Stationary & Stationery

Stationery (pronounced stey-shuh-ner-ee)

(1) Writing paper.

(2) Writing materials, as pens, pencils, paper, and envelopes.

(3) Any office related hardware (staplers, pencil sharpeners et al) or consumables (staples etc), a use technically incorrect by historic standards but widely used and understood in commerce. 

1727: From the Medieval Latin statiōnārius (station), used to describe a bookseller who had a fixed station (especially at universities) as distinct from the then more prevalent form of commerce which was peripatetic.  The construct of stationery was not station + ery but stationer (one who sell paper, pens, books etc from a fixed location) + -y.  Stationery is a noun & adjective & stationer is a noun; the noun plural is stationeries but stationers is more commonly used.

Reader's Digest Kids Letter Writer Book & Stationary Set, one of Lindsay Lohan’s early (in 1994, then aged seven) modelling jobs.    The original form (circa 1675) was "stationery wares", describing the books, pens, ink and such sold by a "stationer" who was someone with "a station" (as opposed to the them common itinerant vendor)) and, over time, popular usage saw stationery gain and retain its modern association.  So there's a reason why two words with slightly different spellings share the same pronunciation yet have meanings which at first glance appear to be unrelated.  Such linguistic quirks are not unique to English but the language does seem to have many which, even when explained, must seen strange to those learning the tongue.

The suffixes –ary, -ery and –y

The suffix –ary was a back-formation from unary and similar, from the Latin adjective suffixes -aris and –arius.  It created the adjectival sense “of or pertaining to” when applied to various words, often nouns, and was used most frequently with words of Latin origin but it’s long been more broadly applied.  In mathematics, it’s used to refer to results having the specified -arity (the maximum number of child nodes that any node in a given tree (data structure) may have).-ate

The suffix -ery was from the Middle English -erie, from the Anglo-Norman and Old French -erie, which is inherited from the Latin -arius and Latin –ator (a suffix forming abstract nouns).  The suffix first appeared  in loan words from the Old French into Middle English, but became productive within English by the sixteenth century, in some instances properly a combination of -er with -y as in stationery, bakery & brewery, but also as a single suffix in words like slavery & machinery.  Added to nouns, it could form other nouns meaning "art, craft, or practice of"; added to verbs it could form nouns meaning "place of an art, craft, or practice”; added to nouns it could form other nouns meaning "a class, group, or collection of"; added to nouns it could form other nouns meaning "behaviour characteristic of."

The suffix -y was from the Middle English –y & -i, from the Old English -iġ (the –y & -ic suffixes), 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.  It was added to nouns and adjectives to form adjectives meaning “having the quality of” and to verbs to form adjectives meaning "inclined to”; “tending towards".  The suffix remains productive in English and can be added to just about any word.  If the result is something perceived not to be a real word, a hyphen should be used to indicate it’s a deliberate attempt to convey a meaning rather than a spelling mistake.  A few long-established words ending with this suffix have distinctive spellings, such as wintry and fiery, which are often misspelled as wintery and firey although these mistakes are now so frequent that they’re likely to gain acceptance and there are special cases: "firey" is now widely used in slang as a noun to describe fire fighters.

Stationary (pronounced stey-shuh-ner-ee)

(1) Standing still; not moving.

(2) Having a fixed position; not movable.

(3) Established in one place; not itinerant or migratory.

(4) Remaining in the same condition or state; not changing.

1400–1450: From the late Middle English from the Latin word statiōnārius (surface analysis station) from statiō (a standing, post, job, position) ultimately from stō (to stand). Stō was a word-forming element used in making names of devices for stabilizing or regulating (eg thermostat), from the Ancient Greek statos (standing, stationary) from the primitive Indo-European ste-to-, a suffixed form of root sta- (to stand, make or be firm)  It was first used in heliostat (an instrument for causing the sun to appear stationary (1742)).  The late fourteenth century sense of "having no apparent motion" was in reference to planets and was derived from the Middle French stationnaire (motionless) also from the Latin statiōnārius; the meaning "unmovable" is from 1620s.  Not unusually, the meanings in later English and European languages evolved beyond the original; in Classical Latin, statiōnārius is recorded only in the sense "of a military station, the word for "stationary, steady" being statarius.  Stationary is a noun & adjective, stationariness is a noun and stationarily is an adverb; the noun plural is stationaries.  The most common appearance of stationary as a noun is probably as a misspelling stationary but it can be use (1) as a clipping of the description of a static version of something (stationary engine et al) or (2) of any person or object which is not moving (usually in the context of a contrast with surrounding people or objects which are moving) and (3) in historic astronomy, a planet or other heavenly body which apparently has neither progressive nor retrograde motion (now obsolete).  In the aerospace community, it may be that "geostationary" (of satellites) are sometimes casually referred to as "stationaries") but it seems not documented.

Stationary Engines

Engineers insist a “stationary engine” is one bolted or cemented in place, to remain there until (1) it blows up, (2) it’s scrapped or (3) it’s uprooted and moved to a new location where it can again function.  Stationary engines provided much of the horsepower (a calculation devised to define engine power) for the first industrial revolution in the eighteenth century, used to drive anything from generators & pumps to cranks moving parts of machines.  The classic example were the big reciprocating devices (steam or internal combustion) whereas the large scale electric plants or turbines tended (once reaching a certain size) to be classified as “plant”.  The development of the infrastructure to distribute electricity from regional hubs meant the used of stationary engines declined but they remain widely used and are a common sight in rural areas where they both pump water from a variety of sources and distribute it to irrigation systems.  There are also engines which technically are portable (some small enough to be carried by hand while others are mounted on trailers, trucks or even boats) but which often function as stationary devices and engineers regards such things always as “portable”, even if stationary for years.

A Chrysler Air Raid Siren being delivered (1953, left) and permanently installed (1960, right), atop the Rob Storms Rochester Fire Department maintenance building, Rochester, Monroe County, New York.  This was a stationary engine even while on the truck which it remained after being taken up to the roof and bolted down.  Had it remained on the truck (even if bolted to the chassis) and been driven from place to be run, it would have been classified a “portable engine”.

According to Guinness World Records, the loudest sirens ever were the 350-odd built by Chrysler for the US government in the early 1950s and installed around the country to warn of an impending nuclear attack by the Soviet Union.  The maximum volume the devices generated was recorded (at a distance of 100 feet (30.5 m)) as 138 decibels (dB), a level which meant a human would be deafened if within 200 feet (61 m) during their operation.  Guinness noted the compressor discharge throughput at peak volume was 74 m³ (2,610 cubic feet at 7 lb per square inch) of air per second and the physics of fluid dynamics (air a fluid in this context) was such that this would have caused a sheet of paper in the path spontaneously to ignite.  By comparison the now retired supersonic airline Concorde at take-off produced noise levels between 112-114 dB at a distance of 100 feet and even the after-burner equipped military jets (F-16, F-35 et al) haven’t been recorded as generating levels as high as 138 dB.  Although there were ebbs in the tensions, the “High Cold War” is regarded as the time between the early 1950s and mid 1960s, the public perception of which was dominated by the fear of nuclear war. The US government made many preparations for such an event, notably building vast underground facilities where essential personnel (members of the administration, the Congress and their families and servants) could live until it was safe to emerge into the post- apocalypse world).  The tax-payers who paid for these facilities were of course rather less protected but the government in 1952 did install warning sirens in cities; people might still be vaporized by comrade Stalin’s (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) H-Bombs but they would know it was coming so there was that.

The early version was co-developed by Chrysler and Bell Labs and named the Chrysler Bell Victory Siren which sounds optimistic but although the acoustic properties met the specification, the drawback was the devices were manually controlled and required someone physically to be there to start the thing and, being directional, rotate it so the sound would be broadcast 360^o.  The obvious flaw was that were there to be a nuclear attack in the area, the job-description was self-sacrificial, something comrade Stalin would doubtless have thought just the part of the cost of war with the unfortunate soul posthumously to be awarded the coveted Герой Советского Союза (Hero of the Soviet Union) decoration.  However, neither the White House or the Pentagon liked the optics of that and revised specifications were issued.  Chrysler responded with a more elaborate device which was automated and remotely administrated, the Chrysler Air Raid Siren introduced in 1952.  It was powered by the corporation’s new 331 cubic inch (5.4 litre) Hemi-head V8, rated at what was then a stellar 180 HP (134 kW), a three-stage compressor added to increase output.  Instead of demanding a potentially doomed operator, there was a control panel connected (with nothing more than the two-pair copper cables which became familiar as Cat3) to dedicated phone lines so it could be activated either by local civil defense authorities or the military.  The big V8 provided sufficient power to both increase the dB and the geographical coverage, the siren able to be heard over an area of some 15.8 square miles (41 km³), an impressive number given the electric sirens used today for tornado and tsunami warnings have an effective footprint of only some 3.9 square miles (10 km³).

Chrysler FirePower 392 cubic inch V8 in 1957 Chrysler 300C Convertible.

In 1952, there was no engine better suited to the task than Chrysler’s new “FirePower” V8.  Applying their wartime experience building a number of high-output, multi-cylinder engines (the most remarkable a V16 aero-engine rendered obsolete by jet technology before it could be used), the FirePower featured hemispherical combustion chambers and was the corporation’s first use of overhead-valves.  Both designs had been around for decades but in time, Chrysler would make a (trade-marked) fetish of “Hemi”, continuing cheerfully to use the name for a range of V8s introduced in 2003 even though they were no longer a true hemi-head, the design unable to be adapted to meet modern exhaust emission laws.  The so-called “third generation” Hemi remains available still although how long it will last will be a matter of the interplay of politics and demand.  Doubtless, it was Greta Thunberg’s (b 2003) hit-list and that she and the engine debuted in the same year would have impressed her not at all.  

Statesman

Statesman (pronounced steyts-muhn)

(1) Certain politicians with a favorable reputation (a rare breed), especially those associated with international relations.

(2) A person (not of necessity an elected politician) experienced in the art & science of government or versed in the administration of government affairs, especially those involved in diplomacy.

(3) A product name used variously of such things as cars, ships and (especially) newspapers and periodicals.

1585–1595: A construct was state + s + -man, modeled on steersman (in nautical use, one who steers a ship or other vessel (the helmsman)).  State was from the early thirteen century Middle English noun stat, from both the Old French estat and the Latin status (manner of standing, attitude, position, carriage, manner, dress, apparel; and other senses), from stare (to stand); a doublet of estate and status.  The idea of “the polity” which evolved ultimately into the construct of the modern nation-state began to develop in fourteenth century Europe, notably the multi-entity Holy Roman Empire.  In other European languages, the comparable words were the French être, the Greek στέω (stéo), the Italian stare, the Portuguese estar, the Romanian sta, and the Spanish estar.  

The suffix –man developed from the noun and was applied describe (1) someone (the original implication obviously implied male) who is an expert in an area or who takes part in an activity, (2) someone employed or holds a position in an area, (3) someone possessing particular characteristics relating to a topic or area, (4) someone (in this case explicitly male) of a certain nationality or sub-national geographical identity (not a universal use which varied according to the structure of the root word (other suffixes including –an, -ian etc) or (5) in Admiralty jargon, a ship which has special characteristics relating to a trade or area (‎merchantman, ‎Greenlandman etc) which produced the amusing linguistic paradox of forms such as “she’s a merchantman” because of the convention ships were always referred to in the feminine.  Man was from the Middle English man, from the Old English mann (human being, person, man), from the Proto-West Germanic mann, from the Proto-Germanic mann-, from the primitive Indo-European mon- (human being, man”).

The derived form statesmanship described an idealized conception of how a politician should behave.  It's now less common, probably less so because the standard of politicians has so obviously declined than a reluctance to use a word thought gender-loaded; to say "statesmanship" might now be thought a micro-aggression.  The suffix -ship was from the Middle English -schipe & -shippe, from the Old English -sċiepe, from the Proto-West Germanic -skapi, from the Proto-Germanic -skapiz.  The equivalent forms in other languages included the Scots -schip, the West Frisian -skip, the Dutch -schap, the German -schaft, the Swedish -skap and the Icelandic -skapur.  It was appended to nouns to form a new noun denoting a property or state of being, time spent in a role, or a specialized union, a popular use being the way a set of social duties associated with a particular role shape or develop one's character (fellowship, ownership et al).  Other suffixes used for similar purposes (property or state of being) include -ness, -hood, -itude, -th, -ity & -dom.

Meeting a statesman: Lindsay Lohan meeting with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (b 1954; prime-minister or president of the Republic of Türkiye since 2003), Presidential Palace, Ankara, Türkiye, 27 January 2017.

The informal noun superstatesman is used to refer to someone especially successful (especially in international relations) while to say of someone or their actions that they possess the quality of being unstatesmanlike, it’s a criticism which implies they have not reached the expected standard (ie they’re acting more like a politician).  The term "elder statesman" generally is used either of (1) a respected political leader (not of necessity all that elderly but usually retired or at least withdrawn from the controversies of front-line politics) or (2), by extension, a prominent and respected person in any field who usually is retired or inactive with their involvement restricted to commentaries.  Statesman & statesmanship are nouns and statesmanlike & statesmanly are adjectives; the noun plural is statesmen (except in commercial use when Statesman is used as a product name in which case the plural should be Statesmans (although Statesmen seems not uncommon)).  The feminine noun stateswoman and the gender-neutral statesperson are more recent creations (both with the same derived adjectives on the model of those from statesman) and notably used less frequently.

The usually told joke is that a statesman is a “dead politician” and there’s some element of truth in that because the reputation of politicians certainly seems often to improve once they’ve had the decency to drop dead.  Unfairly or not, politicians often are characterized those dedicated to the pursuit of power, advancing their own interests or those of their party and making decisions that cater to short-term political gains (although they also have a great interest in accumulating money and many taxpayers would be surprised to learn just how much of their money ends up each year in the bank accounts of politicians; such is the array of “allowances & entitlements” (often opaque and sometimes secret) that the total is some distance from their notional annual salary).  Anyway, because the focus of a politician is on winning elections and pursuing the agendas of whomever is funding them (or offering to in their post-political life), the term “politician” usually carries negative connotations, implying opportunism, manipulation and a lack of concern for anything except self-interest.  Old Jack Lang (1876–1975; Premier of New South Wales 1925-1927 & 1930-1932) used to tell the young seeking a career in politics his best advice was "...in any race, always back the horse called self-interest; it'll be the only one having a go."

Two statesmen meeting to discuss matters of common interest: Dr Henry Kissinger (b 1923; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1937-1977, left) and General Augusto Pinochet (1915-2006; dictator of Chile 1973-1990, right), Santiago, Chile, 1976. 

The term statesman carries usually positive connotations and is associated with someone in public life who has demonstrated wisdom, integrity and a vision which includes the interest of the public and this rare breed is characterized by their commitment to serving the greater good, often transcending narrow partisan interests in favor of broader national or societal goals.  It’s probably easier for a politician to be thought statesmanlike if they come into office having already established an illustrious reputation through pervious public service, such as Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; US president 1953-1961) who, before he entered the White House, was one of the nation’s most respected soldiers.  Actually, in the US where appointments to the cabinet don’t require election, it’s more likely one can be thought a statesman because one need never dirty one’s hands with the nasty business of electoral politics.  Serving as secretary of state for a scant twelve months between 1950-1951, General George Marshall (1880–1959; US Army chief of staff 1939-1945) is remembered as a “great statesman” because he looked the part and the Marshall Plan (the post-war re-financing of Europe with US dollars) bore his name although it was something he neither conceived, designed or administered.  Another of America’s chief diplomats, Dr Henry Kissinger, is still described by some as a “great statesman” (although many others prefer “war criminal”).  Certainly, politicians good and evil are aware that how they’re remembered is based on who gets to write the histories.  Late in World War II (1939-1945), when things really weren’t going well for the Nazis, Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945), well aware of the enormity of the crimes the regime (of which he was a prominent part) had committed and one of the few realists among a generally deluded lot, was said to have commented: “Either we are going to go down in history as the greatest statesmen of all time, or as the greatest criminals.”  Although that phrase has for decades been attributed to him, it’s not certain he used quite those words but his diary entries and collaborated contemporary testimony from others leave little doubt that was what was on his mind.

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) had no doubt what qualities defined statesmanship.  In the prison diary assembled from the huge volume of fragments he had smuggled out of Spandau prison while serving the twenty year sentence he was lucky to receive for war crimes & crimes against humanity (Spandauer Tagebücher (Spandau, the Secret Diaries), pp 451 William Collins Inc, 1976), Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) recounted one of the Führer's not infrequent monologues, a small part of which mentioned the matter:

“Whoever succeeds me must be sure to have an opening for a new war.  We never want a static situation where that sort of thing hangs in doubt In future peace treaties we must therefore always leave open a few questions that will provide a pretext.  Think of Rome and Carthage, for instance. A new war was always built right into every peace treaty. That's Rome for you! That's statesmanship.” 

The Holden Statesman

1971 Ford ZD Fairlane 500.  The industry legend was the development budget for the original ZA Fairlane in 1967 was "three quarters of four-fifths of fuck all".  Like the basic vehicle, the styling updates were borrowed from earlier US Fords so the effort required was about as minimal as the budget. 

Holden was the General Motors (GM) outpost in Australia and in the 1950s and 1960s, for a variety of reasons (not wholly related to the dynamic qualities of the cars they sold), the operation had been highly successful, for many years enjoying a market share as high as 50% odd.  By the early 1970s, increased competition had eroded Holden’s dominance although it remained the market leader in most sectors it contested with one exception: the executive sedan.  Ford in 1967 had effectively re-defined this market by conjuring up a long-wheelbase version of the mass-market Falcon which overnight rendered obsolete some of the antiquated British competition and provided an attractively less expensive alternative to the bigger Fords, Chevrolets, Pontiacs and Dodges, imported via Canada to take advantage of the lower tariffs imposed on products from the Commonwealth (the successor regime to the old imperial preference scheme).  Although well-suited to Australian conditions, the US cars were becoming increasingly expensive because of movements in the exchange rate (the Bretton-Woods system (1944) of “fixed” currency rates was more an interacting series of “managed floats”).  So, developed very cheaply with only detail changes and some (what now seems modest) bling, the elongated Falcon was in 1967 released under the Fairlane name (used earlier in Australia for both a full-sized and intermediate North American import) and it proved an instant success, selling not only in large numbers but with a profit margin unmatched in the local industry.  Of course, one victim of this success was Ford’s own imported Galaxie, sales of which slowed to a trickle, demand now restricted mostly to governments which admired the "statesmanlike" presence the big machines lent the politicians being chauffeured around.  The Galaxies would remain available in Australia until 1973.

1968 HK Holden Brougham.

Holden couldn’t let such an obvious market be ignored but their first response seems bizarre and was treated as such at the time.  Instead of following Ford’s lead and stretching their platform to create a long wheelbase alternative, Holden took their previous top-of-the-line Premier and extended the trunk (boot) by eight inches (200 mm), increasing luggage capacity and presumably pleasing those carrying stuff like bags of golf clubs but that really answered a question nobody had been asking.  Named the Brougham (a name with a tradition dating back to horseless carriages but rapidly becoming popular with US manufacturers), ascetically, the long-tail really didn’t work because it rendered the shape fundamentally unbalanced and the market response was muted, Brougham sales never making a dent in the Fairlane’s dominance.  Time has been kinder and the Brougham now has a cult following among collectors, especially the early versions which used a 307 cubic inch Chevrolet V8 because Holden's own 308 hadn't reached production.  Ironically, the mildly-tuned 307 isn't one of the more highly regarded iterations of the small-block Chevrolet V8 but the allure of the name remains strong.  In the early 1980s, when the things were unwanted and could be bought for a few hundred dollars, one enterprising customizer built a two-door version and while some of the detailing was lacking, the basic lines worked surprisingly well but as Chrysler and Ford discovered in the 1970s, although the market for such things in the US was huge (the segment was called "the personal coupe"), in Australia it was was small and shrinking so it's as well Holden didn't try their own.

1971 Holden Statesman De Ville.

In 1971, Holden did respond with a long wheelbase executive sedan, this time called the Statesman.  Apparently, there had previously been only one short-lived car called a Statesman (joining a governmental-themed roll-call manufacturers had previously used including Senator, Diplomat, President, Ambassador, Envoy and even Dictator).  This time, the styling was outstanding and, especially if buyers could resist the lure of the then inexplicably popular vinyl roof, the Statesman was an elegant execution, details such as the split egg-crate grill especially admired.  The frontal treatment was also a clever design because the whole HQ range used a “nose-cone” making face-lifts much cheaper and the same approach applied to the tail, the tail-lamps used on the commercial range and the station wagons re-purposed.  Holden had learned well from Ford’s example.  Structurally, the Statesman following the Fairlane’s price points, the basic car aimed at the hire-car market and available with a six cylinder engine and bench seats to make it a genuine six-seater while the Statesman De Ville featured a higher level of trim and used either Holden’s 308 cubic inch (5.0 litre) or the imported Chevrolet 350 (5.7).  Just to emphasize how special the Statesman was, the Holden name didn’t appear either on the car or its advertising, the local operation instead seeking, and receiving, GM’s permission to used Cadillac’s famous wreath on the badge.  All the publicity material said "Statesman by General Motors" but few were fooled and eventually the trickery was abandoned.

The misstep Ford got away with: The 1972 ZF Fairlane (left) was criticized because it looked little different from the basic Falcon; the 1976 ZH (right) rectified that, an eight-year old US design this time providing the template.

The Statesman sold better than the Brougham but didn’t threaten the Fairlane’s dominant position in the sector, even though Ford in 1972 made the fundamental mistake when releasing its new version of not ensuring there was sufficient product differentiation; the new ZF Fairlane looked like a somewhat bloated XA Falcon but such was the inertia of the name and the solid reputation for reliability and resale value that fleet-managers and private buyers remained loyal and it wouldn’t be until 1976 that the problem of the Fairlane’s comparative anonymity was rectified and that by bolting on the styling from the 1968 Mercury; that’s how things were done then.  However, Ford in 1973 scored its other big hit by stretching the Falcon still further to create the LTD, a capable but gaudy machine which so appealed to governments and corporations that it for decades dominated those fleets.  Like the Fairlane, the LTD was a highly profitable package developed at low cost and noted for its bling such as the aviation style controls for the air-conditioning.  With the coming of the LTD, the imported Galaxie was withdrawn from the Australian market.

1976 Holden HJ Statesman Caprice: The increasingly baroque touches added during the face-lifts ("heavy-handed" the phrase used at the time) meant the later versions lacked the purity of the HQ, the delicate lines of which were the high-water mark of Holden's styling.     

Holden made no attempt to match the LTD, leaving the lucrative segment to Ford while the Statesman soldiered on although, matching the Fairlane, the slow-selling base model was dropped when the range was revised in 1974, along with the Chevrolet 350 V8 which had been fitted only to around 600 Statesmans (some of which were exported to New Zealand and South Africa with some unpleasing detail changes).  The structure of the range changed with the De Ville now the base car and a new model, the Caprice, sitting atop, the differences between the two all in bling, the mechanical specification identical, both using the Holden 308 V8 and the now more reliable Trimatic automatic transmission.  Through two face-lifts (HJ & HX), the Statesman was relatively unchanged during the troubled and difficult mid 1970s, most attention devoted to devising plumbing to lower emissions, something which worked but at the cost also of decreasing power and drivability; all that increased was the fuel consumption and the price.

1979 Holden Statesman SL/E.

However, in 1979, Holden surprised the market by splicing a new Statesman between the De Ville & Caprice: the Statesman SL/E.  Although mechanically unchanged from the rest of the range, the SL/E was advertised as the “sporty” Statesman, something made vaguely plausible by the huge improvement in handling rendered when the HZ cars were released in 1978 with what Holden called “radial tuned suspension” (RTS).  Unfortunately, the market found the idea of a “sporty Statesman” about as improbable as the conjunction sounds and the car was not a success, presumably because it was neither one thing or the other, the De Ville fundamentally the same only cheaper and the Caprice better equipped and more prestigious.  Whether the SL/E might have been better received had there been a genuine attempt to improve performance can't be known but power without an increase in emissions was hard to find in 1979 and Holden had the misfortune within a couple of months of the launch, the “second oil-shock” hit and V8 engines were suddenly again unfashionable.  Fortunately for Holden, the SL/E had not been an expensive programme, the wheels, badges and much of the bling borrowed from models already in production.

1982 Holden Caprice.

Still, the price of petrol not withstanding, by then, the next model Statesman was locked in for release in 1980.  The WB Statesman De Ville & Caprice existed because, cognizant of the uncertainty around the stability of the world oil market, Holden had replaced their mainstream range with the Commodore, a smaller (critically, narrower) car based on a European platform developed by Opel, GM’s German outpost.  The smaller machine was not suitable as the base for a Fairlane competitor so the decision was taken to update the HZ, even though the platform dated back to 1971.  What was achieved was commendable given the budget although the designers were disappointed that with the release of the new Fairlane & LTD in 1979, Ford had staged a pre-emptive hit with the six-window roof-line Holden had planned as their exclusive.  One genuine difference though was the Caprice’s hand-assembled grill, made from metal in an age when extruded plastic assemblies had long become industry practice but although much admired, it wasn’t enough to save the dated platform and the last Statesmans left the factory in 1985.  Holden did though flirt with a stay of execution because by 1982 it was clear the world would soon be awash with oil (what would come to be called the "oil glut"; the CIA's infamous 1975 prediction the world would "...by 1983 run out of oil" clearly wrong) and there were thoughts of a "low cost" version of the WB Statesman, resurrecting a proposal which seriously had been contemplated during the previous decade.  That was a response to the booming sales Ford was enjoying for it's bigger, wider Falcon range but the decision was taken to focus efforts instead on a bigger, wider Commodore, a vehicle released in 1988 which enjoyed great success.     

Publicity shot for 1983 Holden Statesman De Ville Magnum.

One quirk of the WB’s life however was that Peter Brock (1945–2006), a racing car driver who had created a successful business selling modified, high-performance Commodores, decided to resurrect the Statesman SL/E but this time make it genuinely “sporty”.  Labeled the Statesman Magnum, the car could be based on either the De Ville or Caprice according the buyer’s taste & budget and because Brock’s record-keeping was at the time a little haphazard, it’s not clear how many were built and it may not even have reached three figures.  Unlike the SL/E, the Magnum's 308 V8 benefited from the addition of the improved components Brock used on the Commodores: the cylinder heads, inlet manifold, air cleaner and exhaust system combining to produce a significant lift in output (power increasing from 170 to 250 hp (126 to 188kW) while, perhaps more relevantly for the target market, torque rose from 265 to 315 lb/ft (361 to 428Nm)).  Nor was the chassis neglected, Bilstein gas shock absorbers added all round while the front suspension geometry was revised and up-rated springs were fitted, the anti-roll bars thicker & stiffer.  Externally, most striking were the 16 x 8-inch Momo Polaris aluminium wheels while a variety of color schemes were offered, including the toning down of the chrome fittings to something darker and more menacing.  The press response was favorable, the already fine dynamics the platform had possessed since the debut of RTS now able better to be exploited with the additional power the Magnum provided, more than matching even the Chevrolet 350 fitted to some HQ Statesmans which had been offered only in a mild state of tune.  However, as the American industry had discovered in the 1960s, those who want high-performance vehicles prefer usually that they be in smaller packages and, as Ford two decades would re-discover when the Fairlane G220 was greeted with a polite yawn, those who wanted big luxury and those who wanted something smaller and “sporty” were two different populations, at least at certain stages in their lives.  In a sense though, Holden had the last laugh, the Statesman and Caprice later revived when the Commodore became larger and better suited to a wheelbase stretch and together they first out-sold and then outlived the Fairlane & LTD.

Muffler & Scarf

Muffler (pronounced muhf-ler)

(1) A scarf worn around one's neck for warmth.

(2) Any of various devices for deadening the sound (especially the tubular device containing baffle plates in the exhaust system of a motor vehicle) of escaping gases of an internal-combustion engine; also known as silencers.

(3) Anything used for muffling sound.

(4) In armor, a mitten-like glove worn with a mail hauberk.

(5) A boxing glove (archaic).

(6) A slang term for a kiln or furnace, often electric, with no direct flames (technically a muffle furnace)

(7) A piece of warm clothing for the hands.

(8) The bare end of the nose between the nostrils, especially in ruminants.

(9) A machine with two pulleys to hoist load by spinning wheels, a polyspast (from the Latin polyspaston (hoisting-tackle with many pulleys), from the Ancient Greek πολύσπαστον (polúspaston) (compound pulley); a block and tackle.

(10) In World War I (1914-1918) soldier's slang, a gas-mask (some listings of military slang note it a "rare").

(11) An alternative term for the silencer (or suppressor) sometimes fitted to a gun (usually illicitly).

1525–1535: A compound word, the construct being muffl(e) + -er.  Muffle was from the Middle English muflen (to muffle), an aphetic alteration of the Anglo-Norman amoufler, from the Old French enmoufler (to wrap up, muffle), from moufle (mitten), from the Medieval Latin muffula (a muff), of Germanic origin (first recorded in the Capitulary of Aachen in 817 AD), from the Frankish muffël (a muff, wrap, envelope) from mauwa (sleeve, wrap) (from the Proto-Germanic mawwō (sleeve)) + vël (skin, hide) (from the Proto-Germanic fellą (skin, film, fleece)).  An alternate etymology traces the Medieval Latin word to the Frankish molfell (soft garment made of hide) from mol (softened, worn), (akin to the Old High German molawēn (to soften)) and the Middle High German molwic (soft), (mulch in English) + fell (hide, skin).  The suffix –er was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere (agent suffix), from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz (agent suffix).  Usually thought to have been borrowed from Latin –ārius, it was cognate with the Dutch -er and -aar, the Low German -er, the German -er, the Swedish -are, the Icelandic –ari and the Gothic -areis.  It was related to the Ancient Greek -ήριος (-ḗrios) and Old Church Slavonic -арь (-arĭ).  In English, it was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -(ā)tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  Muffler is a noun and mufflerless, unmufflered, demufflered & mufflered are adjectives; the noun plural is mufflers.

Scarf (pronounced skahrf)

(1) A long, broad strip of wool, silk, lace, or other material worn about the neck, shoulders, or head, for ornament or protection against cold, drafts etc.; a muffler.

(2) A necktie or cravat with hanging ends (archaic).

(3) A long cover or ornamental cloth for a bureau, table etc (rare).

(4) To cover or wrap with or as if with a scarf or to use in the manner of a scarf (verb).

(5) In carpentry, a tapered or otherwise-formed end on each of the pieces to be assembled with a scarf joint scarf joint (a lapped joint between two pieces of timber made by notching or grooving the ends and strapping, bolting, or gluing the two pieces together).

(6) In whaling, a strip of skin along the body of the whale, a groove made to remove the blubber and skin.

(7) In steelmaking, to burn away the surface defects of newly rolled steel.

(8) To eat, especially voraciously (often followed by down or up).

1545–1455: From the Old Norse skarfr (end cut from a beam), from skera (to cut) .  The sense of a scarf being a piece of material cut from a larger piece is actually based on the use in carpentry, linked to the Swedish skarf & the Norwegian skarv (patch) and the Low German and Dutch scherf (scarf).  The sense of eating quickly is a now almost extinct Americanism from 1955-1960, thought a variant of scoff, with r inserted probably through r-dialect speakers' mistaking the underlying vowel as an r-less ar.  Etymologists have suggested other lineages such as a link with the Old Norman French escarpe and the Medieval Latin scrippum (pilgrim's pack) but the alternatives have never attracted much support.  Scarf is a noun & verb and scarfie is a noun; the noun plural is scarves or scarfs.  There is no established convention (and certainly no rule) about which plural form is "correct" when referring to the neckwear so all that can be recommended is consistency.  In practice, "scarves" seems more commonly used of the clothing while "scarfs" must always be the spelling in the context of carpentry.    

Lindsay Lohan with Louis Vuitton Sprouse Roses Long Scarf.

Until well into the twentieth century, muffler and scarf were used interchangeably but as the vocabulary associated with motor vehicles became commonplace, "muffler" became increasingly associated with the baffled mechanical device used to reduce the noise emanating from exhaust systems.  The automotive use swamped the linguistic space and muffler became less associated with the neck accessory although it never wholly went away and the upper reaches of the fashion industry maintain the distinction and it of course remains a staple in literary fiction.  Historically, of the garments, muffler was mostly British in use (Americans long preferring scarf) but scarf is now globally the most common form.  One geographically specific use was the "scarfie", a New Zealand slang form which began as a reference to a student at the University of Otago, based on the association with the signature blue-and-yellow scarf said habitually to be worn to signify allegiance to the provincial rugby union team (the Otago Rugby Football Union).  New Zealanders sometime in the mid-twentieth century abandoned mainstream religion and substituted worship of rugby and this was said to be something practiced with the greatest intensity at the University of Otago, the sense of group identity thought to have been reinforced by the country's only medical school having been located there for many decades.  The other great cultural contribution to Western culture was their part in the history of the "chunder mile". 

University of Otago Medical School.

The now-banned chunder mile was similiar in concept to the various "beer miles" still contested in some places, “chunder” being circa 1950s Australia & New Zealand slang for vomiting and of disputed origin.  The rules were simple enough, contestants being required to eat a (cold) meat pie, enjoyed with a jug of (un-chilled) beer (a jug typically 1140 ml (38.5 fl oz (US)) at the start of each of the four ¼ mile laps and, predictably, the event was staged during the university's orientation week.  Presumably, it was helpful that at the time the place was the site of the country’s medical school, thereby providing students with practical experience of both symptoms and treatments for the inevitable consequences.  Whether the event was invented in Dunedin isn’t known but, given the nature of males aged 17-21 probably hasn’t much changed over the millennia, it wouldn’t be surprising to learn similar competitions, localized to suit culinary tastes, have been contested by the drunken youth of many places in centuries past.  As it was, even in Dunedin, times were changing and in 1972, the Chunder Mile was banned “…because of the dangers of asphyxiation and ruptured esophaguses.”

Lindsay Lohan with Burberry scarf.  Made with a heavier fabric this would once have been called a muffler (as Vogue magazine et al still does).

Although not universal (especially in the US), in the better magazines, fashion editors still like to draw a distinction between the two, a scarf defined as an accessory to enhance the look and made from fabrics like silk, cotton or linen whereas a muffler is more utilitarian, bulkier and intended to protect from the cold and thus made from wool, mohair or something good at retaining body-heat.  That doesn't imply that inherently a muffler is associated with cheapness, the fashion houses able to see a market for a high-priced anything.  Occasionally, muffler is used in commerce as a label of something which looks like a small blanket, worn over the shoulders and resembling an open poncho.  They're said to offer great warmth.

So, scarves and mufflers are both accessories worn around the neck for either or both warmth and style but with historic differences in construction, size & shape, those differences no longer of the same significance because the term “muffler” has become a niche and “scarf” tends to prevail for most purposes.  However, for those who enjoy pedantry (or aspire to edit Vogue), the old conventions can be summarized thus:

Scarfs are usually rectangular or square in shape and available in many sizes and are made for a variety of materials including wool, silk, cotton or synthetic fabrics. They can be woven, knitted, or printed with patterns or designs.  Scarves generally are long and narrow compared to mufflers and can be worn in many styles, the most popular including draped around the neck, wrapped, or knotted.  Now often adopted as a fashion accessories to complement outfits or add a splash of color or texture, the seasonal choice will be dictated usually by temperature because, depending on material and thickness, a scarf can be as warming as a traditional muffler.

Mufflers are also long pieces of fabric, but they tend to be wider and thicker than the traditional, more decorative, scarves.  Being bulkier and there for warmth, mufflers are often knitted or crocheted and may have a more substantial texture to enhance the thermal properties.  The design of a muffler succeeds or fails on the basis of (1) the protection against the elements afforded and (2) the ease with which it snugly will wrap around the neck.  Inherently that means they don’t always offer the same versatility in styling offered by scarves but because the surface area is large, a sympathetic choice of colors or patterns offers interesting possibilities.  Strangely perhaps (and an indication of the way use has shifted), the neckwear worn by supporters of football clubs and such, although they are, in the conventional sense, mufflers, are always describes as scarfs although, in places like Cardiff Arms Park on a cold winter day, those with one wrapped around will be grateful for the warmth.

Avoiding the muffler

An electrically controlled exhaust system "cut-out", the modern version of the old, mechanical, "by-passes".

On cars, trucks and other vehicles with internal combustion engines (ICE) which generate their power by the noisy business of detonating hydrocarbons, mufflers are valued by most people because they make things much quieter.  That's almost always good although in the right place, at the right time, the unmuffled sound of a BRM V16 at 12,000 rpm remains one of the great experiences of things mechanical and on the road, a well-designed chosen combination of engine and muffler can produce a pleasing exhaust note, witness the Daimler V8s of the 1960s.  The BRM, like most racing cars in the era, was unmuffled because there's a price to be paid for quietness and that price is power, the addition to the exhaust system robbing ICE of efficiency.  To try to have the best of both worlds (and seem to comply with the law), some inventive types use "outlaw" (or "special") pipes which work by offering exhaust gasses a "shortcut" to the atmosphere.  In ICEs, there are both down-pipes and dump-pipes.  Their functions differ and the term down-pipe is a little misleading because some down-pipes (especially on static engines) actually are installed in a sideways or upwards direction but in automotive use, most do tend downwards.  A down-pipe connects the exhaust manifold to exhaust system components beyond, leading typically to first a catalytic converter and then a muffler (silencer), most factory installations designed deliberately to be restrictive in order to comply with modern regulations limiting emissions and noise.  After-market down-pipes tend to be larger in diameter and are made with fewer bends improving exhaust gas flow, reducing back-pressure and (hopefully) increasing horsepower and torque.   Such modifications are popular but not necessarily lawful.  Technically, a dump-pipe is a subset of the down-pipes and is most associated with engines using forced aspiration (turbo- & some forms of supercharging).  With forced-induction, exhaust gases exiting the manifold spin a turbine (turbocharger) or drive a compressor (supercharger) to force more of the fuel-air mixture into the combustion chambers, thereby increasing power.  What a dump-pipe does is provide a rapid, short-path exit for exhaust gases to be expelled directly into the atmosphere before reaching a down-pipe.  That obviously avoids the muffler, making for more power and noise, desirable attributes for the target market.  A dump pipe is thus an exit or gate from the exhaust system which can be opened manually, electronically, or with a “blow-off” valve which opens when pressure reaches a certain level.  In the happy (though more polluted) days when regulations were few, the same thing was achieved with an exhaust “by-pass” or “cut-out” which was a mechanical gate in the down-pipe and even then such things were almost always unlawful but it was a more tolerant time.  Such devices, lawful and otherwise, are still installed.

Nerd

Nerd (pronounced nurd)

(1) A person obsessed with a hobby or pursuit or with a particular topic, most associated with IT related or non-fashionable matters.

(2) A person thought socially awkward, boring, unstylish etc (used in both an affectionate and derogatory sense and also as a self descriptor by nerds proud of their status (and debatably by those who aspire to be accepted as part of the nerdhood).

(3) To spend an inordinate amount of time or devote extraordinary attention, energy, enthusiasm etc on an activity or topic of special or obsessive interest to oneself; (sometimes used interchangeably with geek and often in conjunction with “nerd out” or “nerding”).

1951: An Americanism described best as an “obscurely derived expressive formation” (the etymology thus unknown) but it seems agreed it began as US student slang.  The rare spelling nurd was either a mistake (probably an imperfect echoic) or an attempt at nuance although the purpose remains obscure while the forms nerdic, nerdism, nerdling, nerdlet, nerdsome & nergasm are usually regarded as non-standard parts of IT slang; arachnerd & cybernerd are both generally recognized, probably because of the long history of use.  Nerd has been widely adopted in other languages, usually unaltered and apparently always in the sense of a “computer geek” while as an acronym, NERD is used for Non-Erosive Reflux Disease, Non-Ester Renewable Diesel, Network Event Recording Device, Nucleic Exchange Research & Development & Neuro-Evolutionary Rostral Developer.  In IT slang, the acronym can decode as Network Emergency Repair Dude & Network Emergency Repair Diva.  Nerd is a noun & verb, nerding & nerded are verbs, nerdy, nerdish, nerdlike & nurdish are adjectives (nerdesque is non-standard); the noun plural is nerds.

If I Ran the Zoo by Dr Seuss (1950)

The word (in capitalized form), appeared in 1950 in the children’s book If I Ran the Zoo by Dr Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel; 1904–1991) who used it as the name of one of his imagined animals:

And then, just to show them, I’ll sail to Katroo
And bring back an It-Kutch, a Preep and a Proo,
A Nerkle, a Nerd and a Seersucker too!

All the evidence suggests Dr Seuss choose “Nerd” because he liked the word and it suited his sentence structure but there has been speculation about the etymology.  One suggestion was the character of Mortimer Snerd, a ventriloquist's dummy created by Edgar Bergen (1903-1978), a ventriloquist who was versatile enough to also build a career in radio.  Snerd was the archetypical hillbilly (a “country bumpkin” to English audiences), a species derided as tiresome or dull, these qualities magnified by his sophisticated foil, the dummy Charlie McCarthy.  One can see the point but there’s nothing to support the connection.

A year after the publication of If I Ran the Zoo, Newsweek magazine ran a piece about the latest slang terms (the linguistic melting pot of the war years had seen both a proliferation and the geographical spread of the forms) and included was “nerd”, listed as having currency in the Detroit region and used in the same sense as “someone who once would be called a drip or a square” although they added that for the less severe cases, “scurve” seemed to suffice.  From Michigan it must have spread because by the 1960s use had migrated from lists of slang to more general use and, being the pre-internet era, it was transmitted often orally, thus the appearance of the spelling “nurd” although by the following decade when frequently it was seen in print, the current spelling was almost universal.  Etymologists date nerd as an established colloquial form from this decade, noting that despite the modern association, it initially had nothing to do with computers and the accepted connotation became “socially inept but brainy”, juxtaposed often in campus use with the “jock” (stereotypically there on a sports scholarship) who excelled in sports (and by implication the conquest of female students) but whose academic aptitudes were slight.

The Nerd as imagined by Dr Seuss (left), Bill Gates (b 1955), the defining nerd of the late twentieth century (centre) and John McAfee (1945–2021), the nerd’s anti-nerd (right).

The link between the nerd imagined by Dr Seuss and the notion of squareness has attracted interest but the character in the book looks more bad tempered than socially inept although one can perhaps see some resemblance to John McAfee (1945–2021), Bill Gates (b 1955) et al; that though is very much something retrospective and there’s nothing to support any degree of connection between “nerd” and computing until the 1980s when PCs entered the consumer electronics market.  There has been speculation Dr Seuss mentioned the “Seersucker” in the same sentence as the one introducing the Nerd as an attempt to harden to link with “squareness”, (seersucker in the view of the young a most uncool fabric) but that seems too clever by half and few have any doubt the author invented or choose the words to suit the rhythm of the text.

Inside Lindsay Lohan there's a nerd trying to escape: In nerd glasses, LAX, February 2012.

Another theory is that nerd was a piece of wordplay, an alteration of nerts, a slang form from the early twentieth century applied to things thought extraordinary (as in “that movie was the nerts”) or used as an interjection like “nuts!”.  An alternative idea was it was a re-bracketing of "inert" in which “they’re inert” became “they’re a nerd”, the same process which early meme-makers used to take “be alert” and render it as “be a lert; the world needs more lerts”.  In the case of “inert” begetting “nerd”, again, there’s no supporting evidence.  The ultimate folk etymology tale was probably that nerd developed from the campus slang knurd (“drunk” written backwards), the implication being that while a drunken student is obviously cool, the sober knurd would sooner study than party, the distinction explored by Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) who labelled David Cameron (b 1966; UK prime-minister 2010-2016) a “girly swot” to rationalize why Cameron got a First at Oxford and Johnson a Second.  It’s an attractive theory but without any evidence.  Nor is there any support for the notion of a link between nerd and “turd” (shit) or merde (French a vulgar word for “shit”).  There is however no doubt the 1980s slang “nerd pack” referred to the combination of a pocket protector (so the pens wouldn’t leak ink onto a nerd’s polyester shirt) and big lens spectacles with conspicuously unattractive frames although, that showed a fundamental misunderstanding of nerd culture: nerds know pencils are much better than pens.

Lindsay Lohan nerding up on rest.

In idiomatic use, to “nerd out” is enthusiastically to immerse one’s self in their interest or even an extended conversation (which may often be a monologue) on the topic.  The best nerd outs can last a day or more; the past tense is “nerded out”, modified when emphasis is demanded as “nerded out hardcore”, “totally nerded out” or “nerded out big time”.  To “nerd up” can mean variously (1) to augment one’s surroundings with the imagery or objects associated with one’s interest, (2) to cram study of some topic for some purpose (a exam, an upcoming date etc) and (3) to describe a discussion which evolved unexpectedly into something highly specific (usually as “nerded up”).

Richard Nixon (left) with Henry Kissinger (b 1923; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1937-1977, right), the White House, October 1973.  Dr Kissinger was a policy wonk who became one of history's more improbable sex symbols.

There are a number of words which are used to convey something similar to nerd including geek, wonk & dork.  A word like anorak (mostly UK) is similar but has a different emphasis.  Historically a nerd is someone with an inclination to study, often subjects with technical focus or something truly arcane.  The modern association is with science, mathematics, computers and such but there are poetry nerds and those who nerd-out on the strains of Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007), Charles Ives (1874–1954) and Philip Glass (b 1937).  The association with social ineptitude seems no less prevalent.  Geeks are like nerds in that they are obsessive about their specific interests but these niches may be far removed from computer code or respectable academic pursuits and may include comic books, the film franchise Star Wars, baseball statistics or video games.  Often geeks are highly social but many would prefer they were not because their interests are their sole topic of conversation; they’re best left alone with each other.  Wonks are different again and the term has evolved to be used usually as “policy wonk”, describing a particular political creature who is genuinely interested in and has expertise related to specialized fields such as trade, agriculture and other important if dismal matters.  The political operatives admire the wonks and value them for doing the hard work which involves reading long documents of mind-numbing complexity.  Policy wonks think such papers are great.  Finally, there are dorks.  Dorks may or may not be nerds, geeks or wonks and are defined wholly by their social awkwardness and clumsy manners although in the early 1950s, in US slang a dork was “an effeminate male”.  Other slurs, more offensive still took its place and in less than a decade, dork seem exclusively to have assumed the idea of “social ineptitude and poor taste in clothing”.  Interestingly, although the reign of the policy wonks in government can be said to have begun during the administrations of John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963), Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) & Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974), the term entered mainstream pop-culture under Bill Clinton (b 1946; US president 1993-2001).