Dutton has never denied being a Freemason.

The Dagwood dog was responsible for an amusing footnote in Australian legal history, a dispute from the 1949 Sydney Royal Easter Show played out in the Supreme Court of New South Wales in its equity jurisdiction, the press reports at the time noting one happy outcome being an “uninterrupted supply of hot dogs during the next few days.”  Hot dogs were one of the show’s big sellers but a dispute arose when allegations were made there had been breaches of letters patent for "improvements in sausage goods" giving the patentees (who sold “Pronto Pups”) "exclusive enjoyment and profit within Australia for sixteen years from September, 1946.  The plaintiffs (holders of the patent), sought an injunction against those who had begun selling “Dagwood Dogs" at the show, preventing them from vending or supplying any of the improvements in sausages described in the patent, the writ claiming Dagwood dogs embodied the patented improvements and that as a consequence of the infringement, the plaintiffs were suffering economic loss.  The trial judge, ordered a hearing for an assessment (a taking of accounts) of damages to be scheduled for the following April and issued a temporary order requiring the defendants undertook to pay into a trust account the sum of ½d (half a penny) for each for each axially penetrated sausage sold.  The culinary delight has since been a fixture at city and country shows around the country although the name Pronto Pup didn’t survive; after the judgment in the Supreme Court it was replaced by “Pluto Pup” which also didn’t last although whether that was a consequence of a C&D (a “cease & desist letter”) from Walt Disney’s lawyers isn’t known.  Anyway, since then it’s been Dagwood dogs all the way except in South Australia (proud of their convict-free past, they often do things differently) where they’re knows as “Dippy Dogs” (an allusion to the generous dip in the tomato sauce pot) which may be of Canadian origin, although there. in at least some provinces, they’re sold as “Pogos”.

Robert Mitchum (1917–1997) paying attention to Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962).

There are a number of “hot dog” stories about the film star Robert Mitchum, all told in the vein of him arriving at a Hollywood fancy-dress party covered in tomato ketchup and when asked to explain replying: “I’m a hot dawg!”.  That was representative of the sanitized form in which the tale was usually published, the original apparently involved the ketchup being applied to something which, anatomically, more resembled the hot dog’s sausage.

Hotdog Stand color scheme, Microsoft Windows 3.1, 1992.

The industry legend is the “Hotdog Stand” color scheme Microsoft in 1992 shipped with Windows 3.1 was the winner of an informal contest between the designers to see who could concoct the worst possible combination.  Whether or not the idea of the competition was alcohol-fueled depends on which version of the story is told but all agree the winner based her entry on a vision of a hot dog, smothered in mustard and ketchup.  It’s doubtful many deliberately chose “Hotdog Stand” as their default scheme although there were certainly sysadmins (system administrators) who vengefully would impose it on annoying users, the more vindictive adding insult to injury by ensuring the user couldn’t change it back.  However, Hotdog Stand did briefly find a niche because it turned out to be the scheme which provided the best contrast on certain monochrome monitors, then still prevalent in corporations.  Windows 3.1 was the first version of the environment (it sat atop the PC/MS/DR-DOS operating system) to achieve wide corporate acceptance, whereas Windows 3.0 (1990) had tantalized while being still too unstable.  Windows 3.0 was unusual in being (apart from the short-lived 1.0) the only version of Windows released in a single version.  Although it ran in three modes: Real (on machines with only 640K RAM available), Standard (requiring an 80286 CPU & 1 MB RAM) and Enhanced (requiring an 80386 CPU & 2 MB RAM), it shipped as a single product, the user with a command line switch (/r, /s or /e respectively) able to "force" the mode of choice, depending on the hardware in use.

The Hotdog Stand didn’t survive the upgrade to Windows 95 but a quarter of a century on, someone may have felt nostalgic because a buyer of a 2016 Maserati GranTurismo MC Sport Line configured their car in bright yellow (Giallo Granturismo) over leather trim in red (Rosso Corallo).  As eye-catching in 2016 as Microsoft's Hotdog Stand had been in 1992, the Maserati’s recommended retail price was US$163,520.  Displayed first at the 2007 Geneva Motor Show, the GranTurismo (Tipo M145) remained in production until 2019, the MC Sport Line offered between 2012-2019.  It's not known how many buyers chose this color combination.

Joey Chestnut (b 1983) (left) and Miki Sudo (b 1986) (right) the reigning men's and women's world champions in hot dog eating.  The contest is conducted annually on 4 July, US Independence Day.

In July 2022, Mr Chestnut retained and Ms Sudo regained their titles as world champions in hot dog eating.  Mr Chestnut consumed 15 more than the runner-up so the victory was decisive although his total of 63 was short of his personal best (PB) of 76, set in 2021.  It’s his fifteenth title and he has now won all but one of the last sixteen.  Ms Sudo won her eighth championship, swallowing forty hot dogs (including the bun) in the requisite ten minutes, meaning she has now prevailed in eight of the last nine contests (in 2021 she was unable to defend her title, being with child and therefore thinking it best to avoid too many hot dogs).  That there are hot dog eating champions brings delight to some and despair to others. 

Otto von Bismarck (1815-1989; chancellor of the German Empire 1871-1890) famously observed that people "shouldn't see how laws or sausages are made".  The processes (now effectively institutionalized) which produce legislation are now more disturbing even than in the iron chancellor's gut-wrenching times but sausage production has (generally) become more hygienic.

BMW's venture into the "hotdog look", the K1.

Between 1988–1993, BMW produced almost 7,000 K1s.  It was a modest volume and lifespan but the appearance and specification were quite a departure for the company which for sixty-odd years had built its reputation with air-cooled flat twins, packaged in designs which were functionally efficient but offered few concessions to fashion.  That began to change in 1973 when the R90S appeared with a small bikini fairing in the style then favored by the “café racer” set but the rest of the machine remained in the sober Teutonic tradition, finished in a conservative silver (a more exuberant “Daytona Orange” would later be offered).  The fairings grew in size in subsequent models but never before the K1 did the factory produce anything so enveloping as was first seen at the 1988 Cologne Show, the effect heighted by the bold graphics and the choice of color schemes being blue & yellow or a hotdog-like red & yellow.  That attracted almost as much comment as the mechanical specification which used an in-line four cylinder, 987 cm³ (60 cubic inch) water-cooled engine, mounted in an unusual longitudinal arrangement with the crankshaft to the right, something which delivered a low centre of gravity and contributed to the drag coefficient (CD) of .34 (with the rider prone).

The original alternative to the hotdog, in blue & yellow, restrained by comparison.

The engineering was innovative and the K1 garnered many awards but after some initial enthusiasm sales waned and in 1991 the color scheme was not so much toned-down as re-toned, a more Germanic black metallic with silver wheels offered which was not as eye-catching but also less controversial.  That solved one aesthetic challenge but others were more fundamental, the thing too big and heavy to be a “sports bike” in the accepted sense and all that fibreglass meant things could get very hot for both the components and the rider, a problem the factory, with some improvised tricks, ameliorated but never wholly solved.  What couldn’t be fixed was the lack of power, BMW at the time committed to the voluntary 100 horsepower (75 kW) limit for motorcycles sold in Germany at the time and while the industry leading aerodynamics made the machine a creditable high-speed cruiser, as a “super-bike” like the Japanese and Italian machines, it simply wasn’t competitive.

Sahib

Sahib (pronounced sahb, sah-ib, sa-hib or sa‐heeb)

(1) In India, a form of address or title placed after a man's name or designation, used as a mark of respect, similar to “sir” in English or “San” in Japanese.

(2) In India, under the Raj, a term of respect for a white European or other person of rank in colonial India (historical references only).

(3) In modern India, a polite form of address corresponding with “Mr”.

1670-1680: From the Hindustani (Hindi, Urdu) साहिब (sāhib) & صاحب‎ (sāhib) (lord), from the Persian صاحب‎ (sâheb), from the Arabic صَاحِب‎ (ṣāḥib) (friend, companion) & çāhib (master, literally either “friend” or “owner”).  The Arabic Sahib was the singular of Ashab and the rarer derivation was sahiba (he accompanied).  Under the Raj it operated something like "Mr" or "sir".  Sahib, memsahib & sahibdom are nouns and sahibesque and sahibish have been used (in criticism) as adjectives though both are non-standard; the noun plural is sahibs.

Under the Raj

The female form of sahib was mem-sahib, written sometimes as memsahib (the plural apparently rarely hyphenated).  It appears first to have been documented in 1832 although a number of sources suggest it was not widely adopted until 1857, a notable date in Indian history although the mutiny of that year appears unrelated to memsahib’s etymology.  It was an interesting linguistic hybrid; a merging of the local pronunciation of the English ma'am + the Hindi and Urdu sahib and, under the Raj, was a companion to the latter, functioning as a respectful term of address to a white European woman.  The role of women under the Raj (their relationships with the Indians and their colonial oppressors), was never as well documented or researched as that of men although the subject began to attract academic and popular interest in the 1980s, two books from different perspectives being Margaret MacMillan's (b 1943) Women of the Raj (1988) and Anne de Courcy's (b 1927) The Fishing Fleet: Husband Hunting in the Raj (2012).

Briefly a memsahib: Lindsay Lohan in Lindsay Lohan's Indian Journey (BBC Three, 2010).

Although most associated with the Raj, shib and memsahib are still used by English speakers in the sub-continent as a polite form of address in much the same way Mr & Mrs are applied.  It’s also appended to the names of holy places associated with the Sikh Gurus in a similar manner to the way the Japanese have applied San to objects as well as people.  The term Pukka sahib meant "absolutely genuine" and pukka endures among certain classes, though most think it an affectation.

The sahib, the Mahātmā and the memsahib:  Lord Louis Mountbatten (1900–1979; last viceroy and first governor-general of India 1947-1948), Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948; lawyer & Indian anti-colonial political leader) and Edwina, Countess Mountbatten (née Ashley, 1901–1960), Government House, New Delhi, India, 1947.  When Edwina died, she was buried at sea, prompting the Queen Mother (1901-2002) to remark: "That's Edwina, she did like to make a splash".

Joe Randolph (JR) Ackerley (1896–1967), an English part-time writer and full-time homosexual, spent only a few months in colonial India but it was long enough for him to form a low opinion of the colonists, noting their racism, snobbery and ingratitude.  In his writings, he mentioned the anecdote of a memsahib, accompanied by a servant, returning one evening to her bungalow when suddenly a krait, one of India’s most venomous snakes, slithered directly into her path.  The memsahib was quoted as saying:  “Then the servant did a thing absolutely without precedent in India—he touched me!—he put his hand on my shoulder and pulled me back … Of course if he hadn’t done that I should undoubtedly have been killed; but I didn’t like it all the same, and got rid of him soon after.”

Ambergris

Ambergris (pronounced am-ber-grees or am-ber-gris)

The waxy, sometimes opaque (the color from ash-gret to jet black) morbid secretion of the sperm whale intestine, usually found floating on the ocean or washed ashore: used in perfumery and (historically), in cooking & folk medicine.

1375–1425: From the Old & Middle French ambre gris (literally gray amber) which replaced the Middle English imbergres.  The construct was thus amber + gris.  Amber was from the Middle English ambre & aumbre, from the Old French aumbre & ambre, from the Arabic عَنْبَر‎ (ʿanbar), (ambergris), from the Middle Persian anbar & ambar (ambergris).  The word displaced the Middle English smulting (from Old English smelting (amber)), the Old English eolhsand (amber), the Old English glær (amber), and the Old English sāp (amber, resin, pomade).  Most etymologists seem to conclude the Arabic anbar entered European languages via Medieval Latin.  Gris was from the Old French or the Old Occitan gris (grey), both from the Frankish grīs, from the Proto-Germanic grīsaz (grey) and was akin to the Old High German grīs (grey) (source of the modern German greis) and the Dutch grijs (grey).  The now largely obsolete spellings were amber-gris & amber gris and the latter was for centuries the usual form, the single-word spelling not predominate until the nineteenth century.  During the seventeenth century, folk etymologies interpreted the form as “amber grease” or “amber of Greece” and regionally both were for some time in common use.  Until the twentieth century, the clipping “amber” was also in use and this was the original form, the “grey” element appended in the fourteenth century as a point of differentiation after the adoption in Romance languages of “amber” as the term to describe Baltic amber (the resin associated with fossils) and gradually, that use came to replace “yellow amber” (ambre jaune).  In modern use, amber is understood as the color and the resin white ambergris is the whale secretion.  Ambergris is a noun; the noun plural is plural ambergrises (although ambergris is in common use).

Lindsay Lohan in an advertisement for FCUK (French Connection UK).  According to FCUK, their fragrances have never used ambergris in the mix.

Curiously, the knowledge of the origin of ambergris was for centuries lost to European science.  Notes about the relationship of the substance to whales were later found in the papers of the eleventh century physician Constantinus Africanus (a Muslim of North African origin who spent the latter part of his life practicing his profession in Italy) but as late as the eighteenth century the matter was still subject to speculation, some of the theories as bizarre as anything contemplated during Antiquity to explain the existence of the mysterious eel and others were also baffled; both the Malays and the Chinese attributed the source of ambergris to either sea-dragons or sea-serpents.  It was though prized for its scent and authors noted the relationship between color and fragrance: the darker the less pleasing one was to the nose.  However, chefs had to be cautious because as noted by the English poet & satirist Alexander Pope (1688-1744): A little whiff of it, by snatches, is very agreeable; but when a man holds a whole lump of it to his nose, it is a stink and strikes you down”.  It was thus much enjoyed but only in small doses and rather as a little truffle might be grated today over a plate of scrambled eggs, so was ambergris once used, eggs with a dusting said to be the favorite dish of Charles II (1630–1685; King of Scotland 1649-1651, King of Scotland, England and Ireland 1660-1685).

Chanel No.5 concentrate.

That a waxy substance which is a mixture of steroid derivatives (consisting mainly of cholesterol) and secreted by the intestinal tract of the sperm whale should be a prized ingredient of the most expensive scents amuses many, some of who enjoy telling those daubed with the stuff they’re wearing “whale shit”, “whale vomit” or “whale snot”.  That’s of course not correct and in some cases, there’s not even a direct connection with the big mammals, even some high-end perfume houses using a synthetic ambroxide rather than ambergris and recent research has determined a gene from balsam fir is a most efficient producer of ambroxide so use of the traditional ingredient might become more rare still.  There’s long been speculation about whether the famous Chanel No.5 even included ambergris and the conclusion of most is that certainly once it did but now nobody is quite sure; Chanel have always declined to comment.  Both the natural and synthetic compounds produce an apparently unique chemical called ambrein and while the fragrance is the most obvious property, the perfume houses prized it also as a fixative, something which extends the endurance of the potency of the fluid (and thus the appeal to the olfactory senses) by reducing the natural propensity to evaporate.  In some jurisdictions the trade in (and even the gathering of) ambergris is prohibited, a reflection of the practice applied to trade in the body parts of other threatened species but the ban has be criticized because no whale is harmed (or even approached) in the harvesting process.

Three shades of grey: White, brown & black ambergris.

Ambergris is expensive for the most obvious reason in a world of supply and demand: rarity.  For reasons not understood, it appears fewer than 2% of sperm whales produce the substance and chunks of it can drift for years in the ocean currents before washing ashore to be collected, either by a lucky beachgoer or (more probably) by professional harvesters who study tidal charts and the migration patterns of whale herds to determine the most likely spots for a crop.  It can certainly be a lucrative business, brokers or perfumers paying thousands of dollars a kilogram and it’s the color (there are three color-based grades) and quality which determines the value, not the volume.  The white ambergris is the highest grade and thus the most expensive, possessing what aficionados describe as a “well-rounded, delicately soft, sweet, marine scent” and one which intensifies with age, an ambergris left undiscovered for years will “cure” finally to mature as a dusty, bright white chunk.  While less exalted, brown ambergris is the most versatile of the three and adaptable for use in more variations of scent, straddling the qualities and characteristics of the white and black.  Brown ambergris is noted for its woodier, tobacco-like fragrance and is probably closest in nature to musk.  Black ambergris is said by some to be almost brutish but, lack the delicate tones of the light shades, this can be an advantage for those formulating something like an aromatherapy oil which will be dispersed over a large space.  Noted for a pungent smell, it uses are limited because to most it seems more faecal than brown or white ambergris, but it’s very primitiveness makes it attractive for the niche market it serves.  In a sense it’s just another commodity so the retail prices do bounce around but the lighter shades tend to sell for as much as US$35 a gram.

Cruciform

Cruciform (pronounced kroo-suh-fawrm)

(1) In geometry, a geometric curve, shaped like a cross, which has four similar branches asymptotic to two mutually perpendicular pairs of lines (equation: x ² y ² – a ² x ² – a ² y ² = 0, where x = y = ± a are the four lines).

(2) In engineering or design, being in the shape of a cross; cross-shaped.

(3) An emblem or escutcheon in the shape of a cross.

(4) In aeronautical engineering, a type of tail structure.

(5) In genetics, a cross shape in DNA (known also as the Holliday junction).

1814: From the Modern Latin cruciformis (1655-1665), the construct being from crux (genitive crucis) (stake, cross) + forma (form, shape), both Latin words of unknown origin; the he English form was first documented in 1814.  Early etymologists suggested crucis might have links with the Irish cruach (heap, hill), the Gaulish krouka (summit), the Old Norse hryggr (backbone) or the Old English hrycg (back) but modern scholars, although offering the odd speculation, concede only it may have been borrowed from “somewhere” an observation which, while probably true, isn't a great deal of help.  Form first entered Old English around the turn of the thirteenth century as forme & fourme (semblance, image, likeness), a direct borrowing from the Old French forme & fourme (physical form, appearance; pleasing looks; shape, image; way, manner), from the Latin forma (form, contour, figure, shape; appearance, looks; a fine form, beauty; an outline, a model, pattern, design; sort, kind condition), again a word of unknown origin, the most accepted theory being it may be from or cognate with the Ancient Greek morphe (form, beauty, outward appearance).  Cruciform is a noun & adjective, cruciformity is a noun and cruciformly an adverb; the noun plural is cruciforms.

Empennages: the cruciform & the T-Tail

On airframes, a cruciform tail is an empennage (the tail assembly, almost always at the extreme rear of an aircraft, provides directional stability while in flight, as the feathers on an arrow generate, the word derived from the French empenner (to feather an arrow)), a configuration which, when viewed in direct frontal or rearward aspect, assume a cruciform (lower case †) shape.  The accepted practice is for the horizontal stabilizer to intersect the vertical tail close to the middle, well above the fuselage.

Cruciform tail: Rockwell B-1 Lancer

The cruciform tail is a compromise.  While not offering all the aerodynamic advantages of the T-Tail (where the horizontal stabilizer is mounted atop the tail (upper case T) and thus almost completely removed from the wake of the engines), it doesn’t demand the additional structural strengthening (and thus weight) or suffer the same vulnerability to metal fatigue.

T-Tails: Lockheed C-141 Starlifter (produced 1963-1968), Wright-Patterson USAF (US Air Force) Base, Dayton Ohio (left), Vickers VC10 (produced 1962-1970) in BOAC livery, BOAC promotional photograph, 1964 (centre) and Lockheed C-5M Galaxys (produced (all versions) 1968-1989) at USAF Base, Dover, Delaware (right).

The T-Tail is used in aviation for a variety of reasons.  On freighters, the advantage is the horizontal stabilizers are moved away from the rear of the fuselage, meaning the space-consuming mechanical and hydraulic assemblies don't intrude on the rear-loading area, permitting both a larger door aperture and an uninterrupted load-path.  One unusual use was the Vickers VC10, a design distinguished by the four engines being mounted in the tail section, something which precluded the conventional placement of horizontal stabilizers.  The VC10 was a design cul-de-sac but as the K.3 aerial refueling tanker, the airframe remained in service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) until 2013.

The cruciform (left) and the T-Tail (right) can be borrowed from aeronautical design and applied to hairstyles: Lindsay Lohan demonstrates.

Meme

Meme (pronounced meem)

(1) Any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted orally or by repeated action (by imitation) from one mind to another, through generations, in a manner comparable to the transmission of genes; the synonym is culturgen

(2) On the internet, a cultural item in the form of an image, video, phrase etc, that is spread and often altered in a creative or humorous way.

(3) In Internet slang, a derogatory term to describe something not to be taken seriously (meme job, meme degree etc).

(4) To turn into a meme; to use a meme.

1976: From the Ancient Greek mīmeîsthai (to imitate, copy) and a shortening of mimeme, from the Ancient Greek μίμημα (mīmēma) (imitated thing) from μιμεῖσθαι (mīmeîsthai) (to imitate), from μῖμος (mimos) (imitation, copy; mime).  Structurally, the word was shortened (following the model of gene) from mimeme and anglicized to emulate the form of a noun derived from the Ancient Greek mīméomai with the deverbal suffix -μα (-ma), from μῖμος (mîmos).  The word was coined by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (b 1941) and used first in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene.  The construct was m(ime) +‎ -eme and Dawkins apologized to classical scholars for what they would think a most improper form, explaining he wanted something monosyllabic and if they preferred they could think of it as related to the French word même (“same or alike” although the meaning does shift with the context of use).  Helpfully, he added it should be pronounced to rhyme with “cream”.  In the way English forms proliferate (often with short lives) on the internet, meme has been the source of many coining including dank meme, memeable, memedom, memesque, memeable, memed, memeplex, meme-pool, memescape, memetic, memeworthy, memey, memome & memeable.

Barack Obama & crooked Hillary Clinton.

The more widely used concept of “a cultural fragment distributed on the internet” was created by lawyer Michael Godwin (b 1956) of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and was first documented in 1994, use beginning to spike in 1997.  Godwin was the author also of Godwin's law (rule) which states that the longer an online exchange lasts, the greater the probability that some comparison with Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) or the Nazi regime will be invoked.  There’s some evidence suggesting the rule may not (statistically) operate as described but it remains a useful tool for determining the point at which a discussion has passed a certain threshold.  The concept of the meme is very old, examples noted in the graffiti of Antiquity and anthropologists have cited prehistoric example; the pre-internet exemplar in the modern age being "Kilroy was here" which proliferated with extraordinary rapidity during World War II (1939-1945).  Many languages have adopted meme, some in the original sense from biological science, most in the more recent application used on the internet but there are other meanings.  There was the French même and the Turkish meme was from the Ottoman Turkish ممه‎ (nipple, breast (and described by most dictionaries as “a childish term”)), following the Ancient Greek μᾰ́μμη (mámmē) and the Persian ممه‎ (mame).  Meme is a noun, verb & adjective and meamed & meaming are verbs;the noun plural is memes.

Looking over her shoulder: Donald & Melania Trump voting.

Dawkins coined meme to describe the concept of the intra- and trans-generational cultural spread of ideas and cultural phenomena, his construct being analogous with the agent of evolutionary biology, the gene.  He didn’t claim the idea was new, noting the earlier work of geneticists & ethologists and as early as 1904 German zoologist Richard Semon (1859-1918) had published The Mneme and mneme in which he included his theory which explored a vaguely similar idea although one which was later disproved as understandings of genetics improved.  Closer to the thoughts of Dawkins was La Vie des Termites (The Life of White Ants (1926)), an entomological book by Nobel laureate in literature Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949) which remains controversial because of the extent of the author’s plagiarism although he would later acknowledge a debt to the nineteenth century work of English biologist TH Huxley (1825–1895).

Memes can be self-generated for purposes of ambush marketing.  Lindsay Lohan risked going straight to Hell by purloining Pope Frances to promote Xanax.

Dawkins' point was that evolution depended ultimately only a self-replicating unit of transmission which, in biological evolution, was the gene and by analogy, human behaviour and cultural evolution could helpfully be described, at least in part, by memes, subject as they were to the influences and pressures of evolution.  Also, just as genes don’t always replicate as exact duplicates, memes existed and replicated imperfectly, things being combined, refined and rejected, the interactions creating new memes and thus, over time, cultures in some ways stayed the same; in others, things changed.  The concept was well-received by cultural theorists and critics but less effusive were many scientists, some of whom felt the gene/meme analogy a bit strained because, unlike genetic material, memes couldn’t be studied by the scientific method nor reduced to mathematical description, there being nothing even vaguely similar to the DNA which is the definable code of the gene.