Amber

Amber (pronounced am-ber)

(1) A pale yellow, sometimes reddish or brownish, brittle, translucent fossil resin of extinct coniferous trees that occurs in tertiary deposits; capable of gaining a negative electrical charge by friction and a fine insulator.

(2) The yellowish-brown color of amber resin; of the color of amber; yellowish-brown (not applied to the variety “blue amber” which appears blue rather than yellow under direct sunlight).

(3) To perfume or flavor with ambergris (rare and used only in the industrial production of scents).

(4) To cause to take on the yellowish-brown colour of amber (now rare and used only as a literary or poetic device).

(5) Certain objects made of amber (jewelry; ornamental articles; relics; fossilized creatures contained within the resin etc).

(6) The intermediate light in a set of three traffic lights, which when illuminated indicates that drivers should stop short of the intersection when safe to do so (green indicating “go” and red “stop”).  In some places the amber is referred to as “orange”.

(7) By extension from the use in traffic management, an indication in other contexts that one should hesitance to proceed or proceed only with caution (sometimes as “amber light”).

(8) As “amber alert”, a public notification of a child abduction (North America), named in memory of Amber Rene Hagerman (1986–1996); technically AMBER Alert, referencing the backronym America's Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response.

(9) In biology, genetics & biochemistry, the stop codon (nucleotide triplet) "UAG", or a mutant which has this stop codon at a premature place in its DNA sequence.  UAG is named “amber” because the first to isolate the mutation was then California Institute of Technology (Caltech) graduate student Harris Bernstein (b 1961), whose surname is the German word for the resin known as amber.

(10) A female given name.

(11) In automotive lighting (often as “the ambers”), the lights of that color mounted so to be visible at all corners or an automobile which flash sequentially in indicate a driver’s intention to turn, change lanes etc (thus known various as “flashers”, “turn-signals” and even “trafficators” (the (originally mechanical) semaphore signals which when activated protruded from the bodywork of a vehicle to indicate an intention to turn in the direction of the illuminated device).  They’re used also as warning lights (four-way flashers) when all flash in unison.  Since the late 1950s, in most markets their positioning, luminosity and rate of flashing has been regulated (sometimes in unfortunately contradictory ways.

1350–1400: From the Middle English ambre & aumbre, from the Old French, from the Medieval Latin ambra, from the Arabic عَنْبَر‎ (ʕanbar) (ambergris), from the Middle Persian ʾnbl (⁠ambar⁠) (ambergris).  It displaced the Middle English smulting (from the Old English smelting (amber)) and the Old English eolhsand (amber), glær (amber) and sāp (amber, resin, pomade).  The seemingly strange confusion between the fossilized tree resin and the ash-colored secretion of the sperm whale’s intestine (ambergris) is assumed to have arisen because the dissimilar substances both were rare, valuable and found on the seacoast.  The word ambergris came into use in the West during the Crusades.  In English, amber came to be used as an adjective by circa 1500 and it was in use as the name of a color by 1735.  Amber is a noun, verb & adjective, amberlike, ambery, anberish, amberesque & amberous are adjectives, ambering & ambered are verbs; the noun plural is ambers.

Actor Amber Heard (b 1986) who seems to have a thing for 1968 Ford Mustangs.

In Europe, the word amber was picked up to describe the fossil resins found on the shores of the Baltic first in the late thirteenth century in Anglo-Latin which, by the turn of the fifteenth had entered English.  Over time, this meaning prevailed and ambergris came to be restricted to the whale’s secretions although there has long been a faction of the etymology community which has suggested it’s not impossible amber is an unrelated word of unknown origin.  Once they were distinguished as white or yellow amber for the Baltic fossil resin and gray amber for the whale’s contribution, French distinguishing between the two as ambre jaune and ambre gris.

Among her inventory of beauty care essentials, Lindsay Lohan lists the long-serving Dior Backstage Eyeshadow Palette in Amber Neutrals as her “favorite eye palette”

In a chemical coincidence, the solidified tree resin possesses remarkable static electricity properties and Baltic amber was known to the Romans as electrum, able to gain a negative electrical charge merely through friction and although rarely used as such, it’s a fine insulator.  In the Old Testament the Hebrew חַשְׁמַל (chashmal) is translated variously as “a shining metal” or “the gemstone amber” but as the light plays upon amber it can recall fire or lightning, the impression strengthened when the substance is stimulated to spark and crackle with static electricity.  The prophet Ezekiel clearly had witnessed the electrical phenomenon and although he'd not have understood the science, in his vision of God’s throne, Ezekiel wrote:

“On this throne high above was a figure whose appearance resembled a man. From what appeared to be his waist up, he looked like gleaming chashmal, flickering like a fire.  And from his waist down, he looked like a burning flame, shining with splendor.”  (Ezekiel 1:26–27)

It was the Lithuania-born journalist Eliezer Ben‑Yehuda (1858–1922) who re-established the Hebrew language as living tongue to be used in everyday life.  In the late nineteenth century, except for a handful of scholars, Hebrew was used only as a Holy language, restricted to prayer and worship in the synagogue, Yiddish the only recognizably Jewish language spoken on the street or in the home.  Something of a prophet himself, he created the first Israeli Hebrew newspaper and dictionary and to make it useful in the modern age, he had to create many new words and one was needed to describe electricity, then a concept understood for little more than a century.  He chose chashmal.  When the Hebrew Scriptures were first translated into Greek some 2,100 years ago, the Hebrew chashmal became the Ancient Greek ἤλεκτρον (ḗlektron) and could be used to refer to the gemstone but was used also in the manner of the Phoenician elēkrŏn (shining light).  Seventeenth century English scientists who conducted some of the earliest experiments which began to explain the phenomenon called it electrikus (like amber) and from this came the Modern English electricity.  Ben‑Yehuda’s work was popularized by Judah Leib Gordon (1830-1892), a leading poet of the nineteenth century Jewish Enlightenment whose words were more lyrical than the dry, journalistic lists of Ben-Yehuda would write: “The light, the heat, the steam, and the electricity (chashmal), all nature’s forces are the angels above.”  He added in an explanatory footnote: “By chashmal (hash-ma-LA), I mean the natural force that is electritzitat, since the Greek translation of chashmal is elektrika.”

Immortality of sorts: An unfortunate gecko, trapped in amber 54 million years ago.

The first AMBER Alert, 1996.

The amber alert is a system used in North America to provide public notification of a child abduction (North America), named in memory of Amber Rene Hagerman (1986–1996).  Technically it’s AMBER Alert, referencing the backronym of America's Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response.  Then aged nine, Amber Hagerman was abducted and murdered in 1996 and a campaign was organized which demanded protocols be established to alert the local population of details which might assist in finding the child (description of suspects, vehicle registration numbers etc).  Initially, the vectors of transmission were local radio and television stations but as technology evolved, other were added including platforms on the internet such as e-mail & social media, electronic traffic-condition signs, advertising billboards and SMS text messages delivered to cell phones.

Most succiniferous: The Amber Room, Catherine Palace, St. Petersburg, 1917.  This is the only known color image of the room.

Last seen (in crates) in 1945, it was either destroyed in the last days of World War II (1939-1945) or dissembled and hidden somewhere or otherwise disposed of.  Between 1979-2003, with early funding from the Federal Republic of Germany (the FRG, the old West Germany), a replica was built and installed in the Catherine Palace.  The golden, jewel-encrusted creation, rendered by artisans and craftsmen from tons of amber, was a gift to Peter the Great (Peter I, 1672-1725; Tsar of Russia 1682-1725) in 1716, celebrating the conclusion of an alliance between Russia and Prussia.  Much admired during the centuries in which it endured wars, pandemics and revolutions, it was looted by the Nazis in the final months of the war, packed into crates which subsequently vanished.  Either they were lost or destroyed in the chaos or hidden away.

Originally installed in the Charlottenberg Palace of Friedrich I (1657–1713; King of Prussia 1701–1713), the Amber Room was a genuine multi-national venture, the design by Andreas Schlüter (1659–1714), a German sculptor in the baroque tradition, the bulk of the construction by the Danish craftsman Gottfried Wolfram (1646-1716), already famous for his skill in rendering amber.  It took over a decade to build and upon completion, Peter the Great expressed his wonderment and in 1716, Frederick William I (1688–1740; King of Prussia 1713-1740) presented it to the Tsar, part of his diplomatic effort to secure the Prussian-Russian alliance against Sweden.  Accordingly, along with a selection of paintings, the room was crated and shipped to Saint Petersburg where it remained until in 1755 it was moved to the Catherine Palace (Tsarskoye Selo (Tasar's Palace)) in Pushkin.  Now installed in a larger space, the Italian designer Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli (1700–1771) was engage to remodel the assembly to suit, addition amber panels shipped from Berlin.  Renovations and refinements continued to be undertaken during the eighteenth century and when complete, the room covered some 180 square feet (16.7 m³) and contained some six tons (6100 kg) of amber, semi-precious stones and gold leaf.  At the time, it was thought one of the wonders of the modern world.

In the Nazi mind, not only was the Amber Room of German origin but such treasures anyway belonged only in the Reich and it was added to the (long) list of artworks to be looted as part of Operation Barbarossa (the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union).  As the Wehrmacht advanced on Pushkin, the Russian curators began to attempt to disassemble the panels but their fragility was such it was quickly realized any work done in haste would cause only destruction.  Accordingly, they had carpenters construct a frame over which was glued wallpaper, there not being time even to construct a false wall.  Not fooled, the Nazi looters removed the entire structure, shipping it to be installed in the Königsberg Castle Museum (now in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad) on the Baltic coast.  However, the tide of the war turned and in 1943 the museum's director received from Berlin instructions to return the room to crates and this had be accomplished by August 1944 when allied bombing raids severely damaged the castle.  Quite what happened to the crates remains unknown.  It may be they were destroyed during the war or were in the hold of a ship sunk in the Baltic but the tales of them being hidden somewhere has never gone away and continues to tantalize, a solitary panel actually found in Bremen in 1997.  The replica room, dedicated in a ceremony in 2004 by Vladimir Putin (b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999) and Gerhard Schröder (b 1944, Chancellor of Germany 1998-2005) remains on public display at the Tasrskoye State Museum Reserve outside Saint Petersburg.

The "tombstone" headlamps on the 1959 Mercedes-Benz W111 sedans (the so-called Heckflosse) were a variation of the style introduced in 1957 on the 300 SL roadsters (W198) and while much admired, were not lawful for use in the US so a "stacked" arrangement was devised which came informally to be known as "Californian".  So attractive was it found in Europe that ultimately it became available in the rest of the world (RoW) but with one difference: the  factory's solution of integrating the amber turn-signal indicators (the "ambers" or "flashers" to many) and side-marker lamps into the assembly was elegant but didn’t comply with the rules.  As explained by automotive lighting expert Daniel Stern, the lit area was probably compliant (the rules specified a minimum 3½ square inches (22.5 cm²) but the intensity and inboard visibility angles would have been inadequate.  A turn signal with its centre 4 inches (100 mm) or closer to the low-beam lamp had to provide at least 500 candela on-axis, which would be close to impossible for a lamp with this construction; turn signals more than 4 inches from the low-beam needed only to provide at least 200 candela.  The RoW cars (left) were supplied with the original design while for the US market some rather ugly after-market lamps were crudely added to the gaps next to the grill (centre).  Late in the 1960s, the aesthetics were improved somewhat by using a larger unit (right) which emulated the look of a fog-lamp, the US cars by then also suffering the addition of side-marker lights front & rear.

Drahtfunk

Drahtfunk (pronounced draat-fuenk)

The broadcasting of audio signals through wire or cable connections rather than airwaves.  Drahtfunk translates from the German as “wired radio”, the collective noun being Drahtfunkeinrichtungen (wired radio equipment).

1937: A German compound noun, the construct being draht (wired) + funk (radio).  The German Funk can also be translated as "wireless" so Drahtfunk can be understood as "wired wireless" so that's good.   Draht was from the Middle High German drāt (wire, thread), from the Old High German drāt or thrāt, from the Proto-Germanic þrēduz, from the primitive Indo-European treh- from terh- (rub, twist).  It was related to drehen (to turn, twist), with which it was still associated in early modern German (evidence for which is the insertion of the lengthening -h-, used only before sonorants or stem-finally).  It was cognate with the Dutch draad, the Low German Draat, the English thread, the Danish, Norwegian & Swedish trad and the Icelandic þráður.  The genitive is Drahtes, the plural Drähte and the diminutive, Drähtchen.  In Modern German, the sense of wire (thread of metal; conductor) remains but is obsolete for threads made from other materials.  Funk was from the Proto-Germanic funkô or fankô (spark), from the primitive Indo-European speng- or spheng- (to shine).  It was cognate with the Middle Low German funke & fanke (spark), the Middle Dutch vonke (spark), the Old High German funcho & funko (spark) and the German Funke (spark).  In the Middle English it existed as funke & fonke (spark) from the Old English funca & fanca (spark), from the same roots as the Germanic although some other meanings in English evolved independently.

Funk, stemming from funken (spark), came to mean “radio” in German, because some of the earliest wireless telegraphs used spark gap transmitters, thus creating the association with radio, and many compounds have been formed, added both at beginning (Funkspruch, Funkbearbeitung) and end (Mobilfunk, Bordfunk).  Drahtfunk is a masculine noun; in German, both the spelling of the word and the article preceding the word can change depending on whether it is in the nominative, accusative, genitive, or dative case.  Given the meaning, it exists as a masculine singular only; no plural form.  The nominative is der Drahtfunk, the accusative den Drahtfunk, the genitive des Drahtfunks and the dative dem Drahtfunk.

Radio technology under the Third Reich

Developed during the 1930s in Germany, wired radio was analogous with the technological dualism of ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line), the DSL technology which, beginning in 1998, was the first convenient and widely adopted domestic internet broadband.  Like ADSL, Drahtfunk ran (at a higher frequency than telephony) over the analogue copper pairs used for fixed line telephones, the attraction for both systems being the copper wires were usually existing infrastructure, thus making it faster and cheaper to deploy the new technology.  The mechanism of the physical connection would also be familiar to anyone who used an ADSL service: a crossover with two outputs (often called the "splitter box) connected to the telephone socket, one (input/output) feed connected to the handset, the (input only) to the radio's antenna socket.  Although Drahtfunk was first implemented at scale during the Third Reich (1933-1945), it was actually developed by the postal service (responsible for telephony) during the Weimar Republic (1918-1933).  Had it earlier been available there's little doubt the Nazis would have sought to use the medium because they understood the power of voice, part of their campaign material in the (many) elections they contested under the republic including gramophone records containing edited highlights of Adolf Hitler's (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) speeches.  Because the technology of the time permitted at most around 15 minutes per side of a disk, some editing was required.  Whether the authorities would have permitted the Nazis to broadcast in this way isn't known and the low take-up rate of phone-lines into homes would anyway have limited the value.         

Although, most curiously, there's little to suggest they ever explored the possibility of television, the  Nazis were enthusiastic about radio as a medium for political indoctrination, Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945), who, while evil, was a fair judge of such things, thought the success of the régime “…would have been impossible” without radio.  However, in the early 1930s, receiver sets were expensive, even when subsidized by the state so Drahtfunk was developed in the hope sets could cheaply be mass-produced and use the existing phone lines.  However, advances in electronics made conventional radios cheaper and the take up of telephone connections was slower than expected so Drahtfunk was barely used by households, adopted mostly by the military which had run literally thousands of kilometers of telephone wires to ensure a independent means of communications between bases and to headquarters staff, the other attraction being that unlike any implementation of RF (radio frequency) transmission which pass through the air, wired messaging was inherently secret.

Pamphlet issued by the Allied Control Commission explaining the operation of Drahtfunk, Berlin, January 1946.

It was revived in 1943 when it was realized allied bomber fleets were using radio transmissions to hone in on targets, something especially significant at night when urban areas were subject to blackouts, thus depriving aircrew of visual navigation and bomb-aiming.  As a counter-measure, conventional radio signals were switched off when enemy aircraft were approaching, listeners advised to switch to the Drahtfunk by plugging their set into a splitter-box wired to the telephone cable, the process the same as an ADSL connection which plugs the two lines into a line-splitter or filter.  In the post-war years, US occupation forces continued to use the system in their Berlin occupation zone after being unable to reach agreement with the Russians to share the conventional broadcast system, all the infrastructure physically in the Soviet zone.  Thus, after it was estimated the installation of medium and long wave transmitters in the American sector would take months, beginning in December 1945, Drahtfunk services were resumed under the name DIAS (wire radio in the American sector (later renamed RIAS)).  Other German radio programming was available through the system in other parts of the country including the BFN (British Forces Network) program and it wasn't until 1963 the use in most of the FRG (the Federal Republic of Germany, the old West Germany) was discontinued, the service maintained in West Berlin for a further three years.  Elsewhere in Europe, wired radio was adopted because because it was simple, reliable and delivered fine reception unaffected by atmospheric conditions, Switzerland ceasing transmission only in the 1990s because of incompatibilities when ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) lines were introduced for telephony.  In Sweden, the system proved especially useful because of (1) the peculiarities in the behavior of radio waves at the more northern latitudes and (2) the demands in terms of physical broadcast infrastructure (towers & transmitters) required to service a narrow, elongated landmass.  Because of the high penetration of telephone lines in Sweden by the late 1940s, wired radio was able to provide a high-quality service to the sparsely populated north and it was extensively deployed until advances in technology in the 1960s rendered it unnecessary.

Turquoise

Turquoise (pronounced tur-koiz or tur-kwoiz)

(1) A fine-grained secondary opaque mineral, a basic hydrous copper aluminum phosphate often containing a small amount of iron, sky-blue to greenish-blue in color (also as the rare form turquois).  It occurs, usually in reniform (kidney-shaped) masses with surfaces shaped like bunches of grapes, especially in aluminum-rich igneous rocks such as trachyte.  In its polished blue form (it occurs also in a yellowish-green hue) it is prized as a gem.  Formula: CuAl₆(PO₄)₄(OH)₈·4H₂O.

(2) A color in the blue spectrum, described usually as bluish green or greenish blue and known also (for commercial purposes) as turquoise blue.

(3) A gemstone (categorized as a semi-precious) made of the mineral, the hues tending to blue traditionally more valuable than the greens.

(4) One of the birthstones for the month of December and associated with the zodiac signs Sagittarius and Capricorn.

1300s or 1600s:  The origin is contested.  Some etymologists trace it from the seventeenth century when it was picked up from the Middle French turquoise, from the Old French (pierre) turquoise (Turkish (stone)), the construct being turc (Turk) +‎ -oise (the feminine of -ois and the suffix used to form adjectives related to a particular country, region or city, their associated inhabitant names, and the local language or dialect), simply because the mineral ( mined near Nishapur in the Khorasan region of Persia) first reached Europe in the hands of the Turkish traders (from the modern-day Republic of Türkiye) of the Ottoman Empire (thus essentially the same manner in which the bird known as the Turkey gained its name) .  Others claim it dated from the fourteenth century as an adaptation of the Middle English turkeis & turtogis (Turkish) which in the 1560s was replaced by the French turqueise.  Those supporting the later etymology claim the gemstone was first brought to Europe from Turkestan or another Turkic territory.  Pliny the Elder (24-79) called the mineral callais (from the Ancient Greek κάλαϊς) and to the Aztecs it was chalchihuitl.  It was cognate with the Spanish turquesa, the Medieval Latin (lapis) turchesius, the Middle Dutch turcoys, the German türkis and the Swedish turkos.  Adjectival use began in the 1570s and it came to be used a colour name in the 1850s.  The use of the spelling turkies is archaic and turquois is rare.  Turquoise is a noun & adjective ane turquoisish, turquoisey, turquoisy¸ turquoised & turquoiselike are adjectives; the noun plural is turquoises.

Turquoise and diamond cluster dangle earrings (circa 1890) in 14 karat gold with cabochon cut sky blue Persian turquoise surrounded by 24 cut diamonds (total 3 carats).

Turquoise is often used in jewelry although some pieces sold as “turquoise” can be artificial and actually only turquoise-colored (with the dual meaning of the word it’s essential to read the small print).  Turquoise used in jewelry is often cut in the form of a cabochon (an oval shape polished but not faceted) and these, in a variety of sizes, are popular for pendants, broaches and earrings.  Turquoise was mentioned in the writing of the Venetian merchant Marco Polo (circa 1254–1324) who saw examples while in China and in the US, turquoise jewelry is especially associated with Native American artisans, particularly from tribes of the south-west including the Navajo & Hopi.

Lindsay Lohan rendered with turquoise hair (left), in turquoise blue waters (centre) and wearing turquoise blue (right).

As a descriptor of color, turquoise is commonly used but it’s inexact, even by the standards of commercial color charts and what some call turquoise others might describe as teal or cyan and the mineral itself exists in quite a range.  The various shades of blue anyway exist in quite a spectrum including: Alice blue, aqua, aquamarine, azure, baby blue, beryl, bice, bice blue, blue green, blue violet, blueberry, cadet blue, Cambridge blue, cerulean, cobalt blue, Copenhagen blue, cornflower, cornflower blue, cyan, dark blue, Dodger blue, duck-egg blue, eggshell blue, electric-blue, gentian blue, ice blue, lapis lazuli, light blue, lovat, mazarine, midnight blue, navy, Nile blue, Oxford blue, peacock blue, petrol blue, powder blue, Prussian blue, robin's-egg blue, royal blue, sapphire, saxe blue, slate blue, sky blue, teal, turquoise, ultramarine, Wedgwood blue & zaffre.

1962 Ferrari 250 GT SWB (short wheelbase) California Spider.

In March 2023, at the annual auctions on Amelia Island, Florida (the old four-day Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance) 1962 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spider sold for US$18,045,000, passing under Gooding & Co’s hammer.  The SWB Spiders have for years be prized but this one attracted a premium because of aspects which attested to its particular rarity, being one of only 37 (some say 47) of the 106 made with the (soon to be unlawful) Perspex-covered headlights and the only one the factory finished in azzurro metallizzato, an eye catching turquoise.  In the way the Italian language manages like no other, azzurro metallizzato sounds much better the the literal translation “metallic sky blue”.  The car was prepared especially for the 1962 New York International Auto Show and remarkably, after being damaged in an accident in 1971, was sold the following year for US$2400 (around US$18,000 adjusted for inflation), so in fifty-odd years it has appreciated around a thousand-fold.  There was of course a repair and restoration bill to be paid in 1972 but however it’s analyzed, the thing has proved a good investment.  Although in the public imagination Ferraris are most associated with red (and the classic rosso corsa (racing red) is just one of many reds the factory has offered), shades of blue have always been popular and over the years there have been dozens.

Fellmonger

Fellmonger (pronounced fel-muhng-ger)

A preparer of skins or hides of animals; a person who deals in animal skins or hides.

1520–1530: A compound word fell + monger.  Fell was from the Middle English fellen, from the Old English fellan & fiellan (to cause to fall, strike down, fell, cut down, throw down, defeat, destroy, kill, tumble, cause to stumble) from the Proto-Germanic fallijaną (to fell, to cause to fall), causative of the Proto-Germanic fallaną (to fall); root was the primitive Indo-European (s)pōl- (to fall) and it was cognate with the Dutch vellen (to fell, cut down), the German fällen (to fell) and the Norwegian felle (to fell).  Monger was from the Middle English mongere & mangere from the Old English mangere (merchant, trader, dealer & mangian (to trade, to traffic) from the Proto-Germanic mangōną, from the Latin mangō (dealer, trader), perhaps from the Ancient Greek μάγγανον (mánganon) (contrivance, means of enchantment) from the primitive Indo-European mang- (to embellish, dress, trim).  Fellmonger & fellmongery are nouns and fellmongering & fellmongered are verbs; the noun plural is fellmongers.

Lindsay Lohan in leather, London, October 2015.

In the traditional sense of the world, a profession was understood to be a specialization in occupational activity.  What it meant was that a certain pursuit was either the exclusive source of an individual’s income or the most substantial part.  Not entirely facetiously, the business of prostitution has been said to be the “world’s oldest profession” with espionage just a little more recent.  While neither claim may be literally true, both are acknowledged to be ancient and obviously enduring but one profession likely to have been pursued almost as long and been part of just about any culture which has been studied was that of the fellmonger who prepared and processed the skins of animals, transforming them into the leather which people could use variously for footwear, clothing, shelters, receptacles, weapons, decorations and the myriad of items which were used when constructing useful devices and even machines.  Before even fabrics were woven from plant or animal fibres, there was leather and it was the fellmongers who developed the art and science which made the material stronger, longer lasting and better adaptable to more purposes.  A highly skilled business which demanded both skill & patience, the essence of the fellmonger’s trade was the ability expertly to strip the wool or fur from an animal hide and grade the raw skin into the various categories sought by tanners and other processors.  As well as dealing in the skins, many fellmongers also operated as tanners and in the early pre-industrial societies, vertical integration was sometimes attractive and the ownership and operation of a fellmongery and tannery might come under a common ownership.  Sometimes tertiary production such as that of a saddler might also be attached although it appears artisan trades such as cobblers remained independent.  The fellmonger thus extracted from the skins of dead sheep, goats, lambs and even dogs, products such as wool, pelts, skins, parchments, vellums and chamois leathers, much of which was sold to or passed on to a tannery which for centuries used oak bark in the dyeing processes.

Who wore it best?  Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011) in leather.  Probably no material is as sexy as leather and even in latex the Supreme Leader couldn't look more alluring; Lindsay Lohan probably envies the Supreme Leader rocking leather.

Although less so than tanning, fellmongry was a messy, smelly business, most located close to rivers because the process demanded an abundant supply of pure clean water, the tide carrying out to sea the sludge and effluents.  When the skins arrived (and to avoid even more unpleasantness that had to be as soon as possible after slaughter), they were washed in warm, soapy water to be cleansed of all blood and then soaked so the tissue would swell to a living condition.  Once done, they were cleansed with a paste made from lime and sodium sulphate which “fed” the pelts, opening the pores so the wool could be stripped which was done in the “Pulling Room” where the fellmonger “pushed the wool”, grading it as went.  Once pulled, the wool was taken to a drying room where, once cool, it was stacked in bales to be ready for sale.  A paste made of Fuller's Earth or Whiting (calcium carbonate or chalk) was then rubbed into the pelts which were exposed to a moderate heat which ensured the fat on the pelts softened and was easily removed.  The clean pelts, after being bleached with a weak solution of chloride of lime were placed in floor pits to be “pickled” in a solution of salt & sulphuric hydrochloric acid and, once pickled, they were ready for dispatch to the tannery.  Historically, tanners graded skins into 10-12 categories and depending on the classification, they might be sold to manufacturers making fancy leather goods, parchments, vellums, leathers and glues.  Animal skins are remarkable in that they can be rendered as a material tough enough for saddles or boots or sufficiently soft & pliable for use in fine needlework and smooth enough to be used as writing material.

Manhattan

Manhattan (pronounced man-hat-n or muhn-hat-n)

(1) An island in New York City (NYC) surrounded by the Hudson, East and Harlem rivers, 13½ miles (22 km) in length, 2½ miles (4 km) across at its widest and 22¼ square miles (58 km² in area).  Technically, it’s an ellipsis of Manhattan Island and in certain legal documents, cartography and for formal purposes it’s described also as Manhattan Island.

(2) One of the five boroughs of New York City, approximately co-extensive with Manhattan Island and coterminous with New York County.  It contains the business district of NYC, its financial centre (Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) etc and many of the businesses associated with the fashion industry (Fifth Avenue and environs) and the art business (Greenwich Village).

(3) A cocktail drink consisting of four parts whisky, one part vermouth, and a dash of bitters.

Pre 1600: From the earlier Manna-hata (recorded by Dutch settlers & military personnel), from its name in Unami, the Algonquian language of the Lenape people (self-described as Lenni-Lenape (the original people)) who were the island’s inhabitants when European settlement began.  The research by linguistic anthropologists was inconclusive and there are a number of suggestions regarding the origin of the name: (1) a compound of the Unami mënatay (island) or the Munsee munahan + another element; (2) because the island was once a wooded area with Hickory trees yielding timber suitable for making bows, the early forms Manna-hatta & Mannahachtink were spellings of manaháhtaan (place for gathering the wood to make bows) with the related locative form being manaháhteenk, the construct thus Munsee manah- (gather) + -aht (bow) + -aan (place); (3) the “island of many hills” & (4) “the island where we all became intoxicated”.  Manhattan is a noun & proper noun, manhattanite & manhattanese are adjectives, manhattanism is a noun, manhattanize manhattanizing & manhattanized are verbs and manhattanism & manhattanism are nouns; the noun plural is manhattans.  Modern style guides suggest that even when forms are derived from the proper noun, there’s no need for an initial capital although traditionalists will insist.

What is now New York’s borough of Manhattan was in 1626 named New Amsterdam by colonists from the Dutch Republic who, two years earlier, had established a trading post (in what is now Lower Manhattan).  After some of the squabbles and negotiations during which Europeans re-drew the maps which reflect their arrangements even today, the territory and its surroundings in 1664 came under English control in 1664 and the city, based on Manhattan, was the capital of the United States between 1785-1790.  Although the exact date on which “Manhattan” became the common descriptor for the island among Europeans, the consensus is it would have been sometime in the mid-seventeenth century.  The cocktail named Manhattan was certainly being served in the 1870s but why it gained the name or just when the first was mixed isn’t known although there are a number of imaginative tales, none supported by evidence.  What is thought most likely is that it was either served in an establishment in the locality or somewhere close seeking to trade of the association with the name.

Lilo in Soho: The Manhattan apartment where Lindsay Lohan lived in 2013, Mercer Street, Soho.

The standard adjective is Manhattanite (of or from, Manhattan) which replaced the earlier Manhattanese which, although obsolete, is sometime still used as a jocular term (to describe a certain style of speck thought associated with financial traders although it was a hardly distinct form).  The noun Manhattanism (the style of architecture and urban design associated with skyscrapers to enable high population densities in a limited space) was a coining of architectural criticism, the companion verbs being Manhattanize, Manhattanizing & Manhattanized; the process was Manhattanization.  In architectural criticism, Manhattanization was something neither wholly good or bad and depended for its reception on where it was used.  Where it was appropriate and added to urban utility, it would be praised if done well but where it destroyed something of social or architectural value, it was derided.

The Manhattan Project's second detonation of an atomic bomb: the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima, 6 August 1945.

The Manhattan Project which developed the first atomic weapons was so-named because the army component of the operation was under the control of the engineering branch and it was the army which was most involved in the initial planning stages which involved the acquisition of land and the physical building of the facilities which would house the research and production staff.  The army’s original project name was “Manhattan Engineer District” simply because that was where their offices were located and, apparently because the US Postal Service used the same name for the workshops of its telephone technicians, it was decided was “Manhattan Engineer District” would be a suitably vague codename and one unlikely to attract attention.  It thus replaced the earlier US A-bomb code name (Development of Substitute Materials) and absorbed the earlier British research project (Tube Alloys).

The Manhattan cocktail

Some cocktails are intimidating not because of what they are but because of what’s involved in their preparation, thus the attraction of the Manhattan cocktail which is easy-to-make drink and needs but three ingredients: whiskey, sweet Vermouth and aromatic bitters.

Ingredients

(1) 2 oz Whiskey: A Manhattan can be made with either Rye or Bourbon, most historically preferring Rye Whiskey because it’s thought to be “spicier”.

(2) 1 oz Sweet Vermouth: Vermouth has something of an aura because it’s vital to both Manhattans and Martinis but it’s just a flavored and fortified wine and it’s the harmonious interaction Rye and Sweet Vermouth which accounts for most choosing Rye.  The garnishing of a Manhattan with a brandied or Maraschino cherry is optional.

(3) 2 dashes Angostura aromatic bitters: A timeless classic and an aromatic, alcoholic infusions of various herbs and spices, neither the recipe or the distinctive oversized label have changed for well over a century.  One drop is so potent it can alter the character of anything to which it’s added and some even recommend a dash in fruit salad (the other faction advocating a few drops of Tabasco sauce for “sharpness”).

Instructions

(1) Chill a champagne coupe, martin glass or a lowball in the freezer or fill it with ice.

(2) Add all ingredients into a mixing glass filled with ice and stir until the drink is chilled. Typically, that takes no more than 20-30 seconds depending on the temperature of the ingredients and the nature of the ice.  A Manhattan must only ever be stirred; they are never shaken.

(3) Strain the drink into the chilled (and empty) Nick & Nora glass and (optionally) garnish the drink with a Maraschino cherry speared on a cocktail stick.

Purists like to stick to the classics but variations of the Manhattan have over the years been concocted:

A Black Manhattan replaces the Sweet Vermouth with Averna Amaro, a complex liqueur which delivers an aromatic experience.  It’s one of those drinks which need to be breathed in for some time before drinking.

In a Dry Manhattan, Dry Vermouth is used.  Most find it an acquired taste and described it as a “harder” drink,

The Rob Roy is known by some as the Scotch Manhattan and obviously, instead of Bourbon or Rye, it’s made on a Scotch Whisky base.  The aficionados of this kink seem all to recommend a blended Scotch rather than a pure malt.

The “perfect” in a Perfect Manhattan uses the word in its mathematical sense, the recipe calling for a 50/50 split between Dry & Sweet Vermouth.  The difference is said to be “very nuanced” and the choice of whiskey will notably change the experience.

Promulgate

Promulgate (pronounced prom-uhl-geyt or proh-muhl-geyt)

(1) To make known by open declaration; publish; proclaim formally or put into operation a law, decree of a court, etc.

(2) Publicly to set forth or teach a creed, doctrine, etc.

(3) To make widespread.

1520-1530: From the Middle English promulgate (make known by open declaration, publish, announce (a law or decree, news, an event etc), from the Latin promulgatus, past participle of promulgō & prōmulgāre (bring to public knowledge, make publicly known; propose openly, publish), thought perhaps altered from provulgāre (the construct being pro (forth) + vulgāre (make public, publish); root of the latter being vulgus (the common people).  Alternatively, there’s a minority view the second element might be from mulgere (to milk), here used metaphorically in the sense of "cause to emerge or bring fourth" as the milkmaid might squeeze from the udder.  The earlier verb in English was the late fifteenth-century promulge; it’s long been archaic.  The noun promulgation (publication, open declaration) emerged early in the seventeenth century, from the fourteenth century French promulgation, from the  Latin promulgationem (nominative promulgatio) (a public announcement), the noun of action from the past-participle stem of prōmulgāre.Promulgate, promulgated & promulgating are verbs, promulgater, promulgator & promulgation are nouns and promulgatory is an adjective; the noun plural is promulgations.  The form promulgative is non-standard.

Early promulgations were issued sometimes on clay tablets.  Moses descends from Mount Siniai with the Ten Commandments (1662), oil on canvas by Ferdinand Bol (1616-1680).

In law, the act of promulgation is a formal announcement that legislation or some other act of the state has passed into law.  In some jurisdictions, this is merely procedural but in others is a necessity for laws to take effect.  Historically, in English law, an act of parliament, or some other legislative body, was promulgated by ceremonies in designated places when the words were variously read out or posted in writing.  That’s changed and promulgations in the UK now follow royal assent, either by the sovereign appearing in the House of Lords or announcements by Lords Commissioners who announce the act(s), the ceremony held almost always at the Palace of Westminster.  However, this has not been a common practice since the eighteenth century and royal assent is usually granted by the issue of letters patent.

Modern promulgations are posted on Instagram.  Lindsay Lohan & Bader Shammas (b 1987) announce the birth of their first child, July 2023.

In Australia, the process of promulgation is almost always the publication of the details in government gazettes and websites, a process still called gazetting.  The significance of gazetting law is important because of the legal principle ignorantia legis neminem excusat (ignorance of law excuses no one) which hold a person unaware of a law may not escape liability for violating that law merely because they were unaware of its content.  Courts don’t uphold this principle absolutely (as some local government entities which changed by-laws essentially in secret found out) but certainly tend to if things have in some way been appropriately gazetted.  In rare circumstances, promulgation can still be done in the old way: Following the sacking of Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam (1916-2014; prime-minister 1972-1975) in 1975, the governor-general's secretary read the proclamation of dissolution from the steps of old Parliament House.

Etymologists seem generally to find Google's ngrams "interesting but not wholly reliable".  Google note a late-twentieth century resurgence in the use of promulgate after a long decline but since then, it has become rare.

Racialism

Racialism (pronounced rey-shuh-liz-uhm)

(1) The belief that humans can be categorized as belonging to distinct races, each race being characterized by fixed and heritable traits (obsolete).

(2) In technical use, any system of categorization which uses race (however defined); in technical use, what used to be called scientific racialism (and later race realism) is still practiced but the term is no longer applied except as a critique.

1882: The construct was racial + -ism (the adjective racial dating from 1862).  Race (in this context) was from the French racisme, dating from 1902, from the mid sixteenth century Middle French race from the early fourteenth century Italian razza of uncertain origin.  The word gained the various senses of (1) a group of sentient beings, particularly people, distinguished by common ancestry, heritage or physical characteristics (most notably skin color or tone), (2) an identifiably distinct group of people distinguished from others on some basis (which could be cultural or religious).  Noted first in 1928, use of the word racism became common by the mid-1930s and was widely applied to the legal and social systems in some countries by at least 1940.  The –ial suffix from the Middle English, from the Old French, from the Latin -ālis (the third-declension two-termination suffix (neuter -āle) used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or numerals) and was used to form adjectives from nouns.  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  Racialism & racialist are nouns & adjectives and racialistic is an adjective; the noun plural is racialisms.  Racism & racist are nouns and adjectives; the noun plural is racisms.

The word was coined in 1882, based on the existing use of "race" as a synonym of "nation, tribe, ethnic group"; the later senses emerged from circa 1890 from the use of "race" for racial categories.  The use in 1882 was essentially neutral and descriptive and referred to “tribalism” but in less than a decade it assumed the meaning “political system advocating superiority and exclusive rights based on race” but that would come later to be replaced by the more overt “racism” & “racist”.  The later attempt to repurpose the word for (allegedly) scientific purpose with a meaning closer to the 1882 original (including as race-realism) was unsuccessful.  In the West, expressions of racism became first unfashionable in polite society and later unacceptable.  This change in attitude unfolded over decades in the twentieth century and progress was socially and geographically varied, the clustering of populations by class, education and ethnic diversity (the formalization as DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) came early in the 2000s) probably the most significant factors accounting for the difference.  Racism does seem to be endemic in the human condition and while it can be suppressed by collective social disapprobation or rendered unlawful, apparently everywhere when people with recognizably different features or characteristics (in appearance, linguistically, culturally etc) degrees of conflict ensue.  This can be something so low-level it’s usually imperceptible such as the interactions between the Italian, French, German & Romansh speakers in Switzerland or more violent, as recent events in Sudan and Tunisia demonstrate.  It’s not going to go away and the management of it varies from place to place between the multi-cultural policies in the West and the “ethnic cleansing” (something of a euphemism in that it included mass-murder) associated with the wars in the Balkans in the early 1990s.  The most obvious modern manifestation of racialism is “racial profiling” which ranges from filtering processes which exclude certain applicants from the employment selection process to police selecting for “stop & search” only those perceived to be of a certain ethnicity to persons of middle-eastern appearance receiving heightened levels of attention from airport security staff.

Winsor Newton Black Indian Ink.

Racialism and racism are not unrelated concepts, but have different meanings and implications.  Racialism is practiced as a spectrum and explores the existence of differences between racial groups (as defined) and this can be in genetics, specific capabilities, traits, or characteristics.  It can be merely descriptive (even down to the cellular level) bit inevitably comes often to be used to suggest there might be races which are superior or inferior to others based on these differences.  Racism however, takes a belief system (usually of racial superiority) and imposes systemic oppression, discrimination, prejudice, and unequal treatment of individuals or groups based on their race, ethnicity, or nationality.  The most obvious examples involve the exercise of power and privilege by one racial group over others, leading to social, economic, and political disparities.  So seriously corrosive has race come to be seen in the West that some guides now recommend race never be mentioned by white people although there is a convention words & phrases using proscribed terms can be used the those in the group referenced, hence the ongoing popularity of the infamous N-words among the African American community.  That doesn’t however mean it’s now permissible for white people to use the phrase “white trash”, even as a self-descriptor because of its origins which essentially equated whites of the lowest socio-economic status with that of blacks although it does continue to be used both as a term of disparagement and one of group identity.  Helpfully, the guides suggest “Chinese whispers” should become “telephone whispers” and “Indian Ink” is best called “carbon-based ink” although under the original name it remains widely available.  In cricket, the “chinaman” delivery is no longer mention and if one is sent down, it’s correct to call it “left-arm unorthodox spin” or “left-arm wrist spin”, both of which are by comparison a bit of a mouthful but the sport seems to cope with the fielding position known as “deep backward square leg” so most should adapt.  The “French cut” seems to have survived.

Racialism can however still, with caution, be used.  Geneticists for example have determined the only “pure” human beings left are the black Africans while the rest of the planet’s population is a result of human Neanderthal interbreeding and that’s an example of racialism (the once current terms “race realism” and “scientific racism” have long been proscribed because they became tainted by a number of pseudo-sciences which (unsurprisingly) all supported notions of white superiority).  Also racialist is another discovery from the DNA labs: a genetic mutation found in Africans, the possession of which offers some degree of protection from malaria and that would have been a product of natural selection among those who live in places where the disease was endemic.