Scimitar

Scimitar (pronounced sim·i·tar or sim-i-ter)

An oriental sword with a curved blade broadening towards the point

1540s: From the Middle French cimeterre or the Italian scimitarra (and in English originally spelled also as cimiterie).  Most etymologists agree it’s from an unknown Ottoman Turkish word and ultimately from the Persian شمشیر‎ (šamšir) (sword), an unusual event because the linguistic variations in the Ottoman dialects are otherwise so well documented.  There are contested variations too in the Persian shimshir (pronounced shamsher), said by some to be derived from the Greek sampsera (a barbarian sword) but most authorities find this explanation unsatisfactory.  There were many variations too in spelling, the preferred modern form scimitar reflecting the influence of Italian but at least one dictionary preferred simitar as late as 1902.  In palaeontology, the term "scimitar-toothed cat" describes any of the various species of extinct prehistoric cats of the tribe Homotheriini.  Scimitar is a noun & verb and the gruesome sounding scimitared is an adjective; the noun plural is scimitars.

Antique Persian scimitar with leather wood scabbard featuring natural engraving on pommel and wooden handle adorned with embossed metal.  The heavy curved blade is hand-forged and thirty inches (760mm) in length with a deep blood grove.  The leather-covered wooden scabbard is equipped with a pair of belt rings and wire decoration.  The drag is heavily embossed with nature designs and is thirty-eight inches (965mm) long.

1973 Reliant Scimitar SE5a.

Produced between 1968-1986 (and based on an earlier coupé of the same name launched in 1964), the Reliant Scimitar was an early and successful attempt to combine the stylistic appeal of a coupé with the practicality of an estate.  Although English manufacturers had a long tradition of (mostly bespoke) two-door estates called shooting-brakes, they were expensive and (except for the rakish Aston Martins) often rather staid designs optimised for the carriage of dogs, shotguns, picnic baskets and such rather than style.  The Scimitar, although in some ways crude and lacking the refinement of the better-bred, was at the time unique in the market and sold well, triggering a trend for the design which is still sometimes seen.

1973: Marilyn Cole, Volvo 1800ES.

Beginning in 1964, Playboy magazine (much read for the interviews) began rewarding the Playmate of the Year (PotY) with a pink car and in 1973 it was awarded to Ms Marilyn Cole (b 1949).  Still one of the more admired Volvos, the 1800ES (1972-1973) underwent a conversion from a coupé (1961-1972) which was exquisitely executed, the re-design undertaken entirely in-house, the proposal by Pietro Frua's (1913-1983) studio (the P1800’s original designer) thought too avant-garde for Volvo buyers.  They may have had a point because Volvo owners do seem impressed more by frugality of operation and longevity than anything flashy and there are several 1800s which are documented as having covered more than a million miles (1.6 million km).  The coupé gained much from its use in a popular TV series shown in the early 1960s, a promotional opportunity made possible only because Jaguar declined to loan the production company one of its new E-Types (XKE) which had debuted in the same year as the P1800.  Still, the seductive E-Type hardly needed a TV series to create its image.  Doubtlessly the equally seductive Ms Cole won PotY on merit but her photo-shoot was the first in which a "full-frontal nude" image appealed in the magazine so that alone may have been enough to persuade the judges.

Aston Martin's original 1965 DB5 Shooting Brake (left) and one of the eleven subsequently built by Radford (right).

Before Reliant adopted the style, there were Aston Martin shooting brakes.  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 (thereby confirming the informal English definition of the term: “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 but 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, all but one from some sort of production line (albeit one both leisurely and exclusive) so can all but the original be thought truly bespoke?  According to the Aston Martin website, all are bespoke so presumably that will remain the last word on the subject.

1970 Aston Martin DBS shooting brake by FLM Panelcraft (left), 1992 Aston Martin Virage Shooting Brake (centre) and 2023 Aston Martin Vanquish Zagato Shooting Brake (right).

The troubled 1970s were unforgiving times for the coachbuilders for which shooting brakes had been a minor but lucrative side-hustle and FLM’s Panelcraft’s 1970 Aston Martin DBS shooting brake remained a one-off.  Things had improved by the 1990s and although the industry in the years since has had its ups & downs, by 2023 it was possible for one buyer in Japan to order a Vanquish Zagato Shooting Brake in pink.  Aston Martin are one of the English manufacturers which have long offered custom (even one-off) colors (at a price) and Bristol used to emphasise the nature of their clientele by mentioning often they would match the tints to old-school or regimental ties.  Sadly, Bristol entered liquidation in 2020 and the world lost one of its more charming anachronisms.

1970 Range Rover, the car which for a generation doomed the after-market shooting brake.

Although now thought a "luxury car", the original Range Rover was a utilitarian device with rubber floor mats, provided because it was assumed owners would need to "hose it out" after a day on the farm in their muddy boots.  As late as 1969, the plan had been for a basic four-cylinder version and an up-market V8 but constraints of time and budget meant only a single version was released, combining the interior fittings of the former with the latter's mechanical specification.  Not until the release in 1981 of the Range Rover Vogue did carpet, air-conditioning, leather and walnut facias appear, a response to the fit-outs being offered by a number of third-party operations.   

The industry never settled on an agreed definition of the shooting brake body style but from the 1930s it’s been used usually to describe a two-door car (there were variations) with estate-car coachwork added.  In recent years, what are (sometimes misleadingly) labelled shooting brakes have tended to be based on fast sports cars rather than the large chassis familiar in the 1930s when the intent was to offer the rich a large, comfortable car for outings like shooting parties, the enlarged rear compartment easily accessible and sufficiently capacious handily to accommodate guns, picnic baskets and (on a good day) a few brace of grouse on the trip home.  For reasons related to economics and engineering, the creation of shooting brakes declined in the post-war years and the release of the Range-Rover in 1970 rendered the style redundant except for the rare creations for those who still hankered for conspicuous exclusivity.  The sporty breed of coupés with estate coachwork which many (Volvo, Reliant, BMW, Ferrari, Lancia et al) have offered in recent decades are really not shooting brakes, the design instead intended to enlarge luggage space beyond the “toothbrush & bikini” capacity of some sports cars.  However, nobody seems to have thought of a better term and because of the historic association with class & wealth, the target market likes “shooting brake”.  The origin of the name lies in the shooting brake which was a large horse-drawn cart suitable for use by shooting parties.  The “brake” in the name is derived from the popularity among shooting parties of the heavy-framed carts used when “breaking-in” spirited horses although, etymologists have pointed out the Dutch word brik (cart or carriage) but any link is speculative.  In the UK, the term brake became so identified with large horse-drawn carts than it came to be applied widely, extended to wagons generally, whether used for shooting parties or not.  In France, an estate car (station wagon) was called a break, the French (somewhat unusually) following the example in English, the original form having been break de chasse (hunting break).

Dog owner Lindsay Lohan is part of the target market for shooting brake manufacturers although it's doubtful she's a fan of hunting & shooting.  Her first dog she name Gucci because the hound "chewed up" a pair of Gucci boots, something for which she was forgiven, living to the age of fifteen.

Borrowing shamelessly from Jensen which between 1966-1973 produced the FF, Ferrari chose the model name FF to allude to the specification (4 seats and 4 wheel-drive) although it was all-wheel-drive (AWD) rather than four-wheel-drive (4WD), the latter now indicating something built with some emphasis on off-road use.  The Jensen FF nomenclature was a reference to “Ferguson Formula” the AWD system developed by Ferguson Research, a company founded by Harry Ferguson (1884–1960).  Ferguson had developed its system for agricultural vehicles but the advantages for cars on the road or racetrack were obvious and a number of projects followed, all successful pieces of engineering but the economics were at the time not compelling and it wasn’t until the 1970s that AWD vehicles began to appear in any volume.

1966 Jensen FF Series 1 (left) and 1971 Series III, one of only 15 built (right).

Visually, the FF was distinguished from the standard Interceptor by a 5 inch (127 mm) longer wheelbase, added ahead of the windscreen to accommodate the transfer case and associated hardware, the twin vents the obvious marker (the standard Interceptor used one).  All used the combination of Chrysler's 383 cubic inch (6.3 litre) B-Series V8 and TorqueFlite (727) automatic transmission and tales of some leaving the factory with the 440 (7.2) RB engine or manual transmissions are apocryphal.  Nor it would seem have any FFs subsequently been been fitted with the bigger engine although some have been transformed into convertibles using the parts from the factory's run of 267 (1974-1976), no small project but one which demands no modification of the complex drivetrain.

GKN FFF 100, MIRA (Motor Industry Research Association) proving ground, Warwickshire, England, September 1972, the images from the on-line Jensen Museum.  The car just prior to the test run (left) shows the raised centre panel which allowed the carburettors to protrude; the dual Holley 3116 carburetors atop the short cross-ram manifold  (centre) and the 0-100 mph-0 run in the wet (right).       

There was however one FF which did hint at the possibilities offered by mixing AWD with prodigious quantities of power and torque.  GKN (now an aerospace multi-national but originally Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds, a manufacturing concern with roots traceable to 1759 at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution) in 1971, impressed by the FF, commissioned a special build.  Revealed in 1972 as the FFF 100 (claimed by some to be a reference to a planned production run but probably meaning nothing in particular unless an allusion to 100 mph (162 km/h), a speed which would later figure in the car's 15 minutes of fame), it used a one-off body of no great distinction but beneath the bland and derivative lines sat the intoxicating sight of a 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) V8 (remembered as the much-vaunted "Street Hemi", a (slightly) civilized version of the unit used on the NASCAR ovals and on drag strips).  Complete with a power-boosting "short cross-ram" dual quad induction system and built to the A990 specification used in drag racing, the FFF 100 was lighter than the FF and when tested in a demonstration run, it achieved 0-100 mph-0 in 12.2 seconds and that was on a wet track; when the test was repeated in the dry the number was 11.5, a mark for road cars which would stand for three decades.  It proved beyond doubt the benefits of AWD & ABS although it wouldn't be until the 1990s many began to enjoy the combination.  However, any possibility of a production FFF 100 was fanciful, the FF and the Street-Hemi by 1972 already retired so all missed what would for decades been the world's fastest shooting brake.       

When the Jensen FF debuted, there was thus no AWD-4WD distinction and it was always referred to as “4WD”, its other notable innovation the fitting of Dunlop Maxaret’s mechanical anti-lock braking system, something which in rudimentary form had appeared on aircraft as early as 1908.  It was later used by railways but cars under braking on roads present more challenges for ABS than aircraft on runways or trains on tracks and it wasn’t until the 1950s that the first (almost) viable implementations appeared.  ABS is essentially a form of “pressure modulation” and the accepted abbreviation doesn’t actually reference the often quoted  “Anti-Lock Braking System”; the correct source is Anti-Bloc System, the name adopted in 1966 when Daimler-Benz and the Heidelberg electronics company Teldix (later absorbed by Bosch) began a co-development of a hybrid analogue-electronic system.  That was presented in a “proof-of-concept” display in 1970 during a media at the company’s Untertürkheim test track but what the engineers knew was that use in mass-production depended on the development of digital controllers, more reliable, more powerful and less complex than analogue electronics, the conclusion US manufacturers soon drew when their early implementation of electronic fuel-injection (EFI) proved so troublesome.  Such things were obviously going to be relatively cheap and available after Intel in 1971 released the 4004 (the first commercially available microprocessor and the ancestor of the x86 family and all which followed) and in 1978, Daimler-Benz made available the first version of ABS on some of the Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL 6.9s (1975-1980, the W116 platform 1972-1980) sold in the European market.  The Dunlop Maxaret mechanical ABS used on the Jensen FF was less sophisticated but was reliable and a remarkable advance and while some testers found adaptation a challenge, others noted that in skilled hands (and feet), it was in some ways superior because one could learn to “tramp-through” the system and induce wheel-locking selectively, something useful in the right circumstances.

Ferrari FF (2011-2016): The factory's official "hero" shot (left), an FF fitted with "aerodynamically optimized" ski boot (centre) and with rear compartment displaying "shooting brake" credentials (right). 

The Jensen FF really wasn’t a shooting brake although the huge and distinctive rear window was also a hatch so it did offer some of the advantages.  The Ferrari FF "shooting brake" (the factory seems not to have used the term although every journalist seems to thought it best) was very much in the same vein, its capaciousness closer to that of a “big coupé” rather than any size of station wagon although the factory did circulate photographs of the rear-compartment comfortably (if snugly) packed with a set of golf-clubs and a half dozen-odd travel bags; with folding rear seats, Ferrari claimed a trunk (boot) capacity of 450-800 litres (16-28 cubic feet).  Like the Jensen, it was aimed at those who like to drive to the ski-fields and the promotional material also included pictures of ski-racks and even a roof-mounted “ski-box”, able to hold ski-gear for four.  Despite the high price, the Jensen FF sold remarkably well but its market potential was limited because all Ferguson’s development work had been done in England using right-hand-drive (RHD) vehicles and the system was so specific it wasn’t possible to make a left-hand-drive (LHD) FF without re-engineering the whole mechanism which was so bulky the passenger's front seat was narrower than that of the driver so much did things intrude.  Consequently, only 320 were built, apparently at a financial loss.  Ferrari did better with their FF, over 2000 sold between 2011–2016 and although the packaging may have been remarkably efficient, with a 6.3 litre (382 cubic inch) V12 it was never going to be economical, listed by the 2013 US Department of Energy as the least fuel-efficient car in the midsize class, sharing that dubious honor with the bigger, heavier (though not as rapid) Bentley Mulsanne.  For owners, the 335 km/h (208 mph) top speed was presumably sufficient compensation.

Panda

Panda (pronounced pan-duh)

(1) A black & white, herbivorous, bearlike mammal (in popular use sometimes as “giant panda”), Ailuropoda melanoleuca (family Procyonidae), now rare with a habitat limited to relatively small forested areas of central China where ample growth exists of the stands of bamboo which constitutes the bulk of the creature’s diet.

(2) A reddish-brown (with ringed-tail), raccoon-like mammal (in the literature often referred to as the “lesser panda”), Ailurus fulgens which inhabits mountain forests in the Himalayas and adjacent eastern Asia, subsisting mainly on bamboo and other vegetation, fruits, and insects.

(3) In Hinduism, a brahmin (a member of the highest (priestly) caste) who acts as the hereditary superintendent of a particular ghat (temple) and regarded as authoritative in matters of genealogy and ritual.

(4) In colloquial use (picked up as UK police slang) as “panda car” (often clipped to “panda”), a UK police vehicle painted in a two-tone color scheme (originally black & white but later more typically powder-blue & white) (historic use only).

(5) Used attributively, something (or someone) with all (or some combination of) the elements (1) black & white coloration, (2) perceptions of “cuteness” and (3) the perceived quality of being “soft & cuddly”.

1835: From the French (Cuvier), a name for the lesser panda, assumed to be from a Tibeto-Burman language or some other native Nepalese word.  Cuvier is a trans-lingual term which references the French naturalist and zoologist Georges Cuvier (1769–1832) and his younger brother the zoologist and paleontologist Frédéric Cuvier (1773–1838).  The term was use of any of the Latinesque or pseudo-Latin formations created as taxonomic names for organisms following the style & conventions used by the brothers.  Most etymologists suggest the most likely source was the second element of nigálya-pónya (a local name for the red panda recorded in Nepal and Sikkim), which was perhaps from the Nepali निँगाले (nĩgāle) (relating to a certain species of bamboo), the adjectival form of निँगालो (nĩgālo), a variant of निङालो (niṅālo) (Drepanostachyum intermedium (a species of bamboo)).  The second element was a regional Tibetan name for the animal, related in some way to ཕོ་ཉ (pho nya) (messenger).  The use in Hinduism describing “a learned, wise; learned man, pundit, scholar, teacher (and specifically of the Brahmin (a member of the highest (priestly) caste) who was the hereditary superintendent of a particular ghat (temple) and regarded as authoritative in matters of genealogy and ritual, especially one who had memorized a substantial proportion of the Vedas)” was from the Hindi पंडा (paṇḍā) and the Punjabi ਪਾਂਡਾ (pāṇḍā), both from the Sanskrit पण्डित (paṇḍita) (learned, wise; learned man, pundit, scholar, teacher).  The English word pundit (expert in a particular field, especially as called upon to provide comment or opinion in the media; a commentator or critic) entered the language during the British Raj in India, the use originally to describe native surveyor, trained to carry out clandestine surveillance the colonial borders.  The English form is now commonly used in many languages but the descendants included the Japanese パンダ (panda), the Korean 판다 (panda) and the Thai: แพนด้า.  Panda is a noun and pandalike (also as panda-like) is an adjective (pandaesque & panderish still listed as non-standard; the noun plural is pandas.

A charismatic creature: Giant Panda with cub.

As a word, panda has been productive.  The portmanteau noun pandamonium (the blend being panda +‎ (pande)monium was a humorous construct describing the reaction which often occurs in zoos when pandas appear and was on the model of fandemonium (the reaction of groupies and other fans to the presence of their idol).  The "trash panda" (also as "dumpster panda" or "garbage panda") was of US & Canadian origin and an alternative to "dumpster bandit", "garbage bandit" or "trash bandit" and described the habit of raccoons foraging for food in trash receptacles.  The use was adopted because the black patches around the creature's eyes are marking similar to those of the giant panda.  The Australian equivalent is the "bin chicken", an allusion to the way the Ibis has adapted to habitat loss by entering the urban environment, living on food scraps discarded in rubbish bins.

Lindsay Lohan with “reverse panda” eye makeup.

The “panda crossing” was a pedestrian safety measure, an elaborate form of the “zebra crossing”.  It was introduced in the UK in 1962, the name derived from the two-tone color scheme used for the road marking and the warning beacons on either side of the road.  The design worked well in theory but not in practice and all sites had been decommissioned by late 1967.  The giant panda’s twotonalism led to the adoption of “panda dolphin” as one of the casual tags (the others being “jacobita, skunk dolphin, piebald dolphin & tonina overa for the black & white Commerson's dolphin (Cephalorhynchus commersonii).  “Reverse panda” is an alternative version of “raccoon eyes” and describes an effect achieved (sometimes “over-achieved”) with eye-shadow or other makeup, producing a pronounced darkening around the eyes, an inversion of the panda’s combination.  It’s something which is sometimes seen also in photography as a product of lighting or the use of a camera’s flash.

In English, the first known reference to the panda as a “carnivorous raccoon-like mammal (the lesser panda) of the Himalayas” while the Giant Panda was first described in 1901 although it had been “discovered” in 1869 by French missionary Armand David and it was known as parti-colored until the name was changed which evidence of the zoological relationship to the red panda was accepted.  The giant panda was thus once included as part of the raccoon family but is now classified as a bear subfamily, Ailuropodinae, or as the sole member of a separate family, Ailuropodidae (which diverged from an ancestral bear lineage).  The lesser panda (the population of which has greatly been reduced by collectors & hunters) is now regarded as unrelated to the giant panda and usually classified as the sole member of an Old World raccoon subfamily, Ailurinae, which diverged from an ancestral lineage that also gave rise to the New World raccoons, most familiar in North America.  As late as the early twentieth century, the synonyms for the lesser panda included bear cat, cat bear & wah, all now obsolete.

Panda diplomacy

Lindsay Lohan collecting Chinese takeaway from a Panda Express outlet, New York City, November 2008.

Although the first pandas were gifted by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s (1887-1975; leader of the Republic of China (mainland) 1928-1949 & the renegade province of Taiwan 1949-1975) Chinese government in 1941, “panda diplomacy” began as a Cold War term, the practice of sending pandas to overseas zoos becoming a tool increasingly used by Peking (Beijing after 1979) following the Sino-Soviet split in 1957.  Quite when the phrase was first used isn’t certain but it was certainly heard in government and academic circles during the 1960s although it didn’t enter popular use until 1972, when a pair of giant pandas (Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing) were sent to the US after Richard Nixon’s (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) historic visit to China, an event motivated by Washington’s (1) interest in seeking Peking’s assistance in handling certain aspects of the conflict in Indochina and (2) desire to “move Moscow into check on the diplomatic chessboard”.  Ever since, pandas have been a unique part of the ruling Communist Party of China’s (CCP) diplomatic toolbox although since 1984 they’ve been almost always leased rather than gifted, the annual fee apparently as high as US$1 million per beast, the revenue generated said to be devoted to conservation of habitat and a selective breeding program designed to improve the line’s genetic diversity.  Hong Kong in 2007 were gifted a pair but that’s obviously a special case ("one country, two pandas") and while an expression of diplomatic favour, they can be also an indication of disapprobation, those housed in the UK in 2023 returned home at the end of the lease and not replaced.

It’s one of a set of such terms in geopolitics including  “shuttle diplomacy” (the notion of a negotiator taking repeated "shuttle flights" between countries involved in conflict in an attempt to manage or resolve things (something with a long history but gaining the name from the travels here & there of Dr Henry Kissinger (1923-2023; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1937-1977) in the 1960s & 1970s)), “ping-pong diplomacy” (the use of visiting table-tennis teams in the 1960s & 1970s as a means of reducing Sino-US tensions and maintaining low-level cultural contacts as a prelude to political & economic engagement), “commodity diplomacy” (the use of tariffs, quotas and other trade barriers as “bargaining chips” in political negotiations), “gunboat diplomacy” (the threat (real or implied) of the use of military force as means of coercion), “hostage diplomacy” (holding the nationals of a country in prison or on (sometimes spurious) charges with a view to exchanging them for someone or something) and “megaphone diplomacy” (an official or organ of government discussing in public what is usually handled through “usual diplomatic channels”; the antonym is “quiet diplomacy”).

Panda diplomacy in action.

A case study in the mechanics of panda diplomacy was provided by PRC (People’s Republic of China) Premier Li Qiang (b 1959; premier of the People's Republic of China (PRC) since 2023) during his official visit to Australia in June 2024.  Mr Li’s presence was an indication the previous state of “diplomatic deep freeze” between the PRC & Australia had been warmed to something around “correct but cool”, the earlier state of unarmed conflict having been entered when Beijing reacted to public demands (delivered via “megaphone diplomacy”) by previous Australian prime minister Scott Morrison (b 1968; Australian prime-minister 2018-2022) for an international enquiry into the origin of the SARS-Covid-2 virus which triggered the COVID-19 pandemic.  Such a thing might have been a good idea but underlying Mr Morrison’s strident call was that he was (1) blaming China and (2) accusing the CCP of a cover-up.  Mr Morrison is an evangelical Christian and doubtlessly it was satisfying for him to attend his church (one of those where there’s much singing, clapping, praising the Lord and discussing the real-estate market) to tell his fellow congregants how he’d stood up to the un-Christian, Godless communists but as a contribution to international relations (IR), it wasn’t a great deal of help.  His background was in advertising and coining slogans (he so excelled at both it was clearly his calling) but he lacked the background for the intricacies of IR.  The CCP’s retributions (trade sanctions and refusing to pick up the phone) might have been an over-reaction but to a more sophisticated prime-minister they would have been reasonably foreseeable.

Two years on from the diplomatic blunder, Mr Li arrived at Adelaide Zoo for a photo-opportunity to announce the impending arrival of two new giant pandas, the incumbent pair, Wang Wang and Fu Ni, soon to return to China after their 15 year stint.  Wang Wang and Fu Ni, despite over those years having been provided “every encouragement” (including both natural mating and artificial insemination) to procreate, proved either unable or unwilling so, after thanking the zoo’s staff for looking after them so well, the premier announced: “We will provide a new pair of equally beautiful, lovely and adorable pandas to the Adelaide Zoo.”, he said through an interpreter, adding: “I'm sure they will be loved and taken good care of by the people of Adelaide, South Australia, and Australia.”  The duo, the only giant pandas in the southern hemisphere, had been scheduled to return in 2019 at the conclusion of the original ten year lease but sometime before the first news of COVID-19, this was extended to 2024.  Although their lack of fecundity was disappointing, there’s nothing to suggest the CCP regard this as a loss of face (for them or the apparently unromantic couple) and Wang Wang and Fu Ni will enjoy a comfortable retirement munching on abundant supplies of bamboo.  Unlike some who have proved a “disappointment” to the CCP, they’ll be spared time in a “re-education centre”.

A classic UK police Wolseley 6/80 (1948-1954) in black, a staple of 1950s UK film & television (top left), Adaux era Hillman Minx (1956–1967) (top centre) & Jaguar Mark 2 (1959-1969) (top right), the first of the true "black & white" panda cars, Ford Anglia 105E (1958-1968) on postage stamp issued by the Royal Mail in 2013 (bottom left), in one of the pastel blues which replaced the gloss black, Rover 3500 (SD1, 1976-1984) (bottom centre) in one of the deliberately lurid schemes used in the 1970s & 1980s (UK police forces stockpiled Rover 3500s when it was announced production was ending; they knew what would follow would be awful) and BMW 320d (bottom right) in the "Battenburg markings" designed by the Police Scientific Development Branch (SDB).

Until 1960, the fleets of cars run by most of the UK’s police forces tended to be a glossy black.  That began to change when, apparently influenced by US practice, the front doors and often part or all of the roof were painted white, the change said to be an attempt to make them “more distinctive”.  The new scheme saw then soon dubbed “panda cars”, the slang picked up by police officers (though often, in their economical way, clipped to “panda”) and use persisted for years even after the dominant color switched from black to pastels, usually a duck-egg blue.  Things got brighter over the years until the police developed the high-visibility “Battenburg markings” a combination of white, blue and fluorescent yellow, a system widely adopted internationally.  Interestingly, although the black & white combination was used between the 1960s-1990s by the New Zealand’s highway patrol cars (“traffic officers” then separate from the police), the “panda car” slang never caught on.

The Fiat Panda

Basic motoring, the 1980 Fiat Panda.

Developed during the second half of the troubled and uncertain 1970s, the Fiat Panda debuted at the now defunct Geneva Motor Show in 1980.  Angular, though not a statement of high rectilinearism in the manner of the memorable Fiat 130 coupé (1971-1977), it was a starkly functional machine, very much in the utilitarian tradition of the Citroën 2CV (1948-1990) but visually reflecting more recent trends although, concessions to style were few.  Fiat wanted a car with the cross-cultural appeal of its earlier Cinquecento (500, 1957-1975) which, like the British Motor Corporation’s (BMC) Mini (1959-2000) was “classless” and valued for its practicality.  It was designed from “the inside out”, the passenger compartment’s dimensions created atop the mechanical components with the body built around those parameters, the focus always on minimizing the number of components used, simplifying the manufacturing and assembly processes and designing the whole to make maintenance as infrequently required and as inexpensive as possible.  One innovation which seemed a good, money saving device was that all glass was flat, something which had fallen from fashion for windscreens in the 1950s and for side windows a decade later.  In theory, reverting to the pre-war practice should have meant lower unit costs and greater left-right interchangeability but there were no manufacturers in Italy which had maintained the machinery to produce such things and the cost per m² proved eventually a little higher than would have been the case for curved glass.  Over three generations until 2024, the Panda was a great success although one which did stray from its basic origins as European prosperity increased.  There was in the 1990s even an electric version which was very expensive and, its capabilities limited by the technology of the time, not a success.

The name of the Fiat Panda came from mythology, Empanda, a Roman goddess who was patroness of travelers and controversial among historians, some regarding her identity as but the family name of Juno, the Roman equivalent of Hera, the greatest of all the Olympian goddesses.  Whatever the lineage, she was a better choice for Fiat than Pandarus (Πάνδαρος) who came from the city of Zeleia, Apollo himself teaching him the art of archery.  Defying his father’s advice, Pandarus marched to Troy as a foot soldier, refusing to take a chariot & horses; there he saw Paris & Menelaus engaged in single combat and the goddess Athena incited Pandarus to fire an arrow at Menelaus.  In this way the truce was broken and the war resumed.  Pandarus then fought Diomedes but was killed, his death thought punishment for his treachery in breaking the truce.

Press-kit images for the 2024 Fiat Grande Panda issued by Stellantis, June 2024.

In June 2024, Fiat announced the fourth generation Panda and advances in technology mean the hybrid and all-electric power-trains are now mainstream and competitive on all specific measures.  The Grande Panda is built on the new Stellantis “Smart Car platform”, shared with Citroën ë-C3, offering seating capacity for five.  Unlike the original, the 2024 Panda features a few stylistic gimmicks including headlights and taillights with a “pixel theme”, a look extended to the diamond-cut aluminium wheels, in homage to geometric motifs of the 1980s and the earlier Panda 4x4.

Quark

Quark (pronounced kwawrk or kwahrk)

(1) In physics, any of a set of six hypothetical elementary particles (together with their antiparticles), said to be the fundamental units which combine to make up the subatomic particles known as hadrons (baryons, such as neutrons and protons, and mesons) but unable to exist in isolation.

(2) A soft creamy cheese, eaten throughout northern, central, eastern, and south-eastern Europe as well as the Low Countries, very similar to cottage cheese though not usually made with rennet

(3) In computer operating systems, an integer that uniquely identifies a text string.

(4) In informal use in the British Falkland Islands, the name given to the black-crowned night heron, Nycticorax nycticorax, the origin onomatopoeic, from the sound of the bird’s squawk.

(5) In Old & Middle English onomatopoeic slang, to croak (obsolete).

1963: A coining by US physicist Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019), describing the discovery for which he would be awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics.  The English word quark appears un-adapted in the scientific lexicon of just about every language on Earth but the Italians invented the pleasing quarkonio, the construct being quark + -onium (termination of positronium), a meson consisting of a charm quark or a bottom quark and its own antiquark and consequently devoid of flavor (the name given to different versions of the same type of particle).  The German noun Quark (curds, (and in slang “trivial nonsense”)) has been suggested as Dr Gell-Mann’s inspiration (Gell-Mann's parents were from the Austro-Hungarian Empire).  The German form was from the late Middle High German twarc, from the Old Church Slavonic tvarogu (curds, cottage cheese), from a suffixed form of the primitive Indo-European root teue- (to swell), the source also of the Greek tyros (cheese).  Russian-American physicist George Zweig (b 1937) who (independently of Gell-Mann) co-proposed the theory of quarks, called them aces because his calculations suggested there were four of them.

Gell-Mann’s linguistic choice prevailed but the etymological speculation about quark ran as a minor footnote in the history of high-energy physics, interest stimulated after he was awarded 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles.  From the beginning the physicist’s quark rhymed with "cork" but Gell-Mann subsequently came across quark in James Joyce’s (1882-1941) difficult (some prefer "rewarding" and Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) was a fan, claiming to find at least one gem on every page)) novel Finnegans Wake (Three quarks for Muster Mark!) and without the literary antecedent, it may thus have entered the scientific discourse as “kwork”.  Because of the context in which Joyce placed quark in the novel, Gell-Mann deduced the author intended it to rhyme with “Mark” & “Bark” and among Joyceians, there’s long been discussion about whether the source was the Old & Middle English slang meaning “croak” or the German Quark which had a technical meaning in cheese production but also was a popular colloquial term for "trivial nonsense” in the sense of “talking nonsense”.  Joyce had certainly visited parts of Germany where the term was in use but no notes have ever been uncovered which would confirm the origin.

Hawkwind, Quark, Strangeness and Charm (Charisma CDS 4008 (1977)).

It’s still scientific orthodoxy there are six quarks but there may be more.  They are known as flavors and are named (1) up, (2) down, (3) strange, (4) charmed, (5) bottom & (6) top, each manifesting in three colors, (1) red, (2) green & (3) blue.  The use of colors as a convention seems a curious choice because, not falling within the wavelength of visible light, quarks cannot possess the quality of a color in the conventional sense of the word.  However, red, green and blue are probably more mnemonic that the traditional constructions from the Ancient Greek.  Neutrons & protons are each made from three quarks, one of each color, a neutron being (2 x down + 1 x up) and a proton (2 x up + 1 x down).  Particles can be assembled using the other quarks but the resulting mass is massively larger and rapidly they decay into protons and neutrons.  Until the experiments of the early 1960s which at high-speed collided protons with electrons or other protons, it was thought neutrons & protons were fundamental particles.  It was during the observations of these collisions that it became understood quarks were the building blocks.

White cheeses.

Quark cheese (sold also as quarg) is a feature of cuisines in the Baltic and nations traditionally Germanic or Slavic-speaking as well as some Jewish sects and Turkic peoples.  It is soft and white, has a relatively short shelf-life and the appearance is similar to cottage cheese or mascarpone; in some languages the terms for that and quark are interchangeable.  The Roman historian Tacitus (Publius Cornelius Tacitus, circa 56–circa 120) in his De origine et situ Germanorum (On the Origin and Situation of the Germans (circa 98)) discussed Germanic culture (clearly they were viewed as a trouble even then) makes mention of a “fluffy white cheese” which may have been something like quark or any one of the fermented milk variations of the age.  The word quark was from the Late Middle High German quarc, twarc, & zwarg the Lower Saxon dwarg, all in use by at least the late thirteenth century and thought derived from a West Slavic equivalent, possibly the Lower Sorbian twarog, the Upper Sorbian twaroh, the Polish twaróg or the Czech & Slovak tvaroh; it was cognate with the Belarusian тварог (tvaroh) and the Russian творог (tvorog).  It’s thought the Old Slavonic tvarogъ was connected in some way with the Old Church Slavonic творъ, (tvor) (form), thus the notion of a “solidified milk which took a form”, an idea familiar in the French fromage (cheese) and the Italian formaggio (cheese).

Founded in 2004, 3 Quarks Daily is a kind of on-line selective content aggregator, augmented with some editorial material; thematically, nothing tends to dominate although the curators do insist whatever is run must be “inherently fascinating”.  That’s something obviously a matter a reader's judgment but such is cast of the net that on any given day, it’s likely many will find stuff of interest, some of which sometimes will fascinate.  Befitting a site which began when the web was barely a decade old, 3 Quarks Daily recalls the time when what the “inventor of the internet” (Al Gore; b 1948, US vice president (VPOTUS) 1993-2001 & in 2000 the next president of the United States (NPOTUS)) called the “information super-highway” could genuinely surprise and delight.  That still happens of course but more prominence is enjoyed by places with content delivered by algorithms rewarding shark-feeding populism.  The site’s name comes from the elementary nuclear particle and acknowledges the debt to James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, the choice being an allusion to three Quarks spanning the often separate worlds of art, literature & science and the site used to award annual prizes known as Top Quark, Strange Quark & Charm Quark.  A visit to 3 Quarks Daily is highly recommended.

Autobrewery

Autobrewery (pronounced aw-tuh-broor-ee (U) or aw-tuh-broo-uh-ree (non-U))

In the slang of clinical medicine, a clipping of “auto-brewery syndrome”, a condition in which the contents of the sufferer’s stomach ferment, creating alcohol (known also as “gut fermentation syndrome” (GFS), “endogenous ethanol fermentation” (EEF) or the more pleasing “drunkenness disease”).  The standard initialism is ABS).

1940s: The construct was auto- (used here as a prefix to mean “reflexive, regarding or to oneself”) + brewery (historically a building or establishment for brewing beer or other malt liquors, especially the building where the brewing is done.  The auto- prefix was a learned borrowing from Ancient Greek αὐτο- (auto-) (self-) (reflexive, regarding or to oneself (and most familiar in forms like autobiography)), from αὐτός (autós) (himself/herself/oneself), from either a construct of (1) the primitive Indo-European hew (again) + to- (that) or (2) the Ancient Greek reflexes of those words, αὖ (aû) (back, again, other) +‎ τόν (tón) (the) and related to Phrygian αυτος (autos), the existence of alternatives suggesting there may have been a common innovation.  Brewery was from the Dutch brouwerij (brewery), the construct being brew +‎ -ery.  Brew was from the Middle English brewen, from the Old English brēowan, from the Proto-West Germanic breuwan, from the Proto-Germanic brewwaną, from the primitive Indo-European bhrewh-.   It was cognate with the Dutch brouwen, the German brauen, the Swedish brygga, the Norwegian Bokmål brygge, the Ancient Greek φρέαρ (phréar) (well), the Latin fervēre (to be hot; to burn; to boil), the Old Irish bruth (violent, boiling heat) and the Sanskrit भुर्वन् (bhurván) (motion of water).  Etymologists suspect brew may be related to English “barley”.  The suffix -ery was from the Middle English -erie, from the Anglo-Norman and Old French -erie, a suffix forming abstract nouns.  The suffix first occurs in loans from the Old French into the Middle English, but became productive in English by the sixteenth century, sometimes as a proper combination of -er with “y” (as in bakery or brewery) but also as a single suffix (such as slavery or machinery).  Auto-brewery syndrome is a noun.

In medicine, a syndrome is a collection of symptoms (some of which clinicians sometimes classify variously as “definitive” & “indicative”) which often manifest simultaneously and characterize a particular abnormality or condition.  The term is commonly used in medicine and psychology and syndromes can either be codified as diagnosable conditions or just part of casual language to describe aspects of the human condition (such as “Paris Hilton Syndrome”).  A syndrome describes patterns of observable symptoms but does not of necessity indicate a condition’s cause or causes.  A syndrome does not need to be widespread or even suffered by more than one patient and a single case is all that is required for a syndrome to be defined; the symptoms need only to be specific.  Diagnosing a syndrome typically involves clinicians identifying the common symptoms and ruling out other possible conditions, something often complicated by the variability in severity and presentation among different individuals, many syndromes being classic examples of “spectrum conditions”.  Like any condition, the course of the treatment regime for a syndrome will focus on (1) managing the symptoms and (2) dealing with the underlying causes when known.

Researchgate’s illustration of the patho-physiological mechanisms of ABS.

Auto-brewery syndrome (known also as “gut fermentation syndrome” (GFS), “endogenous ethanol fermentation” (EEF) or the more pleasing “drunkenness disease”) is a rare and still not widely understood condition, first described in the medical literature during the 1940s.  The condition manifests in patients who exhibit all or some of the symptoms associated with alcohol-induced of intoxication despite not having consumed alcohol.  The early cases highlighted cases where patients had yeast in the gastrointestinal tract, this fermenting carbohydrates (turns sugary and starchy foods) into ethanol, leading to elevated blood alcohol levels.  Because of the rarity of the condition and the effectiveness of treatment regimes, study has been intermittent.

To certain groups (students in university engineering faculties come to mind), auto-brewery syndrome may sound a desirable (time & money saving) condition but for sufferers it can be debilitating and, if untreated, is potentially fatal.  There are legal implications too because those with ABS can appear intoxicated and if breath or blood-tested, can be “over-the-limit for various purposes.  The rarity of presentations (clinicians can in an entire career never see a case) also can mean a patient in somewhere like a hospital’s emergency ward will be assumed to be drunk, their protests of sobriety not believed.  Notably, many of the cases in the literature are those arrested for DUI (driving under influence), one woman in New York found to be have a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) some four times above the legal limit.  She wasn’t charged (despite an elevated BAC while in charge of a vehicle (which included bicycles, horses, donkeys, elephants and such) being an offence of absolute liability) because of the medical evidence.

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

However, a potential legal issue for sufferers is that ABS is also an “accelerant condition” in that one can become very drunk even if one’s consumption of alcohol has been minimal (less than one standard drink).  It would in such circumstances still be possible to mount an ABS-based defense to a charge of intoxication but a defendant’s evidential onus of proof would be higher (and technically often more difficult).  Symptoms and side effects are essentially similar to being drunk or having a hangover and include red or flushed skin, dizziness, disorientation, headache, nausea & vomiting, dehydration, dryness in the mouth, burping or belching, fatigue, problems with memory or concentration and mood changes.  Additionally, ABS can induce or worsen other conditions including chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS or ME) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) as well as general issues such as anxiety and depression.  The cause is an excess of yeast (a type of fungus) in the gut, the most common being Candida albicans, Candida glabrata, Torulopsis glabrata, Candida krusei, Candida kefyr and Saccharomyces cerevisiae (brewer’s yeast) and although most have concluded ABS is likely usually to be complication of another disease, imbalance, or infection in the body, the exact mechanism(s) have never been determined.  For other it could be simply a product of their specific genetic mix and both adults and children can be afflicted.  More recent research has revealed that in some cases problems with the liver may cause ABS; this happens when the liver is too slow to process alcohol and even small quantities of alcohol produced by gut yeast can produce symptoms.  An excess of yeast in the body can also be a consequence of the use of certain antibiotics, inadequate nutrition, diabetes and deficiencies in the immune system.

An engineering student, studying.

Although doctors tend to disapprove of “Dr Google” and other forms of self-diagnosis, a defensibly scientific approach for those who suspect they may suffer ABS is (1) abstain from the consumption of alcohol for 24 hours, (2) on an empty stomach eat some food high in carbohydrates and (3) after an hour use a home-breathalyzer to record one’s BAC.  Record the findings and repeat the test several times with different levels of carbohydrate consumption.  Such a test obviously is a challenge for engineering students, few of who abstain from alcohol for 24 hours but it can be done.  If a pattern emerges of an elevated BAC without any preceding consumption of alcohol, take the findings to a physician and seek a diagnosis and treatment.  Treatments can be as simple as reducing the consumption of carbohydrates or the use of antifungal medications.

Parthian

Parthian (pronounced pahr-thee-un)

(1) A native or inhabitant of Parthia.

(2) An Iranian language of ancient and medieval Parthia.

(3) Of or relating to, or characteristic of Parthia, its inhabitants, or their language.

522: (Although use doubtless predates the first recorded use)  It refers to a native or inhabitant of Parthia (ancient kingdom northeast of Persia in western Asia) and was from the Old Persian Parthava (a dialectal variant of the stem Parsa and the source of "Persia" (the plural was Partienes).  In English, Parthian had been used by historians and geographers since the 1520s and the familiar adjectival form "Parthian shot" seems to date from the early nineteenth century but images of the act had existed for two millennia and had since the 1630s been referred to as the "Parthian fight".  William Shakespeare (1564–1616) liked the word: Or, like the Parthian, I shall flying fight (Cymbeline (circa 1610), Act I, Scene VII).  Parthian is a noun & adjective and if used in the sense of “of or relating to the historic Parthia or Parthians” it is with an initial capital; the noun plural is Parthians.

The Parthian shot and the parting shot

Journalists at Murdoch tabloid the New York Post can be relied upon to re-purpose a metaphor.

The Parthian shot was a military tactic, used by mounted cavalry and made famous by the Parthians, an ancient people of the Persian lands (the modern-day Islamic Republic of Iran since 1979).  While in real or feigned retreat on horseback, the Parthian archers would, in full gallop, turn their bodies backward to shoot at the pursuing enemy.  This demanded both fine equestrian skills (a soldier’ hands occupied by his bows & arrows) and great confidence in one's mount, something gained only by time spent between man & beast.  To make the achievement more admirable still, the Parthians used neither stirrups nor spurs, relying solely on pressure from their legs to guide and control their galloping mounts and, with varying degrees of success, the tactic was adopted by many mounted military formations of the era including the Scythians, Huns, Turks, Magyars, and Mongols.  The Parthian Empire existed between 247 BC–224 AD.

As a metaphor, “Parthian shot” describes a barbed insult or some sort of attack delivered while in the act of retreat.  There are aspiring pedants who like to point this out to those using the term “parting shot” in a similar vein and while they’re correct the latter is sometimes being used incorrectly, in many instances they’re right for the wrong reasons.  “Parthian shot” seems first to have appeared in a letter written by an army officer serving under the Raj, Captain Godfrey Mundy (1804-1860), ADC (aide-de-camp) to Field Marshal Stapleton Cotton (later Lord Combermere, 1773–1865; Commander-in-Chief, India 1825-1830) using it while speaking of a successful shot during one of the many hunting expeditions which so contributed to the slaughter of the sub-continent’s wildlife during the colonial era.  That was in 1832 and while there’s evidence of use in succeeding decades, it was after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) published A Study in Scarlet (1886) which included the sentence: “With which Parthian shot he walked away, leaving the two rivals open-mouthed behind him” that the phrase began with some frequency to appear in English.

The battlefield tactic had for some time been known to historians and soldiers before it emerged as a metaphor and it’s thought Captain Mundy was being a little loose in his interpretation, everything suggesting the “Parthian shot” he mentioned was the firing his “Joe Manton” (a shotgun manufactured by the English gunsmith Joseph Manton (1766–1835)) backwards, over his shoulder, a trick with looks impressive in movies but which demands practice to avoid a self-inflicted injury.  Although it’s sometimes suggested “parting shot” was a folk etymology from “Parthian shot”, the former was in use by at least the late 1700s and etymologists can find no documentary evidence, however convincing the linkage may appear and it’s not impossible “parting shot” evolved (possibly even in more than one place) separately and among those who had never heard of the “Parthian shot”.  So, while the two terms are often used interchangeably and in general use “Parthian shot” is now rare, those who wish can achieve nuances of difference: (1) A “Parthian shot” is an attacking comment made while in retreat and (2) A “parting shot” is a “last word” delivered while breaking off from an oral engagement; it does not of necessity imply a retreat.

The Bolton-Paul Defiant (1939-1943)

The Royal Air Force (RAF) tried a variation of the Parthian shot with Bolton-Paul Defiant, a single-engined fighter and Battle of Britain contemporary of the better remembered Spitfire and Hurricane.  Uniquely, the Defiant had no forward-firing armaments, all its firepower being concentrated in four .303 machine guns in a turret behind the pilot.  The theory behind the design dates from the 1930s when the latest multi-engined monoplane bombers were much faster than contemporary single-engined biplane fighters then in service. The RAF considered its new generation of heavily-armed bombers would be able to penetrate enemy airspace and defend themselves without a fighter escort and this of course implied enemy bombers would similarly be able to penetrate British airspace with some degree of impunity.

By 1935, the concept of a turret-armed fighter emerged.  The RAF anticipated having to defend the British Isles against massed formations of unescorted enemy bombers and, in theory, turret-armed fighters would be able approach formations from below or from the side and coordinate their fire.  In design terms, it was a return to what often was done early in the First World War, though that had been technologically deterministic, it being then quite an engineering challenge to produce reliable and safe (in the sense of not damaging the craft's own propeller) forward-firing guns.  Deployed not as intended, but as a fighter used against escorted bombers, the Defiant enjoyed considerable early success, essentially because at attack-range, it appeared to be a Hurricane and the German fighter pilots were of course tempted attack from above and behind, the classic hunter's tactic.  They were course met by the the Defiant's formidable battery.  However, the Luftwaffe learned quickly, unlike the RAF which for too long persisted with their pre-war formations which were neat and precise but also excellent targets.  Soon the vulnerability of the Defiant resulted in losses so heavy its deployment was unsustainable and it was withdrawn from front-line combat.  It did though subsequently proved a useful stop-gap as a night-fighter and provided the RAF with an effective means of combating night bombing until aircraft designed for the purpose entered service.

Trends of Use

Because of the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.

Lapidify

Lapidify (pronounced luh-pid-uh-fahy)

(1) To convert into stone or stony material; to petrify.

(2) To transform a material into something stony.

(3) Figuratively, to cause to become permanent; to solidify.

1620s: From the French lapidifier, from the Medieval Latin lapidificāre, the construct being the Latin lapis (stone) + -ify.  The origin of the Latin lapis is uncertain but there may be a link with the Ancient Greek λέπας (lépas) (bare rock, crag), which was from either the primitive Indo-European lep- (to peel) or a Mediterranean substrate language, most etymologists tending to favor the latter.  The -ify suffix was from the Middle English -ifien, from the Old French -ifier, from the Latin -ificare, from -ficus, from facio, (“make” or “do”).  It was used to produce verbs meaning “to make”; the alternative form was -fy.  The literal synonym in geology is petrify but also used (in various contexts) are set, harden, clarify, solidify, calcify, mineralize & fossilize.  Lapidify, lapidifies, lapidifying & lapidified are verbs, lapidification is a noun and lapidific & lapidifical are adjectives; the noun plural is lapidifications.

Medusa

In Greek mythology, Medusa (from the Ancient Greek Μέδουσα (Médousa), from μέδω (médō) (rule over)) was the youngest of the three Gorgon sisters and among them, the sole mortal.  In the popular imagination it seems to be believed than only the gaze of Medusa had the power to turn men to stone but her sisters Stheno & Euryale also possessed the gift.  The three were the daughters of Phorcys & Ceto who lived in the far west and the heads of the girls were entwined with writhing snakes and their necks protected with the scales of dragons while they had huge, boar-like tusks, hands of bronze and golden wings.  That alone would have made dating a challenge but anyone who had the misfortune to encounter them was turned instantly to stone.  Only Poseidon (god of the sea and one of the Olympians, the son of Cronus & Rhea) didn’t fear their glance because he had coupled with Medusa and fathered a child (in some tales the ghastly Cyclops Polyphemus which wasn’t encouraging but the other Cyclops were about as disagreeable.

Bust of Medusa in marble (1636) by Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), Museos Capitolinos. Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome, Italy (left) and Lindsay Lohan in Medusa mode, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004) (right).

Born in great secrecy, Perseus was the son of Zeus & Danae but one day, Danae’s father Acrisius heard the baby’s cry and, enraged that Zeus had seduced his daughter, had mother & child sealed in a wooden chest and cast into the sea; it washed up on the shores of the island of Seriphos, the pair rescued by the fisherman Dictys, brother of the ruling tyrant Polydectes.  When Perseus grew, he was one day one of those at one of Polydectes' banquets and when the guests were asked what gift they would offer their host, all except Perseus suggested horses.  He instead offered to bring to the table the severed head of Medusa.  It’s not clear if this was intended as a serious suggestion (wine may have been involved) but the tyrant insisted, saying that otherwise he would take Danae by force.  Embarking on this unpromising quest Perseus was helped by Hermes & Athena who took him to the Graeae; they showed him the way to the nymphs who lent him winged sandals, a kibisis (the backpack of the gods) and the helmet of Hades which rendered the wearer invisible.  Hermes armed him with the harpe, a sickle made of adamant.

Thus equipped, Perseus and Athena began the hunt for the Gorgons.  Of the three sisters, only Medusa was mortal so the project of decapitation had at least some theoretical prospect of success.  The far west was a bleak and uninviting place to which few travelled and they had little trouble in finding their lair, outside which they lay in wait until the family slept.  After midnight, when Medusa had fallen into a deep slumber, Perseus rose into the air on the nymphs’ winged sandals, and, while Athena held a shield of polished bronze over Medusa so it acted as a mirror, protecting them from her gaze, Perseus wielded his harpe, in one stroke striking head from shoulders.  Instantly, from the bloodied neck sprang Pegasus the winged horse and Chrysaor the giant.  Perseus stashed the severed head in the kibisis and quickly alit for home, pursued by a vengeful Stheno & Euryale but, concealed by the helmet’s cloak of invisibility, he evaded them.  Arriving in Seriphos, he became enraged after discovering Polydectes had attempted to rape Danae who had been compelled to seek refuge at the altars of the gods.  Perseus took Medusa’s head from the backpack and held the visage before Polydectes, lapidifying him in an instant, declaring his rescuer Dictys was now the island’s ruler.  The invaluable accessories he returned to the Nymphs while Athena set the head of Medusa in the middle of her shield, meaning she now possessed the power of lapidification.