Disheveled

Disheveled (pronounced dih-shev-uhld)

(1) Hanging loosely or in disorder; unkempt.

(2) Untidy in appearance; disarranged.

1375–1425: From the Late Middle English discheveled (without dressed hair), replacing the earlier form dishevely which ran in parallel with dischevele (bare-headed), from the Old French deschevelé (bare-headed, with shaven head), past -participle adjective from descheveler (to disarrange the hair), the construct being des- (apart (the prefix indicating negation of a verb)) + -cheveler (derivative of chevel (hair; a hair) (cheveu in Modern French)) from the Latin capillus (a diminutive form from the root of caput (head), thought perhaps cognate with the Persian کوپله‎ (kūple) (hair of the head).  The Modern French forms are déchevelé & échevelé.  As applied to the hair itself in the sense of “hanging loose and throw about in disorder, having a disordered or neglected appearance”, use dated from the mid-fifteenth century while the general sense of “with disordered dress” emerged around the turn of the seventeenth.  The verb dishevel is interesting in that it came centuries later; a back formation from disheveled, used to mean “to loosen and throw about in disorder, cause to have a disordered or neglected appearance” it applied first to the hair in the 1590s and later to clothing and other aspects of appearance.  Synonyms include messy, scraggly, tousled, unkempt, untidy, crumpled, slovenly and sloppy.  The alternative spelling is dishevelled.  Disheveled is a verb & adjective, dishevelment is a noun and dishevelledly is an adverb.

Instances of dishevelment can be caused by (1) prevailing wind conditions, (2) a stylist preparing an actor or model or (3) other causes.  Lindsay Lohan in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004, left) illustrates the stylist's craft while the other states of disarray (centre & right) would have been induced by "other causes".  Stylists preparing models for static shoots sometimes use remarkably simple tricks and equipment, hair held in a wind-blown look using nothing more than strips of cardboard, bulldog clips and some strategically placed scotch tape.  It takes less time and produces a more natural result than post-production digital editing.     

Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) seems prone to dishevelment in conditions above 2 on the Beaufort scale.  For perfectionists, the comparative form is "more disheveled" and the superlative "most disheveled".

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, January 2012.

Hair apparent: Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) was known to have "weaponized" his hair as part of his image as (1) a toff who didn't care and (2) an English eccentric.  However just as Dolly Parton (b 1946) revealed that "it takes a lot of money to look this cheap", Mr Johnson's studied untidiness took a bit of work to maintain and credit must rightly be accorded to Ms Kelly Jo Dodge MBE.

Corruption is probably a permanent part of politics although it does ebb and flow and exists in different forms in different places.  In the UK, the honours system with its intricate hierarchy and consequent determination on one’s place in the pecking order on the Order of Precedence has real world consequences such as determining whether one sits at dinners with the eldest son of a duke or finds one’s self relegated to a table with the surviving wife of a deceased baronet.  Under some prime-ministers the system was famously corrupt and while things improved in the nineteenth century, under David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922) honours were effectively for sale in a truly scandalous way.  None of his successors were anywhere near as bad although Harold Wilson’s (1916–1995; UK prime minister 1964-1970 & 1974-1976) resignation honours list attracted much comment and did his reputation no good but in recent years it’s been relatively quiet on the honours front.  That was until the resignation list of Boris Johnson was published.  It included some names unknown to all but a handful of political insiders and many others which were controversial for their own reasons but at the bottom of the list was one entry which all agreed was well deserved: Ms Kelly Jo Dodge, for 27 years the parliamentary hairdresser, was created a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE).  In those decades, she can have faced few challenges more onerous than Boris Johnson’s hair yet never once failed to make it an extraordinary example in the (actually technically difficult) “not one hair in place” style.  The citation on her award read "for parliamentary service" but insiders all knew it really was for "services to dishevelment".

Gap

Gap (pronounced gap)

(1) A break or opening, as in a fence, wall, or military line; breach; an opening that implies a breach or defect (vacancy, deficit, absence, or lack).

(2) An empty space or interval; interruption in continuity; hiatus.

(3) A wide divergence or difference; disparity

(4) A difference or disparity in attitudes, perceptions, character, or development, or a lack of confidence or understanding, perceived as creating a problem.

(5) A deep, sloping ravine or cleft through a mountain ridge.

(6) In regional use (in most of the English-speaking world and especially prominent in the US), a mountain pass, gorge, ravine, valley or similar geographical feature (also in some places used of a sheltered area of coast between two cliffs and often applied in locality names).

(7) In aeronautics, the distance between one supporting surface of an airplane and another above or below it.

(8) In electronics, a break in a magnetic circuit that increases the inductance and saturation point of the circuit.

(9) In various field sports (baseball, cricket, the football codes etc), those spaces between players which afford some opportunity to the opposition.

(10) In genetics, an un-sequenced region in a sequence alignment.

(11) In slang (New Zealand), suddenly to depart.

(12) To make a gap, opening, or breach in.

(13) To come open or apart; form or show a gap.

1350–1400: From the Middle English gap & gappe (an opening in a wall or hedge; a break, a breach), from Old Norse gap (gap, empty space, chasm) akin to the Old Norse gapa (to open the mouth wide; to gape; to scream), from the Proto-Germanic gapōną, from the primitive Indo-European root ghieh (to open wide; to yawn, gape, be wide open) and related to the Middle Dutch & Dutch gapen, the German gaffen (to gape, stare), the Danish gab (an expanse, space, gap; open mouth, opening), the Swedish gap & gapa and the Old English ġeap (open space, expanse).  Synonyms for gap can include pause, interstice, break, interlude, lull but probably not lacuna (which is associated specifically with holes).  Gap is a noun & verb, gapped & gapping are verbs, Gapless & gappy are adjectives; the noun plural is gaps.

Lindsay Lohan demonstrates a startled gape, MTV Movie-Awards, Gibson Amphitheatre, Universal City, California, June 2010.

The use to describe natural geographical formations (“a break or opening between mountains” which later extended to “an unfilled space or interval, any hiatus or interruption”) emerged in the late fifteenth century and became prevalent in the US, used of deep breaks or passes in a long mountain chain (especially one through which a waterway flows) and often used in locality names.  The use as a transitive verb (to make gaps; to gap) evolved from the noun and became common in the early nineteenth century as the phrases became part of the jargon of mechanical engineering and metalworking (although in oral use the forms may long have existed).  The intransitive verb (to have gaps) is documented only since 1948.  The verb gape dates from the early thirteenth century and may be from the Old English ġeap (open space, expanse) but most etymologists seem to prefer a link with the Old Norse gapa (to open the mouth wide; to gape; to scream); it was long a favorite way of alluding to the expressions thought stereotypical of “idle curiosity, listlessness, or ignorant wonder of bumpkins and other rustics” and is synonymous with “slack-jawed yokels”).  The adjective gappy (full of gaps; inclined to be susceptible to gaps opening) dates from 1846.  The adjectival use gap-toothed (having teeth set wide apart) has been in use since at least the 1570s, but earlier, Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1344-1400) had used “gat-toothed” for the same purpose, gat from the Middle English noun gat (opening, passage) from the Old Norse gat and cognate with gate.

Lindsay Lohan demonstrates her admirable thigh gap, November 2013.

The “thigh gap” seems first to have been documented in 2012 but gained critical mass on the internet in 2014 when it became of those short-lived social phenomenon which produced a minor moral panic.  “Thigh gap” described the empty space between the inner thighs of a women when standing upright with feet touching; a gap was said to be good and the lack of a gap bad.  Feminist criticism noted it was not an attribute enjoyed by a majority of mature human females and it thus constituted just another of the “beauty standards” imposed on women which were an unrealizable goal for the majority.  The pro-ana community ignored this critique and thinspiration (thinspo) bloggers quickly added annotated images and made the thigh gap and essential aspect of female physical attractiveness.  

A walking, talking credibility gap: crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013).

In English, gap has been prolific in the creation of phrases & expressions.  The “generation gap” sounds modern and as a phrase it came into wide use only in the 1960s in reaction to the twin constructs of “teenagers” and the “counter-culture” but the concept has been documented since antiquity and refers to a disconnect between youth and those older, based on different standards of behavior, dress, artistic taste and social mores.  The term “technology gap” was created in the early 1960s and was from economics, describing the various implications of a nation’s economy gaining a competitive advantage over others by the creation or adoption of certain technologies.  However, the concept was familiar to militaries which had long sought to quantify and rectify any specific disadvantage in personnel, planning or materiel they might suffer compared to their adversaries; these instances are described in terms like “missile gap”, “air gap”, “bomber gap”, “megaton gap” et al (and when used of materiel the general term “technology deficit” is also used).  Rearmament is the usual approach but there can also be “stop gap” solutions which are temporary (often called “quick & dirty” (Q&D)) fixes which address an immediate crisis without curing the structural problem.  For a permanent (something often illusory in military matters) remedy for a deficiency, one is said to “bridge the gap”, “gap-fill” or “close the gap”.  The phrase “stop gap” in the sense of “that which fills a hiatus, an expedient in an emergency” appears to date from the 1680s and may have been first a military term referring to a need urgently to “plug a gap” in a defensive line, “gap” used by armies in this sense since the 1540s.  The use as an adjective dates from the same time in the sense of “filling a gap or pause”.  A “credibility gap” is discrepancy between what’s presented as reality and a perception of what reality actually is; it’s applied especially to the statements of those in authority (politicians like crooked Hillary Clinton the classic but not the only examples).  “Pay gap” & “gender gap” are companion terms used most often in labor-market economics to describe the differences in aggregate or sectoral participation and income levels between a baseline group (usually white men) and others who appear disadvantaged.

“Gap theorists” (known also as “gap creationists”) are those who claim the account of the Earth and all who inhabit the place being created in six 24 hour days (as described in the Book of Genesis in the Bible’s Old Testament) literally is true but that there was a gap of time between the two distinct creations in the first and the second verses of Genesis.  What this allows is a rationalization of modern scientific observation and analysis of physical materials which have determined the age of the planet.  This hypothesis can also be used to illustrate the use of the phrase “credibility gap”.  In Australia, gap is often used to refer to the (increasingly large) shortfall between the amount health insurance funds will pay compared with what the health industry actually charges; the difference, paid by the consumer, (doctors still insist on calling them patients) is the gap (also called the “gap fee”).  In Australia, the term “the gap” has become embedded in the political lexicon to refer to the disparity in outcomes between the indigenous and non-indigenous communities in fields such as life expectancy, education, health, employment, incarceration rates etc.  By convention, it can be used only to refer to the metrics which show institutional disadvantage but not other measures where the differences are also striking (smoking rates, crime rates, prevalence of domestic violence, drug & alcohol abuse etc) and it’s thus inherently political.  Programmes have been designed and implemented with the object of “closing the gap”; the results have been mixed.

Opinion remains divided on the use of platinum-tipped spark plugs in the Mercedes-Benz M100 (6.3 & 6.9) V8.

A “spark gap” is the space between two conducting electrodes, filled usually with air (or in specialized applications some other gas) and designed to allow an electric spark to pass between the two.  One of the best known spark gaps is that in the spark (or sparking) plug which provides the point of ignition for the fuel-air mixture in internal combustion engines (ICE).  Advances in technology mean fewer today are familiar with the intricacies of spark plugs, once a familiar (and often an unwelcome) sight to many.  The gap in a spark plug is the distance between the center and ground electrode (at the tip) and the size of the gap is crucial in the efficient operation of an ICE.  The gap size, although the differences would be imperceptible to most, is not arbitrary and is determined by the interplay of the specifications of the engine and the ignition system including (1) the compression ratio (low compression units often need a larger gap to ensure a larger spark is generated), (2) the ignition system, high-energy systems usually working better with a larger gap, (3) the materials used in the plug’s construction (the most critical variable being their heat tolerance); because copper, platinum, and iridium are used variously, different gaps are specified to reflect the variations in thermal conductivity and the temperature range able to be endured and (4) application, high performance engines or those used in competition involving sustained high-speed operation often using larger gaps to ensure a stronger and larger spark.

Kennedy, Khrushchev and the missile gap

The “missile gap” was one of the most discussed threads in the campaign run by the Democratic Party’s John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) in the 1960 US presidential election in which his opponent was the Republican Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974).  The idea there was a “missile gap” was based on a combination of Soviet misinformation, a precautionary attitude by military analysts in which the statistical technique of extrapolation was applied on the basis of a “worst case scenario” and blatant empire building by the US military, notably the air force (USAF), anxious not to surrender to the navy their pre-eminence in the hierarchy of nuclear weapons delivery systems.  It’s true there was at the time a missile gap but it was massively in favor of the US which possessed several dozen inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBM) while the USSR had either four or six, depending on the definition used.  President Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; US president 1953-1961), a five-star general well acquainted with the intrigues of the military top brass, was always sceptical about the claims and had arranged the spy flights which confirmed the real count but was constrained from making the information public because of the need to conceal his source of intelligence.  Kennedy may actually have known his claim was incorrect but, finding it resonated with the electorate, continued to include it in his campaigning, knowing the plausibility was enhanced in a country where people were still shocked by the USSR having in 1957 launched Sputnik I, the first ever earth-orbiting satellite.  Sputnik had appeared to expose a vast gap between the scientific capabilities of the two countries, especially in the matter of big missiles. 

President Kennedy & comrade Khrushchev at their unproductive summit meeting, Vienna, June 1961.

Fake gaps in such matters were actually nothing new.  Some years earlier, before there were ICBMs so in any nuclear war the two sides would have to have used aircraft to drop bombs on each other (al la Hiroshima & Nagasaki in 1945), there’d been a political furore about the claim the US suffered a “bomber gap” and would thus be unable adequately to respond to any attack.  In truth, by a simple sleight of hand little different to that used by Nazi Germany to 1935 to convince worried British politicians that the Luftwaffe (the German air force) was already as strong as the Royal Air Force (RAF), Moscow had greatly inflated the numbers and stated capability of their strategic bombers, a perception concerned US politicians were anxious to believe.  The USAF would of course be the recipient of the funds needed to build the hundreds (the US would end up building thousands) of bombers needed to equip all those squadrons and their projections of Soviet strength were higher still.  If all of this building stuff to plug non-existent gaps had happened in isolation it would have been wasteful of money and natural resources which was bad enough but this hardware made up the building blocks of nuclear strategy; the Cold war was not an abstract exercise where on both sides technicians with clipboards walked from silo to silo counting warheads.

Instead, the variety of weapons, their different modes of delivery (from land, sea, undersea and air), their degrees of accuracy and their vulnerability to counter-measures was constantly calculated to assess their utility as (1) deterrents to an attack, (2) counter-offensive weapons to respond to an attack or (3) first-strike weapons with which to stage a pre-emptive or preventative attack.  In the Pentagon, the various high commands and the burgeoning world of the think tanks, this analysis was quite an industry and it had to also factor in the impossible: working out how the Kremlin would react.  In other words, what the planners needed to do was create a nuclear force which was strong enough to deter an attack yet not seem to be such a threat that it would encourage an attack and that only scratched the surface of the possibilities; each review (and there were many) would produce detailed study documents several inches thick.

US Navy low-level photograph spy of San Cristobal medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) site #1, Cuba, 23 October, 1962.

In October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the somewhat slimmer nuclear war manuals synthesized from those studies were being read with more interest than usual.  It was a tense situation and had Kennedy and comrade Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971; Soviet leader 1953-1964) not agreed to a back-channel deal, the US would probably have attacked Cuba in some manner, not knowing three divisions of the Red Army were stationed there to protect the Soviet missiles and that would have been a state of armed conflict which could have turned into some sort of war.  As it was, under the deal, Khrushchev withdrew the missiles from Cuba in exchange for Kennedy’s commitment not to invade Cuba and withdraw 15 obsolescent nuclear missiles from Turkey, the stipulation being the Turkish component must be kept secret.  That secrecy colored for years the understanding of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the role of the US nuclear arsenal played in influencing the Kremlin.  The story was that the US stayed resolute, rattled the nuclear sabre and that was enough to force the Soviet withdrawal.  One not told the truth was Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) who became president after Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 and historians have attributed his attitude to negotiation during the Vietnam War to not wishing to be unfavorably compared to his predecessor who, as Dean Rusk (1909–1994; US secretary of state 1961-1969) put it, stood “eyeball to eyeball” with Khrushchev and “made him blink first”.  The existence of doomsday weapon of all those missiles would distort Soviet and US foreign policy for years to come.

Guinea

Guinea (pronounced guin-ee)

(1) In geography, a coastal region in western Africa, extending from the Gambia River to the Gabon estuary.

(2) As Republic of Guinea (since 1958), an independent state in western Africa, on the Atlantic coast, formerly French Guinea, a part of the French colonial empire.

(3) In geography, as the Gulf of Guinea, a part of the Atlantic Ocean that projects into the western coast of Africa and extends from Côte d'Ivoire (the Ivory Coast) to The Gabonese Republic (the Gabon).

(4) A gold coin of Great Britain issued from 1663 to 1816, with a nominal value of 20 shillings until 1717 when, until the adoption of decimal currency in 1971, it was standardised at a value of twenty-one shillings.

(5) In horse racing, a person who does miscellaneous work in or around a horse stable (initial lower case).

(6) In historic admiralty use, as guinea-men, a trading ship of the seventeenth century used in the Atlantic trade.

1663: The coin was in use between 1663-1816, the name derived from it being the colony of Guinea which provided most of the gold used in its production.  Descendants include the Irish gine, the Scottish Gaelic gini, the Spanish guinea and the Welsh gini.  It’s also the basis for the Arabic word for the Egyptian pound الجنيه el-Genēh / el-Geni, calculated as 100 qirsh (one pound) and, circa 1900, worth approximately 21 shillings.  The guinea was, predictably, part of the British class system.  It was thought more gentlemanly than the pound so the artist would pay for his paint and canvas in pounds but charge for his portraits in guineas.  One quirk of the valuation was that a third of a guinea equaled exactly seven shillings, thirds and things in sevens highly unusual in currencies until the planet’s only $7 banknote was issued by the Central Bank of Fiji to commemorate the gold medal the rugby sevens team won at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.  There was no currency symbol for the guinea, 1 guinea written either a “1g” or “1gn”.

The name of the colony Guinea (since 1958 the Republic of Guinea) came from the Portuguese word Guiné, a fifteenth century formation created to describe the geographical area inhabited by the Guineus, a generic term for the black African peoples south of the Senegal River (and thus distinguished from the "tawny" Zenaga Berbers to the north whom the Portuguese called Azenegues or Moors).  Some sources also cite a connection to the (north African) Tuareg word aginaw (black people).  New Guinea was named in 1546 by the Spanish explorer Inigo Ortiz de Retes in reference to the natives' dark skin and tightly curled hair and the Guinea hen is a domestic fowl first imported from there in the 1570s.

Linguistically, the guinea pig must have seemed as strange to geographers and biologists as the Holy Roman Empire appeared to Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet; 1694–1778) for it does not come from Guinea and is unrelated to any pig.  A rodent native to South America, beginning in the 1660s, it was brought back to Britain aboard Guinea-men, ships that plied the triangle trade routes between England, Guinea, and South America.  That’s the standard view of the origin of the name but there are alternative etymologies, one suggesting a link to its resemblance to the young of the Guinea-hog "river pig" and another from possibly illiterate sailors confusing Guinea with the South American region of Guyana.  All agree however that it came to be dubbed a pig because of the similarity of its grunting sounds to its unrelated porcine namesake.  The use "one subjected to an experiment" dates from 1920, the adoption (al la lab rat) because they were a favorite animal for animal experimentation in science and industry.

A one guinea coin (1663, Charles II (1630–1685; King of Scotland 1649-1651, King of Scotland, England and Ireland 1660-1685)).

The guinea was a coin of approximately one quarter ounce of gold, issued in Great Britain between 1663 and 1816.  It was the first English machine-struck gold coin and was originally worth one pound sterling (twenty shillings) but rises in the price of gold relative to silver caused the value of the guinea to increase and reach as much as thirty shillings and between 1717-1816, its value was officially fixed at twenty-one shillings and when the gold standard was adopted, guinea became a colloquial or specialised term although it continued as a measure of exchange.  In the great recoinage of 1816, the guinea was replaced as the major unit of currency by the pound and in coinage with a sovereign.

A one guinea promissory note issued 2 May 1796.

Even after the coin ceased to circulate, the name guinea was long used to indicate the amount of one pound and one shilling.  The guinea had an aristocratic overtone; professional fees and payment for land, horses, art, bespoke tailoring, furniture and other luxury items are still sometimes quoted in guineas even after decimalisation in 1971, the practice continued also in Australia and New Zealand even after they decimalized in 1966 & 1967 respectively although transactional use soon died in the antipodes.  In England and Wales, it’s still quoted in the pricing and sale of livestock at auction and racehorses, where the purchaser will pay in guineas but the seller will receive payment in an equal number of sterling. The difference (5p in each guinea (£1.05=105p)) is traditionally the auctioneer's commission (which thus is the usual 5% buyer's fee typically levied at auctions).  Many major horse races in Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand and Australia bear names such as The Thousand Guineas although though the purse will be much higher and may even be in a a foreign currency.

It's apparently an urban myth that raffish Jaguars were advertised in pounds while prices for the similar but somehow more respectable Daimlers were listed in guineas.  Historical records do suggest there were dealers who advertised prices in guineas but it was rare and they seem to have done it for everything they sold.  The factory listed both only in £Stg.

Raffish 1963 Jaguar Mk 2 3.8.  (Stg£1561 including purchase tax).

The addition of the lively 220 bhp 3.8 litre XK engine to the Mark 2 on what was a dated chassis meant that on the road it could sometimes be a little too entertaining but in early 1960s saloon car racing it was dominant for years until rendered uncompetitive by the new generation of “total performance” fast Fords, the 427 Galaxie, the Lotus Cortina and later the Mustang.

Respectable 1963 Daimler V8 2.5.  (Stg£1568 including purchase tax).

One of the classic engines of the era, the jewel-like, 2½ litre hemi-head V8 lent an air of refinement and exclusivity to the small Jaguar.  Remarkably, the performance almost matched the Jaguar 3.4 and it’s remembered too for the quality of the exhaust note, a burble which for over sixty years, few have matched.

Connecticut Humane Society employee Rachel McCabe in 2012 introducing guinea pigs Britney Spears & Lindsay Lohan who were in need of a good home but couldn't be separated.

The point about them not being separated was serious, Switzerland even having passed a law that people are not permitted to own a single guinea pig (or parrot), the rationale being they're a social species and it's thought a form of animal abuse if they're not able regularly to interact with others of their species.  Curious and inquisitive by nature, guinea pigs are timid explorers who become very attached to both their partners & owners and Swiss law further provides that if one dies, the survivor must be provided with a new friend.  That can be as much a challenge as it is for humans to find a mate which is why Swiss animal lover Priska Küng runs a matchmaking service for guinea pigs who find themselves alone.  The service is said to be “in high demand”.

Tiger

Tiger (pronounced tahy-ger)

(1) A large, carnivorous, tawny-colored and black-striped feline, Panthera tigris, of Asia, ranging in several subspecies from India and the Malay Peninsula to Siberia.

(2) In non-technical use, the cougar, jaguar, thylacine, or other animal resembling the tiger (in wide use in southern Africa of leopards).

(3) A person of some fierceness, noted for courage or a ferocious, bloodthirsty and audacious person.

(4) In heraldry, a representation of a large mythological cat, used on a coat of arms, often with the spelling tyger or tygre (to distinguish the mythological beast from the natural tiger (also blazoned Bengal tiger), also used in heraldry).

(5) A pneumatic box or pan used in refining sugar.

(6) Any of several strong, voracious fishes, as a sand shark.

(7) Any of numerous animals with stripes similar to a tiger's.

(8) A servant in livery who rides with his master or mistress, especially a page or groom (archaic).

(9) In entomology & historic aviation, a clipping of tiger moth (in the family Arctiidae), tiger beetle or tiger butterfly (in tribe Danaini, especially subtribe Danaina).

(10) Any of the three Australian species of black-and-yellow striped dragonflies of the genus Ictinogomphus.

(11) In US, slang, someone noted for their athleticism or endurance during sexual intercourse.

(12) In southern African slang, a ten-rand note.

(13) As TIGR (pronounced as for “tiger”), the abbreviation for Treasury Investment Growth Receipts: a bond denominated in dollars and linked to US treasury bonds, the yield on which is taxed in the UK as income when it is cashed or redeemed.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English tygre & tigre, from the Old English tīgras (plural) and the Anglo-Norman tigre (plural), from the Latin tīgris, from the Ancient Greek τίγρις (tígris), from an Iranian source akin to the Old Persian tigra- (sharp, pointed) and related to the Avestan tighri & tigri (arrow) and tiγra (pointed), the reference being to the big cats “springing” on to their prey but the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) notes no application of either word (or any derivative) to the tiger is known in Zend.  It was used of “tiger-like” people since the early sixteenth century and that could be complementary or pejorative although the female form (tigress) seems only to have been used in zoology since the 1610s and was never applied to women.  The tiger's-eye (yellowish-brown quartz) was first documented in 1886.  The word “liger”, like the creature it described, was a forced mating of lion and tiger.  As a modifier, tiger is widely used including the forms: American tiger, Amur tiger, Asian Tiger, Mexican tiger, Siberian tiger, tiger barb, tiger beetle, tiger bench, tiger-lily, tiger lily, tiger's eye, tiger shark & tiger's milk.  The alternative spellings tigre & tyger are both obsolete.  Tiger & tigerishness are nouns, tigerly, tigerish & tigerlike are adjectives and tigerishly is an adverb; the noun plural is tigers (feminine tigress).

Lindsay Lohan with tiger in Kult Magazine (Italy), January 2012, photograph by Vijat Mohindra, makeup by Joyce Bonelli.

In idiomatic use, a country said to have a “tiger economy” (rapid and sustained economic growth), especially if disproportionate to population or other conventional measures.  “Tiger parent” (and especially “tiger mother”) refers to a strict parenting style demanding academic excellence and obedience from children; it’s associated especially with East Asian societies.  The “tiger cheer” dates from 1845 and originated in Princeton University, based on the institution’s mascot and involved the cheerleaders calling out "Tiger" at the end of a cheer accompanied by a jump or outstretched arms.  Beyond Princeton, a “tiger cheer” is any “shriek or howl at the end of a cheer”.  The phrase "paper tiger" was apparently first used by comrade Chairman Mao Zedong (1893–1976; chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 1949-1976) when discussing his thoughts about the imperialist powers.  A calque of the Chinese 紙老虎／纸老虎 (zhǐlǎohǔ), it referred to an ostensibly fierce or powerful person, country or organisation without the ability to back up their words; imposing but ineffectual.  Phrases in the same vein include "sheep in wolf's clothing" and "a bark worse than their bite".  To be said to “have a tiger by the tail” suggests one has found one’s self in a situation (1) that has turned out to be much more difficult to control than one had expected and (2) difficult to extricate one’s self from, the idea being that while holding the tiger’s tail, things are not good but if one lets go, things will likely become much worse.

Men in frock coats: The “Big Four” at the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920), outside the Foreign Ministry headquarters, Quai d'Orsay, Paris.  Left to right: David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922), Vittorio Orlando (1860–1952; Italian prime minister 1917-1919), Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929; French prime minister 1906-1909 & 1917-1920) and Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924; US president 1913-1921).

Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929; Prime Minister of France 1906-1909 & 1917-1920) was a physician who turned to politics via journalism, a not unfamiliar trajectory for many; at a time of national crisis, he undertook his second term as premier, providing the country’s politics with the stiffness needed to endure what was by then World War I (1914-1918); he was nick-named le tigre (the tiger) in honor of his ferociously combative political demeanour.  In February 1919, while travelling from his apartment a meeting associated with the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920), he was shot several times, his assailant an anarchist carpenter & joiner, Émile Cottin (1896-1937) and two decades on, another leader would learn carpenters can be assassins.  Le tigre was lucky, the bullets missing his vital organs although one which passed through the ribcage ending up lodged close to his heart; too close to that vital organ to risk surgery, there it remained until his death (from unrelated causes) ten years later.  Cottin’s death sentence was later commuted to a ten year sentence and he would die in battle, serving with the anarchist Durruti Column during the early days of the Spanish Civil War.  The Tiger’s response to his survival was to observe: “We have just won the most terrible war in history, yet here is a Frenchman who misses his target six out of seven times at point-blank range.  Of course this fellow must be punished for the careless use of a dangerous weapon and for poor marksmanship. I suggest that he be locked up for eight years, with intensive training in a shooting gallery.”  In the circumstances, deploring the state of French marksmanship displayed a certain French sang froid.

The Sunbeam Tigers

Sunbeam Tiger, LSR run, Southport Beach, March 1926.

There have been three Sunbeam Tigers, the first illustrious, the second fondly remembered and the last so anti-climatic it’s all but forgotten.  The first was a dedicated racing car, built between 1923-1925 and, those being times when there was less specialization, it was used both in circuit racing and, most famously, in setting the world Land Speed Record (LSR).  Although aerodynamic by the standards of the time (the techniques of streamlining learned in World War I (1914-1918) military aviation applied), there was little innovation in the platform except for the engine, the nature of which ensured the Tiger’s place in history.  For Grand Prix events conducted for cars with a maximum displacement of 2.0 litres (122 cubic inches), Sunbeam had earlier built a two litre straight-six, the limitations imposed by the relatively small size being offset by the use of the then still novel double overhead camshafts (DOHC) which allowed both more efficient combustion chambers and much higher engine speeds, thereby increasing power.  It was a robust, reliable power-plant and when contemplating an attempt on the LSR, instead of developing anything new or using the then popular expedient of installing a big & powerful but heavy and low-revving aero engine, the engineers paired two of the blocks and heads on a single crankcase, creating a 75° 3,976 cm³ (243 cubic inch) V12.  When supercharged, power outputs as high as 312 hp (233 kW) were registered.

Deteriorating weather conditions meant there wasn’t time even to paint the bodywork before the Tiger was rushed to the banked circuit at Brooklands for testing in September 1925 where performance exceeded expectations.  Over the winter, further refinements were made including a coat of most un-British bright red paint and it was in this color (and thus nick-named “Ladybird”) it was in March 1926 taken to the flat, hard sands of Southport Beach where duly it raised the LSR mark to 152.33 mph (245.15 km/h).  That was broken within a year but the Tiger still holds the record as the smallest displacement internal combustion-engine ever to hold the LSR and a hundred-odd years on, it’s a distinction likely to be retained forever.  After the run on the beach, it returned to the circuits.  A sister car was built and named Tigress; fitted with one of the big Napier Lion W12 aero engines, it still competes in historic competition but the Tiger is now a museum piece although, 65 years on, it did have a final fling when in 1990 it made one last run and this time set a mark of 159 mph (256 km/h).

1960 Sunbeam Alpine with the original tail fins.

Although successful in competition and the manufacturer of some much admired road cars, financial stability for Sunbeam was marginal for most of the 1920s and the Great Depression of the early 1930s proved its nemesis, the bankrupt company in 1934 purchased by the Rootes Group which was attracted by Sunbeam’s production facilities and their well-regarded line of commercial chassis for bus & truck operators.  Rootes over the years used the Sunbeam name in a desultory way, the vehicles little more than “badge engineered” versions of their Hillman, Singer, Humber & Talbot lines but one aberration was the Sunbeam Alpine, a small sports car (1959-1968).  Rootes had used the Alpine name before, adopted to take advantage of the success enjoyed in the 1953 Alpine Rally but the new roadster was very different.  Although the platform was taken, unpromisingly, from a small van and the rest of the structure was a mash up of components from the Rootes parts bin, as a package it worked very well and the body was modern and attractive, owing more to small Italian sports cars than the often rather agricultural British competition from MG and Triumph.  The rakish fins drew the eye (not always uncritically) but they were very much of their time (and soon pruned), taller even than those on the Daimler SP250 released the same year.  The Alpine was also pleasingly civilized with a heater which actually worked, a soft-top which didn’t leak (at least as much as others), external door handles and wind-up windows, none of which were guaranteed to exist on most of the local competition.  It was also commendably quiet, conversations possible and the radio able to be listened to even at cruising speed, then something novel in little roadsters.

1965 Sunbeam Tiger Mark 1.

With an engine capacity initially of 1.5 litres (91 cubic inch), the Alpine was never fast although that was hardly the point and Rootes advertising aimed at what was then known as the “ladies market”.  Slightly larger engines would improve things but the performance deficit was better addressed when in 1964, a version of the Alpine called the Tiger was released, this time with Ford’s then new 260 cubic inch (4.2 litre) “thinwall” Windsor V8, about to become well known from its use in both the Ford Mustang and Shelby’s Cobra, the latter based on a much-modified AC Ace.  The Windsor V8 was called a “thinwall” because genuinely it was small and light (by V8 standards) but even so it only just fitted in the Alpine’s engine bay and so tight was the fit that a small hatch was installed in the firewall (under the dashboard) so a mechanic could reach in to change one otherwise inaccessible spark plug.  Nevertheless, the package worked and all those who wrote test reports seemed to enjoy the Tiger, noting the effortless performance, fine brakes and predictable handling, all in something conveniently sized.  Even then though, more than one journalist observed that although the Ford V8 used was in the mildest state of tune Ford offered (the ones Shelby put in the Cobra producing over 100 hp (75 kW) more), it was clear the classis was probably close to the limit of what would be sensible.

Despite that, in the mid 1960s there was in the US quite an appetite for cars not wholly sensible for street use and for the North American market, a revised version was released, this time with a 289 cubic inch (4.7 litre) Windsor V8 and although there had been some attention to the underpinnings, it was now obvious that while still in the low-power state Ford used in station wagons, the 289's increased output exceeded the capability of the chassis.  For the journalists of course, that was highly entertaining and so they were prepared to forgive, one cautioning only that the Tiger:

“…doesn’t take kindly to being flung around.  It’s a car with dignity as asks to be driven that way.  That doesn’t mean slowly, necessarily, but that there’s sufficient power on tap to embarrass the incautious.  But if you treat it right, respecting it for what it is, the Tiger can offer driving pleasure of a very high order.”

In the era, there were other over-powered machines which could behave worse and those able to read between the lines would know what they were getting but there may have been some who were surprised and tellingly, the Tigers were never advertised to the “ladies market” although one pink 289 Tiger was in 1965 given as the traditional pink prize to Playboy’s Playmate of the Year.  Presumably she enjoyed it.

Jo Collins (b 1945), 1965 Playboy Playmate of the Year with Sunbeam Tiger Mark II.  The tail fins had by now been pruned.

The US was a receptive market for the little hot rod and one featured in the Get Smart TV series, although it’s said that for technical reasons, a re-badged Alpine was actually used, the same swap effected for the 2008 film adaptation, a V8 exhaust burble dubbed where appropriate, a trick not uncommon in film-making.  In 1967, after taking control of Rootes Group, Chrysler had intended to continue production of the Tiger, by then powered by the 289 but with Chrysler’s 273 cubic inch (4.4 litre) LA V8 substituted.  Unfortunately, while 4.7 Ford litres filled it to the brim, 4.4 Chrysler litres overflowed; the Windsor truly was compact.  Allowing it to remain in production until the stock of already purchased Ford engines had been exhausted, Chrysler instead changed the advertising from emphasizing the “…mighty Ford V8 power plant” to the vaguely ambiguous “…an American V-8 power train”.  Still a popular car in the collector community, so easily modified are the V8s that few survive in their original form and many have been fitted with larger Windsors, the 302 (4.9 litre) the most popular and some have persuaded even the tall-deck 351 (5.8) to fit.  The fate of Ms Collins' pink Tiger is not known.

1972 Hillman Avenger Tiger.  The Avenger is now remembered mostly for the distinctive  "boomerang (or hockey stick)" tail-lamps.

While not quite the sublime to the ridiculous, the third and final Tiger certainly lacked the lustre of its predecessors and was actually marketed under the Hillman and not the Sunbeam badge, the old Rootes group now owned by Chrysler.  Based on the Hillman Avenger (1970-1981), a competent if unexciting family car, the Avenger Tiger was initially a one-off built for motor shows (they used to be a thing) but such was the reaction a production run was arranged and, based on the Avenger GT, it was a genuine improvement, fitted with twin Weber carburettors on a high-compression cylinder head with larger valves and improved porting.  The power increase was welcome but wasn’t so dramatic as to demand any modification of the GT’s suspension beyond a slight stiffening of the springs.  On the road, the well-sorted rear wheel drive (RWD) dynamics meant it was good to drive and the performance was a notch above the competition although Chrysler never devoted the resources to develop it into a machine which could have been competitive with Ford’s Escort in racing and rallying.  The first run of 200-odd early in 1972 were all in “sundance yellow” with a black stripe (and in case that was too subtle, a “Tiger” graphic adorned the rear panels) but red was added as an option when another 400 made to meet demand.

Tigerish: Lindsay Lohan imagined in cara gata (cat face) by Shijing Peng.