Proscenium

Proscenium (pronounced proh-see-nee-uhm or pruh-see-nee-uhm)

(1) In a modern theatre, the stage area between the curtain and the orchestra or the arch that separates a stage from the auditorium together with the area immediately in front of the arch (also called the proscenium arch).

(2) In the theatre of antiquity, the stage area immediately in front of the scene building (probably a medieval misunderstanding).

(3) In the theatre of antiquity, the row of columns at the front the scene building, at first directly behind the circular orchestra but later upon a stage.

1608: From the Latin proscēnium and proscaenium (in front of the scenery) from the Ancient Greek προσκήνιον (proskḗnion), (entrance to a tent, porch, stage) which, in late Classical Greek had come to mean “stent; boothtage curtain”.  The construct in Greek was πρό (pró-) (before) + σκηνή (skēnḗ) (scene; building) + --ion (the neuter noun suffix).  The noun plural is proscenia, the relative rarity of the base word meaning prosceniums is seen less frequently still but both are acceptable.  The standard abbreviation in the industry and among architects is pros.  For purists, the alternative spelling is proscænium and other European forms include the French proscénium and the Italian proscenio, other languages borrowing these spellings.

The occasionally cited literal translation of the Greek "the space in front of the scenery" appears to be another of the medieval-era errors created by either a mistranslation or a misunderstanding.  The modern sense of "space between the curtain and the orchestra" is attested from 1807 although it had been used figurative to suggest “foreground or front” since the 1640s.

Architectural variations

Emerson Colonial Theatre, Boston, Massachusetts.

Although the term is not always applied correctly, technically, a proscenium stage must have an architectural frame (known to architects as the “proscenium arch” although these are not always in the shape of an arch).  Their stages tend to be deep (the scale of the arch usually dictating the extent) and to aid visibility, are sometimes raked, the surface rising in a gentle slope away from the audience.  Especially in more recent constructions, the front of the stage can extend beyond the proscenium into the auditorium; this called an apron or forestage.  Theatres with proscenium stages are known as “proscenium arch theatres” and often include an orchestra pit and a fly tower with one or more catwalks to facilitate the movement of scenery and the lighting apparatus.

Thrust stage, Shakespeare Festival Theatre, Stratford, Ontario.

There are other architectural designs for theatres.  The thrust stage projects (ie “thrusts”) the performance into the auditorium with the audience sitting on three sides in what’s called the “U” shape.  In diagrams and conceptual sketches, the thrust stage area is often represented as a square but they’ve been built in rectangles, as semi-circles, half-polygons, multi-pointed stars and a variety of other geometric shapes.  Architects can tailor a thrust stage to suit the dimensions of the available space but the usual rationale is to create an intimacy between actors and audience.

In the round: Circle in the Square Theatre, New York City.

The term theatre-in-the-round can be misleading because the arrangement of the performance areas, while central, is rarely executed as an actual circle, the reference instead being to the audience being seated “all around”.  Built typically in a square or polygonal formation, except in some one-act performances, the actors enter through aisles or vomitories between the seating and directors have them move as necessitated by the need to relate to an audience viewing from anywhere in the 360^o sweep, the scenery minimal and positioned avoid obstructions.  Because theatre-in-the-round inherently deconstructs the inherently two-dimensional nature of the classical stage, it was long a favorite of the avant-garde (there was a time when such a thing could be said to exist).  The arena theatre is theatre-in-the-round writ large, big auditoria with a central stage and like the sports stadia they resemble, typically rectangular and often a multi-purpose venue.  There’s a fine distinction between arena theatres and hippodromes which more recall circuses with a central circular (or oval) performance space surrounded by concentric tiered seating with deep pits or low screens often separating audience and performers.

Winter Talent Show stage, Mean Girls (2004).

The black-box (or studio or ad hoc) theatre is a flexible performance space.  At its most basic it can be a single empty room, painted black, the floor of the stage the same level as the first audience row from which there’s no separation.  To maximize the flexibility, some black-box theatres have no permanent fixtures and allow for the temporary setup of seating to suit the dynamics of the piece and the spaces have even been configured with no seating for an audience, the positional choices made by patrons influencing the performance.  The platform stage is the simplest setup, often not permanent and suited to multi-purpose venues.  Flexible thus but the lack of structure does tend to preclude more elaborate productions with the stage a raised and usually rectangular platform at one end of a room; the platform may be level or raked according to the size and shape of the space.  The will audience sit in rows and such is the simplicity that platform stages are often used without curtains, the industry term being “open stage or “end stage”, the latter perhaps unfortunate but then actors are used to “break a leg” and “died on stage”.

Open Air Theatre Festival, Paris.

The phrase open air theatre refers more to the performance than the physical setting.  It means simply something performed not under a roof (although sometimes parts of the stage or audience seating will be covered).  The attraction for a director is that stages so exposed can make use of natural light as it changes with the hour sunsets and stars especially offering dramatic possibilities; rain can be a problem.  Open air theatres are also an example of site-specific theatre (of which street theatre is probably best-known), a term with quite a bit of overlap with other descriptors although it’s applied usually to theatre is performed in a non-traditional environments such as a pubs, old prisons or warehouse, often reflecting the history of the place.  Promenade theatre (sometimes called peripatetic theatre) involves either the actors or the audience moving from place to place as the performance dictates.  Interactive theatre is rarely performed (at least by intent); it involves the actors interacting with the audience and is supposed to be substantially un-scripted but, like reality television, some of what’s presented as interactive theatre has been essentially fake.

Borrowed from antiquity, the proscenium arch theatre was for centuries a part of what defined the classical tradition of Western dramatic art but in the twentieth century playwrights and directors came to argue that modern audiences were longing for more intimate experiences although there’s scant evidence this view was the product of demand rather than supply.  That said, the novelty of immersive, site-specific performances gained much popularity and modern production techniques stimulated a revival of interest in older forms like theatre-in-the-round.

There were playwrights and directors however (some at whatever age self-styled enfants terribles), who preferred austerity, decrying the proscenium arch as a theatre based on a lavish illusion for which we either no longer had the taste or needed to have it beaten out of us.  It was thought to embody petit bourgeois social and cultural behaviors which normalized not only the style and content of theatre but also the rules of how theatre was to be watched: sitting quietly while well dressed, deferentially laughing or applauding at the right moments.  A interesting observation also was that the proscenium arch created a passive experience little different from television, a critique taken up more recently by those who thought long performances, typically with no more than one intermission (now dismissed as anyway existing only to serve wine and cheese) unsuitable for audiences with short attention spans and accustomed to interactivity.

Quite how true any of that was except in the minds of those who thought social realist theatre should be compulsory re-education for all is a mystery but the binge generation seems able easily to sustain their attention for epic-length sessions of the most lavishly illusionary stuff which can fit on a screen so there’s that.  The criticisms of the proscenium arch were more a condemnation of those who were thought its devoted adherents than any indication the form was unsuitable for anything but the most traditional delivery of drama.  Neither threatening other platforms nor rendered redundant by them, the style of theatre Plato metaphorically called “the cave” will continue, as it long has, peacefully to co-exist.

Short

Short (pronounced shawrt)

(1) Having little length; not long.

(2) Of a person, of comparatively small stature; having little height; not tall (applied by extension to just about everything (furniture, buildings, animals et al)).

(3) Extending or reaching only a little way; having a small distance from one end or edge to another, either horizontally or vertically.

(4) Brief in duration; not extensive in time.

(5) Brief or concise, of limited duration.

(6) Rudely brief; abrupt; brusque.

(7) Low in amount; scanty.

(8) Not reaching a point, mark, target, or the like; not long enough or far enough.

(9) Below the standard in extent, quantity, duration, etc.

(10) Being of an insufficient amount; below the desired level.

(11) Of pastry, crisp and flaky; breaking or crumbling readily from being made with a large proportion of butter or other shortening.

(12) Of dough, containing a relatively large amount of shortening.

(13) Of metals, deficient in tenacity; friable; brittle.

(14) In physiology, of the head or skull, of less than ordinary length from front to back.

(15) In markets, not possessing at the time of sale commodities or stocks that one sells and therefore compelled to make a purchase before the delivery date.

(16) In markets, noting or pertaining to a sale of commodities or stocks that the seller does not possess, depending for profit on a decline in prices.

(17) In markets, as short selling, a mechanism for gambling that the future price of a stock or other security will fall.

(18) In phonetics, a sound lasting a relatively short time; denoting a vowel of relatively brief temporal duration (in popular usage denoting the qualities of the five English vowels represented orthographically in the words pat, pet, pit, pot, put, and putt)

(19) In prosody, of a syllable in quantitative verse, lasting a relatively shorter time than a long syllable.

(20) Of an alcoholic drink, a small measure (sometimes known as a shot); also used in certain UK circles to describe whisky served undiluted (straight).

(21) In ceramics, of clay, not sufficiently plastic enough to be modeled.

(22) In rope-making, hard fibre.

(23) In baseball, holding the bat with hands higher on the handle of the bat than the usual grip; a fielder standing in a fielding position closer to the home plate than in an orthodox setting (often called the short-stop).

(24) In tailoring, a description for cuts for those who are shorter; a garment, as a suit or overcoat, in such a size.

(25) In clothing, trousers, knee-length or shorter; short pants worn by men as an undergarment, usually as an alternative to closely-fitted underpants; knee breeches, formerly worn by men but now rare except in certain equestrian pursuits.

(26) In finance, bonds with a short duration until maturity.

(27) In mining, crushed ore failing to pass through a given screen, thus being of a larger given size than a specific grade; remnants, discards, or refuse of various cutting and manufacturing processes.

(28) In army jargon, of artillery, a shot that strikes or bursts short of the target (also admiralty jargon for the same concept).

(29) In electricity, as short circuit, the usually unintentional connection of low resistance or impedance in a circuit such that excessive and often damaging current flows in it.

(30) In gambling, in the jargon of betting odds, almost even.

(31) In film-making, a production of deliberately brief duration.

(32) A truncated form of a word or phrase.

(33) In cricket, as a modifier, describing a fielding position closer to the pitch than the (nominally) standard placement (eg short third man as opposed to third man); a ball bowled so that it bounces relatively far from the batsman; a “run” disallowed by the umpire because a batter failed to touch the designated line on the pitch.

(34) In (physical) money handling, providing a total amount in cash using the fewest possible notes, ie using those of the largest denominations (mostly archaic).

(35) In computer programming, an integer variable having a smaller range than normal integers; usually two bytes in length.

Pre-900: From the Middle English adjective schort (short), from the Old English sċeort & sċort (short, not long, not tall; brief), from the Old High German scurz (short), from the Proto-West Germanic skurt, from the Proto-Germanic skurta & skurtaz (short), from the primitive Indo-European sker & ker (to cut (on the notion of “something cut off) in the same sense as the Sanskrit krdhuh (shortened, maimed, small)).  It was cognate with shirt, skirt & curt, the Scots short & schort (short), the French court, the German kurz, the Old High German scurz (short (source of the Middle High German schurz)), the Old Norse skorta (shortness, scarcity a lack (source of the Danish skorte)) & skera (to cut), the Albanian shkurt (short, brief), the Latin curtus (shortened, incomplete) & cordus (late-born (originally "stunted in growth)), the Proto-Slavic kortъkъ, the Old Church Slavonic kratuku, the Russian korotkij (short), the Lithuanian skursti (to be stunted) & skardus (steep), the Old Irish cert (small) and the Middle Irish corr (stunted, dwarfish).

The verb shorten (1510) (make shorter) had by the 1560s encompassed "grow shorter"; the earlier form of the verb was simply short, from Old English sceortian (to grow short, become short; run short, fail), the fork gescyrtan meaning "to make short".  The meaning "having an insufficient quantity" is from 1690s, the idea of someone "rude" is attested from the late fourteenth century.  The sense of someone "easily provoked; short of temper" is from the 1590s but etymologists prefer the origin being "not long (ie short) in tolerating" rather than a link to a “short fuse” which would cause gunpowder quickly to explode, although that is the modern form.  There are conventions of use: short is often used in the positive vertical dimension and used as is shallow in the negative vertical dimension; in the horizontal dimension narrow is more commonly used.  Short & brief (as opposed to long) indicate slight extent or duration and short may imply duration but is also applied to physical distance and certain purely spatial relations (a short journey) while brief refers especially to duration of time (a brief interval).  Synonyms (according to context) includes abbreviated, brief, crisp, precise, shortened, terse, low, small, thick, tiny, limited, poor, shy, slender, slim, tight, sharp, fragile, bare & compressed.  Short is a noun, verb, adverb & adjective, shortness is a noun, shorter shorted & shortest are adjectives, shorted & shorting are verbs and shortly is an adverb.

Derived forms include shortage (limited supply) (1862 from US English), shorty (short person) (1888), shortfall (something falling short of expectations) (1895), shorthand (a method of rapid writing used to record dictation or other speech) (1636), shorts (short pants) (1826 and uniquely applied to trousers, short-sleeved shirts etc never using the form) and the intriguing short shorts (1946 describing men's briefs, now often called boxer shorts (1949)), shortcoming (1670s) (an expression of inadequacy and usually used in the plural), shortly, from the Old English scortlice (briefly also in late Old English) (in short time; soon; not long), shortness (1570s), from the Old English scortnes and now used mostly in the sense of “shortness of breath”, shortstop (1837) (a fielding position in various sports (although has faded in cricket)), shortcut (1610s) (often as short-cut, (path not as long as the ordinary way)) although the term may have been longer in oral use because the figurative sense is documented from the 1580s; it’s familiar now as “a desktop pointer to files more deeply nested” since file-loading graphical user interfaces (GUIs) were bolted atop computer operating systems in the 1980s.  Shortening (1540s) (action of making short) was a verbal noun from shorten and the meaning "butter or other fat used in baking" (1796) was from shorten in the sense "make crumbly" (1733), from the adjective short in the early fifteenth century secondary sense of "easily crumbled" which may have been linked to the idea of "having short fibers" and from this, came shortbread (1755) and shortcake (1590).

The noun & verb shortlist (to cull someone from a long list and place them on a shorter list of those to be considered for advancement or preferment) dates from 1955, although the noun form short list (and short-list) had existed in this sense since 1927; the shortlist is now most celebrated in literary awards, the appearance on one something of an award in itself.  The short-timer (1906) was "one whose term or enlistment is about to expire" and was used variously in employment, sports teams and the military (the similar short-term was noted in 1901).  Short-wave (1907) was a reference to the broadcast radio wavelength less than circa 100 meters, used for long distance transmission.  Short handed in the sense of "having too few hands (employees)" dates from 1794, the use in ice hockey noted first in 1939.  Short-lived was from the 1580s and later assumed a specific technical definition in nuclear & high-energy particle physics.  The short-sleeve (of a shirt or blouse etc), although presumably a garment design of longstanding was first documented in the 1630s in a regulation issued in the Massachusetts Bay colony, forbidding "short sleeves, whereby the nakedness of the arme may be discovered”, a notion still part of the dress-code in some societies.  The first use of short-sighted was in the 1620s, surprisingly a reference to someone “lacking foresight”, the literal use in optometry to describe myopia not adopted until the 1640s.  The short-order was restaurant jargon from 1897, from the adverbial expression “in short order” (rapidly, with no fuss) and survives functionally as the “short order cook” in the fast food industry. The electrical short-circuit (the usually unintentional connection of low resistance or impedance in a circuit such that excessive and often damaging current flows in it) was first described in 1854.  The use as a verb (introduce a shunt of low resistance) began in 1867; the intransitive sense from 1902 and the figurative sense (to interfere with some process and stop it) is recorded by 1899.  The short haul was US use from the 1950s to describe a commercial airline flight of short duration.  The blended noun shortgevity apparently exists as a (rarely used) back-formation from longevity.

Something described as “short and sweet”, dates from the 1530s and is something unexpectedly brief and can be applied positively, neutrally or negatively.  To be “caught short” is feeling a sudden need to urinate or defecate in circumstances where a loo is not conveniently accessible.  To “fall short” is to prove inadequate for some task or to fail to reach or measure up to a standard or expectations.  In cinema the “short film” carries a connotation of something artistic where as “shorts” are often just fillers in a commercial space.  A “short-seller” is one “shorting stocks”, a method of trading in which positions are placed to attempt to profit from a expected decline in the future price of the stock.  To be “cut short” is to be interrupted in some way by someone or something.  To have someone “by the short and curlies” is to have someone completely in one's power, an allusion to pubic hair, hence the related (and more evocative) phrase “they have us by the scrotum”.  Having the “short end of the stick” is to receive the most disadvantageous part of something (analogous with “drawing the short straw”, a literal practice used to allocate an undesirable task, usually in the absence of volunteers.  To give “short shrift” (often incorrectly expressed as “short shift”) to someone is to be dismissive.  The “long and short of it” is a brief, succinct explanation of something; gist of the matter.  Something “short for” (contraction of a name or phrase) is a more convenient form of a longer word or phrase (such as bus for omnibus and ETA for expected time or arrival).  That use dates from 1873 but the forms have altered over time: Psycho by 1921 was campus slang for psychology, use extended to cover psychologists by 1925 but this has since shifted to be a reference to psychopaths, the change thought provoked by the frequency with which the word came to be used in popular culture.  To “short change” someone originally (1903) meant not to give someone all the change they were due in a financial transaction; now mostly used figuratively.  The “short story” was obviously an ancient form of writing but as a defined genre in literature, was first labelled in 1877.  To “make short work” of something is quickly to complete the task, the phrase first noted in the 1570s. To be “short by the knees” was to be kneeling, attested since 1733; to be "short by the head" dates from the 1540s and was to be beheaded.  In 1897 a short was also a term for a street car (trolley bus), so called both because the street cars and the rides taken in them were shorter (respectively in length and duration) than railroad cars.

Of machinery short & long

The stretching of military and commercial airframes has for decades been common practice, the objective usually to increase carrying capacity (passengers, freight, weapons etc).  Unusually, with the Boeing 747 (the original jumbo jet), there were variations both short and long.  The origin of the term jumbo-jet seem to lie in the slang adopted by Boeing’s engineers circa 1960 (the first reference in print apparently in 1964), during the early planning for the project which would first fly in 1969.  Then called the jumbo-707, it was soon shortened to jumbo-jet, probably because a three syllable phrase is always likely to prevail over one with seven.  The term jumbo-jet came to refer to all wide-bodied (ie multi-aisled) passenger airplanes but has always tended most to be associated with Boeing’s 747.  Highly successful and as influential on the economics of the industry in the 1970s as the 707 had been in the 1950s, the basic platform was offered in an stretched version (747-8) in 2005, the fuselage lengthened from 232 feet (71 m) to 251 feet (77 m).

The original 747-100 series (1969, left), the elongated 747-8 (2005, centre) and the shortened 747SP (1975).

Unusually however, in 1975 Boeing announced a short version, named 747SP (Special Performance), the lower weight improving fuel consumption, permitting operators to fly long-haul routes non-stop.  Some 47 feet (14 m) shorter than the original 747-100 series, the SP entered service in 1976 but was never as commercially successful as Boeing hoped, only 45 of the projected 200-odd ever built.  Had fuel remained cheap demand may have been higher but every analysis confirmed the role envisaged for the SP would be more economically served with a new generation of two-engined jumbos and this was the path pursued both by Boeing and Airbus.

1965 Mercedes-Benz 600s: Four-door Pullman (background) & the standard saloon (foreground).

Short is a relative term.  The standard Mercedes-Benz 600 (W100, 1963-1981) at some 5.54m (218.1 inches) in length was long by most standards but informally,  it’s always been referred to as the SWB (short wheelbase) because the companion Pullman model was even more imposing at 6.24 m (245.7 inches), the elongation effected by extending the wheelbase from 3.2 m (126 inches) to 3.9 m (153.5 inches).  Some sources refer to the bigger car as a LWB but the factory designation was always Pullman.  US manufacturers habitually used a variety of wheelbases on the platforms which began to proliferate during the 1960s but didn’t much reference the dimension in advertising and never in model designations.  The British and Europeans, with smaller ranges, often did both, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz & BMW all designating their long wheelbase saloons with an appended “L” (short for Long or Lang), the Germans for decades maintaining the distinction although Jaguar found demand for their (shorter) standard wheelbase XJ declined to the extent that production was halted and the long wheelbase (LWB) became standard.  Introduced initially as an extra-cost option in 1972 on the XJ12 and Daimler Double Six, the LWB began as a niche model for those wanting more rear-seat leg room (1105 sold compared with 3008 of the SWB) but by 1974, such had the demand profile changed that the SWB platform was restricted to the lovely but doomed two-door XJC (coupé, 1975-1978).  When the XJC was cancelled, all XJs were built on the LWB platform, now marketed without the obviously superfluous “L” badge.

1928 Mercedes-Benz SSK (left) & 1939 Mercedes-Benz 770K.

Mercedes-Benz didn’t always make it easy to work out what was long and what was short.  The “K” in SSK (W06, 1928-1932) is short for kurz (short) which was fine given it was a SWB version of the SS but the 770K (W07, 1930-1938 & W150, 1939-1943) was anything but short, the “K” short for kompressor (supercharger).  Further to complicate things the SSK was supercharged but presumably SSKK might have been thought a bit much although there was a lightweight version of the SSK called SSKL (W06, 1929), the “L” short for licht (light) which was, again, fine except “L” would later appear simultaneously as short forms of both licht & lang.  This duplication of meaning has seemed always to lack the expected Teutonic exactitude.

Wearing it well: Lindsay Lohan in shorts.

1959 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder (LWB) (left) & 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder SWB (right).

Lengthening already large saloons to provide more rear-seat space made sense for many, especially those driven by a chauffeur.  However, with sports cars or other machines intended for competition, the tendency is to shorten, this reducing weight and improving agility although the combination of high power and a short wheelbase can induce some handling characteristics best explored by expert hands.

Ferrari's 250 (1952-1964) series of sports cars, cabriolets and coupés was significant not only for the many successes achieved on the track but also because it was the first model to be built in commercially viable numbers for sale to the public.  In this, the 250 set the template for the generations of road-cars which the factory would offer in succeeding decades, models which would provide not only the basis for the lightweight, high-performance variants used in racing but much of the funding as well.  All but a handful of the 250s were built either on the original 2.6 m (102.4 inch) wheelbase or the later (SWB) of 2.4 m (94.5 inch).  After the release of the SWB (which became the factory designation), the term LWB was retrospectively (and unofficially) applied to the longer frames.

The 250s had attracted much attention in the US market but the overwhelming response was that there was demand for a luxury cabriolet.  Accordingly, Ferrari's coachbuilder Scaglietti's created a roadster called the 250 GT California Spyder on the standard (LWB) platform and between 1957-1959 produced a run of fifty.  In the days before the quantitative easing (creating money and giving it to the rich) programmes run during the GFC (Global Financial Crisis 2008-2012) and the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2021) when a million dollars was still a lot of money, a California Spider set a then world-record for a car sold at open auction, the hammer dropping at US$12 million.  The 250 GT Berlinetta (coupé) had been released in SWB form in 1959 and it was on this platform the revised 250 GT California Spyder SWB was shown at the 1960 Geneva Motor Show.  Using the same proportions which would become famous on the 250 GTO, as well as the revised lines, the SWB Spyder benefited from being fitted with disc brakes and an updated version of the 3.0 litre (180 cubic inch) Colombo V12.

Wearing it not so well: Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; head of state (1934-1945) and government (1933-1945) in Nazi Germany) in shorts.

So much in Nazism (and fascism generally) was fake spectacle that much emphasis was always given to the few things of note which were real (Hitler’s Iron Crosses (though he rarely wore the "First Class" one), Göring's war record, Goebbels' PhD etc), the importance to the regime of spectacle at the time suspected but not fully understood until the post-war years.  All politicians carefully cultivate their image but Hitler was singularly careful and diligent in preparation, these photographs in shorts (Bavarian Lederhosen (leather trousers)) taken for him to assess their suitability for use as publicity shots.  Unsurprisingly, he rejected them as “beneath my dignity” and ordered the negatives destroyed but they ended up in the photographer's archive.

Flare & Flair

Flair (pronounced flair)

(1) A natural or innate talent, aptitude, or ability, a bent or knack for something; instinctive discernment or perceptiveness.

(2) Smartness of style, manner, etc; stylishness or elegance.

(3) In hunting, scent; olfaction, the sense of smell (now rare).

(4) In Scots, a word for floor.

1350–1400: From the Middle English flayre, from the Old English flōr, from the Old French flaire (scent; odour (literally “sense of smell”) which endures in Modern French as flarier), a noun derivative of flairier (to reek; to give off a smell), ultimately from unattested Vulgar Latin flāgrāre, a dissimilated variant of the Classical Latin frāgrāre (to smell sweet), source also of fragrant in Modern English).  The related Latin form was flāgrō, a dissimilated variation of the verb frāgrō (emit a sweet smell).  The present participle is flairing, the past participle flaired).  In modern use, the original sense (scent, sense of smell etc) is rare and restricted to niches such as hunting and historical fiction.  The sense of "special aptitude" is an invention of American English, dating from 1925, probably from hunting and the notion of a hound's innate and extraordinary ability to track scent.  The popular uses now refer to (1) matters of style or (2) a particular talent or aptitude:

“He has a flair for the business”.

That was Winston Churchill's (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) grudging assessment in 1944 of Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke (later Lord Alanbrooke; 1883-1963, Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) 1941-1946) as a general.  It was about as close to praise as the CIGS received from his chief; the prime-minister liking his soldiers dashing and daring rather than cautious and conscientious.  The most common synonyms now (depending on context) include chic, dash, élan, grace, verve, oomph, ability, aptitude, elegance, genius, gift, glamour, knack, mastery, taste, bent, faculty, feeling, head, panache & pizzazz.

Flare (pronounced flair)

(1) To burn with an unsteady, swaying flame, as a torch or candle in the wind; the flame of this type.

(2) To blaze with a sudden burst of flame (often followed by up); the flame of this type.

(3) To start up or burst out in sudden, fierce intensity or activity (often followed by up).

(4) To become suddenly enraged; express sudden, fierce anger or passion (usually followed by up or out).

(5) To shine or glow.

(6) To spread gradually outward, as the end of a trumpet, the bottom of a wide skirt, or the sides of a ship.

(7) To display conspicuously or ostentatiously to display.

(8) To signal by flares of fire or light.

(9) To cause (something) to spread gradually outward in form.

(10) In metallurgy, to heat a high-zinc brass to such a high temperature that the zinc vapors begin to burn; to increase the temperature of (a molten metal or alloy) until a gaseous constituent of the melt burns with a characteristic flame or (of a molten metal or alloy) to show such a flame.

(11) In hydrocarbon extraction, to discharge and burn (excess gas) at a well or refinery.

(12) A bright blaze of fire or light used as a signal, a means of illumination or guidance etc; the device or substance used to produce such a blaze of fire or light.

(13) In fashion, a gradual spread outward in form; as in a skirt or trousers (known also as bell-bottoms).

(14) In engineering, an outward extension, usually as a curvature.

(15) In automotive design, an extension at the wheel arch of the fender (mudguard) to ensure tyres don’t extend beyond the bodywork.

(16) Something that spreads out.

(17) In optics, light, often unwanted or extraneous, reaching the image plane of an optical instrument, as a camera, resulting from reflections, scattering by lenses, and the like.

(18) In photography, a fogged appearance given to an image by reflection within a camera lens or within the camera itself.

(19) In astronomy (commonly as solar flare), a sudden and brief brightening of the solar atmosphere in the vicinity of a sunspot that results from an explosive release of particles and radiation.

(20) In US football (NFL), a short pass thrown to a back who is running toward a sideline and is not beyond the line of scrimmage.

(21) In television, a dark area on a CRT picture tube caused by variations in light intensity (mostly archaic).

(22) In aviation, the final transition phase of an aircraft landing, from the steady descent path to touchdown; to operate an aircraft to transition from downward flight to level flight just before landing.

(23) In pathology, an area of redness on the skin surrounding the primary site of infection or irritation.

(24) In engineering, as flare tube fitting, a flare nut being used to secure the flared tubing’s tapered end to the also tapered fitting, producing a pressure-resistant, leak-tight seal.

(25) In baseball (also as blooper or Texas leaguer), a low-fly ball that is hit in the region between the infielders and the outfielders.

(26) An inflammation such as of tendons (tendonitis) or joints (osteoarthritis).

(27) In pyrotechnics (also as Bengal light or fusee) a colored flare used as a warning on a railroad.  In US use, a parachute flare or Very light.

1540-1550: Of uncertain origin, the verb not appearing in English until the mid-sixteenth century, most etymologists thinking it probably related to the Latin flagrō (I burn) and may be from a Scandinavian source or the Dutch vlederen.  The Norwegian flara (to blaze; to flaunt in gaudy attire) has a similar meaning, but the English word predates it so it’s presumed derivative.  There may be some relationship with the Middle High German vlederen (to flutter (and represented in modern German by flattern)) but the evidence is scant.  In English, the original meaning was “spread out” (as applied to hair (and later structures such as the sides of ships)) leading to a comparison with the Old English flǣre (either of the spreading sides at the end of the nose).  The meaning "shine out with a sudden light" dates from the 1630s while the notion of "spreading out in display" emerged in the 1640s and is the source of the modern association with things which "spread gradually outward".

The noun flare (a giving off of a bright, unsteady light) dates from 1814 and was derived from the verb; from this followed (by 1883) the sense of "signal fire" (1883). Astronomical use dates from 1937.  The general meaning "a gradual widening or spreading" is emerged circa 1910, the best known modern example probably the “flares” (flared trousers), first noted in 1964, actually an adaptation of earlier forms of design but a fashion trend which is associated with the hippie era and lasting until the mid 1970s.  Flares then became suddenly unfashionable but revivals since have been frequent and they now enjoy a standardized niche in the industry.

In idiomatic use, the flare-up (a sudden burst) applied by 1827 to an argument and by 1858 to light, derived from the verbal phrase and contemporary publications noted the vogue flare-up enjoyed as a street expression in 1830s London.  The 1660s noun flatus (wind in the bowels) was a direct borrowing from the Latin flatus (a blowing, breathing, snorting; a breaking wind), past participle of flare (to blow, puff) from the primitive Indo-European root bhle- (to blow).  From this came the 1590s adjective flatulent (affected by digestive gas), from the sixteenth century French flatulent, from the Modern Latin flatulentus, from Latin flatus.

Flare is a verb (used without object) & noun, flared is a verb & adjective and flaring is a verb (the noun derived from the verb).  The present participle is flaring, the past participle flared and the noun plural is flares.  Synonyms, depending on context, include flame, erupt, explode, flash, blaze, blaze, boil over, break out, burn, explode, flare up, flash, flicker, glow, seethe, widen, burst, dart, dazzle, flutter, fume, glare, rant, shimmer & broaden.

Worn with flair: Lindsay Lohan (left) in peach flared trousers, Los Angeles, 2012 and (right) out shopping in flared jeans, Milan, 2015.

1975 Porsche 911S (left) with standard body and 1979 Porsche 930 3.3 (right; often called the 911 Turbo) with flared wheel arches, a body style which came generally to be called the “wide-body”.

1963 AC Shelby Cobra 289 (left, retrospectively dubbed the "slab-side") and 1967 AC Shelby Cobra 427 S/C (right) with flared wheel arches.  Aspects of the bulge-bodied 427 had actually already been seen on competition versions of the 289 and it has for decades been the most popular style of body (regardless of the engine installed) used by producers of replicas, there now being in excess of 50,000 of these, dwarfing the production of the thousand-odd originals.

For many years, most cars have used slightly flared wheel arches but more exaggerated extensions are often added to high-performance models to enable wider wheels and tyres to be fitted.  If the high-performance version is to be a regular-production model, the usual practice is the integrate the flares into the fender.

1975 Holden Torana SL/R 5000 L34 (left) and 2020 Dodge Challenger SRT (right).  Limited production models however often have flares added which are obviously “tacked-on”.  That can be part of their attraction, giving the things the appearance of something obviously intended for competition, emphasizing too their “limited production” status.  The 1975 Torana L34 (and the 1977 A9X) was an extreme example, leaving exposed the bolts attaching the flares to the fenders.

Peter Brock (1945-2006) in his self-built Austin A30 Holden sports sedan (left), Hume Weir, circa 1969 and Harry Lefoe's Hillman Imp (right) at the same circuit in 1971.  Both were typical of the racing cars built by amateurs in the 1960s to compete in events with very loose regulations.  The prevailing theory seems to have been to find the smallest possible car and add to it the largest engine which fell conveniently to hand.  Brock used a 179 cubic inch (2.9 litre) Holden six in the little car which had begun life with a 803 cm³ (49 cubic inch) four yet even that wasn’t the most extreme of the time.  The Hillman Imp's light-weight and diminutive dimensions held great appeal for Australian earth-moving contractor Harry Lefoe (1936-2000) who had a spare 302 cubic inch (4.9 litre) Ford (Windsor) V8 sitting in his workshop.  By then, the Imp was a Chrysler product but because the published guidelines of the Australian Sports Sedan Association (ASSA) restricted engines to those from cars built by the manufacturer of the body-shell, the small-block Ford V8 could be put in an Imp because it had been used in the earlier Sunbeam Tiger.  So the big lump of an iron V8 replaced the Imp's 875 cm3 (53 cubic inch) aluminium four and such was the difference in size that Lefoe insisted his Imp had become "mid-engined" although it seems not to have imparted the handling characteristics associated with the configuration, the stubby hybrid infamous for its tendency to travel sideways.  It was never especially successful but it was loud, fast, spectacular and always a crowd favourite.  Also typical was the simple “flaring” of the wheel arches, easily crafted with sheet metal and often integrated with aerodynamic “improvements” created with by guesswork rather than wind-tunnels or computer emulations.  The technique was known as the “square flare”.

1974 Ford Cologne Capri.  Factories with bigger budgets sometimes use both wind-tunnels and computer emulation to optimize the shape of flares, often using them to direct airflow to radiators or brakes as well as permit the fitment of wider tyres.

1987 Mercedes-Benz 300E (left) and 1991 Mercedes-Benz 500E; note the modest flared wheel arches on the 500E which added about two inches to the width of the car, something which proved surprisingly significant.

In 1991, Mercedes-Benz finally gave the W124 (1984-1995 (body-styles other than the four-door sedan would remain in production until 1997 and 46 500Es were actually built in 1990)) an engine with the power to exploit the fine underpinnings.  The 500E (later E500 when the naming system was updated) was a response to demand from those who hankered after something like the old 300SEL 6.3 (W109 1968-1972) as well as a long-overdue model to compete with BMW’s M5 but, with development of the new S-Class (W140 1991-1998) over-budget and behind schedule, the production work on the 500E project was out-sourced to Porsche.  Porsche’s engineers did a good job mating the 5.0 litre (303 cubic inch) V8 to the chassis, a task which included some modifications to the suspension and a flaring of the wheel arches to accommodate the wider track.  So subtle were the flares that they’re almost imperceptible to the casual viewer and without a standard W124 with which to compare, probably few notice.  That’s not surprising given the 500E was a modest 56 mm (2.2 inches) wider than the more prosaic models (1,796 mm (70.7 in) vs 1,740 mm (68.5 in)).

However, those two-odd inches of additional width created by the wheel arch flares proved an unanticipated obstacle to volume production, the prototype found to be too wide to proceed at several points on the W124 production line.  As a glitch (in communication and systems management rather than engineering), it recalled an incident which afflicted the somewhat more ambitious Hubble Space Telescope (HST) which, upon deployment, was found to have one incorrectly ground mirror which blurred the view.  In software and hardware, NASA found a solution, a part of which was effected during a celebrated (and anyway scheduled) servicing mission.  On Earth, things were simpler for Mercedes-Benz which contracted with Porsche to handle part of the production process, the cars shuttled by truck between the two factories, located a few miles apart in Stuttgart.  That was inconvenient for Mercedes-Benz but fortuitous for Porsche, which, hard-hit by the recession-induced downturn in the sports car market, needed something to make use of their now substantially idle facilities.  The well-publicized arrangement meant it took eighteen days to complete every 500E but it added to the allure of the car and even at a very high price, 10,479 were sold and they were in many ways the blueprint for the AMG range which followed.  Encouraged by the success, the factory released the 400E (1991-1995 and later renamed E420) which, with a 4.2 litre (256 cubic inch) V8, didn’t demand the fitment of the five litre car’s wider track and flared wheel arches.  Being thus able to use the standard W124 production line, it was built at a much lower cost and 22,802 were sold.

Built by Ferrari: 1973 Dino 246GTS with "chairs & flares" options.

The rhyming colloquialism “chairs and flares” (C&F to the Ferrari cognoscenti and these days the early Dinos are an accepted part of the family) is a reference to a pair of (separately available) options available on later production Dino 246s.  The options were (1) seats with inserts (sometimes in a contasting color) in the style used on the 365GTB/4 (Daytona) & (2) wider Campagnolo Elektron wheels (which the factory only ever referred to by size) which necessitated flared wheel-arches.  In the early 1970s the factory wasn’t too punctilious in the keeping of records so it’s not known how many cars were originally built equipped with the wider (7½ x 14” vs 6½ x 14”) wheels but some privately maintained registers exist and on the basis of these it’s believed production was probably between 200-250 cars from a total run of 3569 (2,295 GT coupés & 1,274 GTS spyders (targa)).  They appear to have been most commonly ordered on UK & US market cars (although the numbers for Europe are described as “dubious” and thought an under-estimate; there are also an unknown number in other countries), the breakdown of verified production being:

246GT: UK=22, Europe=5, US=5.
246GTS: UK=21, Europe=2, US=91.

The “chairs and flares” cars are those which have both the Elektron option and the Daytona-style seats but because they were available separately, some were built with only one of the two, hence the existence of other slang terms in the Dino world including “Daytona package”, “Sebring spyders” and, in the UK, the brutish “big arches”.  In 1974, the Dino's option list (in US$) comprised:

Power windows: $270.00
Metalic Paint: $270.00
Leather upholstery: &450.00
Daytona type central seat panels: $115.00
Air-conditioning: $770.00
14 x 7½ wheels & fender flares: $680.00
AM/FM/SW radio: $315.00
Electric antenna & speakers: $100.00

At a combined US$795.00, the C&F combination has proved a good investment, now adding significantly to the price of the anyway highly collectable Dino.  Although it's hard to estimate the added value because so many other factors influence calculation, all else being equal, the premium would seem to to be well over US$100,000.  Because it involves only wheels, upholstery and metal, the modifications are not technically difficult to emulate although the price of a modified vehicle will not match that of an original although unlike some of the more radical modifications to Ferraris (such as conversions to roadsters), creating a C&F out of a standard 246 seems not to lower its value.  These things are always relative; in 1974 the C&F option added 5.2% to the Dino GTS's list price and was just under a third the cost of a new small car such as the Chevrolet Vega. 

Gas flaring on off-shore oil-rig.

It’s surprising gas flaring isn’t more controversial than it is.  A practice which dates from the earliest days of oil extraction, it was originally merely a safety procedure, disposing of the surplus and unwanted gas unavoidably associated with oil production but has long been recognized as wasteful of a valuable natural resource which, if harvested, could be used to generate energy now produced by more polluting sources such as coal.  The volume of gas flared annually (ie burned off in the atmosphere) is sufficient to satisfy the energy needs of all sub-Saharan Africa.  Additionally, the flaring process, which annually burns some 144 billion m³ of gas, is estimated to contribute to the atmosphere about 2.8 kilograms of CO₂ equivalent emissions for each m³, resulting in over 400 million tons of CO₂ annually and, the methane emissions resulting from the inefficiency of the flare combustion contribute significantly to global warming.  This is especially acute in the medium term because methane is over 80 times more powerful than CO₂ as a greenhouse gas so on a 20-year timeframe, the multiplier effect means the annual CO₂ equivalent emissions are increased by nearly 100 million tons.  There are technical solutions to this which would remove the need for most flaring as well as providing a valuable energy source less polluting than coal or diesel but, for the oil industry, the economics are not compelling.  Nor, given the relationships between the fossil-fuel industry and politicians, does there seem to be any hint of political will to pursue the issue.