Bulge

Bulge (pronounced buhlj)

(1) A rounded projection, bend or protruding part; protuberance; hump; to swell or bend outward; to be protuberant.

(2) Any sudden increase, as of numbers, often used in economics or demography.

(3) In the maritime sciences, a rising in small waves on the surface of a body of water, caused by the action of a fish or fishes in pursuit of food underwater.

(4) As bulging, to describe a box or similar container, the shape of which is distorted by being filled beyond its nominal capacity.

(5) In colloquial use, the outline of male genitals visible through clothing, a form especially popular in the states & micro-states of Melanesia and used also (by analogy with the bulge caused by a wallet) as a descriptor of wealth.

1200-1250: From the Middle English bulge (leather bag; hump), from the Old Northern French boulge & bouge (leather bag), from the Late Latin bulga (leather sack), from the Gaulish bulga & bulgos, from the Proto-Celtic bolgos (sack, bag, stomach).  It was cognate with the various English forms bilge, belly, bellows & budget, the French bouge, the Irish bolg (bag) and the German Balg; a doublet of budge.  Ultimate source was the primitive Indo-European bhelgh (to swell), an extended form of the root bhel (to blow, swell).  The sense of "a swelling, a rounded protuberance" is first recorded in the 1620s and it’s likely the later bilge is a nautical variant.  The later, more familiar military meaning "bulging part of a military front" was first noted in 1916, the Admiralty variation to refer to the shape a warship’s hull assumed after the addition of anti-torpedo armor appearing in the records of naval architects a year later.  The famous phrase "battle of the bulge" has been re-purposed by the weight-loss industry.  Synonyms and related words include wart, lump, nodule, protrude, swell, sag, bloat, projection, bump, swelling, promontory, growth, excrescence, dilation, bunch, protrusion, salient, hump, sac & blob.  Bulge, bulger & bulginess are nouns, bulging & bulgy are adjectives, bulged is a verb and bulgingly is an adverb; the noun plural is bulges.

Increasing bulginess: Lindsay Lohan's baby bump.  English phrases emerge organically and women seem much to prefer "baby bump" to "baby bulge", a Google search for the former returning 33,300,000 hits against a mere 35,000 for the latter.  "Baby bulge" does however have (usually unwanted) role in the process, the "postpartum baby bulge" a description of an abdomen which stubbornly resists post-delivery inducements to return to it's pre-pregnancy shape.

The hood (bonnet) bulge

1957 Jaguar XKSS (left), 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR (W196S) Uhlenhaut coupé) (centre) and Mercedes-Benz 300 SL (W198, 1954-1963, right).

A hood (bonnet) bulge differs from a hood scoop in that the former exists purely for the purpose of providing clearance for some piece of machinery beneath.  What needs to be accommodated typically will be an inconveniently tall part of the engine, a supercharger or some other component in the induction system.  Jaguar added a bulge to the D-Type (1954-1957) because after lowering the profile of the hood in the quest for aerodynamic efficiency, the XK-six wouldn't quite fit, even with the addition of a dry sump which gained a few inches.  The bulge was carried over to the XKSS, the road-going version of the D-Type.  On the Jaguars, the bulge was centrally placed but Mercedes-Benz, adopting the same expedient for the 300 SLRs needed theirs to exist on only one side where it also acted as an air-intake for the mechanical fuel-injection, an example of a bulge doing also some scooping.  Asymmetry is common on racing cars where function rules but the factory apparently couldn't in those days bring themselves to do it on road cars.  Although the 300 SLs (both the gullwings and the roadsters) needed only the bulge on the right-hard side (the tall, dry-sumped engine canted 50^o to the left) to accommodate the fuel-injection's ram-tubes, a matching bulge was included, thus ensuring the symmetry prized by the Germans.

MG MGC-GT (1967-1969, left), Iso-Grifo Can-Am (1968-1972, centre) and Ford Falcon BA XR8 (2002-2004, right).

Mercedes-Benz may have been disturbed by asymmetry but it didn't worry the pragmatists at MG who, having shoe-horned into the MGB (1962-1980) a big iron lump of a straight-six which necessitated using a torsion bar arrangement for the front suspension, found even their first attempt at a bulge still wasn't enough.  A dry sump would have solved the problem but that would have been expensive so a "blister" was added at the offending point on the bulge; a bulging bulge as it were.  Apparently a matching blister on the right was never considered and the MGC has one of the industry's more admired bonnets although that feeling didn't extend to the rest of the car, the model not even a modest success in the market and it lasted but two seasons.  The later V8 version (1973-1976) was both a better car and one that needed no bulge at all but it fell victim to the first oil shock.  There are those who claim the rectilinear protrusion on the hood of the big-block Iso Grifos can't be called a bulge at all and many etymologists might agree but such pedantry should be agreed with and ignored.  Nicknamed the "penthouse", the neo-brutalist construction is one of the industry's great bulges and it's entirely functional, affording clearance to the induction system and providing airflow, in & out.  Not functional at all was the bulge Ford in Australia added to the XR8 Falcons when the BA model was released in 2002.  Cheerfully admitting it was unnecessary and there just for looks, the factory later took advantage of its presence to advertise things like the V8's power output, a juvenile pleasure much appreciated by the target market.

Battle of the Bulge, December 1944-January 1945

The Ardennes Offensive, (Wacht am Rhein (Watch on the Rhine) was the German code-name) popularly known in the West as the Battle of the Bulge, was the last major German strategic offensive of World War II and ironically, Watch on the Rhine was the title of a play by Lillian Hellman (1905-1984) which debuted on Broadway in 1941, the theme being the need for an international alliance to oppose the Nazis.  After many delays, it began on 16 December 1944 and lasted officially until 25 January but had been repulsed by Allied forces weeks earlier.  It wasn't the first use of "bulge" in a battlefield context, the phrase documented in June 1940 in discussions about the German offensive in France and many generals over the centuries would have seen bulges represented on their situation maps.  One especially well-known One of the best known was Unternehmen Zitadelle (Operation Citadel), the German operation conducted in July 1943 against Soviet forces in the Kursk salient although, unlike the Ardennes Offensive, the Battle of Kursk was staged along a very long front and is best understood as a series of shifting bulges and the theatre evolved rapidly into a huge, dusty, swirling mass of tanks, artillery assaults and air attacks.  It remains history's largest tank battle.  

The bulge, December 1944.

Because of the disparity in military and economic strength between the German and Allied forces, in retrospect, the Ardennes Offensive appears nonsensical but, at the time, it made strategic and political sense.  Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) knew, confronted as he was by attacks from the west, east and south, continuing to fight a defensive war could only delay the inevitable defeat.  An offensive in the east was impossible because of the strength of the Red Army and even a major battlefield victor in the south would have no strategic significance so it was only in the west that opportunities existed.

For many reasons, by late 1944 the Allied advance in the west had stalled after remarkable progress since the D-Day landings 6 June 1944) and defensive lines had been formed, the most lightly defended being those in the Ardennes Forest, the very region which had been the conduit for the German’s stunningly successful blitzkrieg campaign in 1940.  Despite that history, 1944’s rapid advance through collapsing German lines had convinced Allied intelligence their enemy was no longer capable of major offensive operations.  It was this compliancy which made the German attack possible and in military colleges this problem, created by what in the psychology literature is called "Bayesian perception" (from the probability theories developed by English statistician Thomas Bayes (circa 1700-1761)), is often more helpfully described as "top-down processing" which tends to overwhelm the inherently more accurate "bottom-up processing".  The idea is that a "Bayesian brain" will use prior knowledge and assumptions which will influence perceptions meaning we see what we expect to see and fail to observe what is not expected and the more intensely something is focused upon, the more acute becomes the tendency.  Thus, because the phrase "Paris in the spring" is so well known, a single glance will confirm the brain's perception and the duplicate "the" will remain unseen.

In the last great example of the professionalism and tactical improvisation which was a hallmark of their operations during the war, the Wehrmacht (the German military) secretly assembled a large armored force, essentially under the eyes of the Allies and staged a surprise attack through the Ardennes, aided immeasurably by the cover of heavy, low clouds which precluded both Allied reconnaissance and deployment of their overwhelming strength in air-power.  Hitler’s audacious strategic objective, which, given the forces available, none of his generals though possible, was to advance to the Belgium port of Antwerp, splitting the Allied lines in a pincer movement, destroying their four armies.  This he hoped would force the Western Allies out of the war, permitting the Germans to focus their entire strength against the Soviet Union in the east.  Initially successful, the Wehrmacht’s advance punched several holes in the line, the shape of which, when marked on a map, lent the campaign the name Battle of the Bulge.  Within days however, the weather cleared and the Allies were able to unleash almost unopposed their overwhelming superiority in air power.  This, combined with their vast military and logistical resources, doomed the Ardennes Offensive, inflicting losses from which the Wehrmacht never recovered.  From mid-January on, German forces never regained the initiative, retreating on all fronts until the inevitable defeat in May.

The IDF, Hamas and the Hezbollah, October 2023

Mr Netanyahu.  His friends, (both of them) call him "Bibi".

Already, comparisons with 1944 are being made with the apparent failure of the much vaunted Israeli intelligence machine, either to detect or act upon indications of the activities which would have been a prelude to the audacious attacks launched on 7 October 2023 by the Hamas into Israeli territory.  Although low-tech by comparison with a conventional military operation, the scale of what the Hamas managed to stage would still have demanded movements of materiel and personnel, an exercise in logistics which should have been noticed.  In an echo of the Yom Kippur War (6-25 October 1973), presumably, some activity would have been noticed but clearly it wasn't interpreted as an imminent threat so the inevitable review will have to focus on both the gathering and analysis of intelligence and one thing which will be considered is whether, as in the winter of 1944, assumptions were allowed to prevail over facts on the ground.  Any inquiry can be expected to be rigorous but only within the terms of reference the government will provide and those parameters are unlikely to allow any consideration of the consequences of the recent actions of Benjamin Netanyahu (b 1949; Israeli prime minister 1996-1999, 2009-2021 and since 2022).  Mr Netanyahu has for some time been attempting to make structural changes to Israel's courts, allegedly because he wishes to avoid any judicial scrutiny of the corruption charges which he faces.  The proposed changes to the courts are would actually align the way things are done in Israel with those used in many Western, democratic nations but it's the political context which has made them controversial and part of the widespread and long-lasting public protest has included large numbers of military reservists (on which the security of the Jewish state depends) refusing to serve while the government continues the legal manoeuvres which would have the effect of shielding the prime minister from prosecution.  Mr Netanyahu is one of the great survivors of modern politics and his longevity in office has been a remarkable achievement in one of the world's more difficult neighborhoods but it's unpredictable whether he can turn the shock of the Hamas incursion to his advantage and that is likely to depend upon managing any perception his being distracted by his own legal difficulties made Israel unusually vulnerable.

Securing any advantage will of course depend on Israel gaining what can be presented as a victory, something which in recent conflicts, north & south, has been as elusive on the battlefield as on social media.  Nor is the Hamas attack the only thing which will absorb the resources of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF).  In the north, there is the even more formidable Hezbollah and few in the intelligence community have cast doubt on reports the Shi'ite militia (which out-guns the armed forces of Lebanon and has more political influence) have some hundred-thousand short & medium range rockets available for deployment south of the Litani River (the Qasimiyeh or River Leontes).  Within hours of the Sunni Hamas launching their operation, the Hezbollah targeted Israeli military positions in the disputed Shebaa Farms, announcing it was acting "in solidarity" with the Palestinian people and in response, the IDF responded with artillery barrages.  No casualties were reported and at this stage the attack in the north seems to be thought a supportive gesture rather than anything strategic and the consensus is the Hezbollah will act at scale only if the situation in Gaza evolved to offer a particularly attractive opportunity and even then it would require approval from Tehran; in an unsubtle waring directed at the Ayatollahs, the Pentagon announced the movement of an aircraft carrier into the region.  The Hamas have seemingly timed their high-risk attack with some thought.  With the war in Ukraine demanding much military, political and financial support from the West (something already beginning to fray as Moscow predicted it would in any battle of attrition), the US government in political & fiscal paralysis and Israeli support for its own government at a historic low, the Hamas will have sniffed blood.  Nor will they be unaware the most long-lasting legacy of the Yom Kippur War fifty years earlier was the Arab oil embargo and the spike in the price which ended the long post-war prosperity in the West and triggered the political and economic upheavals which would last a decade.  The structure of the world economy and the imperatives of governments are not in 2023 quite what they were in 1973 but these things will be on the minds of many in many places.

In the short term, within the Israeli intelligence establishment, there will be an admission the military specialists will have to share more of the space with the political analysts.  With a death toll on both sides already in the thousands, the focus is of course on bullets and bombs but what Hamas has also done is stake their claim for support (1) in the region, (2) among the Arab & Palestinian diaspora and (3) from those governments willing to fund proxies for their campaigns against the West.  In this sense, the Hamas is advertising themselves as a muscular resistance to Israeli (ie Western) oppression and occupation, contrasting themselves with Fatah, the faction controlling the Palestinian Authority which exercises nominal authority over what is left of the Left Bank territories.  The Hamas regard Fatah as as least accommodative while some use the slur "collaborators".  Thus positioning the contrast as something like the Marquis vs Vichy, October's assault has a political aspect and in that they identified their target market rather as the Republican Party's "House Freedom Caucus" focused on those dissatisfied with the direction of their own leadership.

What Hamas are practicing is politics with a high civilian death toll, the rationale for that being every Palestinian who is killed will have died a martyr's death with all that implies, theologically and socially.  As a tactic, what Hamas are doing is a kind of political intervention into what they see as the increasingly disturbing trend of Arab nations moving towards normalization of relations with the state of Israel without any settlement of the "Palestinian problem".  If the IDF can be induced to respond with such severity that the civilian death toll in Gaza rises to the point where the pressure from the so called "Arab street" is of such intensity that Arab states are forced to retreat from their recent rapprochements, for Hamas, that would be progress.  There was a time when the strategists in Gaza might have imagined the regional reaction would be something more tangible on the ground but as they've noticed, winds of change can blow in both directions and now it's only in Tehran there's much support for their long-standing position that the only final solution for the Palestinians is the destruction of the state of Israel.

Groovy

Groovy (pronounced groo-vee)

(1) Of, pertaining to, or having grooves.

(2) Set in one's ways (obsolete).

(3) Inclined to follow a fixed routine (obsolete).

(4) Cool, neat, interesting, fashionable, highly stimulating or attractive; excellent. (used in the 1940s and then more frequently in the 1960s and 1970s; now dated but often used ironically or to suggest an association with the 1960s counter-culture (hippies, psychedelia and all that).

(5) A programming language for the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), now under the auspices of the Apache Software Foundation.

(6) In music (jazz), as a professional compliment with the meaning "performing well (without grandstanding)”.

(7) In music, melodious, danceable; particularly of a riff or bassline.

1853:  The construct was groove + -y.  Groove was from the Middle English grov, grove, groof & grofe (cave; pit; mining shaft), from the Old English grōf (trench, furrow, something dug), from the Proto-Germanic grōbō (groove, furrow”, from the primitive Indo-European ghrebh- (to dig, scrape, bury).  It was cognate with the Dutch groef & groeve (groove; pit, grave), the German Grube (ditch, pit), the Norwegian grov (brook, riverbed) & the Serbo-Croatian grèbati (scratch, dig).  The earlier form in Old English was grafan (to dig) and from here there’s a lineal descent to groove and, at some point, a fork led to “grave”.  The –y suffix was from the Middle English –y & -i, from the Old English -iġ (-y, & -ic”, suffix), from the Proto-Germanic -īgaz (-y, -ic), from the primitive Indo-European -kos, -ikos & -iḱos (-y, -ic).  It was cognate with the Scots -ie (-y), the West Frisian -ich (-y), the Dutch -ig (-y), the Low German -ig (-y), the German -ig (-y), the Swedish -ig (-y), the Latin -icus (-y, -ic) and the Ancient Greek -ικός (-ikós); doublet of -ic.  Groovy is a noun & adjective, grooving is a noun & verb, groovier & grooviest are adjective, groover & grooviness are nouns and groovily is an adverb; the noun plural is groovies (though groovers is more common).  The standard comparative is groovier and the superlative grooviest but constructs like supergroovy, ultragroovy and hypergroovy have been seen and the The alternative spelling groovey is extinct.

Groovy was first noted in 1853 in the metal working trades as a literal descriptor of the surface texture of metals and evolved into the general sense of “of or pertaining to a groove” and oral (either a dialectic form or specific to metal working) use may pre-date 1853.   One colloquial figurative sense was "having a tendency to routine, inclined to a specialized and narrow way of life or thought", attested from 1882 and linked to the idea of a grove being “something permanent, static and unchanging”.  That sense died out and the next figurative use was something of the opposite.  The reason English never created ungroovy or nongroovy is there were already number of words adequately to convey the idea, the one most associated with the 1960s counter-culture being "square" which used to convey the quality of "someone honorable & upright".  It's possible the purloining of "square" was developed from the familiar "straightlaced" although the eighteenth century "squaretoe" was an epithet applied to disparage the "prim & proper"; this later form is thought unrelated to the hippies' use of "square".

Groovers in the groove: Lindsay Lohan (right) DJing with former special friend, DJ Samantha Ronson (left).

The slang sense in the context of jazz music is from circa 1926 and was used by musicians to convey a professional compliment: "performing well (without grandstanding)”.  This seems to have migrated to adopt its modern sense to describe something wonderful in the late 1930s although it even then tended to be confined to the young and, outside of parts of some US cities, doesn’t appear to have enjoyed wide use.  It became widely popular in 1960s youth culture which spread world-wide, including beyond the English-speaking word.  Despite falling from favor after hippiedom passed its peak, it’s never actually gone extinct and occasional spikes are noted, triggered usually by some use in pop-culture.  Generally though, it’s been out of currency since the 1970s although still used ironically.

Groovy.  1970 Plymouth Hemi Cuda with Mod Top.  This is the only Hemi Cuda with the Mod Top option.

The psychedelic Mod Top was a Plymouth factory option in 1969-1970.  Ordered mostly in yellow, the flower power themed material was supplied by the plastics division of Stauffer Corporation, chosen for their expertise in the manufacture of durable, brightly patterned tablecloths and shower curtains.  The company, dating from 1907, remains in family ownership and still operates but it’s not known if it's one of the Stauffer families which are branches of the Staufer Dynasty (known also as the Hohenstaufen) which provided a number of medieval German kings who were crowned also as Holy Roman Emperors.

1969 Plymouth advertising: Barracuda (left) & Satellite (right).  The copy called the motif a "pop print", an allusion to "pop art" which recently had emerged as a trend in the art market.

In the curious way Chrysler allowed its divisions to operate in the era, Dodge, Plymouth’s corporate stable-mate, offered a similar option called the Floral Top, the material for which was supplied by another company.  The companion to the Mod Top roof was matching vinyl paisley upholstery and floor mats which could be mixed and matched, some cars built with one but not the other although, despite it being possible, no convertible buyers (who by definition couldn’t tick the vinyl roof box) opted for the hippie interior.  Technically, Stauffer used exactly the same design technique used when applying flowers to tablecloths and shower curtains: endlessly repetitive patterns which repeat every 3-4 feet (900 mm-1.2 m), the same model used with most fake finishes for surfaces which emulate natural substances (granite, marble, timber etc).

1969 Dodge Daytona with Floral Top.

Few finds attract collectors like factory one-offs, genuine rarities produced by a manufacturer despite officially not being available in that configuration.  The 503 1969 Dodge Daytonas (produced only because the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) imposed a minimum build number in their homologation rules) included some extreme aerodynamic modifications and have long been sought-after, trading these days well into six figures.  It does seem Dodge may have made one with the Floral Top, despite it not being a Daytona option although the evidence for it being a genuine factory product is undocumented, based instead on oral testimony.  Many experts do seem convinced and, during the era, such "unicorns" did exist.

One's three choices to display one's grooviness.

1970 Plymouth Hemi 'Cuda with Mod Top, the logo's groovy lettering part of the vibe.  Almost all this vinyl was glued on during the administration of Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) who, although a competent pianist, was not at all groovy.

It’s not known how many survive, many a vinyl roof being removed or replaced with a solid color after the hippie vibe became unfashionable but some with the option have become collectables and reproduction vinyl is now available for those wanting the vibe back; the closer to the original condition a car can be rendered, the higher the value.  The nature of the unfortunate accessory is such that it’s never going to influence the price to the extent a rare or desirable engine or transmission might but, for the originality (or at least the replication) police, these things are an end in themselves.  Available in yellow or blue and with matching interior trim, 2792 freaks ordered these in 1969 but by 1970, only 84 repeated the mistake.  Altmont had prevailed over Woodstock; the 1960s were over.

Mod Top (Plymouth) & Floral Top (Dodge) production count, 1969-1970.

There however the patterned roof didn't die although the grooviness did.  Despite it being the intermediate-sized Satellite which in 1969 which attracted the most mod-toppers, Plymouth the next year restricted availability to the pony cars and demand proved embarrassingly modest.  Not discouraged, the factory in mid-year offered a somewhat subdued variation on their full-sized line, the Fury, a flourish perhaps surprising given the evolution of the market segment.  Until the 1960 model year, the “big three” (General Motors (GM), Ford & Chrysler) had each produced essentially one mainstream line (low-volume specialties such as the Thunderbird and Corvette just lucrative niche players).  Beginning in the 1960 model-year, that would change, increasing prosperity encouraging and the growing success of smaller imports compelling Detroit’s big three to introduce first compact, then intermediate and later sub-compact ranges, what came to be called the full-sized cars having grown just too big, heavy and thirsty for many.

The market spoke and the full-sized ranges, while remaining big sellers, gradually abandoned the high-performance versions which had once been the flagships, the smaller, lighter intermediates, pony cars and even the compacts much more convincing in the role.  By 1970, the big cars ran a gamut from stripper taxi-cabs to elaborately blinged-up luxury cars (which grew so big they cam later to be called "land yachts") but attempts to maintain a full-sized finger in the sporty pie was nearly over.  By 1970, only Ford still had a four-speed manual gearbox on the option list for the big XL and Chrysler, although the lusty triple-carburetor 440 cubic inch (7.2 litre) V8 could be had in some Fury models, it was available only with the TorqueFlite automatic.  All of General Motors' (GM) full-size machine were by then definitely heavy cruisers.

But Plymouth clearly believed the Fury still offered some scope in other stylistic directions; it was after all a big canvas.  Mid-season, quietly slipped into the range was the "Gran Coupe", based on the Fury II two-door sedan but bundled with a number of otherwise extra-cost options including air conditioning and the then fashionable concealed headlights.  What was most obvious however, was the paisley theme, a patterned vinyl roof with matching upholstery, most Gran Coupes finished in a newly created copper tone paint although other colors were available.

1971 Rover P5B 3.5 Coupé.

The Gran Coupe was retained for 1971 but the coachwork was the more elegant pillarless hardtop in both two and four-door versions, the latter still known as a coupe.  That attracted criticism from those who had come to associate the word exclusively with two-door bodywork but in the UK Rover had since 1962 offered a four-door “Coupé” although they did cut the P5’s roof-line a little, a nod to the history of the word coupé (from the French coupé, an elliptical form of carosse coupé (cut carriage), past participle of couper (to cut)).  Shamelessly, Plymouth ignored the etymology and invented the un-cut coupe, clearly believing gluing on some paisley vinyl vested sufficient distinction.  The factory also imposed some restraint on buyers: although the Gran Coupe was available in a variety of colors, only if the standard interior trim (tan) was chosen would the paisley patterned upholstery be available and, befitting the likely ownership of the full-sized line, the vinyl roof was subdued rather than the swirling psychedelia of the groovy Mod Top’s swirls.  In the twenty-first century the “four door coupe” became a thing but although Rover seems to have been the first to apply a “Coupé” badge, the now familiar motifs were seen in some coach-built four-doors during the inter-war years, the big Duesenbergs and Buccialis among the most memorable.

Following Rover: 1971 Plymouth Fury III Gran Coupe (four-door hardtop).  There are four door coupes because Plymouth said so.

It was for years the end for any exuberance in the full-sized lines.  Although the option of a four-speed manual transmission appeared in the early catalogues for the 1970 Ford XL, none were built and Chevrolet had already removed the SS option for the Impala; big engines would remain, indeed, they would grow larger but power would drop, the full-sized lines of both now hunting those wanting cut-price Lincolns and Cadillacs rather than something in the spirit of the old "letter series" Chrysler 300s.  Plymouth had already abandoned the Mod Top after lackluster sales in 1970 and the more dour paisley vinyl lasted only another year, consigned to history with the triple-carburetor 440.  Happily, decades later, big-power engines would make a comeback but fortunately, the paisley vinyl roof remained forgotten.

"Rich Burgundy", before & after UV exposure.

Chrysler's use of the term "paisley" was actually a bit misleading; only some of the groovy vinyl was a true paisley but the marketing people liked it so applied it liberally, even to fabric with big yellow sunflowers.  Customers didn't however share the enthusiasm felt by the sales department and by mid-1970, Chrysler realized they had a lot of bolts of un-wanted paisley vinyl in the warehouse; this was some time before just-in-time (JIT) supply chains.  The inspired suggestion was to dye the vinyl a dark purple and offer it only with the "Sparkling Burgundy Metallic" paint which was exclusive to the Imperial line, the theory being the same as used with hair-dyes: dark can always cover light.  Some testing verified the theory and in September the 1971 models began to be shipped to dealers, some cars parked outside... in direct sunlight.  Almost immediately, the now burgundy vinyl began to fade.  If nothing else, the incident illustrated the point made by Austrian–British philosopher Sir Karl Popper (1902–1994): What is critical in theories is not proof but disproof; it matters not how how many bolts of vinyl satisfactorily can be dyed purple, if just one fades in the sunlight then it's a bad idea.  Chrysler replaced the tops with either black or white vinyl and this time the paisley option was killed for good.  A handful actually were sold with the purple fabric still attached, later to fade, at which point most owners took up the offer for the white or black re-cover, depending on the interior trim chosen but at least one (which must have spent the decades protected from the ultra-violet) still exists as it left the factory.

Prototype 1967 Chevrolet Camaros.

Chrysler wasn’t the only US manufacturer to offer the patterned vinyl roof, Mercury for a single season in 1970 having houndstooth available for the Cougar and even GM flirted with the idea before thinking better of it.  Hidden away in GM’s vast historical archive before being published early in the twenty-first century were photographs of the patterned vinyl being contemplated for the 1967 Chevrolet Camaro’s debut in late 1966.  Chevrolet seems to have produced prototypes with both paisley and houndstooth vinyl and intriguingly, also pictured were (presumably functional) side mounted exhaust pipes, exiting under the rear of the door.  Like the Camaro’s triple carburetor option (cancelled late in the planning process), neither the patterned vinyl roofs nor the side pipes reached production, the latter remaining exclusive to the Corvette.

Periphrasis

Periphrasis (pronounced puh-rif-ruh-sis)

(1) A roundabout way of expressing something; a kind of circumlocution (and often needlessly but deliberately long).

(2) An expression phrased in such fashion.

(3) In structural linguistics, expressing a grammatical meaning (such as a tense) using a syntactic construction rather than morphological marking.

(4) In rhetoric, (1) the substitution of a descriptive word or phrase for a proper name (technically a type of circumlocution) or (2) the use of a proper name as a shorthand to stand for qualities associated with it.

1525–1535: A borrowing in the sense of “a roundabout way of speaking; an instance of this” from the Latin periphrasis (circumlocution), from the Ancient Greek περίφρασις (periphrazein) (speak in a roundabout), the construct being peri- (from the Ancient Greek περί (perí) (about, around) + φράζειν (phrázein) (to declare; to express), the present active infinitive of φράζω (phrázō).The adjective periphrastic (having the character of or characterized by periphrasis) came into use in the mid eighteenth century and was from the French périphrastique or directly from the Ancient Greek periphrastikos, from periphrazein (to speak in a roundabout way).  The adjective periphrastical dates from the 1630s and the adverb periphrastically from several decades later.  The expression of disapproval “beating around the bush” applies more to circumlocution than the classic periphrasis which hints at why in linguistics “periphrasis” and “circumlocution” shouldn’t be treated as synonyms despite this being common.  The most helpful distinction between the two is that periphrasis generally is used of those cases where the figure is used with effect, while circumlocution refers to mere wordiness, sometimes to the point of obscuring meaning, thus the overlap with euphemism.  A classic periphrasis is the naming of a thing indirectly by means of some well-known attribute, or characteristic, or attendant circumstance.  A periphrastic conjugation is a conjugation formed by the use of the simple verb with one or more auxiliaries.  Periphrasis & periphrase are nouns, periphrastically is an adverb and periphrasic, periphrastical & periphrastic are adjectives; the noun plural is periphrases.

Periphrasis does have a long tradition in rhetorical as a device where a phrase is used to express a concept which could be conveyed by a single word, or where a longer expression replaces a shorter one, thus the association with descriptive or explanatory words and as well as euphemisms, there’s inevitably some overlap also with the cliché; a periphrasis can straddle the definitions and structural linguistics has a term for everything so someone particularly periphrastical might create periphrases which are also both a pleonasm and a tautology.  Constructions like “the king of the jungle” (lion), “the silver screen” (movies), “the eternal city” (Rome) or “the red planet” (Mars) are all periphrases but are also clichés.  At the margins it can be difficult but “they passed away” (they died) is probably just a clichéd euphemism.  To say of Lindsay Lohan she was “a former child star who suffered a turbulent youth” is a periphrasis whereas to mention she was prone also at times to seem “tired and emotional” is a euphemism for “too much drink”.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

During one of the sessions at the League of Nations held in 1933 before Japan withdrew from the League in response to a report commissioned by the organization which labeled Japan as the unprovoked aggressor in what Tokyo referred to as “The Chinese Attack” or “The Mukden Incident”, one member of the Japanese delegation, when asked why his government’s communiqués contained so many periphrases, responded that they were little more frequent that those in documents issued by other countries but that the unique characteristics of the Japanese language made them appear more obvious.  He may have had a point and there was an understated charm to phrases like “The Manchurian Incident” (Japan’s invasion of China) and “The Emperor Disrespect Incident” (a thwarted 1932 plot by a Korean nationalist to assassinate the Emperor Shōwa (Hirohita, 1901–1989, emperor of Japan 1926-1989).

Henry Fowler (1858–1933) in his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) saw little use for the periphrasis, dismissing it as the “putting of things in a round-about way”, noting the easiest way of identifying the linguistic sin was the use of abstract nouns such as “basis, case, character, connexion, dearth, description, duration, framework, lack, nature, reference, regard & respect”.  Fowler also pondered cause and effect, his theory being that because abstract thought was a “…mark of civilized man”, the use of the abstract noun was a way of advertising one’s refinement, thus the proliferation he noted in the appearances of periphrases.  He cited “the year’s penultimate month” as a silly alternative to “November” although one could imagine a paragraph in which “November” has unavoidably appeared to often to be elegant that an alternative might be a handy addition.  Generally though, as usual, Henry Fowler is right.

Fartlek

Fartlek (pronounced fahrt-lek)

(1) A training technique, used especially by runners, consisting of bursts of intense effort loosely alternating with less strenuous activity.

(2) In sports, an alternative name for interval training (alternating high & low intensity sessions).

1952: A borrowing from Modern Swedish, the construct being fart (speed) + lek (play; child’s play) and thus literally “speed play” although some meaning is lost in translation and when used in English, fartlek remains a foreign word.  The Swedish fart was cognate with Old Norse fara (to go, move) and was ultimately from the primitive Indo-European per (to go through; to carry forth, fare).  Lek was cognate with Old Norse leika (play) and ultimately from the primitive Indo-European leyg- (“to jump around, run around; to frolic, play; to dance; to jitter, shake”).  Fart was cognate with the English verb fare (in the sense of “to go, travel”) and it’s speculated lek may have some link with the English lark (in the sense of “a carefree adventure; to have fun” (often expressed in the phrases “lark about” or “a bit of a lark”) but a more familiar relative, known around the world, is Lego (usually as LEGO), the brand of interlocking plastic bricks dating from 1934, the name from the Danish leg godt (to play well).  Although the form isn’t documented, were one exhausted after a session of fartlekking, one could collapse in a corner and announce “I’m fartleked”.  Fartlek & fartlekking are nouns; the noun plural is plural fartleks.

The earliest known mention of fartlek in English was in an article which appeared in 1952 in the periodical Scholastic Coach (1930-2015).  The training technique was developed during the 1930s by Swedish national cross-country coach Gösta Holmér (1891-1983) who had become a coach after an athletic career which included competing in the decathlon at the 1912 & 1920 Olympic Games.  Holmér was inspired to innovate because the Swedish team’s sub-standard performance in the cross-country events which had come to be dominated by Finland.  Although the discipline rarely involves sprinting, his concept involved runners training by running for brief spurts at a pace much faster than they would adopt in competition, alternating with much less strenuous sessions, all combined in the one continuous workout.  The theory was the regime simultaneously would train athletes to hone both their speed and endurance but it was only after the system had been in use for some time it became clear another benefit was mental strengthening, the distance runners being challenged in a way they’d not before encountered in a sport which revolved around maintaining a constant speed for extended periods; what fartlek did was focus on effort rather than pace or distance.

High (left) & low (right) intensity training: Lindsay Lohan fartlekking. 

Conducted in brief, explosive bursts, fartlek also had the advantage of being able to be conducted without the need for the marked track usually required and the “fun” element (inherent in the “lek” element) came from the variety of activities which could be interpolated between the speed (the “fart” element”) sessions, ensuring the boredom often associated with the monotony of repetitive training regimens was less likely.  Although the origin of fartlek was hardly scientific and developed wholly by means of trial and error, the efficacy of its outcomes has impressed many and what is now called “interval training” is widely practiced and so simple and flexible is the concept (high intensity alternating with low intensity) that various sports have adapted it in literally dozens of ways and most of those using fartlek are involved in cross-county or any form of distance running.

Bespoke

Bespoke (pronounced bih-spohk)

(1) A simple past tense and past participle of bespeak.

(2) Of clothes, those made to individual order and custom custom-made.

(3) The making or selling such clothes.

(4) By extension, anything (physical or weightless) produced to a customer’s specifications, especially if a one-off creation.

(5) To ask for in advance; to reserve (obsolete).

(6) As bespeak & bespoken, betrothed or engaged to be married; spoken for (obsolete except in the literary novel).

1745–1755: The adjective was a coining in Modern English in the sense of “custom-made goods; made to order (as distinguished from ready-made; an item on the shelf of a shop)” from the late sixteenth century Middle English bespoken, the past-participle adjective from bespeak (in its sense of “arrange beforehand”), a prefixed variant of speak.  The verb bespeak was from the Middle English bispeken, from the Old English besprecan (speak about, speak against, complain), the construct being be- + sprecan (to speak).  A common Germanic compound (the cognates including the Old Saxon bisprecan, the Dutch bespreken, the Old High German bisprehhan and the German besprechen) originally meaning “to call out”, it evolved by the 1580s to enjoy a wide range of meaning in English, including “speak up”, “oppose”, “request”, “discuss”, “arrange” and “order (goods)”.  By virtue of the different application of the be- prefix, the connections between the various meanings of bespoke, bespeaking; bespeak etc are thought at least very loose and it’s clear some arose independently of others.  Bespoke long was used usually of tailored suits and other clothing but in recent decades it has been applied (with some enthusiasm) to products as diverse as a one-off Rolls-Royce and customized hacking software offered on the dark web.  Bespeak was from the Middle English bespeken & bispeken, from the Old English bespecan & besprecan (to speak about, speak against, accuse of, claim at law, complain), from the Proto-Germanic bisprekaną (to discuss, blame), the construct being be- +‎ speak.  It was cognate with the Scots bespeke (to beseech, speak or negotiate with), the West Frisian besprekke (to discuss), the Dutch bespreken (to discuss, review; debate) and the German besprechen (to discuss, review, talk about).  Bespoke & bespoken are verbs & adjectives, bespeak is a noun & verb, bespeaking is a verb, bespeaker & bespokeness are nouns and bespokely is an adverb; the noun plural use is rare.

Wartime bespoke tailoring, Henry Poole & Co (1806), Savile Row, London, 1944.

The be- prefix was from the Middle English be- & bi-, from the Old English be-, from the Proto-Germanic bi- (be-), from the Proto-Germanic bi (near, by), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European hepi (at, near) and cognate with the Saterland Frisian, West Frisian, Dutch, German Low German, German and Swedish be-.  Although there remain in English many relics of its use, (becalmed, beseige et al), the be- prefix has long ceased to be productive.  It was used to modify other forms to create various meanings: (1) By, near, next to, around, close to (beset), (2) Around; about (belay, bestir, belive), (3) About, regarding, concerning, over (bemoan, bewail), (4) On, upon, at, to, in contact with something (behold, befall), (5) Off, away, over, across (behead, besleeve), (6) As an intensifier (ie thoroughly, excessively; completely; utterly) (belabour, bedazzle), (7) All around; about; abundantly; all over (belick, bescatter), (8) Forming verbs derived from nouns or adjectives, usually with the sense of "to make, become, or cause to be" (becalm, befriend) and (9) Used to intensify adjectives meaning "adorned with something", often those with the suffix -ed (now mostly archaic or informal) (besequined, befeathered, beclawed, beloved).

Artist Louise Duggan (b 1974) delivers the bespoke "mixed-media work" Blue Lips, commissioned by Lindsay Lohan to hang in her villa in Dubai, June 2023.

Bespoke is an uncontroversial word if applied in the way which for centuries mostly it was: clothing custom made for an individual, based on measurements taken prior to the a tailor or seamstress cutting the fabric.  It was used also of the shoes made by cobblers, the gloves sewed by glove makers, the hats created by milliners and so on, all of whom had their own methods of maintaining their customer records, those dealing with body parts which usually didn’t much change able to use the same dimensions for decades; other had to re-measure with some frequency.  In the case of cobblers, for regular customers they would keep a pair of wooden lasts which emulated exactly the shape of the feet.  The synonyms for bespoke in this context included “custom-made”, “customized”, “purpose-built”, “tailored” & “tailor-made” and the traditional antonyms were “off the peg”, “off the rack” & “off the shelf”.  In recent years, “bespoke” has become a marketing term and stuff which is far from unique and in many cases produced in great volume (perhaps with some minor change) is now often labeled “bespoke” and “bespoke solution” is a favorite in the software business, whether it be something to manage a hairdressing salon or code on the dark web supplied by Russian hackers to the DPRK (North Korean) military for enable theft or covert operations.

Because of the way Google harvest it data, their ngrams tracking trends in the use of words aren’t wholly accurate and even the degree of accuracy can’t be assessed but the trend lines are thought vaguely indicative and it appears bespoke came increasingly to be used in the late twentieth century and the rate of increase has shown no signs of subsiding.  That may to some extent be accounted for by Google’s methods or the publications over-represented in its catchment but, impressionistically it seems plausible and in the US, scholars by the 1990s were noting the way bespoke was tending to supplant the traditional American “custom”, apparently because the word had appeal because it conveyed “wealth and prestige” whereas custom had been devalued by its association with things like hotted-up motor cycles.  If bespoke is uncontroversial when used of anything genuinely one-off, the appropriateness when used of anything else needs to be assessed on a case by case basis and because it’s so popular in the business of expensive cars, they provide a good case-studies.

The Maserati 5000 GT (1959-1966)

1959 Maserati 5000 GT (Shah of Iran) by Touring.

Before the Ayatollahs ran Iran, it was ruled by the Shah (king) and he got a lot more fun out of life than his clerical successors, noted especially as a connoisseur and of fast, exotic and expensive cars, his collection including multiple models from Lamborghini, Mercedes-Benz, Rolls-Royce, Ferrari and Maserati among others.  In 1958 he’d driven Maserati’s then popular 3500 GT but thought it lacking in power and, because hundreds a year were sold to the (rich) public, it seemed "a bit common".  Accordingly, after receiving material advertising both the 3500 GT and the remaining 450S race cars the factory wished to dispose of after withdrawing from racing, the shah decided he wanted a combination of the two, the race engine in the road car.  To have it created, essentially he sent Maserati a blank cheque and asked them to call when it was ready.  Delivered to the shah (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 1919-1980) in 1959, it was almost a secret but when a second, commissioned by a South African customer,  was displayed at the 1959 Turin Motor show, it generated such interest that Maserati were soon fielding enquiries from rich commoners wanting what royalty had.  Priced stratospherically however, there weren’t enough rich folk on the planet to make it a viable option for their production lines so it entered the catalogue as a bespoke item, Maserati modifying the 3500 chassis which, frankly had been a bit over-taxed by the big V8 and tweaking the engine still further, slightly increasing the capacity but in a way that rendered it more docile, yet still a howler when stirred.  The chassis appeared in the list and buyers could choose their own coachbuilder and eventually eight produced their own interpretations, the most numerous being by Carrozzeria Allemano which, over the years, finished twenty-two although at the time the Allemano were thought the most alluring.

1959 Maserati 5000 GT by Allemano.

So the conclusion must be that the Shah’s original was and remains a true bespoke creation because exclusively it was built for him.  Of the other 33 5000 GTs built, although they were all variations on the theme and mechanically similar, no two were exactly alike and each was built in response to an order from an individual customer, some of whom specified certain touches.  Given that, all probably deserve to be regarded as bespoke though pedants might insist the chassis was a regular production item and only the coachwork was truly bespoke.  Few seem to agree and on the rare occasions the things are offered for sale, they’re almost always described as “bespoke”.

The Rolls-Royce Phantom IV (1950-1956)

1950 Rolls-Royce Phantom IV pick-up truck.  "Luxury" pick-up trucks have been produced in volume since the 1970s and the first existed in the pre-war years but the Phantom IV was the most exclusive of them all.

Among collectors, the Phantom IV has quite an allure because it was one of the few cars produced in any number never offered for sale to the general public, only 18 produced and available only to head of state or crowned royalty (a distinction important in royal circles which has its own pecking order).  In a manner similar to the Maserati 5000 GT, no two Phantom IVs were exactly the same although all were built on substantially the same underpinnings (the only Rolls-Royce passenger cars ever to use a straight-8).  Thus all should be thought “bespoke” in the context of the industry but there was one version which was radically different, a Phantom IV pick-up truck (a style in some places called a "ute", a back-formation from "utility" which in linguistics is described as a "complex clipping" or "elliptical abbreviation" although the punchier "short for" is the more common use) which was used by the factory to ferry bits and pieces from place to place.  So it’s a genuine one off pick-up truck but because it was just a functional workhorse which existed only because an unsalable prototype chassis was available, it’s never been regarded as something bespoke, the long ago scrapped “shop ute” just a historic curiosity.  The other 17 Phantom IVs used the body-styles more expected of the Phantom lineage (limousines, cabriolets and landaulets) and three were built for Generalissimo Francisco Franco (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975) but even in the less litigious 1950s there was a awareness words needed carefully to be chosen.  When ordering one of the two built as formal limousines (in five and seven-seat configurations), the Spanish embassy in London specified "bullet-proof bodywork" but the coach-builder (H. J. Mulliner), aware there were now some very big bullets, replied what they could do was fit "armoured panels" but a guarantee of "bullet proof" wasn't possible.  A practical military man, the Generalissimo must have accepted that because all were built and remain in the possession of the Spanish Army, still sometimes use for state occasions.    

The Rolls-Royce Phantom V (1959-1968) & Phantom VI (1968-1990)

1973 Rolls-Royce Phantom VI "All Weather Cabriolet" (four-door convertible) by Fura (right) and 1971 Rolls-Royce Phantom VI DHC by Fura (left). 

By comparison with the exclusive Phantom IV, its two successors were almost mass-produced, 1206 (832 of the Phantom V & 374 of the VI respectively) crafted over three decades.  In this case, it’s thought only some should be thought truly bespoke because although there were a few variations in the coachwork, many were substantially the same and its only the ones with the greatest differences (notably the odd sedanca de ville, the handful of landaulets or the other “state” cars with their elevated rooflines) which are usually thought “bespoke” and even they weren’t unique things like the Phantom IVs.  Two of the Phantom VI chassis however were indisputably bespoke.  By the 1970s, it was only the big Phantom VI which Rolls-Royce still built on the separate chassis which made bespoke bodies easier to mount so anyone wanting a really exclusive Rolls-Royce had no other choice.  Accordingly the Italian house Fura fashioned two very big bespoke creations, one a drophead coupé (DHC, which by then the rest of the world was calling a cabriolet or convertible), the other described as an "all weather cabriolet" (which eventually was re-fashioned as a four-door convertible).  Both were on a scale not seen since seen since the 1930s and nothing like them has since been attempted.  Because the limousine chassis was designed for something long, narrow and tall, both the Fura cars were fundamentally ill-proportioned although skilled photographers have managed to create pleasing images by selecting just the right angle.  Flawed though they were, at the time there was probably nothing on four wheels which so conveyed disposable wealth which, in many cases, is of course often the essence of the bespoke.  It was a good thing they made such an impression because presumably it dissuaded people from looking too closely: underneath the engineering was pure Phantom VI which meant drum brakes and a rear axle suspended on semi-elliptic (cart) springs so it was (refined) Ford Model T (1908) technology under all that leather and burl walnut veneer.  Such was the attention to detail those cart spring were encased in Wefco leather gaiters so those enjoying the seclusion of the rear compartment (trimmed usually in West of England cloth rather than the leather on which the chauffeur sat) weren't disturbed by any tiresome squeaks.   

1956 Mercedes-Benz 300c (W186 "Adenauer") Estate Car by Binz.

Consumption can be conspicuous yet still subtle, achieved usually if a bespoke creation is both expensive and functional.  The Mercedes-Benz 300 saloons and four-door cabriolet of (W186 & W189 1951-1962) were large, stately and beautifully built and the platform attracted coachbuilders who saw the potential for estate cars (station wagons), ambulances and (especially) hearses.  Many were built and the hearses in particular typically aren't regarded as bespoke because they were essentially catalogue items with little variation between editions.  Some of the rare estates ("shooting brakes" to the English, "station wagons" in North America and for a time, "station sedans" if built by Holden, General Motors' (GM) Australian outpost) however have always been treated as bespoke even though from an engineering point of view the changes were minimal and the styling hardly imaginative.  The reason for the association seems to be that they “dripped money”; even to the uninformed they were obviously expensive so it seems possible there is the matter of "bespoke by acclamation".  Interestingly, in 1960 the factory did their own one-off 300 Estate, this one a “telemetry car” built in the era before sensors to travel at high speed on a test track, recording data from the vehicle ahead, the two tethered with long cables.  Styled in an almost avant-garde manner with rear glass which curved into the roof, the factory regarded it rather as Rolls-Royce treated their pick-up: a mule to be used until something better came along.  They never called it bespoke.

1965 Aston Martin DB5 Shooting Brake.

Sir David Brown (1904–1993) liked his DB5 coupé (which the factory in their English way called a "saloon") but found it too cramped comfortably to accommodate his polo gear, shotguns and hunting dogs.  Now, that would be called a “first world problem” but because Brown then owned Aston Martin, he simply wrote out a work order and had his craftsmen create a bespoke shooting brake (an English term which means “station wagon owned by someone rich”) which they did by hand-forming the aluminum with hammers over wooden formers.  It delighted him and solved his problem but created another because good customers stared writing him letters asking for their own.  Unfortunately, Aston Martin was at full capacity building DB5s and developing the up-coming DB6 and V8 models.  With a bulging order book, the resources didn’t exist to add another niche model so the project was out-sourced to the coachbuilder Radford which built a further 11 (and subsequently another 6 based on the DB6).  That Brown’s original car was bespoke seems clear but the others are a gray area because the coachbuilder’s records and assessments of the cars indicate they were identical in all but the color of the paint and leather trim.  There may have been only 12 DB5s and 6 DB6s but by conventional definition, they came of a production line, albeit a leisurely and exclusive one so can all but the original be thought truly bespoke?  According to the Aston Martin website, they are bespoke so that’s presumably the last word on the subject.

The Smart Fortwo (top left) and some bespoke imaginings.

The happy combination of the internet, Photoshop and a large cohort of gullible viewers some years ago encouraged the creation of a meme purporting to be a survey of the bespoke carbon fibre bodies available to be bolted to the diminutive Smart Fortwo (C451; 2007-2015).  Even a cursory look at the scale of the humans included in some of the photos should have been enough for people to work out this was fake news but the factory is said to have received “some” enquiries asking where the bespoke bodies could be bought.

There is even bespoke Nutella.  In 2014, while appearing on-stage in a London production of David Mamet's (b 1947) Speed-the Plow (1988), Lindsay Lohan stayed at the Mandarin Oriental hotel which supplied her with a personalized jar of the nutty treat.