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.

Viscacha or vizcacha

Viscacha or vizcacha (pronounced vi-skah-chuh)

A gregarious burrowing hystricomorph rodent (Lagostomus maximus), of the genera Lagidium and Lagostomus, within family Chinchillidae, about the size of a groundhog, inhabiting the pampas of Paraguay and Argentina and allied to the smaller chinchilla, also from the family Chinchillidae.  It’s known also at the mountain viscacha, a related rodent of the genus Lagidium (of the Andes), about the size of a squirrel, having rabbit-like ears and a squirrel-like tail.

1595–1605: From the Spanish viscacha from Quechua wisk’acha or Quechuan wiskácha.  The Spanish Quechua is from qhichwa (literally “temperate valley”).  With use depending on prevailing practice, both the spellings viscacha & vizcacha are used in various branches of biology and zoology, the older alternatives biscacha, biscacho & bizcacha now rare except in historic citation.  The noun plural is viscachas and the derived term is viscachera (plural viscacheras), a warren inhabited by viscachas.

Vizcacha moments: Time for the world weary to take a nap; Lindsay Lohan joining a viscacha in a yawn.

The viscachas or vizcachas, of which there are five extant species, are rodents of the genera (Lagidium and Lagostomus) within the family Chinchillidae.  Native to South America, despite looking similar to rabbits or hares, they’re not related to either and are thus of interest to evolutionary biologists because they’re an example of convergent evolution.  When biologists first saw the viscacha they noted the question of heritage: mammals part of the Leporidae family (rabbit) or the Chinchillidae family (Chinchilla)?  Sharing the large ears, powerful hind legs, and small front paws, Vizcachas do bear a striking resemblance to the rabbit family but are distinguished by their long bushy tail, a trait unique to the Chinchillidae family.  Helpful for biologists as a species indicator, for the small rodent, it’s a marker of their state of mind, the tail is extended when distressed and curled when at ease.

Residing throughout southern and western South America, they tend to stay close to their underground burrows but possess surprising dexterity as climbers, able to jump from rock to rock so effortlessly and with such alacrity observers report their progress is hard to track with the naked eye.  They live in colonies that can be barely a dozen or number in the hundreds and have acquired an extensive repertoire of vocalizations used in social interactions.  Small they may be but Vizcachas are voluble and, belying their sleepy appearance, are noted for their gregarious behavior.

Up to two feet (.6 m) in length and weighing typically around 3.5 lbs (1.6 kg), Vizcachas are relatively large by rodent standards but are small compared to their carnivorous neighbors, the Puma and Culpeo Fox.  These two are fierce predators but the fast, agile Vizcacha has the advantage of inhabiting a mountainous environment littered with boulders and rocks which is difficult hunting ground so doesn’t suffer greatly from predation induced population decline.  The main threat is humans, less from the habitat loss which threatens some species but because of illegal hunting for their meat and fur, luxury items in some markets.

There are spiritual traditions in which exists the concept of the spirit animal, a creature the spirit of which is said to help guide or protect a person on a journey and the characteristics of which that person shares or embodies.  The apparently ancient concept is prominent in a number of indigenous (notably Native American) religions and cultures and was embraced by Pagan and Wiccan communities as recently as the 1990s and the term totem was sometimes used.  Totem was from the Native North American Ojibwe ᑑᑌᒼ or ᑑᑌᒻ (doodem) and referred to a sacred object, symbol or spirit and in a sense can be thought of as the equivalent of a flag (in the case of a tribe) or coat of arms (in the case of a clan).  The word totem became widely used by anthropologists when discussing cultural practices in many places (and not just in North America).  In academic use where it's a neutral descriptor this is usually not controversial but in general use it can be a form of cultural misappropriation.  In the West, the idea of spirit animals was picked up in the weird world of the new age, dolphins and other charismatic creatures predictably popular.  The concept turned out also to have appeal to some among the less spiritual who adopted the viscacha as their spirit animal because there is seemingly no living thing on earth with an appearance which so encapsulates the qualities of the melancholic, world-weariness and the need to take a nap.

Vizcacha moments: Jiang Zemin (1926–2022; General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (and thus paramount leader) 1989-2002 & President of the People's Republic of China (PRC) 1993-2003), resting his eyes during one of the less interesting speeches delivered as part of the otherwise riveting proceedings of the nineteenth congress of the CCP, Beijing, October 2017.  It’s said Mr Jiang, sometime during his second term as paramount leader, adopted the viscacha as his spirit animal.

Gasoline

Gasoline (pronounced gas-uh-leen)

(1) A volatile, flammable liquid mixture of hydrocarbons, obtained from petroleum and used as fuel in internal-combustion engines or as a solvent.

(2) In the slang of drug users, marijuana, especially if notably potent (also as gas and there’s evidence both gas and gasoline have been used of other drugs).

(3) In slang, a cocktail made by mixing a spirit with an energy drink (the original believed to be a combination of vodka & Red Bull).

As used to describe the “light, volatile liquid obtained from distillation of petroleum”, gasoline dates from 1864 and was a variant of Gasolene which in the UK had been trade-marked the year before.  The word gasolene was from a trade-marked brand of petroleum-derived lighting oil, registered in 1862 which was based on the surname of English publisher and tea & coffee merchant John Cassell (1817–1865) who branched out into lighting fuel, marketed as both Cazeline & Cazzoline.  His publishing house Cassell & Co endures today as an imprint of the Octopus Publishing Group.  The surname Cassell was from the Anglo-Norman castel (a cognate of the English castle), from the Old French castel, from the Latin castellum, a diminutive of castrum.  The -eline suffix was from the Ancient Greek ἔλαιον (élaion) (oil, olive oil), from ἐλαία (elaía).  Etymologists speculate the spelling of gasolene (and thus gasoline) may have been influenced by Gazeline, an Irish product which was a clone of Cazzoline, either the promoters liked the assumed association with “gas” or simply they found it a more attractive word.  It’s though the general construct gas-o-line was built with the “o” representing the Latin oleum (oil) and the ending a borrowing from the chemical suffix -ine.  The alternative form gasolene is extinct in every market except Jamaica.  Gasoline is a noun & adjective and gasolinic is an adjective; the noun plural is gasolines.

Moderne BV-Aral Tankstelle (modern BV-Aral gas station), Bochum, FRG (Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany)), 1958.  The cars are an Opel Rekord (left), a Volkswagen Type 14 (Karmann Ghia) coupé (centre) and a Volkswagen Type 1 (Beetle) (right).  In the background stands the head office of the oil company BV-Aral AG.

In the US, the shortened form “gas” was in common use by at least 1897 but on the pattern of use typically found in other words, it’s likely it was around almost as soon as gasoline went on sale.  The “gas station” (place to fill up one’s automobile (“gassing up”) with gasoline by use of a “gas pump”) was recorded in California in 1916 and was in national use by the early 1920s.  The “gas pedal” (the accelerator) was first recorded in 1908 and is still used even in markets where the term petrol is preferred, as in the phrase “step on the gas” (depress the accelerator (ie go faster)) which is used generally to suggest increasing speed or effort and is not confined to automobiles.  The term gas-guzzler (a car with a high fuel consumption) was coined in 1973 after the first oil shock and in 1978 the US federal government imposed the first stage of its long-running “gas-guzzler tax”.  The noun gasohol (a gasoline with a small percentage of ethanol was coined in 1975; the mix was another reaction to the increase in the oil price and occasional shortages in the era.  To “pour gasoline on the fire” is a suggestion some action is making an already bad situation worse.  The term Avgas (the construct being av(iation) + gas) was coined during the First World War (1914-1918) when it was found the mix used in automobiles was unsuitable for aircraft which needed a mixture with higher specific energy (ie high octane).  The use in North America (and a handful of other places) of “gas” to refer to what is otherwise generally known as “petrol” sometimes mystifies because in many markets the usual distinction for road transport is between vehicles fueled by diesel, petrol & gas (usually liquid petroleum gas (LPG) or compressed natural gas (CNG).

Entertainment Tonight (ET) deconstructs Lindsay Lohan’s dance moves at a New Jersey gas station, October 2019.  According to ET, the routine was executed between gas pumps 3 & 4.

In chemistry, gas is matter in an intermediate state between liquid and plasma that can be contained only if it is fully surrounded by a solid (or in a bubble of liquid, or held together by gravitational pull); it can condense into a liquid, or can (in care cases) become a solid directly by deposition. The common synonym is vapor (also as vapour).  The word was a borrowing from the Dutch gas which was coined by chemist Brussels-based chemist & physician Jan Baptist van Helmont (1580–1644), from the Ancient Greek χάος (kháos) (chasm, void, empty space) and there may also have been some influence from geest (breath, vapour, spirit).  More speculatively, there were also the writings of the Swiss physician, alchemist, lay theologian, and philosopher of the German Renaissance Theophrastus von Hohenheim (circa 1493-1541 and known usually as Paracelsus) who wrote of kháos in the occultist’s  sense of “proper elements of spirits”" or "ultra-rarified water”, both of which accorded with van Helmont's definition of gas which he introduced to the world in Ortus medicinae, vel opera et opuscula omnia (The Origin of Medicine, or Complete Works (1648)) with the words Hunc spiritum, incognitum hactenus, novo nomine gas voco (“This vapor, hitherto unknown, I call by a new name, ‘gas’”).

Lindsay Lohan gassing up her Porsche, Malibu, California, April 2020.

The use in science in the modern sense dates from 1779 and it was adopted for specific applications as technologies emerged or were commercialized: To describe a “combustible mix of vapors” the term “coal gas” was first used in 1794; the use in medicine for the anesthetic nitrous oxide was from 1794 (made famous in dentistry as “laughing gas” although the laughter was induced by impurities introduced in the early production processes rather than the inherent properties of N₂O); “Poison gas” was from 1900" (1900).  The meaning “intestinal vapors” emerged in 1882 while the not unrelated sense of “empty talk” was from 1847 (meaning something like “hot air”) although more positively, by 1953 “it’s a gas” meant “something exciting or excellent”, “a gasser” in 1944 meaning much the same.  James Joyce (1882–1941) in Dubliners (1914) used gas to mean “fun, a joke”, an Anglo-Irish form thought linked to the use of laughing gas in dentistry.  In drag racing “gassers” (so named because they were fueled by gasoline rather than methanol or nitromethane) were the most common of the highly modified road cars in the early days of the sport but the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) retired the category in 1972 and split the participation of gasoline-powered units into a number of classes.

Art Deco gas station, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, 1931.

The “gas-works” was first described in 1914 and was a little misleading because they were actually bulk-storage facilities from which gas was distributed either by fixed lines or cylinders delivered to the premises.  The kitchen appliance the “gas-oven” was mentioned first in 1851 although “gas-stove” by then had been in use for three years.  The notorious “gas chambers” used by the Nazis in their mass-murder programmes are most associated with the attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe but the first were actually built in 1939, as part of Aktion T4 which involved the killing of those with physical and intellectual disabilities.  These early facilities used carbon monoxide and were built within Germany and served also to murder other prisoners and although by later standards inefficient, were adequate for the numbers involved.  As territories to the east were occupied, similar structures were built and there were ever experiments with “mobile chambers”, large air-tight van coachwork added to truck chassis into which the exhaust gasses were ducted.  Again, these worked but by 1941 the Nazis now wished to exterminate millions and the most efficient method was found to be scaled-up chambers (disguised as shower rooms) into which the hydrogen cyanide-based anti-vermin fumigant Zyklon B was introduced, permitting a throughput at the most productive death camps of some 5500 at day, sometimes for months at a time.  The term “gas chamber” was widely used during the post-war hearings conducted by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg (1945-1946) but as a method of judicial execution, many nations had by then used them at various times and the US only recently abandoned use of the method.

Roadsters line up to gas up, Gasoline Alley, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, May 1960.  This was one of the official postcards sold in the speedway's shop.

Gasoline Alley is the name of the garage area at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  That wasn’t the original name but in the 1920s, “gasoline alley” was the drivers’ slang for the forecourt at the back of the garages where the cars were taken to refuel.  Whether linked or not, there was in the era a popular newspaper comic strip called Gasoline Alley and the use of the name soon extended to the strip dividing the two rows of garages.  It caught the public imagination and the facility managers in the early 1950s added signage which meant the whole garage area became associated with the term.  As a result of the reconstructions necessitated by fires, modernization & expansion, Gasoline Alley is not recognizable compared to its original appearance but the name remains, even thought actual gasoline is now rarely pumped, the open-wheel cars switching first to methanol (1965) and later (2006) ethanol and it’s only when other categories use the track that gasoline is in the tanks.  If the sport is compelled to convert to electric (or hopefully hydrogen) propulsion, the name is unlikely to change.

Rod Stewart (b 1945), Gasoline Alley (1970).

Muliebrity

Muliebrity (pronounced myoo-lee-eb-ri-tee)

(1) The condition of being a woman.

(2) Femininity; womanly nature or qualities.

(3) Effeminacy, softness

(4) In physiology, the state of puberty in the human female (rare).

1585–1595: From the Late Latin muliēbritās (womanhood) from muliēbris (womanly) from mulier (woman).  The original meaning in the 1590s was "womanhood, state of puberty in a woman", this corresponding to virility in men.  The Latin source mulier (a woman) has for centuries been held to be comparative to the stem of mollis (soft, weak) to which there have long been phonetic objections, but no alternative theory has been offered.  This was the source also in the oldest known customary and common law texts of the sense of mulier being "a woman; a wife" and, as an adjective, "born in wedlock."  Related was muliebral (of or pertaining to a woman) and muliebrious (effeminate), both documented from the 1650s.  The later mulierosity (an excessive fondness for women) is perhaps a more attractive term than those many would prefer.  In pre-modern medicine, in early anatomy and medical texts, the pudenda muliebria was euphemistic for "vagina"; in later use in physiology it came to refer simply to the state of puberty in a female.  In early literary use it had the sense of “the state of attainment of womanhood following maidenhood” but well before the twentieth century had come instead to be a general expression of youthful feminine beauty.  The –ity suffix was borrowed from the French -ité, from the Middle French -ité, from the Old French –ete & -eteit (-ity), from the Latin -itātem, from -itās, from the primitive Indo-European suffix –it.  It was cognate with the Gothic –iþa (-th), the Old High German -ida (-th) and the Old English -þo, -þu & -þ (-th).  It was used to form nouns from adjectives (especially abstract nouns), thus most often associated with nouns referring to the state, property, or quality of conforming to the adjective's description.  Muliebrity is a noun and muliebral & muliebrile are adjectives, the noun plural is muliebrities.  Muliebrity long ago shifted in meaning from its late sixteenth century origins and is now probably most seen (or un-seen) in the diary entries of young ladies who read Wuthering Heights at a young age and never quite recovered.

Shakespeare on difficult women

There is in William Shakespeare (1564–1616), much to be found, one modern critic said even to have claimed him as “the noblest women’s rightist of them all”.  There may be something in this and Shakespeare created some memorably defiant women who asserted themselves in ways we don’t, erroneously or not, associate with the social mores of his age but, while some flourish, not all go unpunished for their transgressive behavior, although some didn’t need to be that difficult to be punished; few who try to map proto-feminism onto Shakespeare mention Katherine (The Taming of the Shrew; circa 1590) who apparently suffered her fate just for being a funny, fierce man-hater.  Seemingly, at least sometimes in Shakespeare, the more muliebrious the better.

Olivia Hussey (b 1951) as Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli's (1923-2019) film of Romeo and Juliet (1968).

He certainly didn’t stick to the defined role-models of his time, Helena (All's Well That Ends Well; circa 1600), although she spends most of her time moping about in anguish at the indifference of a man she wants, was a talented doctor who delicately repairs the king's anal fistula.  So, in Shakespeare, there’s sometimes ambivalence.  Juliet (Romeo & Juliet; circa 1595) got equal billing with Romeo and while they’re both equally vital to the plot, Juliet, while head over heels in love, at least remains a bit more grounded than the poetic Romeo, a bit of an emo who likes talking about the moon.  Romantic she may be but it’s Juliet to whom the bard gave the long soliloquy about how much she lusts for sex with her lover-to-be and there’s no sense she’s demonized for having normal womanly, human longings.

Crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947).

Lady Macbeth (The Tragedie of Macbeth; 1606) draws actresses like few other characters of the stage; Shakespeare’s most fierce female, it’s not hard to see the attraction.  Lady Macbeth is childless, probably less a statement of proto-feminism or a rejection of societal expectations than the bard constructing her as one noted more for manipulation than muliebrity and just so the audience gets it, there’s her monologue (Act 1, scene 5) imploring the spirits to “Stop up the access and passage to remorse” (gender dysmorphia and commitment issues) and “Come to my woman’s breasts, and take my milk for gall” (less succorance; more bile).  Without these womanly distractions, Lady Macbeth knows she’ll have the strength herself to murder King Duncan even if her husband does not.  Though it is Macbeth who murders Duncan, it was the wife who put the blade in his hand and in the end, Shakespeare punishes her too.

Imogen Stubbs (b 1961) as Viola in Trevor Nunn's (b 1940) film of Twelfth Night (1996).

Although both survive a shipwreck, Viola (Twelfth Night; circa 1601) and her twin brother Sebastian each believe the other dead and, once ashore, everyone thinks she is her brother and her brother is her.  Making the best of a bad situation Viola, in an act of feminist temerity, anticipates changes in the nature of female workforce participation (which won’t be seen for centuries) by, rather than enduring the misery of domestic servitude, dresses as a boy and goes to work for the Duke of Orsino (with whom she falls in love).  That’s where it gets complicated because the duke sends Viola to court the Countess Olivia on his behalf but Olivia falls for Viola and, with the twin Sebastian having shown up, a flood of mistaken identity ensues, and, after a few shenanigans, Sebastian and Olivia wed.  Viola then reveals she really is a girl and marries the duke.  If Shakespeare hadn’t had something else in mind, he might have called Twelfth Night, All’s well that ends well.

Lindsay Lohan as Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011) as Cleopatra in Lloyd Kramer's (b 1947) made-for-TV Liz & Dick (2012).

Although Cleopatra (The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra; circa 1607) was another of Shakespeare’s women who ended up dead, while she lived she was quite something, a woman with her own bank account who ruled a nation.  Complex, strong and vulnerable, she’s another one actresses like to play, her tragedy in death offering a bit more scope that Portia’s triumph in victory.  Cleopatra explored Mediterranean sexual realpolitik too, toying with an Antony who is just one of the many men she outsmarts; no stereotypes of subservience there.  Still, things do end badly for her, even if in her noble death she denies Caesar Octavius one more triumph, his primacy assured is by the play’s extraordinary death-toll and, with no political foes left standing, he sails for Rome to be crowned Emperor.

Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003) as Portia in American Shakespeare Theatre's production of The Merchant of Venice (1957).

Portia (The Merchant of Venice; circa 1597) seems at first an improbable feminist model, the first scene one in which the heiress watches potential suitors sit the tests devised by her father to find one worthy of her hand in marriage.  But the patriarchy is no match for Portia who twists the tests to ensure the winner is her preferred beau, one who would never otherwise have attracted her father’s approval; Portia is smart and tough.  She undermines gender-stereotyping and the patriarchy beyond the family too, cross-dressing to appear in court at a time when women weren’t permitted to be counsel.  For feminist anti-Semites too there’s a strong role-model, Portia’s legal sophistry rescuing good Christian Antonio from the grim fate demanded by the Jewish money-lender.

Elisabeth Bergner (1897-1986) as Rosalind in Paul Czinner's (1890-1972) film of As You Like It (1936).

After being exiled, strong-willed Rosalind (As You Like It ;circa 1599) adopts the disguises of the male shepherd Ganymede and goes to live in the Arcadian forest of Ardenne.  There, inter alia, she becomes a sort of life-coach, focused on teaching men to be more progressive in their attitudes towards women; not exactly making them metrosexuals but certainly less late-medieval.  It works for her too for the previously uncouth Orlando learns better how to woo her and they wed in the happy group marriage at play’s end and in being taught by Rosalind to get in touch with his female side, Orlando takes part is what is probably Shakespeare’s most overt deconstruction of gender roles.  There is however an undercurrent of class awareness in the allocation of happiness.  Of the four couples, it’s the peasant pair, Phoebe & Silvius, who end up married even though his love for her remains surely unrequited; Shakespeare may have felt his clever women of the better classes deserved happiness more than peasant shepherdesses.  Structurally it’s interesting too for in As You Like It, it’s Rosalind who delivers the play’s epilogue, a thing Shakespeare traditionally reserved for a man and that may be Rosalind’s most post-modern transgression.

Combo

Combo (pronounced kom-boh)

(1) In informal use, a small jazz or dance band (as distinct from a big band).

(2) In informal use, many forms of combined items (bundled “meal deals”; products sold with a collection of options offered at a nominal discount against the price calculated on the basis of the extended value etc).

(3) In informal use, to combine.

(4) A sequence of actions combined as one for certain purposes.

(5) In informal use, the combination (the numerical sequence) of a combination lock.

(6) In video gaming, an action composed of a sequence of simpler actions, especially a composite attacking move in a fighting game; two or more game-play elements (characters, items, options etc) which are powerful when used together.

(7) In collectible card games, a strategy under which the objective is to win by playing a specific combination of cards (or similar), usually in a single play.

(8) In historic Australian (derogatory) slang, a white man (1) who lives among Aboriginal people and adopts Aboriginal culture or (2) has entered into an ongoing sexual relationship with an Aboriginal woman or (3) has taken an Aboriginal wife, usually in a common-law marriage (all now archaic).

(9) In computing (in the design of graphical user interfaces (GUI)), in the informal use “combo box” (A GUI widget that is a combination of a dropdown list or list box and a single-line textbox, allowing the user either to type a value directly into the control or choose from the list of existing options).

1924: A clipping of comb(ination) + -o.  Combination (the act of combining, the state of being combined or the result of combining) was from the Middle English combinacioun & combynacyoun, from the Old French combination, from the Late Latin combīnātiō.  The colloquial -o suffix (wino, ammo, combo, kiddo et al) appears widely in English but is most common in Australia where in certain sub-cultures it appears to be obligatory (they have names like Shaneo, Toddo, Wayneo etc).  The first use was of small jazz groups and dance bands and was used to differentiate the smaller ensembles from the then popular “big bands”, the implication also that while combos were often ad-hoc things with the membership varying from evening to evening whereas big bands had a more stable (usually salaried) membership and usually took the name of the band leader.  Combo is a noun, comboing & comboed are verbs and comboable is an adjective; the noun plural is combos or comboes.

The VW Kombi and the Samba

1951 VW Kombi.

Although there was for years in English-speaking markets something of a tendency to call all the Volkswagen Type 2s Kombis, the Kombi was just one configuration in a range which eventually extended beyond a dozen distinct types.  Kombi was a clipping of the German Kombinationskraftwagen (combination motor vehicle), another of those compound nouns at which they excel.  The Kombi coachwork featured side windows and removable seats in the rear compartment, permitting the thing thus to be used either for passengers, freight or a combination of the two.  Other types in the range included pure delivery vans (no rear seats) with a variety of door options, a high-roof version best suited to transporting cargo which was bulky but not especially heavy, pick-ups (Transporters) with either a single or double passenger cabin and the other classic, the Microbus, intended purely for people and thus configured with fixed seats in the rear.  It was the Microbus which made its mark with the US surfing community in the 1960s and it became identified with the counter culture, something perhaps assisted by its large, flat surfaces which lent themselves to the psychedelic paint schemes associated with the era.

Not a Kombi: 1959 VW Microbus Deluxe (Samba).  Such was the enduring appeal of the shape, VW in the 2020s used it for an electric van.

Between 1951-1967, the Microbus was also offered as the Kleinbus Sonderausführung (small bus, special version) which was marketed variously as the Microbus Deluxe, Sunroof Deluxe & Samba; the most obvious distinguishing features were the folding fabric sunroof and the unusual “skylight” windows which followed the curve of sides of the roof, a technique borrowed from tourist train carriages, busses and boats.  Available in 21 & 23 window versions, these are now highly collectable and such is the attraction there’s something of a cottage industry in converting Microbuses to the be-windowed specification but it’s difficult exactly to emulate the originals, the best of which can command several times the price of a fake (one restored with studious devotion to the maintenance or replication of originality in 2017 selling at auction in the US for US$302,000 although for various reasons the market has since cooled).  Such was the susceptibility to rust, the survival rate wasn’t high and many led a hard life when new, popular with the tour guides who would conduct bus-loads of visitors on (slow) tours of the Alps, the sunroof & skylights ideal for gazing at the peaks.  To add to the mood, a dashboard-mounted valve radio was available as an option.  The Microbus Deluxe is actually rarely referred to as such, being almost universally either “21 Window”, “23 Window” or “Samba”, the first two deterministic and the origin of the latter uncertain.  One theory is it was a borrowing from the Brazilian dance and musical genre associated with things lively, colorful, and celebratory, the link being that as well as the sunroof and windows, the Deluxe had more luxurious interior appointments, came usually in bright two-tone paint (other Type 2s were usually more drab in appearance) and featured (by German if not US standards) lashings of external chrome.  It’s an attractive story but some prefer something more Germanic: Samba as the acronym for the business-like phrase Sonnendach-Ausführung mit besonderem Armaturenbrett (sunroof version with special dashboard).  However it happened, Samba was in colloquial use by at least 1952 and became semi official in 1954 when the distributers in the Netherlands added the word to their brochures.  Production ended in July 1967 after almost 100,000 had been built.

Combo in nature but not Kombi in name: 1959 VW Double passenger cabin Transporter (which the factory called the Doka, from Doppelkabine (double cabin).

The very existence of the VW Type 2 (the Beetle was the Type 1) was an act of serendipity, one entrepreneurial dealer from the Netherlands in 1947 noting during a visit to the factory the use of a rather cobbled-together “pick-up” based on a Beetle chassis.  With Europe in the throes of post-war rebuilding and so much industrial production still disrupted, there was a shortage of such vehicles and he sketched what would now be called a “forward control van” which the factory agreed to develop.  However, such was the demand for the Beetle that it wasn’t until 1950 than production of the Type 2 began and, despite the legend that the two share underpinnings, that’s only partially true because to gain the necessary strength, a different floor plan was required.

One of the Wolfsburg factory's original Plattenwagens (best translated as "flat bed carrier"), improvised atop a Type 1 (Beetle) chassis; it inspired the sketch of the original Volkswagen Type 2.

Still, with many mechanical components there was much interchangeably between Types 1 & 2, something which added greatly to its appeal and immediately it was successful, the first generation staying in production until 1966 and although in most of the world the classic air-cooled / rear-engine configuration was in subsequent decades replaced, Type 2 in that specification were made in Brazil until 2013.  Even then, demand in South America was was still strong and the line profitable but Brazil was about the last developed market in the world to introduce the safety regulations which driven old Kombis elsewhere extinct.  The South American line had been the last link with the Nazi’s Kdf-Wagen (which became the Beetle, the first prototype of which dated from 1935, renamed to the snappier Volkswagen (literally “people’s car”).  Kdf (Kraft durch Freude, literally “Strength Through Joy” was the Nazi state’s leisure organization which was involved in everything from holiday resorts and cruise liners to the regulation of workplaces (the classic Nazi “carrot & stick” approach) but it was also used as a slogan an in that sense joy was compulsory and the state had ways to punish those not thought sufficiently joyful.

1978 Mercedes Benz 280 TE (S123).

One of the last of the “chrome Mercedes”, the W123 range was in production between 1975-1986 and the station wagon appeared in 1977 with the internal code S123 (only nerds use that and to the rest of the world they’re “W123 wagons”).  The designation was “T” (the very Germanic Tourismus und Transport (Touring and Transport)) or TD for the diesel-powered cars and the S123 was the company’s first station wagon to enter series production, previous such “long roof” models coming from coach-builders including many hearses & ambulances as well as station wagons.  The English still call station wagons "estates" (a clipping of "estate car") although a publication like Country Life probably still hankers after "shooting brake" and the most Prussian of the German style guides list the compound noun Kombinationskraftwagen which for decades has usually been clipped to the semi-formal Kombiwagen, (plural Kombiwagen or Kombiwägen) or, in general use: Kombi.  That Mercedes-Benz in the mid-1970s decided their first station wagon in regular production should be a “T” (and understood as a Tourenwagen (touring car) rather than a “K” (ie Kombiwagen, the designation used by other manufacturers) reflected the prevailing German view of such cars.  Unlike the US where station wagons had long been emblematic of middle-class respectability (often as a family’s second car for the wife & mother) or England where the style enjoyed an association with the upper class HFS (huntin’, fishin’ & shootin’) set, to Germans the utilitarian long-roofs had a down-market image, bought only by those unable to afford separate vehicles for business & pleasure.  Coach-builders had of course used Mercedes-Benz saloons as the basis for station wagons, ambulances and hearses but these were always expensive and thus not tainted by association with thriftiness by necessity.  In their alphanumeric system of model designations, Mercedes-Benz had previously used “K” to mean either Kompressor (supercharged) (eg 770 K) or Kurz (short) (eg SSK) and other letters had also done double-duty, “L” standing for either Lang (long) (eg 600 SEL) or Licht (light) (eg SSKL) and “S” could mean both Super (300 SL) or Sports (300 SLR) so for the S123 “K” wasn’t avoided because of fears of confusing folk; it was just an image thing: "Don't mention the kombi".  That all changed in the 1980s when the Germans decided wagons were sexy after all, the high performance arms of Audi, BMW & Mercedes-Benz all producing some remarkably fast ones.   

Combo cards: 3Com Ethernet XL PCI 3c900 NIC (RJ45-AUI-BNC) (left), NVidia GPU (HDMI-VGA-DVI) (centre) & Startech AT (Advanced Technology (or ISA (Industry Standard Architecture)) 2S1P (2 x DB9 Serial-1 x DB25 Parallel) (right).

In personal computer hardware, combo devices have existed almost as long as the industry.  When, with rather modest expectations, IBM released the PC-1 in 1981, it cost as much as US$5000 and was, even by the standards of the time, neither fast nor particularly capable but (1) it was an IBM and that really gave it a legitimacy no other name could and (2) it was delivered with lots of “open architecture” slots which meant third-party manufacturers could (license and royalty-free) produce all sorts of plug-in cards which extended the functionally.  Soon, there were cards offering sound, support for color monitors (IBM liked people to watch acid-green text displays because they thought the PC-1 would be used mostly as a way to hook into their big mainframes), higher definition graphics, additional ports soon including various adapters which could be used to connect to networks.  Things advanced rapidly however and before long there were many ways of connecting to stuff and, with "standards' still emerging, such were the realities of production-line economics that for manufacturers it often made sense to combine different things on the one card.  While for example a manufacturer could offer three different NICs (network interface cards) to support three different connections, what proved most popular was the combo card which included the three most common types.  The approach also suited customers who might want an additional serial & parallel port but found a combo card with both a better deal than buying two cards.  The approach is still followed today by the GPU (graphical processing unit) manufacturers which have at various times offered combo card with ports for VGA (technically “Video Graphics Array” but really long a reference to the pin-layout), HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface), DVI (Digital Video Interface, of which there were many) & DP (DisplayPort).

Just about any combination of stuff can be a combo including mix & match makeup.  Lindsay Lohan also was part of Pepsi’s promotional campaign for a “dirty soda”, a concoction of Pepsi Cola & milk (Pilk), served with cookies; on the internet, opinion was divided.  One of the most prolific users of combo seems to be the fast food industry, a combo meal (there are often variations) two or more components (typically a burger, a soda and fries) bundled at a price lower than purchasing the items separately.  For the industry, the combos are a high profit item because they stimulate demand, increasing volume with only a marginal increase in labour costs.

Before the release of the Barbie movie in July 2023, it had probably never occurred to the industry there would one day be demand for a burger with hot-pink sauce but it’s now at Burger King, available as part of a combo meal.  First to make the Barbie-themed meal available was Burger King Brazil, the combo including a cheeseburger topped with bacon bits and dressed with a hot pink sauce, said to have a “smoky” flavor.  Also included is a pink vanilla milkshake with strawberry Nesquik powder mixed in and when the straw is put in, it’s topped with a pink frosted donut.  Barbie being the star, the side order of “Ken’s potatoes” is just a plain order of fries, a sly nod to the “he’s just Ken” message.