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 (b 1990), MTV Video Music Awards, August 2014 (left) & Bella Hadid (b 1996), Cannes Film Festival, May 2016 (right).  The LRD (little red dress) by Alexandre Vauthier (b 1971) 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 wrap and fall. 

Sovereign

Sovereign (pronounced sov-rin (U), sov-er-in (non U) or suhv-rin)

(1) A monarch; a king, queen, or other supreme ruler.

(2) A person who has supreme power or authority.

(3) A group or body of persons or a state having sovereign authority.

(4) A gold coin of the United Kingdom, the value set at 22s 6d in the fifteenth century and re-valued to £1 sterling; it was removed from circulation after 1914.  In UK slang, “sov” (“sovs” the more commonly used plural) endures among certain classes to describe £1 sterling.   

(5) Belonging to or characteristic of a sovereign or sovereign authority; royal.

(6) Supreme; preeminent; indisputable.

(7) In clinical pharmacology, of a medicine or remedy, extremely potent or effective (archaic).

(8) A former Australian gold coin, minted 1855–1931, with a face value of £1 Australian.

(9) A large champagne bottle with the capacity of about 25 liters, equivalent to 33⅓ standard bottles.

(10) Any butterfly of the tribe Nymphalini, or genus Basilarchia, as the ursula and the viceroy.

(11) In regional UK, slang, a large, garish ring.

1250-1300: From the Middle English soverain (alteration by influence of reign) & sovereyn, from the Old French soverain (sovereign, lord, ruler (noun use of the adjective meaning "highest, supreme, chief")) (which exists in modern French as souverain), from the Vulgar Latin superānus (chief, principal (and source also of the Italian soprano & sovrano and the Spanish soberano)) from the classical Latin super (over; above) from the primitive Indo-European uper (over).  The spelling was influenced by folk-etymology association with reign and Milton spelled it sovran, perhaps a nod to the Italian sovrano and scholars caution that though widely accepted, the link to the Vulgar Latin superānus is unattested.  The now obsolete medical sense of “remedies or medicines potent in a high degree" was from the fourteenth century.

In law, there are strands of meaning:  In a constitutional monarchy, a king or queen can be known as the sovereign while the state itself is sovereign and sovereignty is said often to reside in some elected assembly which, being representative of the people, can be said to derive it from them.  The noun sovereignty emerged in the late fourteenth century to designate "pre-eminence".  It was from the Anglo-French sovereynete, from the Old French souverainete, from soverain and referenced "authority, rule, supremacy of power or rank".  The modern meaning as “sovereign state” which is defined literally as "existence as an independent state" is from 1715 and remains an exact meaning, the state of statehood a binary in that a state is either independent (and thus sovereign) or not.  Attempts therefore by sub-state entities like defined regions of federal states to asset sovereignty under the guise of state’s rights are usually doomed to fail either because, like the Australian states, they were non-sovereign colonies prior to federation or have always been part of a larger whole.  That is not to say that powers and authority cannot be shared and some heads of it may exclusively be vested in a sub-national construct but that is a constitutional arrangement within a sovereign state; sovereignty is indivisible.  The concept of “personal sovereignty” invoked by those resisting such thing as COVID-19 related face-mask or vaccine mandates is drawn from the theories of natural law but has no basis in positive law.

Lindsay Lohan, Vanity Fair photo shoot, Marina del Rey, California, October 2010.  The location was the Sovereign, a motor yacht built in 1961 for the film star Judy Garland (1922-1969).

The noun suzerain (sovereign, ruler) dating from 1807, was from French suzerain, from the fourteenth century Old French suzerain (noun use of the adjective meaning "sovereign but not supreme") from the adverb sus (up, above) on analogy of soverain.  The Old French sus is from the Vulgar Latin susum, from the Classical Latin sursum (upward, above), a contraction of subversum, from subvertere.  It was the French suzerain which vested the English sovereign it’s meaning in the political sense.  In international it came to mean a “dominant nation or state that has control over the international affairs of a subservient state which otherwise has domestic autonomy”, a sense similar but different from “client state” or relationships such as those of Moscow to the states of the former Warsaw Pact.  Historically the suzerain was the feudal landowner to whom vassals were forced to pledge allegiance.

In May 1910, European royalty gathered in London for the funeral of Edward VII and among the mourners were nine reigning kings.  This is believed the only photograph ever taken of nine sovereign kings and would be the last gathering of the old European order before the Great War.  The photograph circulated widely in both monochrome and sepia tones and recently has been colorized.  Notable absentees include Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (overthrown in 1917), Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and Emperor Franz Joseph (died in 1916, the dual monarchy abolished and the empire dissolved in 1918) of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Standing, left to right: King Haakon VII of Norway, Czar Ferdinand of the Bulgarians, King Manuel II of Portugal and the Algarve, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Prussia, King George I of the Hellenes and King Albert I of the Belgians.

Seated, left to right: King Alfonso XIII of Spain, King George V of the United Kingdom and King Frederick VIII of Denmark.

Norway – Monarchy still going.

Bulgaria – Monarchy overthrown in 1946.  While "the rich are different" is a common saying, royalty is more different still.  While attending Edward VII's funeral, the other sovereigns reportedly were "irritated" by Ferdinand insisting on being style "Czar" and it became known he kept in a wooden chest "the full imperial regalia of a Byzantine Emperor (obtained from theatrical costume suppliers in Paris & London), ready for him to don when the old Byzantine dominions would be reassembled under his crown & sceptre".  In neither Sofia nor Constantinople did things work out quite as Ferdinand had hoped.    

Portugal – Monarchy overthrown in 1910.

Germany – Monarchy extinct since the act of abdication in 1918.

Greece – Monarchy overthrown in 1924, restored in 1935, overthrown in 1973.

Belgium – Monarchy still going and notably more predictable than the local parliamentary politics in that while it’s often not possible for the politicians to agree on who should be prime-minister, the line of succession to the throne is not disputed.

Spain – Monarchy overthrown in 1931, re-established in 1975 and still going (with the odd scandal).  One quirk of Spanish constitutional history and one about which not all lawyers agree (political scientists and historians finding the arguments either tiresome or amusing) is that despite the proclamation of a republic in 1931, between then and 1975 when the monarchy was said to have been restored, Spain may anyway have continued to be a monarchy because, whatever the outcome on the streets or later Franco's battlefields, there may never have been executed the necessary legal mechanism of dissolution.

When the king (Alfonso XIII 1886–1941; King of Spain 1886-1931) went (with a fair chunk of his nation's exchequer) into exile in 1931, he departed the soil but did not abdicate which most regard of no constitutional significance, the subsequent declaration of the Second Spanish Republic thought sufficient and most agree this abolished both monarchy and kingdom, sovereignty residing with the republican state which General Franco (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975) took over in 1939.  In curious twist however, in 1947 Franco re-established Spain as a Kingdom which he ruled as head of state of the Kingdom of Spain through the Law of Succession.  A sovereign kingdom thus but without a king on the throne on which, figuratively at least, Franco sat until peacefully he died in 1975.  A king then returned to the kingdom because, again amending the Law of Succession, Franco appointed Alfonso XIII's grandson, Juan Carlos I de Borbón (b 1938; King of Spain 1975-2014, styled Rey Emérito (King Emeritus) since) as his successor and he assumed the throne in 1975, the nature of the new, constitutional monarchy, promulgated in 1978 after a referendum.  Despite the fine technical points raised, most agree Spain was a republic 1931-1947, the kingdom was restored in 1947 and monarchical rule has existed since 1975, its constitutional form assumed in 1978.  Sovereignty was probably vested successively in the republic (1931-1939), Franco personally (1939-1975), Juan Carlos personally 1975-1978 and the Spanish state since.    

United Kingdom – Monarchy still going though not without the odd squabble at the margins.  Although having undergone the occasional change in dynastic management, it has since the ninth century existed continuously except for the uncharacteristic republican interregnum (1649-1660).  Territorially, it has been a shifting jigsaw, comprised of various permutations of all or part of England, Ireland, Scotland & Wales, the odd temporary European augmentation and of course the colonies, territories and Dominions linked to the old British Empire and the still extant Commonwealth.  The relationship between the monarchy and the Commonwealth varies from state to state and even in those independent states where the UK monarch remains the head of state, sovereignty in almost all cases resides wholly somewhere in the local political construct.

Dating from 21 April 1926, a two-part prediction was made by Henry "Chips" Channon (1897-1958), a US born resident of the UK who became (1) more English than the English, (2) a member of parliament (1935-1958) and (3) in his final years, a knight of the realm (although the peerage he for decades coveted eluded him).  On the day of the birth of the future Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022; Queen of the UK 1952-2022) he noted in his diary that he expected the child to become "Queen of England and perhaps the last sovereign".  Channon thought the Prince of Wales (Prince Edward 1894–1972; briefly (in 1936) King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom & Emperor of India), whom he knew, to be so temperamentally unsuitable for the role of king he would either renounce his claim to the throne or abandon it once crowned.  His first part of the prediction proved accurate although he was diffident about the second and the monarchy has thus far endured.  Channon's diaries, published in the 1960s (in heavily redacted form) were amusing enough but the (mostly) unexpurgated editions (in three volumes 2021-2022) are as juicy as any published in the past century.

Denmark – Monarchy still going.

That approaching the second quarter of the twenty-first century a dozen European nations (Andorra, Belgium, Denmark, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom & Vatican City (the pope the only absolute sovereign and the city-state a theocracy)) remain monarchies would have surprised some.  In 1948, the already embattled (and soon to be overthrown) King Farouk (1920–1965; King of Egypt 1936-1952) gloomily predicted that soon only five kings would remain: "The King of England and the kings of hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades."  While prescient about his own fate, he was wrong in that but while there are certainly fewer than there were, the institution, while on paper a pretty silly basis on which to depend for a head of state, has proved durable in those cases where royal families have been sufficiently adaptable to evolve into reliable ciphers and become frequent, if sometimes unscripted, content providers for pop culture platforms.

End of the Jaguar 3.8 era.  Jim Clark and Jack Sears in the Ford Galaxie 427s ahead of Graham Hill and Roy Salvadori in Jaguar 3.8s, Guards Trophy Race, Brands Hatch, 1963.

A blend of the ancient and modern which characterized much of what Jaguar produced until well into the twenty-first century, the Daimler Sovereign was the final evolution of the Jaguar 2.4, introduced in 1955 as the “small” car of the range and known retrospectively as the Mark 1 after 1959 when a revised model was released as the Mark 2.  The bigger-engined versions of the Mark 2 were the outstanding sports saloons of their day and dominated production car racing until the new generation of fast Fords, the Lotus Cortina, the Mustang and, somewhat improbably, the big Galaxies began to prevail but, as road cars, the power delivered by the 3.8 litre XK-Six was probably close to the limit of the platform’s capability.  This was addressed in 1963 when a version of the more capable independent rear suspension introduced in 1961 on the Mark X and E-Type (XK-E) was grafted to a slightly enlarged structure and released as the S-Type.  The new sophistication was appreciated but the unusual combination of styling techniques was less admired, the front and rear generally felt discordant and tellingly, the Mark 2 was not discontinued and continued to sell well.

1963 Jaguar S-Type 3.8.

The aesthetic objections were noted and in 1966, a new nose, reminiscent of that on the Mark X, was grafted on to the S-Type and the result, while clearly not modernist in the manner of a contemporary like the NSU Ro80, was generally acknowledged to be more harmonious.  The new model, acknowledging the fitment for the first time in the platform of the 4.2 litre XK-Six, was called the 420 and, in a (brief) attempt to create a naming convention with some familial relationship, the big Mark X was re-named 420G and the Mark 2 became the 240 or 340 depending on engine capacity, the 3.8 litre version discontinued although a few were built to special order (albeit still badged as 340s).  Strange as it seems, for a number of reasons, the 240, 340, S-Type and 420 all remained available until all were replaced by the XJ6, introduced in 1968.  Only the 420G received a stay of execution, the flagship lingering until 1970 by which time production had slowed to a trickle.

1968 Daimler Sovereign.

Launched simultaneously in 1966 with the 420 and around 7% more expensive was the Daimler Sovereign.  The Sovereign was essentially the 420 with all the Jaguar’s optional extras fitted as standard, a higher grade of timber and leather for the interior fittings and the traditional details distinguishing the marquee, most notably the elegant fluting atop the grill and the rear number plate valance.  Unfortunately, unlike the earlier Daimler version of the Mark 2 (later named 250 to align with the 240 & 340) which was powered by Daimler’s fine 2.5 litre V8, the Sovereign was mechanically identical to the 420, the opportunity to create something special by using the 4.6 litre version of the V8 not taken, the same mistake which may have doomed the Mark X and 420G to their indifferent sales performance; although excessively large for many markets, a V8 Mark X would have been ideal in the US.  Nonetheless, although nothing more than a fancy Jaguar, it was a success and despite the higher price, Sovereign sales totaled more than six-thousand, the 420 managing only four-thousand odd more.

1967 Daimler Sovereign.

The 420-based Sovereign continued to be offered well into 1969 because the high demand for the XJ6 meant there was not immediately the capacity to produce a Daimler version of the new car.  It was finally retired in 1969 (the last survivor of the platform introduced in 1955) when an XJ6-based Sovereign was released in 2.8 and 4.2 litre versions, notionally replacing the Mark 2-based 250 and the previous Sovereign respectively.  Jaguar continued to use the Sovereign name on the six-cylinder Daimlers until 1983 when they were re-badged simply as “Daimler” although the name would for years be applied to various up-market XJs, especially in overseas markets where others held the trademark to the Daimler name.  When equipped with the Jaguar's 5.3-litre V12, the Sovereign was named Double Six, a revival of a name Daimler used between 1926-1938 for an earlier twelve cylinder model.  The Sovereign name was the choice of the Jaguar board; although the chairman had suggested “Royal” it seemed he was persuaded Sovereign was a better fit.

1976 Daimler Sovereign two door.

Most memorable of the Sovereigns were the elegant coupés offered between 1975-1977; the factory insisting they were a “two door” and not a coupé, the rationale presumably to provide a distinction between the XJ and XJ-S (1975-1996 and later named XJS).  The vinyl-roof, one of the many unfortunate aspects of style which so afflicted the 1970s, attracted criticism even at the time of release, the suspicion being it might have been glued on to hide some rather obviously hasty welding used to create the lovely roofline, a expedient Plymouth adopted in 1970 for the Superbird and Ford Australia repeated on the Landau three years later.  However, it transpired the necessity was not the finish of the sheet metal but the inability of the paints of the era to accommodate the slight flexing of the roof caused by using the same gauge of steel on the pillar-less coupé as the saloon which was a little more rigid.  With the availability of modern paints, many have since taken the opportunity to ditch the vinyl and allow the lovely lines to appear unspoiled.  Being produced under the ownership of British Leyland, predictability, roof-flex wasn’t the only flaw.  The sealing of the frameless windows was never perfected so wind noise is more intrusive than the saloon and, over time, the heavy doors will sag, Jaguar using the same hinges as those which supported the saloon’s smaller, lighter pressings.  

Picture of the sovereign on a 1963 mock-up of the proposed Australian Royal.

Royal as a name seemed not to be popular in other places (although Chrysler did use it for a while and it's applied to a few alcoholic beverages), earlier rejected in the antipodes as the name for a new legal tender.  In early 1963, Robert Menzies (1894–1978; Prime-Minister of Australia 1939-1941 & 1949-1966) had said Australia would adopt a decimal currency and later in the year it was announced its name would be “the royal”.  Said to be the preferred choice of the prime-minister himself, cabinet had been persuaded, presumably because the other suggestions including "kwid", "champ", "deci-mate", "austral" and "emu", were thought worse.  Proving that social media isn’t necessary for public opinion to become quickly known, within days the derision expressed was enough to convince the government to change.  The cabinet documents (released in 1993 under the (then) thirty-year rule) recorded the treasurer telling the cabinet “…royal had been a terrible mistake” and in September, it was announced the pound would be replaced by the Australian dollar; it was introduced on Valentine’s Day 1966.

Currency matters had troubled Menzies before.  He’d been much criticized in 1952 when, upon Elizabeth II’s accession, the inscription FD abruptly was omitted from Australian coins.  FD (Defender of the Faith (the Latin Fidei Defensor (feminine Fidei Defensatrix)), had been in use since 1507 when the title "Protector and Defender of the Christian Faith" was granted by Pope Julius II (1443–1513; pope 1503-1513) to James IV of Scotland (James VI and I (1566–1625) King of Scotland as James VI (1567-1625) & King of England and Ireland as James I (1603-1625)) and had been inscribed on all English (and subsequently UK) coins minted since the Medici Pope Leo X (1475–1521; pope 1513-1521) in 1521 conferred it on Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England (and Ireland after 1541) 1509-1547).  A grateful Leo had been most impressed by Henry’s book Assertio Septem Sacramentorum (Defense of the Seven Sacraments), a powerful assertion of both the sacramental nature of marriage and the supremacy of the pope, his words at the time celebrated in Rome as the "Henrician Affirmation".  Although Henry would go on to interpret the marriage ritual, papal authority and the defense of the faith in his own way, FD nevertheless remains on the UK's to this day.  There, it is not without constitutional significance, the sovereign, Queen Elizabeth, being supreme governor (ie the titular head) of the Church of England, the nation's established (ie the official state) church.  

A year is a long time in politics: the 1953 & 1954 Australian florins.

In the Australia of 1952, then a country still marked by the sectarian divide between Catholic and Protestant, there was much outrage, Anglicans calling it an affront to Her Majesty and their church and nothing but a cynical ploy by a (Presbyterian) prime-minister to curry favor with Roman Catholics in search of their votes.  Surprisingly to some, prominent among the affronted was the former high court judge, Dr HV Evatt (1894–1965; leader of the opposition 1951-1960) who, although condemned by the right-wing fanatics of the day as the “arch defender of the godless atheistic communists” was a staunch Anglican who proved a doughty opponent of the change.  It at the time was quite a furore with questions in parliament, strident editorials, letters (of outrage) to the editor (the social media of the era) and ecclesiastical denouncements from a number of reverend and very reverend gentlemen.  Menzies relented and intervened personally to ensure the mint secured Fidei Defensor dies in time for a commemorative florin (the modern 20c coin, then often referred to as "two bob") to be struck for the 1954 royal visit.