Tape

Tape (pronounced teyp)

(1) A long, narrow strip of linen, cotton, or the like, used for tying garments, binding seams or carpets etc.

(2) A long, narrow strip of paper, metal etc.

(3) A strip of cloth, paper, or plastic with an adhesive surface, used for sealing, binding, or attaching items together; adhesive tape or masking tape; the trade-name “Scotch Tape” is often used as a generic descriptor.

(4) As tape measure, a flexible type of ruler, especially useful for measuring curved shapes.

(5) As finishing tape, the string stretched across the finishing line in a race and broken by the winning contestant on crossing the line; also sometimes incorrectly referred to as “finishing line” which technically is the line marked on the ground.

(6) In financial trading or news dissemination, a paper tape on which a stock ticker, news ticker or similar device would print incoming information (obsolete although the concept is still used in digital form).

(7) As magnetic tape, a usually re-usable media used to record, store and retrieve information and mounted in devices such as tape recorders, tape decks, tape arrays and tape drives, the physical tape on spools or in cassettes; in more precise forms as audio tape, data tape, videotape etc.

(8) To furnish with a tape or tapes.

(9) To tie up, bind, or attach with tape.

(10) To measure with or as if with a tape measure.

(11) To record on magnetic tape (although the phrase “to tape” is used also to refer to recording and similar activities even when no physical tape is used.

(12) As red tape, a slang term referencing bureaucratic inefficiency and delay, named after the literal red (actually often a shade of mauve) for centuries used in the British civil service to secure un-bound files.

(13) In mechanical printing, a strong flexible band rotating on pulleys for directing the sheets in a printing machine (mostly obsolete).

Pre 1000: From the Middle English tape (an unexplained variant of tappe), from the Old English tæppa & tæppe (ribbon, strip (of cloth), literally “part torn off”), akin to the Middle Low German tappen & tāpen (to grab, pull, rip, tear, snatch, pluck) and related to the Old Frisian tapia (to pull, rip, tear), the Middle High German zāfen & zāven (to pull, tear) and the Middle Dutch tapen (to tear).  The source of the Old English tæppa & tæppe is uncertain but etymologists suggest they may be back-formations from the Latin tapete (cloth, carpet).  The original short vowel became long in Middle English.  Tape & taping are nouns & verbs and taped is a verb; the noun plural is tapes.

Many other languages picked up tape or localized variations including Danish (tape), Dutch (tape), Hausa (têf), Hindi (टेप (ṭep)), Irish (téip), Japanese テープ (tēpu), Korean (테이프 (teipeu)), Norwegian (both Nynorsk & Bokmål) (tape & teip), Swahili (tepe), Swedish (tape & tejp), Thai (เทป (téep)), Tibetan (ཊེབ (ṭeb)), Turkish (teyp), Phalura (ṭeép) and Welsh (tâp) although, since tape began to be used in the context recording & storage media, the English “tape” is often used even if a local form exists in the sense of “to bind” or “a strip of fabric” etc.  The word is widely used as an element (tapeworm, magnetic-tape, tape-drive, tape-machine, tape-gun, tape-loader, tape-recorder, ticker tape, tape-measure, cassette tape etc) and there are a wide variety of adhesive tapes (electrical tape, duct tape, gaffer tape (originally gaffer's tape) sticky tape, Scotch tape & Sellotape (both registered trademarks), masking tape, packing (or packaging or parcel) tape, insulating (or insulation) tape etc), each with a slightly different specification dictated by their intended purpose or spot in the market. 

Tape scene: Lindsay Lohan as Tess Conway in Freaky Friday (2003).

Adhesive tape dates from 1885 and until the form prevailed, the product was known also as friction tape and two of the best-known, Gaffer tape and duct tape are often confused but, being designed for different purposes, are not interchangeable; distinct in construction and intended application, there can be unfortunate consequences if one is used for tasks where the other would be more appropriate.  The first tape recorders in the modern sense of a "device for recording sound on magnetic tape" were available for sale in 1932 and were then “reel-to-reel” machines, a re-use of the 1892 application describing a "device for recording data on ticker tape", that tape in the sense of "paper strip of a printer", dating from 1884.  Strangely, the verb form “tape-record” seems not to have be used prior to 1950 although the technology had for first been used in 1928; audio-tape is said to from 1957 whereas, counter-intuitively, videotape is attested as a noun from 1953 and a verb from 1958, the explanation being that tape was more widely used earlier in film & television production than in the recording industry which needed less storage space until technologies like LP (long-playing) records and stereo were adopted.  The tape-measure is attested from 1873 and the technical phrase “tape-delay” is from 1968 although the associated techniques had been in use for some time.  The disgusting tapeworm was first named in 1705, so called for its ribbon-like shape.

The phrase red tape (official bureaucratic routine or formula especially the excessive rigmarole), dates from 1736 and refers to the red tape (often also a shade of mauve), formerly used in the British civil service (and many of the colonies including the Raj) for binding up legal and other official documents, the item (requisitioned by the roll) mentioned in the civil service supply lists fist in the 1690s.  The familiar Sellotape was first sold in the UK in 1949 and is a proprietary name of a popular brand of cellulose or plastic adhesive tape.  The noun cassette, much associated with magnetic tape is from the 1793 French cassette (a little box), from a diminutive of the Old North French casse (box) and the first cassettes in the sense of "magnetic tape cartridge" is from 1960.  The ticker tape dates from 1891 and was the actual physical paper tape on which was printed the information (stock prices, news etc) and was derive from the 1883 ticker (telegraphic device for recording stock market quotations), so made because the printing was by means of impact and thus made a ticking sound when in operation.

Marilyn Monroe's dress

Kim Kardashian (b 1980) wore to the 2022 Met Gala the marquisette dress made famous by Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) when she appeared to sing happy birthday Mr President to President Kennedy (1917-1963; US president 1961-1963) during a Democratic Party fundraiser at Madison Square Garden on 19 May 1962, ten days before the actual birthday.  Within three months, she would be dead.

It couldn’t be expected to cause quite the same stir as sixty years earlier because, cut from a sheer, silk marquisette that almost exactly matched Ms Monroe’s skin-tone, the 2500 hand-sewn rhinestones were intricately positioned to respond to the particular gait she chose for that evening and, under the limelight in the darkened amphitheater, as she moved, the crystals sparkled and the dress came alive.  It was quite a design.  In the hard, white light of the Met Gala’s red carpet, it couldn’t be expected to work the magic it did all those years ago and, not shimmering in the darkness, it seemed lifeless and perhaps it would have benefited from the contrast her lustrous natural hair would have lent but Ms Kardashian wore it well, attracting admiration (and criticism from the usual suspects) too for the reasonable achievement of shedding some 16 lbs (7¼ KG) in three weeks to ensure a comfortable fit.  Digesting the implications of that, keen-eyed fashionistas noted the vintage white coat which Ms Kardashian kept strategically positioned below the small of her back for the ritual walk to and up the staircase, some taking to Twitter to wonder if it was there to conceal that things were quite fully done-up.

The theory is plausible; it’s always been known that in 1962, Ms Monroe had to be “sewn-into” the dress just before the performance.  The day after the Met Gala, photographs circulated purporting to show Ms Kardashian with a generously sized, pear-shaped lacuna between the seams, accompanied with the accusation that the images showing things done up had been digitally modified and the haters were certainly out, one distressed soul lamenting that for Ms Kardashian to wear the dress "...was an absolute disgrace, a tacky photo opportunity" and that "...one of the most important items of clothing in history, is now tainted with the stain of the Kardashians."  There are people who do take pop-culture very seriously.  The green dress she changed into after her ascent had similar lines (and perhaps slightly more generous dimensions) but was certainly done-up and anyway, in either, she looked gorgeous. 

Kim Kardashian demonstrating gaffer tape used in a way not included in the manufacturer's instructions, February 2016.

On that night in 1962, Ms Munroe eschewed underwear but, despite the absent 16 pounds, in 2022 there was still a little more to accommodate than that for which the original structural engineering was designed to cope.  Fortunately, through long practice and extensive product development, Ms Kardashian has some expertise in invisible support, in February 2016 publishing her findings:

“I’ve used everything from duct tape to packing tape to masking tape and I think that the best I’ve found is gaffer's tape,” she said.  "It sticks the best. Make sure you don't have any lotion or oils on when you're lifting your boobs up with the tape.  Just brace yourself for when it's time to take it off, LOL."

That was of course the problem, gaffer tape intended to stick to a range of dry surfaces including timber, metal and carpet but certainly not human skin, the consequences including irritation, reddening and even losing layers of skin.  In response, Ms Kardashian developed a tape which combined the functionality of gaffer tape with the strength and durability to support the weight yet able to be removed with the effortlessness of surgical tape, leaving the skin un-damaged.  Such tapes have been sold for a while, the industry jargon being “tit tape” but the Kardashian version is claimed to be better and, significantly, available in three tones which should suit most skin colors.  Simply called “Body Tape”, it comes in rolls and can be cut to suit, preparation otherwise limited to peeling off the paper backing before applying to achieve the desired effect.  Borrowing from the concept of gaffer tape, Body Tape is reinforced with a flexible stretch cotton, designed to be not too flexible because it needs to stretch only to accommodate human movement while retaining a natural look; it must therefore exist in a “goldilocks zone”, that sweet spot between elasticity and rigidity.

On her Skims website, there’s a helpful promotional video demonstrating Body Tape being applied to a model, the commentary emphasizing it needs to be placed at an angle which will suit the clothing with which it’s to be worn and that typically will mean describing a diagonal angle which will vary according to the neckline being accommodated.  It’s a process which might be better done by two so it’s something couples can enjoy together although, with practice, presumably one would become adept at taping one’s self.  When clothed, the results were impressive though obviously results will vary according to technique and the raw material involved.  The final test was of course was the removal, the reason Body Tape was developed and, without any obvious discomfort, the model peeled off the tape.  "That wasn't painful at all", cheerfully she confirmed.

Skims Body Tape (edited highlights).

The Watergate tapes and the erased 18½ minutes

Looking over his shoulder: Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974, right) and HR Haldeman (1926–1993; White House chief of staff 1969-1973, left) in the White House.

Tapes, audio and video, have played a part in many political downfalls but none is more famous than the “smoking gun” tape which compelled the resignation of Richard Nixon after it revealed he was involved in the attempt to cover-up the involvement in the Watergate break-in of some connected to his administration.  Recording conversations in the White House had been going on for years and Nixon initially had the equipment removed, the apparatus re-installed two years later after it was found there was no other way to ensure an accurate record of discussions was maintained.  Few outside a handful of the president’s inner circle knew of the tapes and they became public knowledge only in mid-1973 when, under oath before a congressional hearing, a White House official confirmed their existence.  That was the point at which Nixon should have destroyed the tapes and for the rest of his life he must sometimes have reflected that but for that mistake, his presidency might have survived because, although by then the Watergate scandal had been a destabilizing distraction, there was at that point no “smoking gun”, nothing which linked Nixon himself to any wrongdoing.  As it was, he didn’t and within days subpoenas were served on the White House demanding the tapes and that made them evidence; the moment for destruction had passed.  Nixon resisted the subpoenas, claiming executive privilege and thus ensued the tussle between the White House and Watergate affair prosecutors which would see the “Saturday Night Massacre” during which two attorneys-general were fired, the matter ultimately brought before the US Supreme Court which ruled against the president.  Finally, the subpoenaed tapes were surrendered on 5 August 1973, the “smoking gun” tape revealing Nixon HR Haldeman, 1926–1993 (White House chief of staff 1969-1973) discussing a cover-up plan and at that point, political support in the congress began to evaporate and the president was advised that impeachment was certain and even Republican senators would vote to convict.  On 8 August, Nixon announced his resignation, leaving office the next day.

Uher 5000 reel-to-reel tape recorder used by a White House secretary to create the tape (20 June 1972) with the infamous 18½ minute gap (government exhibit #60: Records of District Courts of the United States, Record Group 21, (National Archives Identifier): 595593).

To this day, mystery surrounds one tape in particular, a recording of a discussion between Nixon and Halderman on 20 June 1972, three days after the Watergate break-in.  Of obviously great interest, when reviewed, there was found to be a gap of 18½ minutes, the explanations offered of how, why or by whom the erasure was effected ranging from the humorously accidental to the darkly conspiratorial but half a century on, it remains a mystery.  Taking advantage of new data-recovery technology, the US government did in subsequent decades make several attempts to “un-delete” the gap but without success and it may be, given the nature of magnetic tape, literally there is nothing left to find.  However, the tape is stored in a secure, climate-controlled facility in case technical means emerge and while it’s unlikely the contents would reveal anything not already known or assumed, it would be of great interest to historians.

What might be more interesting still is the identity of who it was that erased those infamous 18½ minutes but that will likely never be known; after fifty years, it’s thought that were there to be any death-bed confessions, they should by now have been utterd.  Some have their lists of names of those who might have "pressed the erase button" and while mostly sub-sets of Watergate's "usual suspects", one who tends not to appear is Nixon himself, the usual consensus being his well-known ineptitude in handling modern technology would rendered him a most unlikely editor though it's at least possible he ordered someone to do the deed.  However it happened, the suspects most often mentioned as having had their "finger on the button" (which may have been a foot-pedal) are Nixon's secretary and his chief of staff.  The long-serving secretary (Rose Mary Woods, 1917–2005) actually admitted to “inadvertently” erasing some 4-5 minutes of the recording by way of the “terrible mistake” of putting her foot on the “wrong pedal” while stretching to answer the desk telephone.  In explanation, she demonstrated how it happened (a reasonable piece of office gymnastics which reporters dubbed the “Rose Mary Stretch”) but always maintained there was no way she was responsible for a longer gap.  Halderman always denied any involvement in the mystery and Nixon always maintained he was shocked and disappointed when told of the silence.

Manikin & Mannequin

Manikin (pronounced man-i-kin)

(1) A man short in stature; (sometimes as a term of endearment but now archaic).

(2) In folklore, a dwarf; pygmy.

(3) An anatomically correct model of the human body (or a part of the body), used for teaching or demonstrating surgical and other clinical techniques; a specialized form is the phantom, an anatomical model of a fully developed fetus, for use in teaching midwifery or obstetrics.

(4) A three-dimensional figure, dummy or effigy representing a man or person (now replaced by mannequin), manikin now correctly used only in the medical context.

1560s: From the Dutch manneken (literally “little man”), a diminutive of the Middle Dutch mannekijn, from the Proto-Germanic manwaz, from the primitive Indo-European root man- (man).  The original meaning was "a jointed model of the human figure used by artists" and the sense and spelling is often blended with mannequin.  The early synonyms (in the context of small humans) included homunculus, midget, peewee, shorty, titman, & doll and (in the sense of the artificial creations) dummy, figure, mannequin & marionette.  The noun plural is manikins; the (rare) alternative spelling is mannikin.

Mannequin (pronounced man-i-kin)

(1) A styled and three-dimensional representation of the human form used in window displays, as of clothing; dummy.

(2) A figure or model of the human figure used by tailors, dress designers etc, for fitting or making clothes; historically made from timber but now constructed from many combinations of materials.

(3) A person employed to wear clothing to be photographed or to be displayed before customers, buyers etc; a clothes model (dated).

(4) In the visual arts, another name for a lay figure

1902: From the fifteenth century French mannequin (model to display clothes) from the Dutch manneken (model of the human figure used by artists).  Mannequin was the French form of the same word that yielded manikin and in English, was sometimes used in the sense "artificial man" (especially in translations, the trend apparently triggered by the frequency of use in early twentieth century translations of the works of Victor Hugo (1802–1885)).  Originally, it was applied to humans in the modern sense of “a model” and not until 1931 did it assume the meaning of “artificial human model figure to display clothing”.  A sideway variation was the later “clotheshorse” (a person whose chief interest and pleasure is dressing fashionably).  The noun plural is mannequins.

The difference between a Manikin and a Mannequin

Lindsay Lohan with several mannequins, New York Fashion Week, 2009.

Mannequin was a word once used where model would now be preferred, a person employed to wear clothes and carry accessories but since the 1930s a mannequin is a usually plastic or fibreglass emulation of the human form (in shape but not fine detail), typically found scattered throughout clothing and department stores, most famously as part of displays in shop-front windows.  Most mannequins represent a body shape within a fairly narrow range of dimensions but the industry recognizes eighteen different types including the obvious like “sexy” and “sporty” but there are also the niches such as pregnant people.  However, despite the industry's vocal embrace of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), impressionistically, it would seem the female mannequins on display still tend to the slender.

Manikins are also human shaped models but rather than being a fashion platform, they are used to help simulate medical, surgical, or clinical scenarios to assist in training and the honing of technique.  There are a variety of manikins and in the jargon of the medical devices industry, they range from low to high fidelity, the rating an indication of the degree of anatomical realism included, a high-fidelity manikin sometimes even including movement, speech, muscular reaction and facial expressions.  A high-fidelity manikin might include a complete set of internal organs and have many interchangeable parts whereas a low-fidelity model might be just a hollow shell used to teach students how to insert an IV or perfect the techniques of bandaging.

Manikins exist so those working in a clinical environment, from students to surgeons, can enjoy a safe environment in which to practice their skills, without the obvious risk of using live patients.  Although doctors continue, as they have for centuries, to murder their patients, rarely suffering any consequences due to the cozy legal apparatus known as “medical misadventure”, the use of manikins presumably lessens the slaughter of the innocent.  Like mannequins, manikins are designed for purpose and there are birthing simulators, newborn simulators, simulators that go into cardiac arrest, and even dental simulators.

L'Inconnue’s death mask.

Although anatomical models were used in medical training as early as the sixteenth century, the first manikin (in the modern understanding) was released in 1960 as a device for teaching cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).  The design parameters were written by two physicians, Austrian Peter Safar (1924-2003) and American James Elam (1918–1995), the engineering and fabrication handled by Norwegan Åsmund Lærdal (1914-1981), head of a company with expertise in plastic molding from their experience as a manufacturer of children’s toys.  Famously, the face on the manikin is that of L'Inconnue (L'Inconnue de la Seine (The unknown woman of the Seine)).

Crowd at the public viewing portal of the Paris Morgue, circa 1890.

L'Inconnue, was probably about sixteen when she died in the late 1880s and although it’s not certain, most then concluded she took her own life.  As was done at the time, after her lifeless form was pulled from the River Seine at the Quai du Louvre, the corpse was put on public display at the Paris mortuary, a popular attraction and one justified by the purpose of hoping some of the dead might be identified.  Despite the daily crowd, none came forward to name L'Inconnue.  The dead waif however was far from unnoticed, many remarking on her unusually serene appearance and one much taken by her was the pathologist who performed the autopsy.  He had a plaster-cast taken of her face (a not uncommon practice) and within years, reproductions of L'Inconnue's alluring, deathly likeness were being sold throughout Europe, the mesmerizing mask, later describe by philosopher Albert Camus (1913-1960) as a "drowned Mona Lisa", fixed to the walls of drawing rooms, fashionable salons and the studios of (presumably already troubled) artists.  The silent beauty also attracted writers and early in the twentieth century there was a rash of imaginative fiction speculating about the short life of L'Inconnue, many melodramatic, most constructing a short, tragic life battered by ill fortune and finally taken by the waters of the Seine.  For writers, it was the lure of the tragic, death, water and a waif irresistibly romantic and in death she became the one of the great influencers of her age, described as “the aesthetic template for a whole generation of German girls who modeled their looks on her", adored in death as many authors liked to imagine she never was when alive.

L'Inconnue’s death mask would over the years attract artists and it’s been rendered in many materials including ceramics, copper, bronze, granite and even chocolate, seen as an icon and on canvas with a variety paints.

Decades later, L'Inconnue’s image would again be revived.  Åsmund Lærdal in the 1940s had been a manufacturer of small wooden toys but in the post-war years, attracted by the possibilities of the then novel plastic, he experimented with the soft, malleable substance and, finding it ideal for his purposes, embarked on mass-production, one of his products the acclaimed toy “Anne”, a baby with “sleeping eyes and natural hair".  Anne enjoyed international success and when told the two anesthesiologists, impressed by the life-like behavior of the doll’s plastic material, had asked if he could fabricate and mass-produce a life-sized adult manikin on which could be demonstrated their newly developed resuscitation technique, they found an attentive listener; some years earlier, Lærdal's two year old son had nearly drowned and had his father not forced the water from his airways, he too may well have died.  For a toymaker with expertise in the molding of plastic to form hollow toys, it was a formidable engineering challenge not only to create a realistic, functional maikin that reliably could be used to demonstrate the physical complexities of CPR but to design a mass-produced product which would be financially viable.

Resusci Anne in carry-case.

The technical specifications provided by the doctors had included a collapsible chest for practicing compressions and open lips to simulate mouth-to-mouth resuscitation but Lærdal, after discussions with his engineers, concluded it was also important the manikin should be recognizably female, suspecting men might be reluctant to practice CPR on a male doll's lips.  It was during the design process Lærdal recalled the enigmatic half-smile on a mask he'd seen on a wall while visiting relatives and it was this memory which inspired him to choose L'Inconnue.  Resusci Anne (Rescue Anne or CPR Anne in the US) was released in 1960 and was the first device of its type, so successful the Lærdal Toy Company soon transformed to become Lærdal Medical and it’s estimated over 300 million people around the world have been trained in CPR, most of them using Resusci Anne.  If L'Inconnue really did, as so many authors would have, take her own life in the depths of a despair only unrequited love can induce, fate would have her in death inspire Resusci Anne, called “the most kissed girl in the world”.

Perhaps surprisingly, Andy Warhol never took L'Inconnue as his subject.  This one is a fake.

Despite the sad charm of that, it couldn’t happen now, the ethics of making reproductions of a dead person's face and selling them without consent, un-discussed in the late nineteenth century, troubling today.  Were such a product now to be created and a life-like face was necessary, the visage would have to be either licensed or anonymized.  However, psychologists have conducted trials using a genuine Resusci Anne and one with no discernible facial characteristics and reported the more anthropomorphic appeared to enhance the realism of resuscitation training.  The researchers noted the face made CPR training more intense and stressful for both clinicians and lay-people but their follow-up questionnaires some months later revealed those who “kissed L'Inconnue” displayed a much higher recall of the techniques learned on the day.  She may have died forgotten, but in her immortal after-life, L'Inconnue is clearly memorable.

The romance of L'Inconnue is compelling but there have long been doubts about the original masks, sceptics suggesting it’s unlikely the flawless features could have come from a corpse fished from a river, the suspicion being a pretty young model might have been the source for the cast taken to take commercial advantage of the great public interest in the story of the young girl.  There are other theories too and the truth will never be known but L'Inconnue’s mystery is the essence of the strange tale.

Some assembly required: The Apprentice Doctor’s Full-Body Adult, Nursing and Trauma Manikin.

Supplied as a kit complete with burns, lacerations, and broken bones, it’s said to offer a realistic experience in the identification, assessment, treatment, and transport of trauma patients and disaster victims and can be used in forensic medicine and CSI training, working well as a manikin for crime scene simulation projects.  Prices start at US$1,199.00.

To ensure durability and ease of maintenance, the manikin contains no latex and the manufacturer cautions the kit (1) is intended exclusively for classroom instructional (educational) use and training purposes, (2) requires adult supervision and guidance for students under the age of 17 years and is not suitable for those under the age of 15 and (3) contains items that may pose a choking hazard to toddlers and babies (keep out of reach of these age groups).

Intended as a low-maintenance product, the post training cleaning routine consists of (1) after nasal feeding, gastric lavage, enema, male and female urethral catheterization procedures, empty all the residual liquid, used from the stomach, intestines and bladder, (2) Rinse all used tubes & catheters with water and dry for re-use and (3) if in disuse for an extended period of time, the manikin should be wiped clean, covered and placed in a cool, dry place; this will extend service life.

Art deco (though with some debt to mannerism) lady Mannequin bust in plaster for hat or jewelry display.  Just as there are flesh & blood models who specialize is one body part (hand models, foot models etc), there are also mannequins produced for the purpose of featuring just one or several body parts.

Fashion mannequins have been in use since the fifteenth century and were originally the head-forms with which milliners ensured a hat maintained the correct shape during construction.  Once a purely “back-of-house” or “workshop” device, as the price of glass was reduced by the adoption of techniques perfected by the late sixteenth century, glass-windows in shop-fronts became larger and more common so milliners essentially invented the “window display” in its modern form.  Although it had been the practice of many artisans and merchants to display their goods in this manner, it was the milliners who were first in fashion.  By the mid eighteenth century, full-scale, wickerwork mannequins were being used to display dresses, the more conveniently adjustable versions made with wire first manufactured in Paris in 1835.  However, the expansion of the trade created a demand for cheaper, lighter, non-adjustable forms which were purely a platform for display and the first (papier-mâché) female mannequins were sold in France in the mid-nineteenth century, the higher-end stores soon adopting mannequins made from wax which produced a more lifelike appearance but, expensive and apt to be fragile, the wax was in the 1920s supplanted by a more durable composite material, based on plaster.

Statuesque: Two mannequins in the window display of Chanel Shop, Prince's Building, Central Chater Road, Hong Kong.

Modern mannequins are almost always made from plastic or fiberglass although the, as marketing devices, the haute couture houses have used (sometimes stylized) one-off mannequins made from metal and even what was claimed to be carbon-fibre though experts quickly pronounced it fake (as opposed to faux).  Fiberglass mannequins are usually more expensive than plastic and tend to be more fragile but can be rendered in a more life-like form which can be done with plastics but not at a reasonable cost.  In fact, the trend in recent years has been for plastic mannequins to eschew any attempt to appear realistic, presumably to ensure the focus fixes on the clothes.  Artists have also used articulated mannequins (historically known as lay figures), as a tool to assist the rendition of draped figures, the advantage being that unlike a live model (on an hourly rate), a mannequin can be kept indefinitely immobile or adjusted as required.  Additionally, they don’t complain about the cold, demand lunch or take cigarette breaks.

Vintage Playtex Cross Your Heart wire-free bra in beige, displayed on fibreglass mannequin.  For specific purposes, mannequins are sometimes produced with certain aspects scaled beyond the usual size range.

While there are variations which tend to be product-deterministic (and the upper ranges of the alphabet in the bra business is an obvious niche), the size and shape of most mannequins exists in a predictably narrow range and one acknowledged to be smaller in most dimensions (except height) than either the majority of the adult female population or that aligned to the majority of the garments actually sold.  In this of course it follows the profile of the industry’s live models who are famously taller, lighter and thinner than all but a handful of their customers although, under pressure from activists, this pattern is now (slightly) less extreme than once it was, despite many wishing those days would return.  Before we called models models we called them mannequins and, flesh, plastic or fibreglass, little has changed as an extract from The Bystander’s (a British weekly magazine which in 1940 merged with Tatler to be published as The Tatler & Bystander until 1968) edition of 15 August 1906 suggests:

”A mannequin is a good-looking, admirably formed young lady, whose mission is to dress herself in her employer's latest "creations" and to impart to them the grace which only perfect forms can give.  Her grammar may be bad, and her temper worse, but she must have the chic the Parisienne possesses, no matter whether she hails from the aristocratic Faubourg St. Germain or from the Faubourg Montmartre.”

Nomenclature

Nomenclature (pronounced noh-muhn-kley-cher, noh-men-kluh-cher, noh-muhn-kley-choor or noh-men-kluh-choor

(1) A set or system of names or terms, the terminology used in a particular science, art, activity etc, by an individual, community or institution.

(2) The names or terms comprising a set or system.

1600-1610: From the sixteenth century French nomenclature, from the Latin nōmenclātūra (a calling by name, list of names), from nomenclator (namer), the construct being nōmen (name), from the primitive Indo-European root no-men- (name) + calator (caller, crier), from calāre (call out), from the primitive Indo-European root kele- (to shout); a doublet of nomenklatura.  In many cases, the words classification, codification, glossary, locution, phraseology, taxonomy & terminology will be synonymous and interchangeable.  The related forms include nomenclatural, nomenclatorial & nomenclative, nomenclaturally, nomenclator, nomenclatory (and the equivalent systems using exclusively numbers: numericlature.  The noun plural is nomenclatures.

In Ancient Rome a nomenclator was (1) the title of a steward whose job was to announce visitors and (2) a prompter who helped a politician seeking election recall names and pet causes of his constituents.  The meaning "systematic list or catalogue of names" is attested from the 1630s; that of "system of naming" dating from the 1660s while the modern sense of "the whole vocabulary or terminology of an art or a science" is from 1789.  In English, circa 1600, it also had the meaning “a name” but, being a complicated way of saying something simple, this quickly went extinct.

In the Soviet Union, nomenklatura was the "list of influential posts in government and industry to be filled by Communist Party appointees".  The origin of this predated the formal creation of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; (Союз Советских Социалистических Республик, СССР the Russian abbreviation in Cyrillic, transliterated as SSSR in Latin script)) and was emblematic of the centralization of authority and decision making the party organization imposed almost immediately on the state.  It was too indicative of the way the dictatorial structure of the party, mapped onto the mechanism of the state would, disguised sometimes as a collective model, to almost the end distinguish the USSR from many of the non-communist models of authoritarian rule which flourished during the twentieth century, their corporatist nature often misunderstood because of the way the label “dictatorship” was applied.

Formalized during 1919-1920, the party’s system of control was created in the months after the revolution, the Politburo (a creation of the party’s Central Committee which, technically, exercised only the authority delegated by the committee) dealt with all matters of significance and thus reserved the key decisions exclusively for their remit, the routine and procedural matters handled either by the Orgburo (essentially the body which enacted the Politburo’s edicts and coordinated the regional organizations and thus best understood as a kind of party chancellery) or the famously bureaucratic Secretariat.  It was in the Secretariat (where the paperwork from the higher bodies tended to end up) that the need for a reliably indexed filing system to conquer the developing administrative chaos quickly became apparent and nomenklatura was part of the system.  Accordingly created was the Учраспред (Uchraspred), (the Department of Files & Assignments) which, operating rather as gangsters would run as HR department, handled the registration of party members and their subsequent allocation to positions below the higher-level appointments, which remained in the gift of the Politburo or Orgburo.

Comrade Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986; early Bolshevik, Soviet foreign minister 1939-1949 & 1953-1956), Edward R Stettinius Jr (1900–1949; US secretary of state 1944-1945 and ambassador to the UN 1945-1946 (“Stettinius the younger”, his father having been assistant secretary of war 1918-1921)) & Anthony Eden (1897–1977; thrice UK foreign secretary and prime-minister-1955-1957) at the foundation conference of the United Nations, San Francisco, 1945.

Predictably, the structure provided much scope for patronage, nepotism and factionalism but, handling annually thousands of movements, it nevertheless demanded efficient administration, something lacking until in 1921, Vyacheslav Molotov, just elevated to the Central Committee and Orgburo, was put in charge of the Secretariat.  Studious, serious (of the many photographs which exist, in few is he smiling) and with a mind which if not as quick as his colleagues was certainly thorough, he excelled in the role and though the more intellectually illustrious were inclined to decry his “needless and shameful bureaucratism", they couldn’t not be in awe of his capacity to spend long hours sitting at his desk, creating order our of what was a post-revolutionary mess, comrade Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov 1870–1924 and known by his alias Lenin; revolutionary, political theorist and founding head of government (Soviet Russia 1917-1924 and the Soviet Union 1922-1924) dubbing him “stone ass” (often misquoted as “iron ass”), a moniker later used (behind his back) by the negotiators from the West with whom he sat through many meetings and conferences during his long tenure as Soviet foreign minister, his intransigence legendary even by diplomatic standards.  Other ambassadors dubbed him "comrade nyet"; nyet a Russian word meaning a particularly blunt "No!".  "Stone ass" was most productive during those long sessions at his desk, producing endless streams of paper which fed a burgeoning bureaucracy; Lenin also dubbed him "comrade filing cabinet".        

Stone ass: comrade Molotov sitting at his desk.

The English nomenclature was a borrowing in the 1600s of the sixteenth century French which was from the Latin nōmenclātūra (assignment of names to things, mentioning things by name, a list of names).  Almost immediately, the word was picked up by many branches of science (most notably in botany or zoology) where it gained the definitive senses of “a systematic assignment of names” and later in the same century, “the technical terms within a science”.  The noun nomenklatura existed in Russian since the early nineteenth century but it was particular and well-publicized use by the Soviet communists which made it known in the West.  Understanding its implications, the Kremlinologists in the 1950s adopted nomenklatura when discussing bureaucracies and administrative structures in both the USSR and other communist states.

Memo: Team Douglas Productions, 29 July 2004.

Also of interest to students of nomenclature is the process by which the names of people can become objects applied variously.  As Napoleon, Churchill and Hitler live on as Napoleonic, Churchillian and Hitlerite, on the internet is a body of the Lohanic.  Universally, that’s pronounced lo-han-ick but Lindsay Lohan has mentioned in interviews that being a surname of Irish origin, it’s “correctly” low-en, a form she adopted early in 2022 with her first posting on TikTok where it rhymed with “Coen” (used usually for the surname “Cohen” which is of Hebrew origin and unrelated to Celtic influence).  For a generation brought up on lo-han it must have been a syllable too far because it didn’t catch on and by early 2023, she was back to lo-han with the hard “h”.  Curiously, while etymologists seem to agree that historically lo-en was likely the form most heard in Ireland, the popular genealogy sites all indicate the modern practice is to use lo-han so hopefully that’s the last word.  However, the brief flirtation with phonetic h-lessness did have a precedent:  When Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005) was being filmed in 2004, the production company circulated a memo to the crew informing all that Lohan was pronounced “Lo-en like Coen” with a silent “h”.

Telegram

Telegram (pronounced tel-i-gram)

(1) A message or communication sent by telegraph; a telegraphic dispatch.

(2) To send a telegram across a telegraphic service.

(3) As Telegram, a freeware, cross-platform, instant messaging (IM) service, launched in 2013 and noted for its secure end-to-end encryption (including an innovative approach to message self-destruction).

1852: A creation of American English, the construct being tele- + -gram.  Tele- was from the Ancient Greek τῆλε (têle) (at a distance, far off, far away, far from).  Gram was from the Ancient Greek suffix -γραμμα (-gramma), from γράμμα (grámma) (that which is drawn; a picture, a drawing; that which is written, a character, an alphabet letter, written letter, piece of writing), from γράφω (gráphō) (to scratch, to scrape, to graze), from stem of graphein (to draw or write).  Although some words with the element are Greek compounds, others are modern formations.  The alternative -gramme was a French form which is now extinct in English except as an affectation or in commerce.  As a noun word-forming element it was used in the sense of “that which is written or marked, drawn or otherwise recorded”.  Telegram is a noun or verb (used with or without object), telegrammed & telegramming are verbs and telegrammatic & telegrammic are adjectives; the noun plural is telegrams.  The alternative spelling in English was the rare and now extinct telegramme.  As a descriptor of a new technology, telegram (sometimes even without localized variations in spelling) was around the world assimilated into many languages as the cables were extended and wires connected.

Recorded first among US Marines in the South Pacific in 1944, latrinogram was a jocular reference to barracks gossip, reliable or otherwise, which tended to be exchanged while using the latrines.  The element was later abstracted for commercial purposes such as the proprietary constructs Candygram (1959), Gorillagram (1979) & Stripagram (1981).  The most famous of all, Instagram, (operating first in 2010 and acquired by Facebook (Meta) in 2012) was actually a construction which violates Greek grammar which didn’t permit an adverb properly to form part of a compound noun; it should however be regarded as correct in English. There had before Instagram been controversy.  After the telegram service was first advertised in 1852, the classically schooled and appalled lost little time correcting the less learned, informing all the proper formation would be telegrapheme.  However, for neither the first time nor the last, English choose the handy vernacular over a mouthful of correctness and when the instant messaging (IM) service Telegram was launched in 2013, nobody objected to the name.  In both commerce and slang, other words related to wired telegraphy were created or emerged including telegraph, buzzer, cable, cablegram, call, flash, wire, teletype & eventually, “telegram” came usually to mean something quite specific: a short message (charging was by the word or letter) sent across a wire and printed by the receiving office, then delivered to the door of the receiver.

Telegrams have figured in many instances of historical significance, not because of anything inherent in the process of the telegram but because the wire services were at the time the quickest means by which information might be sent over distance from one place to another.  As technology improved, the transmission of urgent messages migrated to whatever was fastest:  When in 1865 Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865; POTUS 1861-1865) was assassinated, the news didn’t reach Europe until the fastest clipper had crossed the Atlantic a fortnight later.  By the time of William McKinley's (1843–1901; POTUS 1897-1901) assassination, the news was within minutes transmitted around the world through undersea cables (thus the still sometimes heard use in this context of “cable” and “cabled”).  In 1963, while news of John Kennedy's (JFK, 1917–1963; POTUS 1961-1963) death was close to a global real-time event, those many miles from Dallas had to wait sometimes 24 hours or more to view footage, the physical film stock delivered in canisters by land, sea or air.  By 1981, when an attempt was made on Ronald Reagan’s (1911-2004; POTUS 1981-1989) life, television stations around the planet were, sometimes within seconds, picking up live-feeds from satellites.  Hawley Crippen (1862–1910; a US born homeopath who styled himself “Dr” Crippen) is thought to have been the first murderer captured with the aid of wireless telegraphy.  After killing his wife in London, he absconded with his lover to Canada.  Although both were in disguise, he was recognized by the ship’s captain who sent a telegram to Scotland Yard just before the ship moved beyond wireless range.  The police sent an officer to Canada aboard a faster ship and he was in port to arrest Crippen.  Convicted, Crippen was hanged at Pentonville Prison.

The Zimmermann Telegram (referred to in some historical sources as a note or cable) was a diplomatic message sent in January 1917, in code, by Arthur Zimmermann (1864–1940: German foreign minister 1916-1917) to the German ambassador to Mexico.  It proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico under which Mexico would recover the territories of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, lost in the Mexican–American War (1846-1848).  The publicity generated contributed to the anyway swelling support for US participation in the Great War, the American declaration of war on Germany coming in April 1917.  The Zimmermann Telegram is of interest also in the history of espionage and cryptography because it was the British intelligence services which decoded the text and passed the content to the Washington.  That was fine but also required some subterfuge because, with many trans-Atlantic cables cut due to war-time restrictions, most traffic now went by the one circuitous route, the British had to concoct a story so it appeared they could intercept German messages but not those of the US.

Telegram (still listed in corporate registries in varies places with references to its original name (Telegram Messenger), is a cross-platform, instant messaging (IM) service.  First offered on iOS in 2013, in the way such (surviving) platforms of its type have evolved, it has grown to encompass many of the file-sharing and other features which have come to define “social media”.  Perhaps because of Telegram’s origin as essentially a exile from the Russian state, it has an unusually distributed corporate structure and it seems data blocks routinely are moved between server farms and data centres in different jurisdictions, apparently to muddy the waters, making harder intrusion from government oversight.  The nature of its security model has made it an attractive platform for both dissident groups and the agencies of the state seeking to counter their activities.

Telegram’s messages can be set to self-destruct.

WhatsApp added the feature too but Telegram’s option is more configurable.  The self-destruct mode can be attached only to a secret chat and the menu is accessed through the usual three-lined menu through which a secret chat is enabled.  From here, through the dots at the top-right, the self-destruct timer will appear and this, for obvious reasons, is not on by default and must manually be selected.  Users have the choice to set their messages last as little as one second or as long as a week, the timer countdown starting at the point when the receiver sees the message.  Telegram will mark the message with two green checkmarks to confirm the countdown has begun.  As a word of caution, the self-destruct mechanism is invoked also on replies to the message, the length of time still to elapse before a message vanishes is displayed at the bottom of the chat.  The rules for images and videos vary a little but the principle is the same.

The Long Telegram

Telegrams also made famous a number of very short messages, noted for their succinctness, the brevity of the medium encouraged by the sender being charged per letter or word.  A celebrated exception to the tendency for telegrams to be short was that in February 1946 sent to the US State Department by diplomat George Kennan (1904–2005) then attached to the US embassy in Moscow.  It’s remembered in history as the “Long Telegram” and Kennan choose the telegram as the medium, ostensibly because of the urgency of the matters he wished to discuss but also because, being uniquely long (5,363 words), it would gain attention; he would later note that his views until that point had been ignored.  After James Byrnes (1882–1972; US Secretary of State 1945–1947) received this telegram, his views were more widely discussed and although this wasn't the start of the Cold War (which to a degree had already begun), it contained most of the elements of what would for a generation constitute US policy towards the Soviet Union.

Page one of the Long Telegram, 22 February 1946 (de-classified 10 August 1972).

What Kennan advocated was a policy of containment.  He noted the Russian people were "...by and large, friendly to outside world, eager for experience of it..." and that the threat presented by the USSR was that of the "...apparatus of power (party, secret police and government)..." but that it was "exclusively with these" that the governments of the West were forced to deal.  The implications of this he illustrated by pointing out that while the history of the early twentieth century had shown "...peaceful and mutually profitable coexistence of capitalist and socialist states is entirely possible...", at the "...bottom of Kremlin's neurotic view of world affairs is traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity…” and  “…they have always feared foreign penetration, feared direct contact between Western world and their own, feared what would happen if Russians learned truth about world without or if foreigners learned truth about world within. And they have learned to seek security only in patient but deadly struggle for total destruction of rival power, never in compacts and compromises with it."  Among the tactics he identified as distinctly Russian was that of setting "Western Powers against each other. Anti-British talk will be plugged among Americans, anti-American talk among British. Continentals, including Germans, will be taught to abhor both Anglo-Saxon powers. Where suspicions exist, they will be fanned; where not, ignited."

Because memories of the war were so recent, Kennan felt compelled to point out that “Soviet power, unlike that of Hitlerite Germany, is neither schematic nor adventuristic.  It does not work by fixed plans. It does not take unnecessary risks. Impervious to logic of reason, and it is highly sensitive to logic of force. For this reason it can easily withdraw-and usually does when strong resistance is encountered at any point.  Thus, if the adversary has sufficient force and makes clear his readiness to use it, he rarely has to do so. If situations are properly handled there need be no prestige-engaging showdowns.”  Tellingly (this was before the USSR gained nuclear weapons), he added that “gauged against Western World as a whole, Soviets are still by far the weaker force. Thus, their success will really depend on degree of cohesion, firmness and vigor which Western World can muster. And this is factor which it is within our power to influence.”

Containment became US policy but the reaction to Kennan’s views, later published in extended form (anonymously as “X Article”, a method which would later be reprised as the QAnon myth), were mixed, some claiming he was advocating little more than a maintenance of a nineteenth century “balance of power” while others could envisage his system working only by the US subsidizing and maintaining its own system of client states, something which later was said to be something of a description of NATO.  In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in capitals of both sides of the Atlantic, there’s probably been some re-reading of the Long Telegram (probably in summary form; even at the time some admitted it was a bit too long) but then in Moscow some might also have looked up the words used by Georgy Zhukov (1896–1974; Soviet WWII general & Marshal of the Soviet Union) in which he explained the failure of the German offensive in 1942 as being “…due to an under-estimation of the forces and potentialities of the Soviet State, the indomitable spirit of the people.  It also stems from an over-estimation by the Nazis of their own forces and capabilities.”