Kettle

Kettle (pronounced ket-l)

(1) A container (historically and still usually made of metal) used to boil liquids or cook foods; a specialized kind of pot with a handle & spout and thus optimized for pouring (in some markets known variously as teakettles, jugs, electric jugs etc).

(2) By extension, a large metal vessel designed to withstand high temperatures, used in various industrial processes such as refining, distilling & brewing (also sometimes referred to as boilers, steamers, vats, vessels or cauldrons).

(3) In geology, as kettle hole, a steep, bowl-shaped hollow in ground once covered by a glacier.  Kettles are believed to form when a block of ice left by a glacier becomes covered by sediments and later melts, leaving a hollow.  They are usually dozens of meters deep and can be dozens of kilometers in diameter, often containing surface water.

(4) In percussion, as kettledrum (or kettle-drum), a large hemispherical brass percussion instrument (one of the timpani) with a drumhead that can be tuned by adjusting its tension.  There was also the now obsolete use of kettledrum to mean “an informal social party at which a light collation is offered, held in the afternoon or early evening”.

(5) In crowd control, a system of UK origin using an enclosed area into which demonstrators or protesters are herded for containment by authorities (usually taking advantage of aspects of the natural or built environment).

(6) To surround and contain demonstrators or protesters in a kettle.

(7) In weightlifting, as kettlebell, a weight consisting of a cast iron ball with a single handle for gripping the weight during exercise.

(8) In ornithology, a group of raptors riding a thermal, especially when migrating.

(9) In the slang of railroads, a steam locomotive

Pre 900: From the Middle English ketel & chetel, from the Old English cetel & ċietel (kettle, cauldron), and possibly influenced by the Old Norse ketill, both from the Proto-Germanic katilaz (kettle, bucket, vessel), of uncertain origin although etymologists find most persuasive the notion of it being a borrowing of the Late Latin catīllus (a small pot), a diminutive of the Classical Latin catinus (a large pot, a vessel for cooking up or serving food”), from the Proto-Italic katino but acknowledge the word may be a Germanic form which became confused with the Latin dring the early Medieval period..  It should thus be compared with the Old English cete (cooking pot), the Old High German chezzi (a kettle, dish, bowl) and the Icelandic kati & ketla (a small boat).  It was cognate with the West Frisian tsjettel (kettle), the Dutch ketel (kettle), the German Kessel (kettle), the Swedish kittel (cauldron) & kittel (kettle), the Gothic katils (kettle) and the Finnish kattila.  There may also be some link with the Russian котёл (kotjól) (boiler, cauldron).  Probably few activities are a common to human cultures as the boiling of water and as the British Empire spread, the word kettle travelled with the colonial administrators, picked up variously by the Brunei Malay (kitil), the Hindi केतली (ketlī), the Gujarati કીટલી (kīṭlī), the Irish citeal, the Maltese kitla and the Zulu igedlela.  Beyond the Empire, the Turks adopted it unaltered (although it appeared also as ketil).  Kettle is a noun & verb, kettled is a verb & adjective and kettling is a verb; the noun plural is plural kettles.

The boiling of water for all sorts of purposes is an activity common to all human societies for thousands of years so the number of sound-formations which referred to pots and urns used for this purpose would have proliferated, thus the uncertainty about some of the development.  The Latin catinus has been linked by some with Ancient Greek forms such as kotylē (bowl, dish) but this remains uncertain and words for many types of vessels were often loanwords.  The fourteenth century adoption in Middle English of an initial “k” is thought perhaps to indicate the influence of the Old Norse cognate ketill and the familiar modern form “tea-kettle” was used as early as 1705.  In percussion, the kettledrum was described as in the 1540s (based wholly on the shape) and in geology the kettlehole (often clipped to “kettle) was first used in 1866 to refer to “a deep circular hollow in a river bed or other eroded area, pothole>, hence “kettle moraine” dating from 1883 and used to describe one characterized by such features.

Lindsay Lohan cooking pasta in London, October 2014.  One hint this is London rather than Los Angeles is the electric kettle to her left, a standard item in a UK kitchen but less common in the US.

In most of the English-speaking world, kettle refers usually to a vessel or appliance used to boil water, the exception being the US where the device never caught on to the same extent and in Australia and New Zealand, it’s common to refer to the electric versions as “jugs”.  Americans do use kettles, but they’re not as widely used as they are in Australia, New Zealand & the UK where their presence in a kitchen is virtually de rigueur.  One reason is said to be that in the US coffee makers & instant hot water dispensers were historically more common, as was the use of tea bags rather than loose-leaves to make tea.  Those Americans who have a kettle actually usually call it a “kettle” although (and there seems to be little specific regionalism associated with this) it may also be called a “hot pot”, “tea kettle” or “water boiler”.

In idiomatic use, the phrase “a watched kettle never boils” has the same meaning as when used with “watched pot” and is a commentary on (1) one’s time management and (2) one’s perception of time under certain circumstances.  The phrase “pot calling the kettle black” is understood only if it’s realized both receptacles used to be heated over open flames and their metal thus became discolored and ultimately blackened by the soot & smoke.  It’s used to convey an accusation of hypocrisy, implying that an accuser is of the same behavior or trait they are criticizing in others.  The now common sense of “a different kettle of fish” is that of something different that to which it erroneously being compared but the original “kettle of fish” dated from circa 1715 and referred to “a complicated and bungled affair” and etymologists note it’s not actually based on fish being cooked in a kettle (although there was a culinary implement called a “fish kettle” for exactly that purpose but there’s no evidence it was used prior to 1790) but is thought to refer to “kettle” as a variant of kittle & kiddle (weir or fence with nets set in rivers or along seacoasts for catching fish), a use dating from the late twelfth century (it appears in the Magna Charta (1215) as the Anglo-Latin kidellus), from the Old French quidel, probably from the Breton kidel (a net at the mouth of a stream).

1974 Suzuki GT750 “Kettle”.  The front twin disc setup was added in 1973 and was one of the first of its kind.

The Suzuki GT750 was produced between 1971-1977 and was an interesting example of the breed of large-capacity two-stroke motorcycles which provided much excitement and not a few fatalities but which fell victim to increasingly stringent emissions standards and the remarkable improvement in the performance, reliability and refinement of the multi-cylinder four-stroke machines.  Something of a novelty was the GT750 was water-cooled, at the time rarely seen although that meant it missed out on one of Suzuki’s many imaginative acronyms: the RAC (ram air cooling) used on the smaller capacity models.  RAC was a simple aluminum scoop which sat atop the cylinder head and was designed to optimize air-flow.  It was the water-cooling of the GT750 which attracted nicknames but, a generation before the internet, the English language tended still to evolve with regional variations so in England it was “the Kettle”, in Australia “the Water Bottle” and in North America “the Water Buffalo”.  Foreign markets also went their own way, the French favoring “la bouillotte” (the hot water bottle) and the West Germans “Wasserbüffel” (water buffalo).  Suzuki called those sold in North America the "Le Mans" while RoW (rest of the world) models were simply the "GT750".

Detail of the unusual 4-3 system: The early version with the ECTS (left), the bifurcation apparatus for the central cylinder's header (centre) and the later version (1974-1977) without the ECTS (right).  Motorcyclists have long had a fascination with exhaust systems. 

The GT750 shared with the other three-cylinder Suzukis (GT380 & GT550) the novelty of an unusual 4-into-3 exhaust system (the center exhaust header was bifurcated), the early versions of which featured the additional complexity of what the factory called the Exhaust Coupler Tube System (ECTS; a connecting pipe joining the left & right-side headers) which was designed to improve low-speed torque.  The 4-into-3 apparently existed for no reason other than to match the four-pipe appearance on the four stroke, four cylinder Hondas and Kawasakis, an emulation of the asymmetric ducting used on Kawasaki's dangerously charismatic two-strokes presumably dismissed as "to derivative".

Kettling is now familiar as a method of large-scale crowd control in which the authorities assemble large cordons of police officers which move to contain protesters within a small, contained space, one often chosen because it makes use of the natural or built environment.  Once contained, demonstrators can selectively be detained, released or arrested.  It’s effective but has been controversial because innocent bystanders can be caught in its net and there have been injuries and even deaths.  Despite that, although courts have in some jurisdictions imposed some restrictions on the practice, as a general principle it remains lawful to use in the West.  The idea is essentially the same as the military concept of “pocketing”, the object of which was, rather than to engage the enemy, instead to confine them to a define area in which the only route of escape was under the control of the opposing force.  The Imperial Russian Army actually called this the котёл (kotyol or kotyel) which translated as cauldron or kettle, the idea being that (like a kettle), it was “hot” space with only a narrow aperture (like a spout) through which the pressure could be relieved.

David Low’s (1891-1963) cartoon (Daily Express, 31 July 1936) commenting on one of the many uncertain aspects of British foreign policy in the 1930s; Left to right: Thomas Inskip (1876–1947), John Simon (1873–1954), Philip Cunliffe-Lister (1884–1972), Duff Cooper (1890–1954), Samuel Hoare (1880–1959), Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940; UK prime-minister 1937-1940), Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947; UK prime-minister 1923-1924, 1924-1929 & 1935-1937) & Anthony Eden (1897-1977; UK prime-minister 1955-1957).

Low attached “trademarks” to some of those he drew.  Baldwin was often depicted with a sticking plaster over his lips, an allusion to one of his more infamous statements to the House of Commons in which he said “…my lips are sealed”.  Sir John Simon on this occasion had a kettle boiling on his head, a fair indication of his state of mind at the time.

About to explode: Low’s techniques have on occasion been borrowed and some cartoonist might one day be tempted to put a boiling kettle on the often hot-looking head of Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022).  Malcolm Turnbull (b 1954; prime-minister of Australia 2015-2018), a student of etymology, was as fond as those at The Sun of alliteration and when writing his memoir (A Bigger Picture (2020)) he included a short chapter entitled "Barnaby and the bonk ban".  As well as the events which lent the text it's title, the chapter was memorable for his inclusion of perhaps the most vivid thumbnail sketch of Barnaby Joyce yet penned:

"Barnaby is a complex, intense, furious personality.  Red-faced, in full flight he gives the impression he's about to explode.  He's highly intelligent, often good-humoured but also has a dark and almost menacing side - not unlike Abbott (Tony Abbott (b 1957; prime-minister of Australia 2013-2015)) - that seems to indicate he wrestles with inner troubles and torments."

Kettle logic

The term “Kettle logic” (originally in the French: la logique du chaudron) was coined by French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), one of the major figures in the history of post-modernist thought, remembered especially for his work on deconstructionism.  Kettle logic is category of rhetoric in which multiple arguments are deployed to defend a point, all with some element of internal inconsistency, some actually contradictory.  Derrida drew the title from the “kettle-story” which appeared in two works by the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939): The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) & Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905).  In his analysis of “Irma's dream”, Freud recounted the three arguments offered by the man who returned in damaged condition a kettle he’d borrowed.

(1) That the kettle had been returned undamaged.

(2) That the kettle was already damaged when borrowed.

(3) That the kettle had never been borrowed.

The three arguments are inconsistent or contradictory but only one need be found true for the man not to be guilty of causing the damage.  Kettle logic was used by Freud to illustrate the way it’s not unusual for contradictory opposites simultaneously to appear in dreams and be experienced as “natural” in a way would obviously wouldn’t happen in a conscious state.  The idea is also analogous with the “alternative plea” strategy used in legal proceedings.

In US law, “alternative pleading” is the legal strategy in which multiple claims or defenses (that may be mutually exclusive, inconsistent or contradictory) may be filed.  Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, at the point of filing the rule is absolute and untested; a party may thus file a claim or defense which defies the laws of physics or is in some other way technically impossible.  The four key aspects of alternative pleading are:

(1) Cover All Bases: Whatever possible basis might be available in a statement of claim or defence should be invoked to ensure that if a reliance on one legal precept or theory fails, others remain available.  Just because a particular claim or defense has been filed, there is no obligation on counsel to pursue each.

(2) Multiple Legal Fields: A party can plead different areas of law are at play, even if they would be contradictory if considered together.  A plaintiff might allege a defendant is liable under both breach of contract and, alternatively, unjust enrichment if no contract is found afoot.

(3) Flexibility: Alternative pleading interacts with the “discovery process” (ie going through each other’s filing cabinets and digital storage) in that it makes maximum flexibility in litigation, parties able to take advantage of previously unknown information.  Thus, pleadings should be structured not only on the basis of “known knowns” but also “unknown unknowns”, “known unknowns” and even the mysterious “unknown knowns”.  He may have been evil but for some things, we should be grateful to Donald Rumsfeld (1932–2021: US defense secretary 1975-1977 & 2001-2006).

(4) No Admission of Facts: By pleading in the alternative, a party does not admit that any of the factual allegations are true but are, in effect, asserting if one set of facts is found to be true, then one legal theory applies while if another set is found to be true, another applies.  This is another aspect of flexibility which permits counsel fully to present a case without, at the initial stages of litigation, being forced to commit to a single version of the facts or a single legal theory.

In the US, alternative pleading (typically wordy (there was a time when in some places lawyers charged “per word” in documents), lawyers prefer “pleading in the alternative”) generally is permitted in criminal cases, it can manifest as a defendant simultaneously claiming (1) they did not commit alleged act, (2) at the time the committed the act they were afflicted by insanity they are, as a matter of law, not criminally responsible, (3) that at the time they committed the act they were intoxicated and thus the extent of their guilt is diminished or (4) the act committed way justified by some reason such as provocation or self defense.  Lawyers however are careful in the way the tactic is used because judges and juries can be suspicious of defendants claiming the benefits of both an alibi and self defense.

Suicide

Suicide (pronounced soo-uh-sahyd)

(1) The intentional taking of one's own life.

(2) By analogy, acts or behavior, which whether intentional or not, lead to the self-inflicted destruction of one's own interests or prospects.

(3) In automotive design, a slang term for rear doors hinged from the rear.

(4) In fast food advertising, a niche-market descriptor of high-calorie products deliberately or absurdly high in salt, sugar and fat.

(5) A trick in the game Diabolo where one of the sticks is released and allowed to rotate 360° round the diabolo until it is caught by the hand that released it.

(6) In Queensland (Australia) political history, as suicide squad, the collective name for the additional members of the Legislative Council (upper house) appointed in 1921 solely for the purpose of voting for its abolition.

(7) In sardonic military slang, as suicide mission, a description for an operation expected to suffer a very high casualty rate.

(8) A children's game of throwing a ball against a wall and at other players, who are eliminated by being struck.

(9) Pertaining to a suicide bombing, the companion terms being suicide belt & suicide vest.

(10) In electrical power, as "suicide cable (or cord, lead etc)", a power cord with male connections each end and used to inject power from a generator into a structing wiring system (highly dangerous if incorrectly used).

(11) In drug slang, the depressive period that typically occurs midweek (reputedly mostly on Tuesdays, following weekend drug use.

(12) In US slang, a beverage combining all available flavors at a soda fountain (known also as the "graveyard" or "swamp water".

(13) As "suicide runs" or "suicide sprints", a form of high-intensity sports training consisting of a series of sprints of increasing lengths, each followed immediately by a return to the start, with no pause between one and the next.

1651: From the New Latin  suīcīdium (killing of oneself), from suīcīda and thought probably of English origin, the construct being the Latin suī (genitive singular of reflexive pronunciation of se (one’s self)) from suus (one’s own) + cīdium (the suffix forms cīda & cide) from caedere (to kill).  The primitive European root was s(u)w-o (one's own) from the earlier s(w)e and new coining displaced the native Old English selfcwalu (literally “self-slaughter”).  Suicide is a noun & verb, suicidal is a noun & adjective, suicider is a noun; the noun plural is suicides.  Pedantic scholars of Latin have never approved of the word because, technically, the construct could as well be translated as the killing of a sow but, in medieval times, purity had long deserted Latin and never existed in English.  The modern meaning dates from 1728; the term in the earlier Anglo Latin was the vaguely euphemistic felo-de-se (one guilty concerning himself).  It may be an urban myth but there was a story that a 1920s editor of the New York Times had a rule that anyone who died in a Stutz Bearcat would be granted a NYT obituary unless the death was a suicide.

Terry Richardson's (b 1965) suicide-themed shoot with Lindsay Lohan, 2012. 

The Legislative Council was the upper house of the state parliament in Queensland, Australia and a bastion of what might now be called the upper 1% of white privilege.  The Australian Labor Party (ALP) had long regarded the non-elected Legislative Council (and upper houses in general) as undemocratic and reactionary so in 1915, after securing a majority in the Legislative Assembly (the lower house) which permitted the party to form government, they sought abolition.  The Legislative Council predictably rejected the bills passed by the government in 1915 & 1916 and a referendum conducted in 1917 decisively was lost; undeterred, in 1920, the government requested the governor appoint sufficient additional ALP members to the chamber to provide an abolitionist majority.  In this, the ALP followed the example of the Liberal Party in the UK which in 1911 prevailed upon the king to appoint as many new peers as might be needed for their legislation to pass unimpeded through an otherwise unsympathetic House of Lords.  Ultimately, the king agreed but so shocking did the lords find the idea of their chamber being flooded with "jumped-up grocers" that they relented in their opposition.  In Queensland however, the new members of the Legislative Council duly took their places and on 26 October 1921, the upper house voted in favor of abolition, the new appointees known forever as "the suicide squad".  Despite the success, the trend didn't spread and the Commonwealth parliament and those of the other five states remain bicameral although the two recent creations, established when limited self-government was granted to the Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory (ACT), both had unicameral assemblies.

Suicide doors

1928 Mercedes-Benz Nürburg (W08) with four rear-hinged doors.

It wasn’t until the 1950s the practice of hinging doors from the front became (almost) standardized.  Prior to that, they’d opened from the front or rear, some vehicles featuring both.  The rear-hinged doors became known as suicide doors because they were genuinely dangerous (in the pre-seat belt era), the physics of them opening while the car was at speed had the effect of dragging the passenger into the airstream.  Additionally, it was said they were more likely to injure people if struck by passing vehicles while being opened although the consequences of being struck by a car sound severe whatever the circumstances.

2021 Rolls-Royce Phantom VIII Tempus.

Still used in the 1960s by Lincoln, Ford and Rolls-Royce, they were phased out as post-Nader safety regulations began to be applied to automotive design and were thought extinct when the four door Ford Thunderbirds ceased production in 1971.  However, after being seen in a few design exercises over the decades, Rolls-Royce included them on the Phantom VII, introduced in 2003, the feature carried over to the Phantom VIII in 2017.  Like other manufacturers, Rolls-Royce has no fondness for the term suicide doors, preferring to call them coach doors; nomenclature from other marketing departments including flex doors and freestyle doors.  Engineers are less impressed by silly words, noting the correct term is rear-hinged and these days, mechanisms are included to ensure they can be opened only when the vehicle is at rest.  Encouraged by the reaction, Rolls-Royce brought back the rear-hinged door for their fixed (FHC) and drop-head (DHC) coupés although, despite the retro-touch, the factory seems now to call them simply coupés and convertibles.  

1971 Ford Thunderbird Landau.

In a nod to a shifting market, when the fifth generation Thunderbird was introduced in 1967, the four-door replaced the convertible which had been a staple of the line since 1955.  Probably the only car ever visually improved by a vinyl roof, the four-door was unique to the 1967-1971 generation, its replacement offered only as a coupé.  The decision effectively to reposition the model was taken to avoid a conflict with the new Mercury Cougar, the Thunderbird moving to the "personal coupé" segment which would become so popular.  So popular in fact that within a short time Ford would find space both for the Thunderbird and the Continental Mark III, changing tastes by the 1970s meaning the Cougar would also be positioned there along with a lower-priced Thunderbird derivative, the Elite.  Such was the demand for the personal coupé that one manufacturer successfully could support four models in the space, sometimes with over-lapping price-points depending on the options.  The four-door Thunderbirds are unique in being the only car ever built where the appearance was improved by the presence of a vinyl roof, the unusual semi-integration of the rear door with the C pillar necessitating something be done to try to conceal the ungainliness, the fake "landau irons" part of the illusion.

1966 Lincoln Continental convertible.

The combination of the suicide door, the four-door coachwork and perhaps even the association with the death of President Kennedy has long made the convertible a magnet for collectors but among American cars of the era, it is different in that although the drive-train is typical of the simple, robust engineering then used, it's packed also with what can be an intimidating array of electrical and hydraulic systems which require both expertise and equipment properly to maintain.  That need has kept a handful of specialists in business for decades, often rectifying the mistakes of others.  It was unique; after the even rarer Mercedes-Benz 300d Cabriolet D ceased production in 1962, Lincoln alone offered anything in the niche.  Introduced in 1961, the convertible was never a big seller, achieving not even four-thousand units in its best year and was discontinued after 1967, the two-door hardtop introduced the year before out-selling it by five to one.  The market had spoken; it would be the last convertible Lincoln ever produced.

Lincoln Continental concept, Los Angeles Motor Show, 2002.

Interest in the Lincoln Continental had been dwindling since the down-sizing of the early 1980s and the nameplate suffered a fourteen year hiatus between 2002-2016.  Unfortunately, the resuscitation used as its inspiration the concept car displayed at the 2015 New York International Auto Show rather than the one so admired at Los Angeles in 2002.  The LA concept might not have been original but was an elegant and balanced design, unlike what was offered in NYC fifteen years later: a dreary mash-up which looked something like a big Hyundai or a Chinese knock-off of a Maybach.  The public response was muted.

Lincoln Continental concept, New York Motor Show, 2015.

By 2019, it seemed clear the thing was on death-watch but Lincoln surprised the industry with a batch of eighty longer-wheelbase models with suicide doors to mark the eightieth anniversary of the Continental’s introduction in 1939.  Although there were cynics who suggested turning a US$72K car into one costing US$102K was likely aimed at the Chinese market where a higher price tag and more shiny stuff is thought synonymous with good taste, the anniversary models were sold only in the home market.

2019 Lincoln Continental Eightieth Anniversary Edition.

The retro gesture proved not enough.  After building a further one-hundred and fifty (non-commemorative) suicide door versions for 2020, it was announced production would end on 30 October 2020 and the Continental would not be replaced.  Not only was the announcement expected but so was the reaction; the market having long lost interest in the uninspiring twenty-first century Continentals, few expressed regret.  The name-plate however, one of the most storied in the Ford cupboard, will doubtless one day return.  What it will look like is unpredictable but few expect it will match the elegance of what was done in the 1960s.

Evelyn McHale: The most beautiful suicide.

The photograph remembered as “the most beautiful suicide” was taken by photography student Robert Wiles (1909-1991), some four minutes after the victim's death.  Evelyn Francis McHale (1923–1947) was a bookkeeper who threw herself to her death from the 86th-floor observation deck of New York's Empire State Building, landing on a Cadillac limousine attached to the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) which was parked on 34th street, some 200 feet (60 m) west of Fifth Ave.  The police would later find he last note which read: “I don’t want anyone in or out of my family to see any part of me. Could you destroy my body by cremation?  I beg of you and my family – don’t have any service for me or remembrance for me.  My fiance asked me to marry him in June.  I don’t think I would make a good wife for anybody. He is much better off without me.  Tell my father, I have too many of my mother’s tendencies.”  It's reported her mother suffered from “an undiagnosed and untreated depression”.

Gypsy

Gypsy (pronounced jip-see)

(1) A once common term for the Roma or Romani but now largely socially proscribed as disparaging and offensive (sometimes with initial capital letter).  The Roma or Romani are scattered throughout Europe and North America and often maintain a nomadic way of life even in urbanized, industrialized societies, their source apparently a wave of migration from north-west India from around the ninth century onwards.

(2) The Indic language of the Roma or Romani although not in formal academic or technical use (always with initial capital letter).

(3) A person held to resemble a Roma or Romani, especially in physical characteristics (notably the combination of darker skin and dark, curly hair) or in a traditionally ascribed lifestyle and inclination to move from place to place.

(4) Of or relating to the Roma or Romani (can be used neutrally but is often applied as a disparaging and offensive slur).

(5) In informal use, working independently or without a license; a vagrant; an itinerant person or any person, not necessarily Romani; a tinker, a traveller; a circus or carnival performer; any itinerant person, or any person suspected of making a living from dishonest practices or theft.

(6) In informal use, free-spirited (though distinct from “bohemian” which implies something more sophisticated).

(7) In informal use, a sly, roguish woman.

(8) In informal use, a fortune teller (now rare).

(9) A move in contra dancing in which two dancers walk in a circle around each other while maintaining eye contact (but not touching as in a swing), the variations including the whole gyp, the half gyp, and the gypsy meltdown (in which this step precedes a swing); out of context the terms can be disparaging and offensive.

(10) In theater, a member of a Broadway musical chorus line.

1505–1515: A back formation from gipcyan, a Middle English dialectal form of egypcien (Egyptian) which over centuries lost the unstressed initial syllable), adopted in this context because of the mistaken perception Gypsies came originally from Egypt.  It was used as an adjective since the 1620s (with the sense "unconventional; outdoor) and the modern (and now archaic) UK word gippy was in use by at least 1889 as a truncated colloquial form of “Egyptian” although gip & gyp as abbreviations of gipsy & gypsy were known since the 1840s, the related verbs being gipped & gipping.  It was cognate with the Spanish Gitano and close in sense to the Turkish & Arabic Kipti (gypsy) although the literal meaning of that was “Coptic” (the form of Christianity most common in Egypt).  In Middle French the closest term was Bohémien (although that tended to be a geographical reference without the same associations familiar from modern use), the Spanish also using Flamenco (from Flanders) in the same way.  Those adoptions of use do hint at the manner in which the Roma have so often been treated as “outsiders”, “outlanders” or “foreigners” in just about any country where they were found although the nuances of “gypsy” were very different to notions such as “rootless cosmopolitans” which were attached to the Jews.  The alternative spellings were gipsy, gipsey, gypsey, gypsie & gyptian, all of which except gipsy are thought archaic.

In his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926), Henry Fowler (1858–1933) noted the special significance of Gypsy (rather than gipsy) being the preferred spelling in English, a development not related to the practice imposed on other words (tyre, syphon et al) where a ‘y’ was substituted for an ‘I’ for no better reason than the effect was thought decorative.  Henry Fowler thought it helpful because it existed as a relic to remind those concerned that the original meaning was “Egyptian” but noted also the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) statement that (in the early twentieth century) the preferred spelling appeared to be gipsy by the plural form gypsies was far from uncommon, presumably because users found awkward the “…appearance and repetition of ‘y’”.  Gypsy is a noun, verb & adjective; gypsydom, gypsyhood & gypsyism are nouns, gypsying & gypsied are verbs and gypsyesque, gypsyish, gypsy-like & gypseian are adjectives; the noun plural is gypsies.

Noted traveller Lindsay Lohan, Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), 2009.

The terms "Gypsy", "Roma", "Traveller" and "Romani" are often used interchangeably, but there are differences.  Gypsy is a term that historically referred to the Romani people, who are believed to have originated in the Indian subcontinent and migrated to Europe and other parts of the world over many centuries but it’s usually now thought a derogatory slur because of the history of use in stereotyping and discriminating against Romani people.  Roma is now the preferred term for the Romani people, and it is often used to refer to the ethnic group as a whole.  Romani is an adjective that refers to anything related to the Roma people, such as Romani culture or the Romani language.  It is used also as a noun to refer to an individual member of the Roma people.  Traveller is a term used to describe various groups of people who live a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle, including the Roma people. However, there are other groups of people who are also considered Travellers, such as the Irish Travellers in Ireland and the UK.

Lymantria dispar: The moth formerly known as gypsy (their appearance is subject to wide variations between regions).  

TheAwareness of the sense shift of “gypsy” from something purely descriptive to a racial slur has also had consequences in zoology.  In 2021, the Entomological Society of America (ESA) announced it was removing “gypsy moth” and “gypsy ant” as the sanctioned common names for two insects.  The link between the insects and the slur is not as remote as some may suspect because as Romani scholar Professor Ethel Brooks noted, the common name of the species Lymantria dispar was gained from the behavior of the hairy larvae of the caterpillar stage during which the larvae would swarm and strip the leaves from a tree, leaving behind so much destruction that they were habitually referred to as “a plague”.  Tellingly, nobody ever cursed the Lymantria dispar but all blamed the “gypsy moth caterpillars”.  Dr Brooks made the connection between peoples’ view of the ravenous bugs and her own experience of the way the Roma were often disparaged.  She however confessed to being surprised her advocacy for change succeeded with the entomologists although the ESA was aware the Lymantria dispar’s common name was derogatory and had received a request for change as early as 2020, forming a Better Common Names Project, a task force to review and replace offensive or inappropriate insect common names.

Other branches of science are also acting.  The American Ornithological Society in 2020 announced the formation of an ad hoc committee to look into nomenclatures, some of the more obvious changes being the replacement of bird-names based on the names of people with dubious histories in colonialism or slavery.  In genetics, there’s also a move to rename the “Gypsy jumping genes”, a class noted for their propensity to make copies of themselves and insert them back into the genome.   In genetics, such revisions are not unknown; some years ago a number of genes were renamed because their original names, thought whimsical at the time, were held to be offensive to those with certain physical characteristics or suffering some forms of mental illness.  In ichthyology, attention is also being paid to names.  The Atlantic goliath grouper was historically referred to as the "jewfish" and while the origin of the name is obscure, a review determined it was likely the species' physical characteristics were connected habitually deployed caricatures of anti-Semitic beliefs and as long ago as 1927, the New York Aquarium changed the fish's name to Junefish.  In 2001, the American Fisheries Society (AFS) changed the name to "goliath grouper".

South African de Havilland DH.60G Gipsy Moth c/n 842 ZS-ABA, registered to The Johannesburg Light Plane Club At Baragwanath Airfield and pictured with Junkers A50 Junior ZS-ABV c/n 3511 and Avro 594 Avian II ZS-AAN c/n 124

The de Havilland Gipsy aero-engine enjoyed a very long life.  First produced in 1927, it was used in an extraordinary number of airframes, most famously de Havilland’s Gipsy Moth and Tiger Moth.  The last variant, the Gipsy Queen 70, left the assembly line almost thirty years after the first.

Stanton Special in its original 1953 hill climb form (left) and as re-configured in 1954 with a Weltex Mistral body for land speed record competition (right).    

One curious footnote in the long career of the Gipsy engine was its use in the 1953 Stanton Special, a New Zealand built race-car.  Although not a classic racing-car power-plant, the Gipsy was light, reliable and produced a lot of torque over a wide power-band, making it ideal for the hill-climbs for which it was intended.  A product typical of the practical improvisation which characterized so much of the early motor-sport scene in New Zealand, the engine was salvaged from a Tiger Moth used for aerial-spraying and the Stanton Special quickly was dubbed “the cropduster”, the aero-engine’s distinctive exhaust note meaning it was never mistaken for anything else.  So effective did it proved in hill climbs it attracted comments suggesting that were something done to improve its dubious aerodynamic properties, it might enjoy some success in events where speeds were higher.  Accordingly, Christchurch-based Weltex Plastics, one of the pioneers in the production of fibreglass structures, in 1954 furnished one of its Mistral bodies (a design produced under license from the UK’s Microplas), complete with a tail fin to enhance straight-line stability (a la that year’s Jaguar D-Type at Le Mans).  Thus configured and with the engine tuned further with the addition of an Abbott supercharger & four Amal carburetors, it was entered in some national land speed contests and won convincingly, managing an elapsed time of 12.96 seconds in the standing quarter-mile (400 m) and a flying quarter at 154 mph (248 km/h).  The tweaking continued and in 1958 it set an Australasian land speed record which would stand for ten years, covering the standing kilometre in 22.95 seconds with a terminal velocity of 175 mph (281 km/h).  The aerodynamics must have been good but remarkably no wind-tunnel time was part of the design process, the stylist apparently sketching something which “looked slippery”.

Fascinator

Fascinator (pronounced fas-uh-ney-ter)

(1) A person or thing that fascinates.

(2) A scarf of crochet work, lace, or the like, narrowing toward the ends, worn as a head covering by women.

(3) A lightweight, decorative head covering worn by women on formal occasions

1740-1750: The construct is fascinate (from the Late Latin fascinātus, perfect passive participle of fascinō (enchant, bewitch, fascinate), from fascinum (a phallus-shaped amulet worn around the neck used in Ancient Rome; witchcraft)) + -or (the Latin suffix which creates an agent noun, indicating a person who does something).  While the rule is not absolute, English generally appends the –or suffix where Latin would do it: to the root of a Latin-type perfect passive participle.  For other words, English tends more to use the suffix –er although there are words which have evolved to use both (protester & protestor).  In other cases, conventions have emerged such resistor which is the correct name for the use in electrical science whereas resister may elsewhere be used.  Fascinator is a noun.

The hat

Clipart file of Lindsay Lohan in fascinator.

Students of millinery seem inclined to trace the origins of the modern fascinator to the 1770s when, apparently on a whim, Marie Antoinette arranged clusters of ostrich and peacock feathers into her pomaded hair although images from antiquity suggest women have been using similar embellishments for millennia.  The name was first adopted in the 1960s, a borrowing from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when a fascinator was an oblong head covering of silk, lace, or net or, in its more functional forms, of knitted or crocheted fine yarn; essentially a scarf.  Taxonomically, milliners place modern fascinators under the genus of hats but definitely as a sub-set.  Milliner Philip Treacy (b 1967) who has made a great many defines them as “…a small adornment for the head, attached to a comb, wire, or clip that perches on the head with no brim or crown."  The term today seems to refer to anything attached to a clip, a headband, or a comb but which stops short of being a hat.  One failed marketing ploy was the hatinator, a word invented in 2012 and said to be a cross between hat and fascinator, a hatinator being defined as something fastened on the head with a band (like a fascinator), but with the appearance of a hat.  A clumsy attempt to create a market segment which already existed, women weren’t fooled.

Princess Beatrice of York (b 1998) in the Philip Treacy fascinator worn at the 2011 wedding of Prince William (b 1982) and Catherine Middleton (b 1982).  When first it was seen it attracted some derision as a "ridiculous wedding hat" which seems unfair because it was a clever design which played upon the motif of the head upon which it sat and it was the only memorable headgear seen on the day.  It was later sold at auction for US$131,560, said to be a record for such creations so there was that.