Shaker

Shaker (pronounced shey-ker)

(1) A person or thing that shakes or the means by which something is shaken.

(2) A container with a perforated top from which a seasoning, condiment, sugar, flour, or the like is shaken onto food.

(3) Any of various containers for shaking beverages to mix the ingredients (eg cocktail shaker).

(4) A dredger or caster.

(5) A member of the Millennial Church, originating in England in the middle of the eighteenth century (initial capital letter).

(6) Noting or pertaining to a style of something produced by Shakers and characterized by simplicity of form, lack of ornamentation, fine craftsmanship, and functionality (initial capital letter).

(7) As the later component in mover and shaker, one who is important, influential or a dynamic forced in some field or generally.

(8) An exposed air-intake system for internal combustion engines, attached directly to the induction and thus intended to shake as the engine vibrates.

(9) A variety of pigeon.

(10) In railway line construction, one who holds spikes while they are hammered.

(11) In music, a musical percussion instrument filled with granular solids which produce a rhythmic sound when shaken.

(12) A kind of straight-sided, stackable glass.

1400-1450: From the late Middle English, the construct being shake +‎ -er.  Shake is from the Middle English schaken, from the Old English sċeacan & sċacan (to shake), from the Proto-West Germanic skakan, from the Proto-Germanic skakaną (to shake, swing, escape), from the primitive Indo-European (s)keg- & (s)kek- (to jump, move).  It was cognate with the Scots schake & schack (to shake), the West Frisian schaekje (to shake), the Dutch schaken (to elope, make clean, shake), the Low German schaken (to move, shift, push, shake) & schacken (to shake, shock), the Norwegian Nynorsk skaka (to shake), the Swedish skaka (to shake), the Dutch schokken (to shake, shock) and the Russian скака́ть (skakát) (to jump).  The –er suffix is from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought usually to have been borrowed from Latin –ārius and reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (The Anglo-Norman variant was -our), from the Latin -(ā)tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  Added to verbs (typically a person or thing that does an action indicated by the root verb) and forms an agent noun.  The plural is shakers.

The Shakers

The Millennial Church later called the Shakers, dates from 1747, the name shaker first casually applied circa 1750 although it had been used to describe similar practices in other sects since the 1640s and, as an adjective, shaker was first applied to their stark furniture in 1866.  The first cocktail shaker was mentioned in 1868 (the ancient Greeks had seison (a kind of vase) which translated literally as “shaker".  The modern-sounding “movers and shakers” is attested as early as 1874.  The Shakers began as a sect of the English Quakers, the movement founded in 1747 by Jane and James Wardley.  Correctly styled as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, the Shakers were a celibate, millenarian group that established a number of communal settlements in the United States during the eighteenth century.  The early movement was based on the revelations of Ann Lee (1736–1784; addressed within as Mother Ann Lee) who had been active in the English church for almost twenty years after becoming a devotee of the preaching of the Wardleys to whom she confessed her sins; central to her vision was the necessity of repentance and the forsaking of sin as the pathway to redemption.

Movers and shakers: Shakers shaking in worship, New York, 1858.

Promising a vision of a heavenly kingdom to come, Shaker teaching emphasized simplicity, celibacy, & work and communities were flourishing by the mid-nineteenth century, contributing to American culture the style of architecture, furniture, and handicraft for which the movement is today best remembered.  The distinctive feature of their form of worship was the ecstatic dancing or "shaking", which led to them being dubbed “the Shaking Quakers”, later generally shorted to “Shakers”.  The physicality of their practices was neither novel or unique, nor anything particularly associated with Christianity, many religions or sects within, noted for rituals involving shaking, shouting, dancing, whirling, and singing, sometimes in intelligible words, often called “in tongues” (the idea often being what was spoken coming directly from God).

The much-admired Shaker furniture.

Austere though they may have appeared, the Shakers were genuinely innovative in agriculture and industry, their farms prosperous and their ingenuity produced a large number of (usually unpatented) inventions including, the screw propeller, babbitt metal, a rotary harrow, an automatic spring, a turbine waterwheel, a threshing machine and the circular saw.  In agri-business, they were the first in the world to package and market seeds and were once the US’s largest producers of medicinal herbs.  Shaker dance and music is now regarded as a fork in American folk art as well as its religious tradition and the simplicity, functionality and fine craftsmanship of their architecture, furniture and artefacts have had a lasting influence on design.

Although intellectually primitive, Mother Ann’s theology was elaborate but with celibacy as the cardinal principle, the continuity of the communities depended on a constant flow of converts rather than the organic regeneration planned by other sects but the numbers attracted were never sufficient to maintain a critical mass and in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the movement went into decline.  From its height in the 1840s, when some six-thousand members were active, by 1905 there were barely a thousand, compelling the shakers to resort to advertising for members, emphasizing physical comfort of the lifestyle as well as spiritual values.  It became and increasing hard sell in an era of increasing urbanisation and materialism and the convulsion of the twentieth century did little to arrest the trend.  In 1957, the leaders met and voted to close the Shaker Covenant, the document which all new members need to sign to become members.  Membership was thus closed forever and by the turn of the century, there was but one working Shaker village in Sabbathday Lake, Maine; it had fewer than ten members and, in 2023, there appear to be only one or two left alive.

The concept of the cocktail shaker is ancient and ceramic versions dating back some 10,000 years have been found in the Middle East and South & Central America.  The use to which they were put seems in all places to have been essentially the same: a means of mixing fermented fluids with herbs and spices added for flavor, after which a gauze-like fabric could be stretched over the opening so the unwanted residue could be strained off.  Innkeepers for centuries doubtlessly improvised (presumably using two suitably shaped & sized glasses or goblets) their own shakers but it was in cities of the north-east US (New York & Boston factions both claiming the credit) during the early nineteenth century the first commercially produced units were advertised.  By mid-century they were widely used, their functionality and convenience cited by some as one of the reasons there was in the era such an upsurge in the number of recipes publish for mixed drinks.  One of the earliest innovations was the integration of a strainer mechanism although bartenders apparently preferred the detachable devices (said to be much better when working with crushed or shaved ice) and the volume of patent applications for variations on the design of strainers hints at their popularity.  Now, most cocktail shakers are either two-piece (sold with and without a fitted shaker) or (and aimed at the home market) three-piece with a built in shaker, the additional component being a fitted cap which can be used as a measure for spirits or other ingredients.

The shaker and the induction system

1969 Ford Mustang 428 CobraJet.

Shakers were air intakes bolted directly to the induction path of an internal combustion engine’s carburetor(s), the advantage being a measurable increase in power using cool, dense air rather than the inherently warmer under-bonnet air.  Cold-air induction systems weren’t uncommon in the 1960s and 1970s but the shaker’s novelty was that being attached to the engine and protruding through a carefully shaped lacuna in the hood (bonnet), the things shook as the engine vibrated on its mounts.  Men still are excited by such things.

1971 Plymouth Hemi Cuda.

Early advertising material from Chrysler referred to the device as the Incredible Quivering Exposed Cold Air Grabber but buyers called must have thought that a bit much (IQECAG one of history's less mnemonic initializms) and they’ve only ever been referred to as shakers.  The IQECAG was undeniably a sexy scoop and much admired by the males aged 17-39 to whom it was designed to appeal.  Sometimes less is more.  Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) suggested a good title for his book might be Viereinhalb Jahre [des Kampfes] gegen Lüge, Dummheit und Feigheit (Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice) but his publisher thought that a bit ponderous and preferred the more succinct Mein Kampf: Eine Abrechnung and even that was clipped to Mein Kampf for publication.  Unfortunately, the revised title was the best thing about it, the style and contents truly ghastly and it's long and repetitious, the ideas within able easily to be reduced to a few dozen pages (some suggest fewer but the historical examples cited for context do require some space).

1974 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am SD-455.

The reverse facing shakers (and air intakes generally) were designed, like cowl-induction, to take advantage of the properties of fluid dynamics which, at speed, produced an accumulation of cold, high-pressure air in the space at the bottom of the windscreen.  Their use created an urban myth that Holly certain makes of carburetor (the Holly and the Rochester among those mentioned) didn't like being "force-fed" which (if done badly) was sort of true but nothing to do with the low-pressure bonnet-mounted devices.  Engineers had long understood the principle and cowl-induction systems were first seen on racing cars in 1910.

1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS454 (LS6).

A genuine problem with the external induction systems was rain.  In torrential rain, including when the car was parked, moisture entry could cause problems.  Some manufacturers included a flap, providing a protective seal.  The early ones were manually activated but later versions were vacuum-controlled, the extent of opening cognizant of the pressure being applied to the throttle so it opened and closed and engine speed rose and fell.  As a means of getting cold air, this was of course thought most cool.

1964 Ford Fairlane 427 Thunderbolt.

Actually, the bonnet mounted intakes, regardless of which way they faced, weren’t the optimal way to deliver cold air to the induction system but they were the most–admired and something for which buyers were prepared to pay extra so, although they were the most expensive system to produce, they were also the most profitable. Simple ducting from within the wheel-wells delivered most of the benefits but the most efficient harvest of high-pressure air which gained also a “ram-air” effect which, helpfully, increased as speeds rose, was to duct from a forward-facing inlet in the front bumper bar or grill.  Enjoying a much higher pressure than the area around the cowl, with well-designed ducting, a ram-air tube can operate at up to 125% the efficiency of a cowl intake, able to generate a pressure of 2-3 psi (14-20 pascals) at high speed.  Ford in 1936 & 1964 found that by happy coincidence, the inside set of headlights on their Galaxies and Fairlanes were positioned to suit such ducting almost as if they'd been placed there by design so on the limited production "Lightweight" Galaxie and the Fairlane "Thunderbolt", the lens were removed and the apertures re-purposed.  Only 100 of the Thunderbolts were produced, all intended for use in drag racing and this machine secured the 1964 NHRA (National Hot Rod Association) championship in the Super Stock class.

Unguent

Unguent (pronounced uhng-gwuhnt)

(1) An ointment or salve, usually liquid or semi-liquid, for application to wounds, sores etc (mostly archaic except as a deliberate anachronism for literary or poetic purposes).

(2) Any ointment-like preparation for the skin, use largely restricted to the advertising of high-end cosmetic houses.

1400–1450: From the late Middle English unguent (ointment), from the Latin unguentum, an alteration (probably by association with the suffixes –men, -menta & -mentum (the Latin collective noun suffix)) of unguen (fat, grease) and a derivative of unguere (to anoint or smear with ointment), from the primitive Indo-European root hseng & ongw- (to salve, anoint), the source also of the Sanskrit anakti (anoints, smears), the Armenian aucanem (I anoint), the Old Prussian anctan (butter), the Old High German ancho, the German anke (butter), the Old Irish imb (butter) and the Welsh ymenyn (butter).  The alternative spelling onguent is extinct and technically, synonyms include balm, ointment, lotion, emollient, lubricant, cream & cerate but by virtue of use, the word is mostly obsolete except as a deliberate anachronism for literary or poetic purposes although it persists in the niche of expensive cosmetics where it functions to denote "expensive".  Unguent is a noun and unguentary is an adjective; the noun plural is unguents.

Peter Thomas Roth's Eye-Conic Eye Patches

Unguents can be peel-off:  Lindsay Lohan in May 2023 appeared in a campaign promoting the cult Eye-Conic Eye Patch patches by Peter Thomas Roth.  Actually (very) pregnant during filming, she wore the contoured hydra-gel patches for most of the clip, working-in lines from both Mean Girls (2004) and The Parent Trap (1998).

According to Ms Lohan, although over the years she’s tried “countless” unguents, those by Peter Thomas Roth have “become my staples” and helpfully, the three: (1) hydrating Water Drench Hyaluronic Cloud Eye Patches (targeting fine lines and under-eye darkness), (2) the rejuvenating Cucumber De-Tox Eye Patches (which help to smooth and de-puff) and (3) the luxe-feeling, skin-firming 24K Gold Pure Luxury Lift & Firm Eye Patches are color-coded.

Aldi's Lacura's Caviar skincare range

Aldi's Lacura Caviar skincare range is a another cult favorite and although among the more expensive of the unguents on sale in supermarkets, it's long attracted rave reviews and users frequently and favorably compare the Caviar products those offered by "prestige" brands costing sometimes literally a hundred-fold more.  Among the mafia-like cohorts of the Caviar cult, there are said to be WhatsApps groups passing on intelligence about which Aldi store has stock because frequently the range is unavailable and re-supply is said to be unpredictable.  If the usual rules of supply & demand are working, there may be a black market.

Guerrilla or Guerilla

Guerrilla or Guerilla (pronounced guh-ril-uh)

(1) A member of an irregular, usually politically motivated, armed force that combats stronger regular forces, such as the army or police.

(2) Pertaining to such fighters or their technique of warfare.

(3) In modern commercial practice, a form of marketing whereby the products of one company are promoted in a way which exploits the advertising of others.

(4) In botany, a form of vegetative spread in which the advance is from several individual rhizomes or stolons growing rapidly away from the centre, as in some clovers.

1809: From the Spanish, originally a reference to the Spanish resistance against the French.  The Spanish guerrilla (body of skirmishers, skirmishing warfare (literally "little war")) was a diminutive of guerra (war) from a Germanic source (derived from Old High German werra (strife, conflict, war)).  Guerrilla was acquired by English during the Peninsular War (1808-1814), the figurative use first noted in 1861, having been an adjective since 1811.  A survey by the New York Review of Books found guerrilla one of the words most frequently confused with another (gorilla).  The spelling guerilla has become so common it’s perhaps now established as a variant.  The attachment of guerrilla war to that conducted by civilian irregulars dates from the Peninsular War when those opposing Napoleon’s occupying forces were mostly peasants and shepherds annoyed the occupying French.  It was military historians rather than linguistic purists who for so long tried to keep the word restricted to "irregular warfare" and prevent it taking on the sense properly belonging to guerrillero "guerrilla fighter" but all anyway failed.

A guerrilla.  Note the guerrilla’s fine choice of AK47.  If buying AK47, always get Russian made original and insist it’s supplied with factory cleaning-kit.  Beware of imitations.

Guerrillas should not be confused with gorillas.  Lindsay Lohan at the King Kong premiere, Loews E-Walk and AMC Empire 25 Theaters, New York City, December 2005.

Sabbatical

Sabbatical (pronounced suh-bat-i-kuhl)

(1) Of or pertaining or appropriate to the Sabbath (initial uppercase).

(2) Of or relating to a sabbatical year which can be formal or informal (initial lowercase).

(3) Bringing a period of rest (initial lowercase).

(4) As sabbatical leave, an extended period of leave from one's customary work (initial lowercase).

(5) In academia, denoting a post that renders the holder eligible for such leave (initial lowercase).

1605–1615: From the Ancient Greek sabbatikós (sábbat(on)), the construct being Sabbath + -ikos or -ic).  Sabbath is from the Middle English sabat, sabbat & sabath, from the Old English Sabat, from the Old French sabat & sabbat and its etymon Latin sabbatum, from the Ancient Greek σάββατον (sábbaton) (Sabbath), from the Hebrew שַׁבָּת‎ (shabát) (Sabbath).  That the spelling ended -th was probably influenced by the traditional transliteration of the Hebrew as shabbāth, being attested since the fourteenth century and in widespread use since the sixteenth.  sabbatical is a noun & adjective and sabbatically is an adverb (only in the context of the sabbath); the noun plural is sabbaticals.  Some sources list the noun sabbaticalness but it's treated by others as non-standard.  

The Middle English suffix –ik, like the Old French –ique and the –icus is from the primitive Indo-European -ikos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i and the adjectival suffix -ko.  Related are the Ancient Greek -ικός (-ikós), the Sanskrit श (śa), क (ka) and the Old Church Slavonic -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); doublet of -y.  The suffix on noun stems carried the meaning “characteristic of, like, pertaining to” and on adjectival stems it acted emphatically.  The –al suffix of the adjectival (and most familiar) form is from the Latin -ālis, or the French, Middle French and Old French –el & -al  It’s thought likely the Latin suffix was formed from the Etruscan genitive suffix -l (as in Etruscan ati (mother) / atial (mother's)) + adjectival suffix -is (as in fortis, dēbilis, etc).  The origins of the sabbatical lie in the Biblical practice of shmita, a practice of agriculture which defined (Leviticus 25) when productive lands must lie fallow.  It stipulated the Jews in the Land of Israel must take a year-long break from working the fields every seven years.  The practice still exists in some types of modern agriculture although typically not on seven year-cycles

Lindsay Lohan enjoying a sabbatical, Los Angeles, August 2012.

Until recent decades, the sabbatical was most associated with a period of leave granted to senior tenured academics, traditionally every seven years.  Until the re-structuring of universities in the 1980s, the sabbatical was essentially the private right of the professor concerned and could be used for composition, calculation or convenience.  By convention, it was thought bad form to ask a professor how he spent his sabbatical; politeness demanded one had to wait for him to raise the matter.  Of late however, institutions offer fewer sabbaticals and those which do have tended increasingly to create structured programmes, sometimes exchange schemes with other universities and it's not unknown for institutions to expect some tangible outcome from a sabbatical.  The word has also entered commerce and some corporations offer (and sometimes compel) extended periods of leave under various terms and conditions.  Popular reasons for these corporate "holidays" include (1) being under investigation for sexual harassment, (2) being charged with some crime, (3) being suspected of insider trading and (4) being someone the corporation would like for some reason to sack but fear exists about the consequences.

Minimalism

Minimalism (pronounced min-uh-muh-liz-uhm)

(1) In music, a reductive style or school of modern music utilizing only simple sonorities, rhythms, and patterns, with minimal embellishment or complexity, and characterized by protracted repetition of figurations, obsessive structural rigor, and often a pulsing, hypnotic effect.

(2) In art or architecture, a style which features spare, austere lines and avoids elaboration or embellishment.  Traditional design elements may be retained but in simplified form.

(3) In engineering and design, a non-aesthetic ethos which tends towards lightness and simplicity.

1965-1967: The construct was minimal + -ism.  Minimal is from the Latin minimum, neuter form of minimus (least, smallest), suppletive superlative of parvus, comparative minor from the primitive Indo-European smey (small, little) from which Latin also gained minuō; related to the Gothic minniza (smaller). Related also was īnfimus (lowest), but etymologists are divided on the history.  It was related also to the Ancient Greek μῑκρός (mīkrós) (little, small) and, ultimately, the English smicker.  The –ism suffix was from either the Ancient Greek -ισμός (-ismós), a suffix that forms abstract nouns of action, state, condition, doctrine; from stem of verbs in -ίζειν (-ízein) (from which English gained-ize), or from the related Ancient Greek suffix -ισμα (-isma) which more specifically expressed a finished act or thing done.  Aspects of the style(s) in modern art, literature, design etc long predate the emergence of the word in the 1960s.  The noun minimalist dates from 1907 in the sense of “one who advocates moderate reforms or policies" and was originally an adapted borrowing of Menshevik; as understood as "a practitioner of minimal art" it dates from 1967, the term “minimal art” being noted first in 1965.  It was an adjective from 1917 in the Russian political sense and since 1969 in reference to art.

Eye of the beholder

Much of what is described as minimalist art is, technically, representational but the concept is best understood as the abstract notion of a thing existing in and defined by its own reality with no dependencies beyond.  Literally that’s not possible but minimalist art works best if the viewer behaves as if it is.  An artist making no attempt to represent or respond to an external reality depends on the audience responding only to the object; that from which it’s created and the form it assumes.

Although strands of minimalism have been identifiable in music, painting, engineering and architecture for millennia, as a defined commodity in the art market it emerged in New York in the late 1950s and has usually been regarded as a reaction to the gestural art of earlier generations.  Minimalism ran in parallel with the forks of the conceptual art movement and produced some original work but was also burdened by some contradictions and the inherent limitation that having pursued a motif to its conclusion, all that could lie beyond were variations on the theme.  Indeed, there were critics for whom minimalism was just another phase of the abstract expressionist movement with roots in the nineteenth century.

Installation view of the exhibition Primary Structures (Younger American & British Sculptors), 27 April-12 June 1966, The Jewish Museum, New York City.

A landmark moment for the movement was the group exhibition Primary Structures, at the Jewish Museum in New York in 1966 which combined, for the first time, big spaces and pure aestheticism.  The curators didn’t use the term “minimalism” in their catalogues and it was only later the word came to be adopted to refer to an increasing number of fields, as diverse as software user interfaces and landscape architecture.  Inevitability, associated with the reductive aspects of modernism and thought something of a reaction to the exuberance of surrealism and abstract expressionism, minimalism begat the post-minimal which, being post-modernist, eschews the theories and leaves the audience to make of it what they will.

Minimalism in Engineering, the fiftieth anniversary (AC) Shelby Cobra 427: Carroll Shelby (1923-2012) defined a sports car as “a vehicle with nothing on it not designed to make it go faster”.

In 2014 Shelby announced a run of fifty Cobras to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the release of the 427 cubic inch (7.0 litre) version in January 1965.  Offered with either fiberglass (US$120,000) or aluminum (US$180,000) bodywork and the choice of a variety of naturally aspirated big block engines with between 400 (US$50,000) and 700 horsepower (US$70,000), the greatest attraction of the Shelby-built cars was perhaps that each, despite not being “original” was eligible to be documented in the official “World Registry”, the stud book of the 365 small block (260 & 289) and 343 big block (427 & 428) Cobras built by Shelby American between 1962-1967.  As a concept, it was similar (at the engineering if not the legal level) to Jaguar “resuming production” of the XK-SS and lightweight E-Types which, for various reasons, had never been sold.  Both Jaguar and Shelby based the "resumed" production on chassis numbers allocated decades earlier but which had never reached the market (the cars either never built or destroyed prior while still in the factory).  In Jaguar's case, that was exactly what happened; Shelby had in the past been rather more inventive.

Minimalism in underwear: Lindsay Lohan in LBD (little black dress) at the General Motors Annual ten Celebrity Fashion Show, 1540 Vine Street, Hollywood, California, February 2006.

The originality issue and the cachet of having a “genuine” Shelby built car instead of a “replica” (however exact or even substantially improved on what was done in the 1960s) was well understood but Shelby himself in 1993 created a bit of a grey area by, in effect, creating “counterfeit” copies of his own cars.  What he’d done was use a loophole in the regulations of the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) by sending an undocumented request for 43 “duplicate” titles for vehicles on the basis of a list of chassis numbers dating from 1965.  In fact, although the chassis numbers had in 1965 been allocated, they had never been constructed and all the titles Shelby was obtaining were for frames fabricated in 1991-1992 by a contractor.  Unfazed, Mr Shelby, despite having apparently extended his philosophy of minimalism to include legal documents, denied any of this was misleading and said he was the victim of a smear campaign by a competitor.

Minimalism in fashion.  Rita Ora, MTV Video Music Awards, August 2014 (left) & Bella Hadid, Cannes Film Festival, May 2016 (right).  The LRD (little red dress) was a pleasing design, best suited to warmer climates and thus far, the dress of the twenty-first century and therefore the third millennium.  Both wore it well and an individual partiality to one look or the other will depend on how one likes fabric to fall. 

Bob

Bob (pronounced bobb)

(1) A short, jerky motion.

(2) Quickly to move up and down.

(3) In Sterling and related currencies, a slang term for one shilling (10c); survived decimalisation in phrases like two bob watch, still used by older generations).

(4) A type of short to medium length hairstyle.

(5) A docked horse’s tail.

(6) A dangling or terminal object, as the weight on a pendulum or a plumb line.

(7) A short, simple line in a verse or song, especially a short refrain or coda.

(8) In angling, a float for a fishing line.

(9) Slang term for a bobsled.

(10) A bunch, or wad, especially a small bouquet of flowers (Scottish).

(11) A polishing wheel of leather, felt, or the like.

(12) An affectionate diminutive of the name Robert.

(13) To curtsy.

(14) Any of various hesperiid butterflies.

(15) In computer graphics (especially among demosceners), a graphical element, resembling a hardware sprite, that can be blitted around the screen in large numbers.

(16) In Scotland, a bunch, cluster, or wad, especially a small bouquet of flowers.

(17) A walking beam (obsolete).

1350–1400: From the Middle English bobben (to strike in cruel jest, beat; fool, make a fool of, cheat, deceive), the meaning "move up and down with a short, jerking motion," perhaps imitative of the sound, the sense of mocking or deceiving perhaps connected to the Old French bober (mock, deride), which, again, may have an echoic origin. The sense "snatch with the mouth something hanging or floating," as in bobbing for apples (or cherries), is recorded by 1799 and the phrase “bob and weave” in boxing commentary is attested from 1928.  Bob seems first to have been used to describe the short hair-style in the 1680s, a borrowing probably of the use since the 1570s to refer to "a horse's tail cut short", that derived from the earlier bobbe (cluster (as of leaves)) dating from the mid fourteenth century and perhaps of Celtic origin and perhaps connected in some way with the baban (tassel, cluster) and the Gaelic babag.  Bob endures still in Scots English as a dialectical term for a small bunch of flowers.

The group of bob words in English is beyond obscure and mostly mysterious.  Most are surely colloquial in origin and probably at least vaguely imitative, but have long become entangled and merged in form and sense (bobby pin, bobby sox, bobsled, bobcat et al).  As a noun, it has been used over the centuries in various senses connected by the notion of "round, hanging mass," and of weights at the end of a fishing line (1610s), pendulum (1752) or plumb-line (1832).  As a description of the hair style, although dating from the 1680s, it entered popular use only in the 1920s when use spiked.  As a slang word for “shilling” (the modern 10c coin), it’s recorded from 1789 but no connection has ever been found.  In certain countries, among older generations, the term in this sense endures in phrases like “two bob watch” to suggest something of low quality and dubious reliability.

UK Prime Minister Lord Salisbury (Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 1830–1903; UK Prime Minister for thirteen years variously 1885-1902 (prime-minister since "God knows when" in Churchill's words)).

The phrase "Bob's your uncle" is said often to have its origin in the nepotism allegedly extended by Lord Salisbury to his favorite nephew Arthur Balfour (1848–1930; UK Prime Minister 1902-1905), unexpectedly promoted to a number of big jobs during the 1880s.  The story has never convinced etymologists but it certainly impressed the Greeks who made up a big part of Australia's post-war immigration programme, "Spiro is your uncle" in those years often heard in Sydney and Melbourne to denote nepotism among their communities there.

The other potential source is the Scottish music hall, the first known instance in in a Dundee newspaper in 1924 reviewing a musical revue called Bob's Your Uncle.  The phrase however wasn't noted as part of the vernacular until 1937, six years after the release of the song written by JP Long, "Follow your uncle Bob" which alluded to the nepotistic in the lyrics:

Bob's your uncle
Follow your Uncle Bob
He knows what to do
He'll look after you

Partridge's Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (1937) notes the phrase but dates it to the 1890s though without attribution and it attained no currency in print until the post-war years.  Although it's impossible to be definitive, the musical connection does seem more convincing, the connection with Lord Salisbury probably retrospective.  It could however have even earlier origins, an old use noted in the Canting Dictionary (1725) in an entry reporting "Bob ... signifies Safety, ... as, It's all Bob, ie All is safe, the Bet is secured."

Of hair

A bob cut or bob is a short to shoulder-length haircut for women.  Historically, in the west, it’s regarded as a twentieth-century style although evidence of it exists in the art of antiquity and even some prehistoric cave-paintings hint it may go way back, hardly surprising given the functionality.  In 1922, the Times of London, never much in favor of anything new, ran a piece by its fashion editor predicting the demise of the fad, suggesting it was already passé (fashion editors adore the word passé).  Certainly, bobs were less popular by the 1930s but in the 1960s, a variety of social and economic forces saw a resurgence which has never faded and the twenty-first century association with the Karen hasn't lessened demand (although the A-line variant, now known in the industry as the "speak to the manager" seems now avoided) and the connection with the Karen is the second time the bob has assumed some socio-political meaning; when flaunted by the proto-feminists of the 1920s, it was regarded as a sign of radicalism.  The popularity in the 1920s affected the millinery trades too as it was the small cloche which fitted tightly on the bobbed head which became the hat of choice.  Manufacturer of milliner's materials, hair-nets and hair-pins all suffered depressed demand, the fate too of the corset makers, victims of an earlier social change and one which would in the post-war years devastate the industries supporting the production of hats for men.

Variations on a theme of bob, Marama Corlett (b 1984) and Lindsay Lohan, Sick Note, June 2017.

Hairdressers have number of terms for the variations.  The motifs can in some cases be mixed and even within styles, lengths can vary, a classic short bob stopping somewhere between the tips of the ears and well above the shoulders, a long bob extending from there to just above the shoulders; although the term is often used, the concept of the medium bob really makes no sense and there are just fractional variations of short and long, everything happening at the margins.  So, a bob starts with the fringe and ends being cut in a straight line; length can vary but the industry considers shoulder-length a separate style and the point at which bobs stop and something else begins.  Descriptions like curly and ringlet bobs refer more to the hair than the style but do hint at one caveat, not all styles suit all hair types, a caution which extends also to face shapes.

Asymmetrical Bob: Another general term which describes a bob cut with different lengths left and right; can look good but cannot (or should not) be applied to all styles.   

A-line bob: A classic bob which uses slightly longer strands in front, framing the face and, usually, curling under the chin; stylists caution this doesn’t suit all face shapes.

Buzz-cut bob: Known also as the undercut (pixie) bob, and often seen as an asymmetric, this is kind of an extreme inverted mullet; the the usual length(s) in the front and close-cropped at the back.  It can be a dramatic look but really doesn’t suit those above a certain BMI or age.

Chin-length bob: Cut straight to the chin, with or without bangs but, if the latter is chosen, it’s higher maintenance, needing more frequent trims to retain the sharpness on which it depends.  Depending on the face shape, it works best with or without fringe.

Inverted bob: A variation on the A-line which uses graduated layers at the back, the perimeter curved rather than cut straight. Known also as the graduated bob, to look best, the number of layers chosen should be dictated by the thickness of growth.

Shaggy bob: A deliberately messy bob of any style, neatness depreciated with strategic cutting either with scissors or razor, a styling trick best done by experts otherwise it can look merely un-kept.  The un-kept thing can be a thing if that’s what one wants but, like dying with gray or silver, it's really suitable only for the very young.  Some call this the choppy and it’s known in the vernacular of hairdressing as the JBF (just been fucked).

Spiky bob: This differs from a JBF in that it’s more obviously stylised.  It can differ in extent but with some types of hair is very high maintenance, demanding daily application of product to retain the directions in which the strands have to travel.    

Shingle bob: A cut tapered very short in the back, exposing the hairline at the neck with the sides shaped into a single curl, the tip of which sits at a chosen point on each cheek.  This needs to be perfectly symmetrical or it looks like a mistake.

Shoulder-length bob: A blunt bob that reaches the shoulders and has very few layers; with some hair it can even be done with all strands the same length.  Inherently, this is symmetrical.

Speak to the manager bob: Not wishing to lose those customers actually named Karen, the industry shorthand for the edgy (and stereotypically in some strain of blonde) bob didn’t become “Karen”.  The classic SttM is an asymmetric blonde variation of the A-line with a long, side-swept fringe contrasted with a short, spiky cut at the back and emblematic of the style are the “tiger stripes”, created by the chunky unblended highlights.  It's now unfashionable though still seen.