Lace

Lace (pronounced leys)

(1) A net-like, delicate & ornamental fabric made of threads by hand or machine and formed historically from cotton or silk (modern forms also using synthetics), woven almost always in an open web of symmetrical patterns and figures .

(2) A cord or string for holding or drawing together (shoes, garments, protective coverings etc) as when passed through holes in opposite edges.

(3) An ornamental cord or braid, especially of gold or silver, used to decorate military and other uniforms, hats etc.

(4) A small amount of alcoholic liquor or other substance added to food or drink.

(5) A snare or gin, especially one made of interwoven cords; a net.

(6) In the illicit drug trade, to add a (usually) small quantity of another substance to that being offered for sale (also sometimes deliberately undertaken by users for various purposes).

(7) To fasten, draw together, or compress by or as if by means of a lace.

(8) To pass (a cord, leather strip etc) through holes usually intended for the purpose.

(9) To interlace or intertwine.

(10) For decorative purposes, to adorn or trim with lace.

(11) To lash, beat, or thrash.

(12) To compress the waist of a person by drawing tight the laces of a corset (used descriptively with undergarments like shapewear which don’t use laces).

(13) To mark or streak, as with color.

(14) To be fastened with a lace:

(15) To attack (usually verbally but the term is rarely applied to physical violence), often in the form “laced into”.

(16) As the acronym LACE, Used variously including the liquid air cycle engine (a propulsion engine used in space travel), the Luton Analogue Computing Engine (a computer used by the UK military) and the Lunar Atmospheric Composition Experiment (a research project conducted on the final Apollo Moon mission).

1175–1225: From the Middle English noun lace, laace, laz & las (cord made of braided or interwoven strands of silk etc), from the Old French laz & las (a net, noose, string, cord, tie, ribbon, or snare), from the Vulgar Latin lacium & laceum, from the Classical Latin laqueum from laqueus (a noose or snare).  The Latin was the source also of the Italian laccio, the Spanish lazo and the English lasso, a trapping and hunting term, probably from the Italic base laq- (to ensnare) and thus comparable with the Latin lacere (to entice).  The verb was from the Middle English lasen & lacen, from the Old & Middle French lacer, lacier, lasser & lachier (which endures in Modern French as lacer), from the Latin laqueāre (to enclose in a noose, to trap).  Derived forms have been coined as required including enlace, lace-up, lacemaker, laceman, self-lacing, unlace, re-laced & well-laced although de-laced seems to be exclusive to the IT industry where it has a specific application in video displays (interlaced, non-interlaced and all that).  Lace is a noun & verb; lacer is a noun, lacing is a verb, lacelike & lacy are adjectives and laced is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is laces.

Vulcan Surprising Venus and Mars in Bed before an Assembly of the Gods (1679), oil on canvas by Johann Heiss (1640-1704).

The metal net weaved by the god Vulcan was in renaissance art called “Vulcan’s lace”, reflecting the general use to describe snares, fish nets etc and vividly it was described in both the Odyssey (the Greek text from the eighth or seventh century BC attributed to Homer) and Ovid's (the Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso; 43 BC–17 AD) Metamorphoses (Transformations; 8 AD).  The god Helios had happened upon the gods Venus and Mars in a passionate, adulterous liaison and he rushed to inform god Vulcan of his wife's faithlessness.  Enraged, Vulcan forged a net of bronze so fine it was invisible to the naked eye and carefully he place the lace over Venus’ bed so he could entrap the lustful pair at their next tryst.  It didn’t take long and thus ensnared, Vulcan called upon all of the other Olympians to witness the scene, the cuckolded Vulcan making his case before his peers.

Train of lace wedding gown.

Because of the method of construction, the word lace evolved by the turn of the fourteenth century to describe “a net, noose or snare”, simultaneously with it coming to mean “a piece of cord used to draw together the edges of slits or openings in an article of clothing”, a concept which survives in the modern shoelace although in Middle English it was used most frequently in the sense of “a cord or thread used particularly to bind or tie”.  It was used of fishing lines and (especially poetically) of the hangman’s rope and noose, the struts and beams used in architecture, and in the sixteenth century “death's lace” was the icy grip said to envelop the dying while “love’s lace” was the romantic feeling said to cloak youth enchanted with each other.  By the 1540s, improved technology meant increased production of “ornamental cords & braids” which influenced the meaning “fabric of fine threads in a patterned ornamental open net” becoming the predominant use of the English word and the trend continued because by the late nineteenth century a review of catalogues revealed dozens of varieties of commercially available lace.  Noted first in 1928 was an interesting use as an adjective of “lace-curtain” as a piece of class snobbery; it meant “middle class” or “lower-class with middle-class pretensions”) although it was often used in US cities of Irish-Americans, so it may also be thought both an ethnic and anti-Catholic slur.

Casting a practiced eye: Lindsay Lohan assessing a lace-up boot.

The verb developed from the noun and emerged so closely most etymologists consider it a concurrent form, the original sense being “fasten clothing etc with laces and ties”, a direct adoption of the sense of the Old French lacier “entwine, interlace, fasten with laces, lace on; entrap, ensnare” developed from the noun las or laz (net, noose, string, cord).  From the early fourteenth century it was oral shorthand meaning “tighten (a garment) by pulling its laces” and by at least the late sixteenth century (though probably earlier) it conveyed the idea of “adorning with lace”, applied both to furniture and fashion.  The meaning “to intermix (one’s coffee etc.) with a dash of liquor (typically brandy or whisky)” emerged in the 1670s, a product doubtlessly of the spike in popularity of coffee houses.  That sense was originally used also of sugar (from the notion of “to ornament or trim something with lace” while the meaning “beat, lash, mark with the lash” dates from the 1590s, the idea being the pattern of streaks left by the lash; from the early nineteenth century this idea was extended also to verbal assaults (usually as “laced into).  With his punctilious attention to such things, Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) in his A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) noted “laced mutton” was “an old word for a whore”.  The most enduring use is probably the shoelace (also as shoe-lace although the old form “shoe string” seems to be extinct). The “length of lace used to draw together and fasten the sides of a shoe via eyelets”, the noun dating from the 1640s.  Also extinct is another older word for the thong or lace of a shoe or boot: the Middle English sho-thong which was from the Old English scoh-þwang.

1997 Toyota Century V12.  Cars sold on the Japanese domestic market (JDM) are famous for frequently being adorned with what are known as Japanese car seat doilies.  While most are mass produced from modern synthetics and appear in things like taxis, some used in up-market cars are genuine hand-made lace.  Interestingly, while Toyota created the Lexus brand because of the perceived “prestige deficit” suffered by the Toyota name in overseas markets, for decades the Century (sold only in the JDM) has been supplied to the Imperial household.

Lindsay Lohan in lace top, 2004.

The adjective lace-up dates (adj.) from 1831 and was originally a cobblers’ description of boots, directly from the verbal phrase “lace up”; in the mid-twentieth century it was re-purposed in the form “laced-up” to imply someone was “repressed, overly conservative and restricted in their attitudes” the notion being of someone (a woman of course” who never “loosened her stays” with all that implies, the significance being the use emerged decades after corsets had ceased to be worn, the suggestion being a throwback to what were imagined to be Victorian (nineteenth century) attitudes towards personal morality.  This adaptation of lace wasn’t entirely new.  The early fifteenth century adjective “strait-laced” referenced stays or bodices “made close and tight” which was originally purely descriptive but soon came to be adopted figuratively to suggest someone “over-precise, prudish, strict in manners or morals”.  The adjective lacy (which differs from lace-like in that the former references extent, the latter resemblance) and dates from 1804; it’s wholly unrelated to the given name Lacey (which although technically gender-neutral is now conferred predominately on girls and was of Old French origin meaning “from Lacy (or Lassy)” and was originally the surname of French noblemen, the De Lasi, from the Normandy region; it reached the British Isles during the Norman conquest (1066).  The trade of laceman (one who deals in laces) was known since the 1660s while the necklace (“a flexible ornament worn round the neck”) was first so described in the 1580s although such things had been worn by both men & women for thousands of years.  A gruesome use emerged in Apartheid era South Africa during the 1980s where “necklacing” was a form of extrajudicial summary execution which involved drenching a car tyre in a mixture of oil and petrol (or pure diesel) and forcing it around a victim's chest and arms, then setting it alight.  Although never officially condoned by the African National Congress (ANC), it was widely used in black townships as a form of public execution of black Africans suspected of collaborating with the white minority government.  Victims were said to have been “necklaced” and the practice spread elsewhere in Africa, to South Asia and the Caribbean.

Real Housemom’s Irish Coffee Royale

Ingredients

2 oz brandy or cognac
2 oz Irish cream
4 oz brewed coffee (served strong)
Granulated sugar crystals (optional and nor recommended)

Instructions

Warm brandy and Irish cream in small saucepan over low heat, then combine with coffee.  A small amount of sugar can be added but there is sweetness in the Irish cream and the sugar tends to detract from the taste.  The difference between an Irish coffee and a coffee royale is that the former is laced with Irish Whiskey, the latter with brandy or cognac.

Charybdis & Scylla

Charybdis (pronounced kuh-rib-dis)

(1) A dangerous whirlpool in the Strait of Messina off the north-east coast of Sicily, lying opposite Scylla.  The modern name is Galofalo (or Garofalo).

(2) In classical mythology, a daughter of Gaea and Poseidon, a ship-devouring monster mentioned in Homer and later identified with the whirlpool Charybdis; A personification of the above whirlpool as a female monster.

(3) In casual use, any dangerous whirlpool.

From antiquity: A Latinized form of the Ancient Greek Χάρυβδις (Kharybdis or Khárubdis) of unknown origin. 

Scylla (pronounced sil-uh)

(1) A rock in the Strait of Messina off the southern coast of Italy.  The modern name is Scilla.  

(2) In classical mythology, a sea nymph who was transformed into a sea monster; later identified with the rock Scylla; a personification of the rock as a ravenous monster.

(3) A mud crab, mangrove crab of the taxonomic genus within the family Portunidae.

(4) In astronomy, the main belt asteroid 155 Scylla.

(5) In Greek mythology a princess, daughter of King Nisos of Megara, who fell in love with King Minos and betrayed her city to him.

From antiquity: A Latinized form of the Ancient Greek Σκύλλα (Skúlla) of unknown origin although there’s speculation it may be related to the Ancient Greek skyllein (to tear).

Between Scylla and Charybdis

The proverbial Latin incidit in scyllam cupiens vitare charybdim (he runs into Scylla, wishing to avoid Charybdis) describes a choice between two unpalatable alternatives; those situations where one must choose the lesser of two evils.  In English, the sentiment is expressed also as as being caught “between the devil and the deep blue sea” or “between a rock and a hard place".  Charybdis was the child of Gaea and Poseidon.  Born a nymph who served her father, after displeasing Zeus, she was cursed and became a much-feared sea monster residing in the Strait of Messina.  As a nymph, Charybdis was responsible for flooding dry land in her father’s kingdom so is credited the world over with the ebb and flow of the daily tides but this all changed when she drew the ire of mighty Zeus and although there are two stories of how she came to be cursed, both end the same.  In the first, Charybdis became overzealous and started to flood too much land.  Angered by this, Zeus trapped and transformed her, forcing her to live at the Strait of Messina on the side closest to Italy.  In the second account, she was stealing and eating sheep belonging to Heracles, which he had stolen from Geryon in his tenth labor. That Charybdis had stolen what Heracles had rightfully kidnapped enraged Zeus, and he punished her.

So, she ended up transformed and imprisoned at the Strait of Messina.  Trapped either in a cave or under the rock on which a huge fig tree grew, she was required to continue her duties, but only three times daily for ebb, and three for flow.  Because of this symmetry of action, a huge whirlpool formed in the strait, creating a danger to all who attempted to pass, a danger is compounded by there being on the Sicilian side of the strait, the monster Scylla, who would snatch sailors from ships that cruised too near her perch.  The most famous descriptions of Charybdis are in the tales of the journeys of Odysseus.  Odysseus knew the dangers posed by Charybdis and Scylla and asked Circe for a way safely to pass between them.  She said there was no truly safe passage, but that were he to sail closer to Scylla, he would lose only a few men, while in sailing close to Charybdis, he would lose his crew, his ship, and his life.  Odysseus did as advised, losing six men but saving his ship.  On his journey back, having wrecked his ship and lost all his crew, Odysseus again encountered Charybdis though now it was just him and a few salvaged fragments of his ship he had lashed into a raft.  This time, she was sucking the seas downward and Odysseus survived only by clinging to a limb of the fig tree on her rock but his raft was drawn into her abyss.  For hours he hung to the tree, waiting for Charybdis to relent, hoping to regain his raft which, sure enough, returned to the surface intact.  He recovered it, with his hands, paddled quickly away before.

Odysseus facing the choice between Scylla and Charybdis (circa 1795), oil on canvas by Johann Heinrich Füssli (1741-1825)

The myths of Antiquity suggest several goddesses as mother of Scylla.  In the Odyssey, the mother is an obscure sea goddess named Crataeis though later scholars proposed Crataeis was another name for Ceto, a primordial sea goddess, or Hecate, the triple-bodied goddess of magic and passageways.  A fourth candidate is Lamia, a monstrous shape-shifter and infamous man-eater.  He father was either Phorcys, a primordial sea god, or an obscure character named Titon.  Scylla when young was a ravishing nymph, living among the sea nymphs who wrought havoc in the hearts of young Greek men. She had milky skin, hair like silk, and was hauntingly beautiful; men fell in love with her in an instant but beauty doomed her.  She loved to bathe in the pools by the sea side, combing her long hair with the nymphs’ combs and gossiping with them about those she had evaded.  The nymphs tried to warn Scylla men became enraged when spurned but the young maiden remained light-hearted and careless, sunning herself nude on the beaches and luxuriating in the tide pools.

One day, a sea god name Glaucus caught sight of the lovely nymph and captivated, he approached her but on her dainty feet she fled.  Grumpy Glaucus complained of this rejection to Circe, a sea witch and brewer of potions.  Little did Glaucus know that Circe longed for him and when she heard of his desire for Scylla, was so angered, secretly she crept to Scylla’s favorite pool which she poisoned with a terrible potion.  When the poor nymph returned to bathe, her legs were twisted into yapping dogs, and she felt a burning pain as six monstrous heads sprouted from her back.  When Glaucus saw her again, he was horrified and heartbroken, abandoning Scylla to her fate and cursing Circe for her act of jealous evil.

After her transformation, Scylla hid in the cliffs overlooking her old tide pool where she took out her rage against men, whose unsought passion she blamed for her fate, attacking their ships as they sailed by.  Rejected by Glaucus, Circe had fallen in love with Odysseus and for some time kept him and his crew imprisoned on her island but when she saw how he longed to return home, she released him and told him how to make his voyage safely. She warned him of the dangers of Scylla and Charybdis, telling him to hide below deck as he passed the monster’s cave.  He was thus saved and Scylla devoured only six of his crew.  After she attacked other important voyagers (most notably the Argonauts), the gods grew tired of Scylla’s bloodbath and decided to add her to the twelve labors of Heracles.  Incredibly, the hero managed to slay her by cutting off each of her heads, one by one and, for a while, she served as one of the guardians of the underworld. Then, she was resurrected by her father. Finally, Poseidon took pity on the still sweet-faced monster and transformed her into a giant rock, thereby ending the miserable cycle of bitterness and revenge her life had become.

Sequin

Sequin (pronounced see-kwin)

(1) A small shining disk or spangle used for ornamentation, on clothing, accessories and theatrical costumes (paillette the synonym).

(2) A gold coin (the ducat, known also as the zecchino, zechine or zecchine) minted by many authorities in the Mediterranean region including Venice (1284), Malta (circa 1535) and Turkey (now the Republic of Türkiye) (1478).

1575–1585: From the French sequin, from the Italian zecchino, the construct being zecc(a) (mint, from the Arabic سِكَّة‎ (sikka) (die for striking coins; a coin)) + -ino; a doublet of zecchin.  The Italian suffix -ino was from the Latin -īnus, from the primitive Indo-European -inos and was comparable with the English -ine.  It was a noun-forming suffix used (1) to form diminutives, (2) to indicate a profession, (3) to indicate an ethnic or geographical origin & (4) to denote a device, tool or instrument; as an adjective-forming suffix it was used (1) to indicate an ethnic or geographical origin & (2) to denote composition, color or other physical qualities.  Sequin & sequining are nouns (although some may use the latter as a verb) and sequined is an adjective; the noun plural is sequins.

Gold zecchino (ducat) minted in Venice between 1676-1684.

It was in 1284 the Venetian Republic began minting the gold ducat.  Prized for their purity, they were a medium of exchange (money) widely used all around the Mediterranean an enjoyed a status not greatly different that the modern US dollar.  Before long the ducat came to be called the zecchino after the name of the Venetian mint (the Zecca) and, reflecting the political nature of the republic, the dies used to stamp the zecchini changed with the rile of each doge (the chief magistrate in the republics of Venice and Genoa, from the Venetian Doxe, from the Latin ducem, accusative of dux (leader, prince).   It was a doublet of duke and dux and the source of the Duce (leader) made infamous by Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943)), something which means the coins easily can be dated.

Ducat (known also as the zecchino, zechine or zecchine), was from the Middle French ducat, from the late Old French ducat, from the Old Italian ducato, from the Medieval Latin ducatus, from the Classical Latin dukatus, from the oblique stem of dux (duke; leader).  The adoption of the name ducat was inspired by the inscription on the reverse of the first coinage: Sit tibi Christe datus quem tu regis iste ducatus (To you, Christ, be given this dukedom which you reign).  In Venice, ducats were minted until the republic was absorbed into Austria under the terms of the Treaty of Campo Formio (1797) but even in the years of decline the ducats maintained their integrity, their fine weight (gold content) always around 986/1000 (3.44 g), something which meant that in addition to being the region’s currency, the predictability of mass meant they were accepted as the standard yardstick for weight comparisons for metals and some other commodities.

Lindsay Lohan in Matthew Williamson sequin dress with marabou feather hem, London, October 2015.

Hinting that conspicuous consumption is nothing new, it became fashionable among well-bred ladies throughout the Mediterranean world to stitch Venetian zecchini and other coins to their clothing and head-dresses.  Variations of the word zecchino (along with the similar Arabic word سِكَّة‎ (sikka)) in time became “sequin” and came to be used to refer to any shiny circular adornment used to decorate clothing and this persisted long after the use of gold coins for this purpose had (by the mid-Renaissance) ceased although, as valid currency, they were still being exchanged and retained as a store of value well into the twentieth century.  In the West, by 1852 publications devoted to fashion were describing sequins as “ornamental discs or spangles” which although no longer attached to clothes, east of Suez the gold coins were still used as necklaces or earrings and often adorned head-dresses.  Today, far removed from the glittering origins of the things, most sequins are cheap, mass-produced in the Far-East, made from plastic, glass or metal and are applied for just about any decorative purpose including clothes, shoes, jewelry, accessories and even home & commercial decor.

Boss

Boss (pronounced bos or baws)

(1) A person who employs or supervisors workers; a manager; a person in charge of a business or company.

(2) A politician who controls the party organization, as in a particular district (historically most associated with the Democrat & Republican party “machines” in US cities from the mid-nineteenth to the late twentieth centuries and notorious for devious, corrupt or illegal practices and still used in many countries where the US influence was strong, notably the Philippines.

(3) To be master of or over; manage; direct; control; to be a boss.

(4) To order about (used especially if conducted in an officious manner.

(5) To be too domineering and authoritative (often as “bossy”).

(6) To ornament with bosses; to emboss.

(7) In slang, first-rate; the best.

(8) In botany & zoology, a protuberance or roundish excrescence on the body or some internal organ of an animal or on a plant.

(9) In geology, a knob-like mass of rock, especially an outcrop of igneous or metamorphic rock, applied particularly to the uppermost part of an underlying batholith.

(10) An ornamental protuberance of metal, ivory, etc; a stud.

(11) In architecture, an ornamental, knob-like projection, as a carved keystone at the intersection of ogives.

(12) A stone roughly formed and set in place for later carving.

(13) In bookbinding, one of several pieces of brass or other metal inset into the cover of a book to protect the corners or edges or for decoration.

(14) In engineering, a small projection on a casting or forging appearing on a machine or fitting; an area of increased thickness, usually cylindrical, that strengthens or provides room for a locating device on a shaft, hub of a wheel etc

(15) In nautical use, a projecting part in a ship's hull or in one frame of a hull, fitting around a propeller shaft.

(16) In plumbing, to hammer (sheet metal, as lead) to conform to an irregular surface.

(17) In dialectal (northern English) use, a familiar name for a calf or cow.

(18) In dialectal (Scots) use, hollow.

(19) As the abbreviation BOSS, the Bureau of State Security; an apartheid-era branch of the South African security police which existed 1969-1980.

(20) In informal use (particularly in India and in Multicultural London English (MLE)), a term of address to a man, not of necessity related to employment, status or other relationships but also as an alternative of “guv” or “guvnor”.

(21) In video gaming, an enemy, often at the end of a level, that is particularly challenging and must be beaten in order to progress (from the Far East), from the Japanese ボス (bosu).  In Swedish, the related form is slutboss (the construct being slut (end) +‎ boss (boss) and synonymous with sista bossen).

(22) In (allegedly) humorous use, one’s wife.

(23) In archery, a target block (now constructed usually of hard foam but historically made of hay bales), to which a target face is attached.

(24) In building, a wooden vessel for the mortar used in tiling or masonry, hung by a hook from the laths, or from the rounds of a ladder.

(25) In hydrology, a head or reservoir of water.

(26) A hassock or small seat, especially made from a bundle of straw (obsolete).

1250–1300: From the Middle English bos, bose & boce, from the Anglo-French boce (lump, growth, boil), from the Old French boce (lump, bulge, protuberance, knot), from either the Frankish bottja or the (unattested) Vulgar Latin bottia, both of uncertain origin but probably related to the Italian bozza (metal knob, swelling) and the Proto-Germanic bautaną (to hit, strike, beat).  By the turn of the fifteenth century, it was used in the sense of “to swell out; to beat or press into a raised ornament” and by the 1620s as “to furnish with bosses”.  The word survives as the Modern French bosse.

The (highly nuanced) use to mean “a supervisor” dates from the 1640s and was a creation of US English, from the Dutch baas (master, foreman).  The Dutch baas was from the Middle Dutch baes (master of a household, friend), from the Old Dutch baso (uncle, kinsman), from the Proto-West Germanic baswō, from the Proto-Germanic baswô (uncle) which may have been from the Proto-Germanic ba- or bō- (father, older male relative), the source also of the English terms babe, boy, bub & bully. It was cognate with the Middle Low German bās (supervisor, foreman), the Old Frisian bas (master), hence the Saterland Frisian Boas (boss) and the Old High German basa (father's sister, cousin) from which German gained Base (aunt, cousin) (although not all etymologists are convinced there’s a link with the Old High German basa).  The etymology seems to suggest the word originally was a term of respect used to address an older male relative (usually an uncle but also even others considered “honorary uncles”).  Later, in New Amsterdam (the old name for New York), it came to mean “a person in charge who is not a master (in the legal sense of ownership) and the representation of the Dutch -aa- by the English -o- is attributed to the older, unrounded pronunciation of this letter, which remains prevalent in North America and parts of Ireland, but in the colonial era existed also in some British accents.  The Dutch form baas is in English from the 1620s as the standard title of a Dutch ship's captain and the rapid adoption in the US may have reflected the popularity of a word which avoided the slavery implications of “master”, something never necessary in England where the terms master & servant were included in legislation into the twentieth century.

Lindsay Lohan released the track Bossy in May 2008.  It was classified as electropop & dance-pop and was about a bolshie woman; it’s thus considered autobiographical.

The slang adjective meaning “excellent; first rate” was in use at least by the 1880s although it faded from use before being revived (perhaps independently) in the 1950s, in the slang of US youth and jazz musicians.  The adjective bossy was developed from the noun and in the 1540s meant “a swelling, projecting and rounded, decorated with bosses” The meaning “domineering, fond of ordering people about” was first noted in 1882.  The use as the Scots adjective meaning “hollow; empty” dates from the early sixteenth century and is of obscure origin.  The northern English dialectal form which was a familiar name for a cow or calf was first documented in 1844 and was from the earlier dialectal form buss (calf) which is of uncertain origin but is thought almost certainly from the Latin bōs cow (ox), from the primitive Indo-European root gwou- (ox, bull, cow).  The verb emboss (to ornament with raised work) dated from the late fourteenth century and was from the Old French embocer (and thus a similar form to embocieure (boss, stud, buckle), from an assimilated form of the construct en- (in, into) + boce (knoblike mass).  The synonyms, depending on context includes administrator, chief, chieftain, director, employer, executive, leader, owner, supervisor, capital, champion, fine, fly, top, controller (or comptroller), executive, foreman, foreperson, head, honcho, head honcho, overseer & superintendent.  Boss is a noun, verb & adjective, bosser & bossiness are nouns, bossed is a verb, bossing is a verb & adjective, bossily is an adverb and bossy is an adjective; the noun plural is bosses.

The Boss Mustangs

During the initial development phase in 1968-1969, the project code for Ford’s Boss Mustang programme was the bland “SKO” (Special Mustang, Kansas City Operation).  According to industry legend, secrecy was maintained by instructing the staff working to the prototype to respond to any questions about the vehicle by saying “it’s the boss’s car”.  Whether or not that’s true, it was the project's boss (the chief engineer) who suggested the “BOSS” name formerly be adopted as the official model designation and although the management team initially responded with restrained enthusiasm, the production cars emerged as 1969 models as the “Boss Mustang” and the response was so good it was continued for three seasons and the corporation has over the decades revived the name, both in the US and Australia.

1969 Ford Mustang Boss 302.

The first of the line was the Boss 302, introduced in 1969.  The Boss 302 existed solely to ensure Ford would have a competitive entry for the SCCA’s (Sports Car Club of America) Trans-Am series which was conducted in two classes, one for cars with engines up to 2.0 litres (122 cubic inch) and one with a five litre (305 cubic inch) limit, the Mustangs campaigned in the latter.  Ford had enjoyed early success in the series but Chevrolet’s Camaro had prevailed in 1968, its Z/28 package optimized for the road circuits on which the events were conducted and Ford’s initial response had been the “Tunnel Port” engine, developed with cylinder heads cleverly designed for top end power at the expense of just about everything else.  The tunnel ports certainly delivered the power but the high-revving engines proved chronically unreliable although the debate about whether this was a fundamental flaw in the design or some laxness in the preparation has never been resolved and their performance in competition over the decades since does suggest that if assembled and maintained with the appropriate care, they’re a robust unit.

1970 Ford Mustang Boss 302.

However, noting the care with which the Z/28 had been configured, Ford decided to follow their example and conceived the Boss 302 Mustang with a bucket of money in one hand and plans of the Trans-Am’s circuits in the other.  Added to the robust 302 cubic inch (4.9 litre) Windsor block were more modern cylinder heads with canted valves, emulating the approach adopted for the new Cleveland (335) series V8.  Unlike the highly strung tunnel ports, the Boss 302 had a wider power band and more low-speed torque, characteristics more suited to the race tracks.  To comply with the homologation rules, 1000 identical examples had to be sold but such was the demand 1628 were built, all fitted with the modifications to the brakes and suspension required to provide the basis of a successful race car.  Despite it all, the Camaro again won the series in 1969 but the Boss 302 returned to take the title in 1970 and that year's model proved even more popular with 7013 sold.

1969 Ford Mustang Boss 429.

The homologation of the Boss 302 for competition was a simple matter in that it was a complete package, as required under SCCA rules.  The Boss 429 Mustang was different in that it was only the engine which was required to be built is sufficient numbers, 500 required for them to be used on the NASCAR (National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing) ovals & circuits and with 857 built in 1969 (a further 499 1970 models were also produced), the threshold was reached.  The Mustang was not used in the main NASCAR events but such was the symbiotic relationship between the sanctioning body and the manufacturers that Ford was granted permission separately to homologate the platform and the powerplant, the intermediate Torino Talladegas (actually to be used) with their aerodynamic enhancements produced in their run of 500 (which may or may not have been produced in time) but fitted with ordinary engines.  So cooperative was NASCAR that they even nudged their capacity limit to 430 cubic inches to accommodate Ford’s new engine which was just slightly larger than the previous 7 litre mark.  Ford's approach sounds needlessly complicated (as well as being expensive) but market research suggested that while demand would exist for at least 500 Boss 429 Mustangs, 500 Ford Torinos & Mercury Cyclones (the models actually used in NASCAR competition) with the big engine might be hard to shift.

Boss 429 in 1969 Mercury Cyclone, 1971 Daytona 500.

The decision was thus taken to put the Boss 429 in the pony car but it was not a simple task and one certainly not appropriate for Ford’s high volume, mass-production lines so the job was out-sourced to a third party which received a series of deliveries in two parts, (1) batches of complete cars and (2) crates containing engines.  The task was to remove the existing engine (to be returned to the factory), make the necessary modifications to the body and suspension, fit the Boss 429 and attend to all the small details which made the cars into regular production models.  The concept was simple but the wide engine wouldn’t fit without significant changes and although Ford never revealed how much of a loss it made on each Boss 429, estimates by "normally reliable sources" figured it in the low four figures (ie more than US$1000) per unit.  Still, they must have been pleased with the investment because the engine did the job in NASCAR and the aura surrounding the Boss 429 Mustang has grown over the years.  That however took a while because it wasn’t wholly suited to life on the street or the drag-strip and was at its happiest only when on a racetrack at full throttle, breathing in through a very big carburetor and out through free-flowing tubular headers.  On the street, the problem was the same as that which plagued the tunnel port 302: the huge intake ports meant a lack of low-speed responsiveness (ie low-speed torque) because there was insufficient pressure for the fuel/air mix.  The professionals however learned quickly, the pioneers of the then still novel business of turbo-charging finding the Boss 429 took to forced aspiration like few others.

The one-off, mid-engined Mustang Boss 429 (left) and the adapted drivetrain package (right).  Unusually (although in 1969 anything mid-engined was "unusual"), the gearbox was in front of the engine with the differential behind, the same arrangement which two years later Lamborghini would display when the prototype Countach LP500 made its debut at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show.   

One quirky footnote in Boss 429 statistics is that although the orthodoxy is all were fitted with four-speed manual gearboxes, three were built with Ford's C6 automatic transmission.  One was a "proof of concept" mid-engined car which is believed to have been crushed once the evaluation was process was complete while the other two were part of a fleet of seven (the other five powered by the 428 CobraJet engine) built for the "1970 Military Performance Tour", a program run in response to the alarming finding the death toll of soldiers buying muscle cars after returning from tours of duty in Vietnam was close to battlefield losses.  One of the automatic Boss 429 Mustangs survived and the unique machine is still in private hands.  The mid-engined car was built under the program code LID (Low-Investment Drive-train), an allusion to things being done "on the cheap", using as many off-the-shelf components as possible.  As a car, the thing worked well but despite the weight-distribution shifting from a nose-heavy 60/40 (front-rear) to 40/60, surprisingly, there was no significant improvement in performance.       

1971 Ford Mustang Boss 351.

Times had changed by 1971.  It was obvious to all the crazy era of the muscle cars was in its last days and both the Boss 302 and 429 were retired, the tasks of homologation done.  There was however a Boss 351 Mustang, a machine with no pretensions to any real link with competition although it was dressed up to look the part.  A development of Fords 335 (Cleveland) series, it's an engine at which the purists have sometimes looked askance because it lacked the extensive lubrication enjoyed by the Windsor which underlay the Boss 302s but for street use it's certainly more than adequate.  The lack of pedigree has meant the Boss 351 has never enjoyed the stellar reputation of its predecessors and its lines doubtlessly contributed to that, the new body bigger and heavier, lacking the litheness of the earlier years.  Even when standing still however the thing undeniably had a presence although the dramatic roofline (said to be highly aerodynamic) did restrict rearward visibility, the glass close to horizontal.

1971 Ford Mustang Boss 351.

It may not have enjoyed the racing history of the Boss 302 or possessed the thoroughbred lineage of the Boss 429 but lurking behind all the thunder, the Boss 351 ranks with the best of the Chrysler 340s as one of the most under-estimated engines of the era and contemporary reports were impressed with the performance, noting it could run with machines fitted with engines sometimes 100 cubic inches (1.6 litres) larger while at the same time delivering a better driving experience, the smaller, lighter weight over the front wheels making it rather more nimble although that phrase was relative; the Boss 351 was no Lotus Elan.  The engine technically was Ford’s short-lived 351 HO which would soon fall victim to the increasingly restrictive emission regulations but demand was anyway falling; having sold over 7000 Boss 302s in 1970, only 1806 Boss 351s were made.

Lindsay Lohan, Bossy (2008)

Vegan

Vegan (pronounced vee-guhn or vey-guhn)

(1) A vegetarian who omits all animal products from their diet and does not use animal-based or sourced products such as leather or wool.

(2) Someone from Vega, towns in Scandinavia, the US or (mostly in fiction) other places so named.

(3) A collective name adopted in the 1980s by fans of the singer-songwriter, Suzanne Vega (b 1959).

1944: A modern English construct, veg (contraction of vegetable) + an, coined by Donald Watson (1910-2005) to distinguish those who abstain from all animal products (eggs, cheese, etc) from those who merely refuse to eat the animals.  The -an suffix occurred originally in adjectives borrowed from Latin, formed from nouns denoting places (Roman; urban) or persons (Augustan) but now productively forms English adjectives by extension of the Latin pattern.  The suffix an, and its variant ian also occurs in a set of personal nouns, mainly loanwords from French, denoting one who engages in, practices, or works with the referent of the base noun (historian; theologian); this usage especially productive with nouns ending in ic (electrician; logician; technician ).  Vegan is a noun & adjective, vegansexual is a noun and veganism, vegansexualism & veganist are nouns; the noun plural is vegans.

Donald Watson was an English animal rights advocate who founded The Vegan Society in 1944.  Although the actual establishment of the society was either 5 or 12 November (the records are contradictory), World Vegan Day is each year celebrated on 1 November.  In 1984, a dissident faction broke from the group and formed The Movement for Compassionate Living and ever since, veganism has been a contested space, the factions including (1) radicals who pursue direct action against the slaughter industry and its customers, (2) purists who exclude to whatever extent possible the presence of animal products in their lives while variously tolerating, ignoring or disapproving of those who don't and (3), vegetarians who can't resist nice handbags and shoes.  Latest vegan news here. 

The Sexual Politics of Meat

While still an undergraduate at the University of Rochester, Carol J Adams (b 1951) was instrumental in having women's studies courses added to the syllabus.  A long-time vegan, she later gained a masters from Yale Divinity School but her core interest remained feminism and in 1990, building on earlier essays, she published The Sexual Politics of Meat, an exploration of her vegetarian-feminist, pacifist, intersectional critical theory.

Her most novel concept was the "absent referent", used to explain the consumption of meat and the objectification of women in pornography, the referent literally absent in the case of the life of the dismembered beast being consumed; metaphorically in the oppression of the life of the subjects of pornography.  Adams constructed parallels within the patriarchal system, men’s sense of entitlement over animals similar to their varying expectations of the right to abuse, exploit, or degrade women in the use of their bodies.  Structurally she noted, language is replete with terms and phrases which interchangeably can be used to describe either women or animals with a hierarchy of use based on speciesism depending on men’s perceptions of degrees of female attractiveness.  All such use she claimed, regardless of how else it could be classified, is hate speech.

Most graphic was the notion of the pornography of meat which drew a visual comparison between meat advertised for sale on shelves and the portrayal of women in various media; two different forms of consumption which use the same techniques of production and distribution.  Within the western consumer model, Adams found a construct of white male supremacy which relegated all others, different races, non-human animals and women, to inferior roles or places.

Linder Sterling in meat dress (1982).

Linder Sterling (b 1954) is a radical feminist artist.  In November 1982, as part of a punk performance in Manchester’s Haçienda club, she appeared in a dress made from meat, while packages of leftover raw meat wrapped in pornography were distributed to the audience.  The performance culminated with a quite aggressive critique of the exploitation of women which, at the time, seems genuinely to have been confronting.

Lady Gaga in meat dress (2010).

By 2010, the "waves" had made feminism diffuse, the inherently post-modern platform of social media had imposed on pop-culture an inevitable equivalency of value and there was perhaps no longer a capacity to shock, just to be photographed.  Lady Gaga’s (b 1986) meat dress (asymmetrical, with cowl–neck), worn at the MTV Video Music Awards is now remembered as just another outfit, named by many as the fashion statement of 2010.  While there was cultural comment, the piece's place in history is as a frock, not for any meaning, implied or inferred.  Lady Gaga though remained phlegmatic, quoted later as saying, "... it has many interpretations.”  She later clarified things by saying the meat dress wasn't significant as a piece of clothing but was intended as a comment on the state of the fashion industry and the importance of focusing on individuality and inner beauty rather than superficial appearances.  One implication may have related to impermanence; because the garment was made wholly from raw meat, it had to be preserved with chemicals before and after the event but there are limits to what's chemically possible and the parts of the garment which had decomposed were discarded before the remains were dried and a permanent coating applied.  The preserved dress has since been displayed.  Lady Gaga no longer wears "meat-based" clothing.  

Tash Peterson letting people know how sausages are made.

Something of a local legend in the world of vegan activism, Tash Peterson (b circa 1995) is an animal rights activist based in Perth, Australia.  Not actually in the militant extreme of the movement which engages in actual physical attacks on the personnel, plant & equipment of the industries associated with animal slaughter, Ms Peterson's form of direct action is the set-piece event, staged to produce images and video with cross-platform appeal, the footage she posts on social media freely available for re-distribution by the legacy media, her Instagram feed providing a sample of her work in various contexts. Ms Peterson is a vegansexual (a vegan who chooses to have sex or pursue sexual relationships only with other vegans).

Her events have included approaching people in the meat section of supermarkets, wearing a blood-soaked butcher's apron while carrying the simulated carcass of a chicken, donning a rather fetching cow-skin (presumably synthetic) bodysuit in front of a milk and yoghurt display while carrying a sign surmising the processes of industrial dairy farming in anthropomorphic terms, wearing bloodied clothing to fast food outlets while using a megaphone to address queues of customers, explaining the details of what's done to animals so they can enjoy their burgers and, eschewing even the sensible shoes she usually wears, adorned in nothing but a pair of knickers and liberally smeared with (what she claimed to be her own menstrual) blood, staging a protest in Perth's Louis Vuitton shop, shouting at the customers and calling them "animal abusers".

Tash Petersen on OnlyFans.

Ms Peterson was banned from all licensed venues in Western Australia after storming pubs and restaurants, her critique of course the content of the meals rather than their sometimes dubious quality; after that, she travelled briefly to the eastern states but has since returned to Perth.  She has an active and apparently lucrative account on OnlyFans with all that that implies but there is an element of animal rights activism even there so whether her two interests should be thought vertical or horizontal integration might be an interesting question for economic theorists.

Fellow club member Lindsay Lohan who remained a carnivore.

Veganism can be merely a personal choice and there are many who have adopted at least the dietary aspects simply because they believe there are benefits for their health but it can also be a political statement and political statements need publicity, the preferred modern form being the celebrity endorsement and if need be, one paid for.  In 2010, the animal rights organisation PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) offered to subsidize Lindsay Lohan's stint in rehab, on the condition she became a vegan.  For PETA, it was the chance to make the point that while undergoing treatment for substance addiction, Ms Lohan would be able also to rid herself "... of one more toxic substance: meat.", adding "As you know, a crucial part of any recovery is showing charity to others. One way to do this is to be kind to animals, the Earth, and your own body. You'll never regret it." 

Ms Lohan had previously attracted the attention of the organization, in 2008 making their "worst dressed list" after being photographed wearing fur.  According to E! Online, PETA offered to contribute US$20,000 towards the US50,000 cost of the court-ordered stay, half to be paid for adopting the vegan diet while in rehab, the remainder if the diet was followed for one year following her release.  The encourage acceptance of the offer, it was accompanied with a vegan-care pack including a DVD about the slaughter industry called Glass Walls (narrated by Paul McCartney (b 1942)) and a vegetarian/vegan starter kit.  While rehab went well, the offer apparently wasn't taken up and although she seems to now eschew fur, her Instagram feed continues to feature much leather (handbags & shoes) and meat (the odd recipe provided including a chicken pie and machboos, a favorite in the Middle East).