(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.
(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.
(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 Ford's 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. Testing one in 1971, Car & Driver magazine observed: "It's like sitting in a bunker; You can hardly see out. The windows are gun slits, the belt line comes up almost to your chin and the nearly horizontal rear deck and wide roof pillars block off all but a shallow field of vision directly to the rear. You have a poor view of the road ahead of you as well. The long, level front fenders and the bulged up hood, block off an enormous area immediately in front of the car, and right turns, particularly those onto a section of road that falls away, are virtually blind."
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. Things would get worse for the Mustang before they got better.
(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).
(1) A man's headdress, associated particularly with Muslims,
Hindus, and Sikhs in South Asia (but with a long tradition of use in many
places), consisting of a long lengths of silk, linen, cotton etc, swathed either
about a cap-like base or directly around the head.
(2) Any headdress resembling this.
(3) In fashion, any of various off-the-face hats for
women that are close-fitting, of a soft fabric, and brimless, or that have a
narrow, sometimes draped, brim.
(4) In zoology, the complete set of whorls of a spiral
shell.
1555-1565: From fifteenth century Middle French turbant, from the Italian turbante, from the Old Italian tolipante, from the Ottoman Turkish دلبند (tülbent) (gauze, muslin, tulle), from the Persian دلبند (dolband) (turban)
(which was the source also of “tulip”.The obsolete alternative forms were turbant
& tulipant.For reasons related presumably to traditions
of pronunciation, the spelling change from “l” to “r” may have happened in Portuguese India and from there picked
up in other European languages. Long a men's
headdress, in the late eighteenth century variations of the style became
popular as women’s fashion. The
alternative spellings of turbaned & turbaning are turbanned &
turbanning and there derived forms are enturban, enturbanment, enturbanning
& beturbaned.Turban is a noun;
tubaned & turbanning are verbs and turban-& turbanesque are adjectives;
the noun plural is turbans.
Lindsay Lohan in turban, in costume during the filming of
Liz & Dick (2012).
Quite when and where the turban originated is unknown but
few doubt it was one of the earliest forms of headwear, adopted presumably for warmth
or protection from the elements, the link to matter of cultural significance or
fashion emerging as societies developed. The essence of a turban is that it’s a form of
headwear created by swathing long lengths of silk, linen, cotton etc either
about a cap-like base or directly around the head.Although in the popular imagination it seems
most associated with the cultures of South Asia (notably in Sikhism), the
practice is neither geographically specific nor or necessity vested with
religious meaning although for many, the wearing of a turban is certainly
devotional.The tradition can be found throughout
much of Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans, the Caucasus and in Asia.A similar garment was the puggry (also spelled pagari, pagri, pugaree, puggaree, puggerie,
puggery, puggree, puggri & pugree),
from the Hindi.It was a strip of cloth
wound around the upper portion of a hat (particularly a pith helmet), and
falling down behind to act as a shade for the back of the neck.Some women do wear a classic turban but in fashion,
the style called a turban is actually a spectrum of hats which to some extent
emulate the appearance of a turban although they are “pre-wrapped” as it were,
ready-to-wear and close-fitting, constructing using soft materials and either brimless
or with a narrow (sometimes draped), brim.In the industry jargon, they’re an “off-the-face” hat.
Devout Sikh holy man Avtar Singh Mauni (b 1954) wears a
turban consisting of 645 m (2120 feet) of fabric which the Guinness World
Records has verified as the longest known to exist. Weighing around 45 kg (100 lb) (the same
length as 13 Olympic standard swimming pools or 1¼ quarter-mile (400 m)
drag strips), it takes some six hours
to wrap. Mr Sauni added length to his
turban for over a decade until the impressive length was achieved although it
does necessitate certain lifestyle changes, doorways some time challenging and
he can't fit inside a car, travelling usually by Royal Enfield motorcycle. Most Sikh turbans use between 5-7 m (16-23
feet) of fabric but Mr Mauni says the principle of swathing are the same
regardless of length, the wrapping proceeding “from top to bottom one layer at
a time just like you would lay the storeys of a building.”
A kind
of layered cake, traditionally baked on a spit, in which the layers resemble
concentric tree rings.
Circa
mid-1800s: From the Modern German baumkuchen
(literally “tree cake”).The construct was Baum (tree) +kuchen
(cake), so-named because the concentric-ring layers resemble tree rings. The genitive was saumkuchens, the plural baumkuchen.
The tree cake
Although
the word baumkuchen appears not to
have been used before being noted in Bavarian menus and newspapers in the
mid-nineteenth century, similar cakes were documented as early as
1581.Both Germans and Hungarians have
long claimed to have created the baumkuchen,
the latter suggesting it a variation of a traditional Hungarian wedding cake, the
pastry kürtőskalács (chimney cake).In retaliation, the Germans cite the recipe
in Max Rumpolt’s Ein new Kochbuch (A
New Cookbook) (1581).However, it may be
a moot point because the method was already known in Antiquity, records for similar constructions found in the texts from both Ancient Greece and Rome.
Labour-intensive
and thus costly, baumkuchen is made
on a spit by assembling cakes of alternating sizes which are brushed evenly with thin layers of batter, the spit then rotated over heat, traditionally a wood fire.Each layer must dry before another is poured so when the cake is sliced, each layer is divided from the
next by a golden line, resembling the growth rings of a tree.Modern baumkuchen
may have only a few layers but the traditional method called for twenty or
more, the most lavish of which could weigh over one hundred pounds (45+kg) and
be 3-4 feet (1-1.25m) high.Popular in
Japan, as bāmukūhen (バームクーヘン), it’s often served to wedding guests because,
when sliced, it recalls the shape of a ring.
Baumkuche, Horcher, Madrid.
Apart
from the visual impact, a baumkuchen is an experience of intense taste and texture.As bakers know, it’s the thin caramelized
layer sticking to the bottom of the pan that is the best tasting part of a cake
because that’s where the fats and sugars accumulate and a baumkuchen is a cake
made wholly of layer upon layer of this richly flavored delicacy. While it’s true a conventionally shaped cake can
somewhat emulate this if baked in layers, the finer product is the cylindrical baumkuchen
which can be made only on the rotating spit used usually for broiling roasts.However, that very intensity of taste is because
of density and for that reason, should be served in smaller slices than most
cakes. Famously, it's a signature offering at Horcher in Madrid.
Sliced baumkuche, Horcher, Madrid.
Horcher
was opened in Berlin in 1904 by wine merchant Gustav Horcher (1873-1931),
ownership passing to his son Otto after his death.It began as a small, intimate restaurant offering
simple, traditional dishes (notably game) but later evolved to cater to the upper
end of the market.Otto Horcher offered
a good table and maintained connections with the Nazi hierarchy, the Horcher a favourite
of Hermann Göring (1893-1946) and many Luftwaffe generals.Those connections paid off.After the Anschluss
(the annexing of Austria by the German Reich in 1938), Otto Horcher acquired The Three Hussars in Vienna and, after
the occupation of France in 1940, he took over Maxim's
in Paris.
Horcher, Madrid.
Closure
was forced on Horcher and many other restaurants in 1943 after the Nazi's propaganda
minister Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945) attempted to shock the economy into total-war
production.Typically, this was opposed
by Göring who retaliated by threatening to have Horcher re-opened as a Luftwaffe
club but his star within the regime had long been waning and Goebbels ultimately prevailed.Instead, he assisted Horcher to
move to Madrid where it remains to this day, still in family ownership. During
the war, allied intelligence agencies identified as Horcher as a meeting point
for German spies and overseas agents but it was one of many in both Madrid and
Lisbon, both sides maintaining espionage operations in neutral nations.After the war, the linkage continued, sometimes
openly as Horcher remained popular with many former notables of the Third Reich
but reports indicated it was also a place with at least passive involvement in activities
such as arranging the escape of those wanted for war crimes and other matters,
usually to more sympathetic régimes in South America.
