Amber

Amber (pronounced am-ber)

(1) A pale yellow, sometimes reddish or brownish, brittle, translucent fossil resin of extinct coniferous trees that occurs in tertiary deposits; capable of gaining a negative electrical charge by friction and a fine insulator.

(2) The yellowish-brown color of amber resin; of the color of amber; yellowish-brown (not applied to the variety “blue amber” which appears blue rather than yellow under direct sunlight).

(3) To perfume or flavor with ambergris (rare and used only in the industrial production of scents).

(4) To cause to take on the yellowish-brown colour of amber (now rare and used only as a literary or poetic device).

(5) Certain objects made of amber (jewelry; ornamental articles; relics; fossilized creatures contained within the resin etc).

(6) The intermediate light in a set of three traffic lights, which when illuminated indicates that drivers should stop short of the intersection when safe to do so (green indicating “go” and red “stop”).  In some places the amber is referred to as “orange”.

(7) By extension from the use in traffic management, an indication in other contexts that one should hesitance to proceed or proceed only with caution (sometimes as “amber light”).

(8) As “amber alert”, a public notification of a child abduction (North America), named in memory of Amber Rene Hagerman (1986–1996); technically AMBER Alert, referencing the backronym America's Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response.

(9) In biology, genetics & biochemistry, the stop codon (nucleotide triplet) "UAG", or a mutant which has this stop codon at a premature place in its DNA sequence.  UAG is named “amber” because the first to isolate the mutation was then California Institute of Technology (Caltech) graduate student Harris Bernstein (b 1961), whose surname is the German word for the resin known as amber.

(10) A female given name.

(11) In automotive lighting (often as “the ambers”), the lights of that color mounted so to be visible at all corners or an automobile which flash sequentially in indicate a driver’s intention to turn, change lanes etc (thus known various as “flashers”, “turn-signals” and even “trafficators” (the (originally mechanical) semaphore signals which when activated protruded from the bodywork of a vehicle to indicate an intention to turn in the direction of the illuminated device).  They’re used also as warning lights (four-way flashers) when all flash in unison.  Since the late 1950s, in most markets their positioning, luminosity and rate of flashing has been regulated (sometimes in unfortunately contradictory ways.

1350–1400: From the Middle English ambre & aumbre, from the Old French, from the Medieval Latin ambra, from the Arabic عَنْبَر‎ (ʕanbar) (ambergris), from the Middle Persian ʾnbl (⁠ambar⁠) (ambergris).  It displaced the Middle English smulting (from the Old English smelting (amber)) and the Old English eolhsand (amber), glær (amber) and sāp (amber, resin, pomade).  The seemingly strange confusion between the fossilized tree resin and the ash-colored secretion of the sperm whale’s intestine (ambergris) is assumed to have arisen because the dissimilar substances both were rare, valuable and found on the seacoast.  The word ambergris came into use in the West during the Crusades.  In English, amber came to be used as an adjective by circa 1500 and it was in use as the name of a color by 1735.  Amber is a noun, verb & adjective, amberlike, ambery, anberish, amberesque & amberous are adjectives, ambering & ambered are verbs; the noun plural is ambers.

Actor Amber Heard (b 1986) who seems to have a thing for 1968 Ford Mustangs.

In Europe, the word amber was picked up to describe the fossil resins found on the shores of the Baltic first in the late thirteenth century in Anglo-Latin which, by the turn of the fifteenth had entered English.  Over time, this meaning prevailed and ambergris came to be restricted to the whale’s secretions although there has long been a faction of the etymology community which has suggested it’s not impossible amber is an unrelated word of unknown origin.  Once they were distinguished as white or yellow amber for the Baltic fossil resin and gray amber for the whale’s contribution, French distinguishing between the two as ambre jaune and ambre gris.

Among her inventory of beauty care essentials, Lindsay Lohan lists the long-serving Dior Backstage Eyeshadow Palette in Amber Neutrals as her “favorite eye palette”

In a chemical coincidence, the solidified tree resin possesses remarkable static electricity properties and Baltic amber was known to the Romans as electrum, able to gain a negative electrical charge merely through friction and although rarely used as such, it’s a fine insulator.  In the Old Testament the Hebrew חַשְׁמַל (chashmal) is translated variously as “a shining metal” or “the gemstone amber” but as the light plays upon amber it can recall fire or lightning, the impression strengthened when the substance is stimulated to spark and crackle with static electricity.  The prophet Ezekiel clearly had witnessed the electrical phenomenon and although he'd not have understood the science, in his vision of God’s throne, Ezekiel wrote:

“On this throne high above was a figure whose appearance resembled a man. From what appeared to be his waist up, he looked like gleaming chashmal, flickering like a fire.  And from his waist down, he looked like a burning flame, shining with splendor.”  (Ezekiel 1:26–27)

It was the Lithuania-born journalist Eliezer Ben‑Yehuda (1858–1922) who re-established the Hebrew language as living tongue to be used in everyday life.  In the late nineteenth century, except for a handful of scholars, Hebrew was used only as a Holy language, restricted to prayer and worship in the synagogue, Yiddish the only recognizably Jewish language spoken on the street or in the home.  Something of a prophet himself, he created the first Israeli Hebrew newspaper and dictionary and to make it useful in the modern age, he had to create many new words and one was needed to describe electricity, then a concept understood for little more than a century.  He chose chashmal.  When the Hebrew Scriptures were first translated into Greek some 2,100 years ago, the Hebrew chashmal became the Ancient Greek ἤλεκτρον (ḗlektron) and could be used to refer to the gemstone but was used also in the manner of the Phoenician elēkrŏn (shining light).  Seventeenth century English scientists who conducted some of the earliest experiments which began to explain the phenomenon called it electrikus (like amber) and from this came the Modern English electricity.  Ben‑Yehuda’s work was popularized by Judah Leib Gordon (1830-1892), a leading poet of the nineteenth century Jewish Enlightenment whose words were more lyrical than the dry, journalistic lists of Ben-Yehuda would write: “The light, the heat, the steam, and the electricity (chashmal), all nature’s forces are the angels above.”  He added in an explanatory footnote: “By chashmal (hash-ma-LA), I mean the natural force that is electritzitat, since the Greek translation of chashmal is elektrika.”

Immortality of sorts: An unfortunate gecko, trapped in amber 54 million years ago.

The first AMBER Alert, 1996.

The amber alert is a system used in North America to provide public notification of a child abduction (North America), named in memory of Amber Rene Hagerman (1986–1996).  Technically it’s AMBER Alert, referencing the backronym of America's Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response.  Then aged nine, Amber Hagerman was abducted and murdered in 1996 and a campaign was organized which demanded protocols be established to alert the local population of details which might assist in finding the child (description of suspects, vehicle registration numbers etc).  Initially, the vectors of transmission were local radio and television stations but as technology evolved, other were added including platforms on the internet such as e-mail & social media, electronic traffic-condition signs, advertising billboards and SMS text messages delivered to cell phones.

Most succiniferous: The Amber Room, Catherine Palace, St. Petersburg, 1917.  This is the only known color image of the room.

Last seen (in crates) in 1945, it was either destroyed in the last days of World War II (1939-1945) or dissembled and hidden somewhere or otherwise disposed of.  Between 1979-2003, with early funding from the Federal Republic of Germany (the FRG, the old West Germany), a replica was built and installed in the Catherine Palace.  The golden, jewel-encrusted creation, rendered by artisans and craftsmen from tons of amber, was a gift to Peter the Great (Peter I, 1672-1725; Tsar of Russia 1682-1725) in 1716, celebrating the conclusion of an alliance between Russia and Prussia.  Much admired during the centuries in which it endured wars, pandemics and revolutions, it was looted by the Nazis in the final months of the war, packed into crates which subsequently vanished.  Either they were lost or destroyed in the chaos or hidden away.

Originally installed in the Charlottenberg Palace of Friedrich I (1657–1713; King of Prussia 1701–1713), the Amber Room was a genuine multi-national venture, the design by Andreas Schlüter (1659–1714), a German sculptor in the baroque tradition, the bulk of the construction by the Danish craftsman Gottfried Wolfram (1646-1716), already famous for his skill in rendering amber.  It took over a decade to build and upon completion, Peter the Great expressed his wonderment and in 1716, Frederick William I (1688–1740; King of Prussia 1713-1740) presented it to the Tsar, part of his diplomatic effort to secure the Prussian-Russian alliance against Sweden.  Accordingly, along with a selection of paintings, the room was crated and shipped to Saint Petersburg where it remained until in 1755 it was moved to the Catherine Palace (Tsarskoye Selo (Tasar's Palace)) in Pushkin.  Now installed in a larger space, the Italian designer Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli (1700–1771) was engage to remodel the assembly to suit, addition amber panels shipped from Berlin.  Renovations and refinements continued to be undertaken during the eighteenth century and when complete, the room covered some 180 square feet (16.7 m³) and contained some six tons (6100 kg) of amber, semi-precious stones and gold leaf.  At the time, it was thought one of the wonders of the modern world.

In the Nazi mind, not only was the Amber Room of German origin but such treasures anyway belonged only in the Reich and it was added to the (long) list of artworks to be looted as part of Operation Barbarossa (the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union).  As the Wehrmacht advanced on Pushkin, the Russian curators began to attempt to disassemble the panels but their fragility was such it was quickly realized any work done in haste would cause only destruction.  Accordingly, they had carpenters construct a frame over which was glued wallpaper, there not being time even to construct a false wall.  Not fooled, the Nazi looters removed the entire structure, shipping it to be installed in the Königsberg Castle Museum (now in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad) on the Baltic coast.  However, the tide of the war turned and in 1943 the museum's director received from Berlin instructions to return the room to crates and this had be accomplished by August 1944 when allied bombing raids severely damaged the castle.  Quite what happened to the crates remains unknown.  It may be they were destroyed during the war or were in the hold of a ship sunk in the Baltic but the tales of them being hidden somewhere has never gone away and continues to tantalize, a solitary panel actually found in Bremen in 1997.  The replica room, dedicated in a ceremony in 2004 by Vladimir Putin (b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999) and Gerhard Schröder (b 1944, Chancellor of Germany 1998-2005) remains on public display at the Tasrskoye State Museum Reserve outside Saint Petersburg.

The "tombstone" headlamps on the 1959 Mercedes-Benz W111 sedans (the so-called Heckflosse) were a variation of the style introduced in 1957 on the 300 SL roadsters (W198) and while much admired, were not lawful for use in the US so a "stacked" arrangement was devised which came informally to be known as "Californian".  So attractive was it found in Europe that ultimately it became available in the rest of the world (RoW) but with one difference: the  factory's solution of integrating the amber turn-signal indicators (the "ambers" or "flashers" to many) and side-marker lamps into the assembly was elegant but didn’t comply with the rules.  As explained by automotive lighting expert Daniel Stern, the lit area was probably compliant (the rules specified a minimum 3½ square inches (22.5 cm²) but the intensity and inboard visibility angles would have been inadequate.  A turn signal with its centre 4 inches (100 mm) or closer to the low-beam lamp had to provide at least 500 candela on-axis, which would be close to impossible for a lamp with this construction; turn signals more than 4 inches from the low-beam needed only to provide at least 200 candela.  The RoW cars (left) were supplied with the original design while for the US market some rather ugly after-market lamps were crudely added to the gaps next to the grill (centre).  Late in the 1960s, the aesthetics were improved somewhat by using a larger unit (right) which emulated the look of a fog-lamp, the US cars by then also suffering the addition of side-marker lights front & rear.

Fellmonger

Fellmonger (pronounced fel-muhng-ger)

A preparer of skins or hides of animals; a person who deals in animal skins or hides.

1520–1530: A compound word fell + monger.  Fell was from the Middle English fellen, from the Old English fellan & fiellan (to cause to fall, strike down, fell, cut down, throw down, defeat, destroy, kill, tumble, cause to stumble) from the Proto-Germanic fallijaną (to fell, to cause to fall), causative of the Proto-Germanic fallaną (to fall); root was the primitive Indo-European (s)pōl- (to fall) and it was cognate with the Dutch vellen (to fell, cut down), the German fällen (to fell) and the Norwegian felle (to fell).  Monger was from the Middle English mongere & mangere from the Old English mangere (merchant, trader, dealer & mangian (to trade, to traffic) from the Proto-Germanic mangōną, from the Latin mangō (dealer, trader), perhaps from the Ancient Greek μάγγανον (mánganon) (contrivance, means of enchantment) from the primitive Indo-European mang- (to embellish, dress, trim).  Fellmonger & fellmongery are nouns and fellmongering & fellmongered are verbs; the noun plural is fellmongers.

Lindsay Lohan in leather, London, October 2015.

In the traditional sense of the world, a profession was understood to be a specialization in occupational activity.  What it meant was that a certain pursuit was either the exclusive source of an individual’s income or the most substantial part.  Not entirely facetiously, the business of prostitution has been said to be the “world’s oldest profession” with espionage just a little more recent.  While neither claim may be literally true, both are acknowledged to be ancient and obviously enduring but one profession likely to have been pursued almost as long and been part of just about any culture which has been studied was that of the fellmonger who prepared and processed the skins of animals, transforming them into the leather which people could use variously for footwear, clothing, shelters, receptacles, weapons, decorations and the myriad of items which were used when constructing useful devices and even machines.  Before even fabrics were woven from plant or animal fibres, there was leather and it was the fellmongers who developed the art and science which made the material stronger, longer lasting and better adaptable to more purposes.  A highly skilled business which demanded both skill & patience, the essence of the fellmonger’s trade was the ability expertly to strip the wool or fur from an animal hide and grade the raw skin into the various categories sought by tanners and other processors.  As well as dealing in the skins, many fellmongers also operated as tanners and in the early pre-industrial societies, vertical integration was sometimes attractive and the ownership and operation of a fellmongery and tannery might come under a common ownership.  Sometimes tertiary production such as that of a saddler might also be attached although it appears artisan trades such as cobblers remained independent.  The fellmonger thus extracted from the skins of dead sheep, goats, lambs and even dogs, products such as wool, pelts, skins, parchments, vellums and chamois leathers, much of which was sold to or passed on to a tannery which for centuries used oak bark in the dyeing processes.

Who wore it best?  Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011) in leather.  Probably no material is as sexy as leather and even in latex the Supreme Leader couldn't look more alluring; Lindsay Lohan probably envies the Supreme Leader rocking leather.  In the DPRK, only the Supreme Leader and his family are permitted to don black leather; the consequences of violating this rule are severe.

Although less so than tanning, fellmongry was a messy, smelly business, most located close to rivers because the process demanded an abundant supply of pure clean water, the tide carrying out to sea the sludge and effluents.  When the skins arrived (and to avoid even more unpleasantness that had to be as soon as possible after slaughter), they were washed in warm, soapy water to be cleansed of all blood and then soaked so the tissue would swell to a living condition.  Once done, they were cleansed with a paste made from lime and sodium sulphate which “fed” the pelts, opening the pores so the wool could be stripped which was done in the “Pulling Room” where the fellmonger “pushed the wool”, grading it as went.  Once pulled, the wool was taken to a drying room where, once cool, it was stacked in bales to be ready for sale.  A paste made of Fuller's Earth or Whiting (calcium carbonate or chalk) was then rubbed into the pelts which were exposed to a moderate heat which ensured the fat on the pelts softened and was easily removed.  The clean pelts, after being bleached with a weak solution of chloride of lime were placed in floor pits to be “pickled” in a solution of salt & sulphuric hydrochloric acid and, once pickled, they were ready for dispatch to the tannery.  Historically, tanners graded skins into 10-12 categories and depending on the classification, they might be sold to manufacturers making fancy leather goods, parchments, vellums, leathers and glues.  Animal skins are remarkable in that they can be rendered as a material tough enough for saddles or boots or sufficiently soft & pliable for use in fine needlework and smooth enough to be used as writing material.

Manhattan

Manhattan (pronounced man-hat-n or muhn-hat-n)

(1) An island in New York City (NYC) surrounded by the Hudson, East and Harlem rivers, 13½ miles (22 km) in length, 2½ miles (4 km) across at its widest and 22¼ square miles (58 km² in area).  Technically, it’s an ellipsis of Manhattan Island and in certain legal documents, cartography and for formal purposes it’s described also as Manhattan Island.

(2) One of the five boroughs of New York City, approximately co-extensive with Manhattan Island and coterminous with New York County.  It contains the business district of NYC, its financial centre (Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) etc and many of the businesses associated with the fashion industry (Fifth Avenue and environs) and the art business (Greenwich Village).

(3) A cocktail drink consisting of four parts whisky, one part vermouth, and a dash of bitters.

Pre 1600: From the earlier Manna-hata (recorded by Dutch settlers & military personnel), from its name in Unami, the Algonquian language of the Lenape people (self-described as Lenni-Lenape (the original people)) who were the island’s inhabitants when European settlement began.  The research by linguistic anthropologists was inconclusive and there are a number of suggestions regarding the origin of the name: (1) a compound of the Unami mënatay (island) or the Munsee munahan + another element; (2) because the island was once a wooded area with Hickory trees yielding timber suitable for making bows, the early forms Manna-hatta & Mannahachtink were spellings of manaháhtaan (place for gathering the wood to make bows) with the related locative form being manaháhteenk, the construct thus Munsee manah- (gather) + -aht (bow) + -aan (place); (3) the “island of many hills” & (4) “the island where we all became intoxicated”.  Manhattan is a noun & proper noun, manhattanite & manhattanese are adjectives, manhattanism is a noun, manhattanize manhattanizing & manhattanized are verbs and manhattanism & manhattanism are nouns; the noun plural is manhattans.  Modern style guides suggest that even when forms are derived from the proper noun, there’s no need for an initial capital although traditionalists will insist.

What is now New York’s borough of Manhattan was in 1626 named New Amsterdam by colonists from the Dutch Republic who, two years earlier, had established a trading post (in what is now Lower Manhattan).  After some of the squabbles and negotiations during which Europeans re-drew the maps which reflect their arrangements even today, the territory and its surroundings in 1664 came under English control in 1664 and the city, based on Manhattan, was the capital of the United States between 1785-1790.  Although the exact date on which “Manhattan” became the common descriptor for the island among Europeans, the consensus is it would have been sometime in the mid-seventeenth century.  The cocktail named Manhattan was certainly being served in the 1870s but why it gained the name or just when the first was mixed isn’t known although there are a number of imaginative tales, none supported by evidence.  What is thought most likely is that it was either served in an establishment in the locality or somewhere close seeking to trade of the association with the name.

Lilo in Soho: The Manhattan apartment where Lindsay Lohan lived in 2013, Mercer Street, Soho.

The standard adjective is Manhattanite (of or from, Manhattan) which replaced the earlier Manhattanese which, although obsolete, is sometime still used as a jocular term (to describe a certain style of speck thought associated with financial traders although it was a hardly distinct form).  The noun Manhattanism (the style of architecture and urban design associated with skyscrapers to enable high population densities in a limited space) was a coining of architectural criticism, the companion verbs being Manhattanize, Manhattanizing & Manhattanized; the process was Manhattanization.  In architectural criticism, Manhattanization was something neither wholly good or bad and depended for its reception on where it was used.  Where it was appropriate and added to urban utility, it would be praised if done well but where it destroyed something of social or architectural value, it was derided.

The Manhattan Project's second detonation of an atomic bomb: the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima, 6 August 1945.

The Manhattan Project which developed the first atomic weapons was so-named because the army component of the operation was under the control of the engineering branch and it was the army which was most involved in the initial planning stages which involved the acquisition of land and the physical building of the facilities which would house the research and production staff.  The army’s original project name was “Manhattan Engineer District” simply because that was where their offices were located and, apparently because the US Postal Service used the same name for the workshops of its telephone technicians, it was decided was “Manhattan Engineer District” would be a suitably vague codename and one unlikely to attract attention.  It thus replaced the earlier US A-bomb code name (Development of Substitute Materials) and absorbed the earlier British research project (Tube Alloys).

The Manhattan cocktail

Some cocktails are intimidating not because of what they are but because of what’s involved in their preparation, thus the attraction of the Manhattan cocktail which is easy-to-make drink and needs but three ingredients: whiskey, sweet Vermouth and aromatic bitters.

Ingredients

(1) 2 oz Whiskey: A Manhattan can be made with either Rye or Bourbon, most historically preferring Rye Whiskey because it’s thought to be “spicier”.

(2) 1 oz Sweet Vermouth: Vermouth has something of an aura because it’s vital to both Manhattans and Martinis but it’s just a flavored and fortified wine and it’s the harmonious interaction Rye and Sweet Vermouth which accounts for most choosing Rye.  The garnishing of a Manhattan with a brandied or Maraschino cherry is optional.

(3) 2 dashes Angostura aromatic bitters: A timeless classic and an aromatic, alcoholic infusions of various herbs and spices, neither the recipe or the distinctive oversized label have changed for well over a century.  One drop is so potent it can alter the character of anything to which it’s added and some even recommend a dash in fruit salad (the other faction advocating a few drops of Tabasco sauce for “sharpness”).

Instructions

(1) Chill a champagne coupe, martin glass or a lowball in the freezer or fill it with ice.

(2) Add all ingredients into a mixing glass filled with ice and stir until the drink is chilled. Typically, that takes no more than 20-30 seconds depending on the temperature of the ingredients and the nature of the ice.  A Manhattan must only ever be stirred; they are never shaken.

(3) Strain the drink into the chilled (and empty) Nick & Nora glass and (optionally) garnish the drink with a Maraschino cherry speared on a cocktail stick.

Purists like to stick to the classics but variations of the Manhattan have over the years been concocted:

A Black Manhattan replaces the Sweet Vermouth with Averna Amaro, a complex liqueur which delivers an aromatic experience.  It’s one of those drinks which need to be breathed in for some time before drinking.

In a Dry Manhattan, Dry Vermouth is used.  Most find it an acquired taste and described it as a “harder” drink,

The Rob Roy is known by some as the Scotch Manhattan and obviously, instead of Bourbon or Rye, it’s made on a Scotch Whisky base.  The aficionados of this kink seem all to recommend a blended Scotch rather than a pure malt.

The “perfect” in a Perfect Manhattan uses the word in its mathematical sense, the recipe calling for a 50/50 split between Dry & Sweet Vermouth.  The difference is said to be “very nuanced” and the choice of whiskey will notably change the experience.

Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist (pronounced tsahyt-gahyst)

A German noun, the spirit of the time; general trend of thought or feeling characteristic of a particular period of time, historically especially as reflected in literature and philosophy although now also used to reference popular culture.

1835: From the German, Zeit + Geist, literally "time spirit (or ghost)", a calque of Latin genius sēculī, and best translated as “spirit of the age”.  It’s not commonly pluralized but the plural of Geist (ghost; spirit) is Geister, thus in English the irregular noun zeitgeister (also often in the plural), sometimes used of those who write of the fads in contemporary culture. Zeitgeist is a noun and zeitgeisty, zeitgeistier & zeitgeistiest are adjectives; the (rare) plural is zeitgeists.  Hopefully, zeitgeistesque never becomes a thing.  

Spirit of the age

A concept from eighteenth & nineteenth century German philosophy, best translated as "spirit of the age", it refers to the invisible forces dominating or defining the characteristics of a given epoch in history.  Although now most associated with German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), especially in contrast with the Hegelian concepts of volksgeist (national spirit) and weltgeist (world-spirit), the coinage predates Hegel and appears in the work of Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ("Goethe"; 1749–1832), Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) and Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet; 1694–1778).  Hegel, in Phenomenology of the Spirit (1807), did write of the idea but preferred the phrase Geist der Zeiten (spirit of the times) over the compound Zeitgeist.  Most sources acknowledge the first documented use being in the writings of Herder.

Portrait of GWF Hegel (circa 1839), steel engraving by Lazarus Gottlieb Sichling (1812–1863) after an aquarel (watercolor) lithograph (1828) by Julius Ludwig Sebbers (circa 1785-1893).

Until recently, zeitgeist tended to be used retrospectively, in the manner of geochronology where an epoch has a known end date before labels are applied.  Of late, with its (perhaps over-enthusiastic) adoption by those who write of pop-culture, it’s come to be attached to just about anything, however fleeting.  Some criticize this but that's probably intellectual snobbery; in a sense Hegel et al were also writing of a type of popular culture.  Appropriately then, zeitgeist should now be considered and English word, having been thoroughly assimilated and not capitalized unless used in a way which references its continental origins (of Hegel, Voltaire etc) in which case it remains German and as a noun picks up an initial capital.  Because it remains both a German and English word, it can be spoken as written or translated, depending on the effect desired and in this it's a variant of the conventions which guide the way written text is handled in oral speech.  Where a word or phrase, however familiar in English, remains foreign it should when spoken, be rendered in translation: the written text “Hillary Clinton is, inter alia, crooked”, is spoken as “Hillary Clinton is, among other things, crooked”.  Where a foreign word or phrase has been assimilated into English it is treated as native so the written text “Hillary Clinton’s statement was the usual mix of lies, half-truths, evasions etc” is spoken as “Hillary Clinton’s statement was the usual mix of lies, half-truths, evasions etcetera.”  Note the usual shortened form (etc) has traditionally always been followed by a full-stop but there is a welcome revisionist movement which argues it too has become an English word (as etcetera is an anglicized form of the Latin et cetera) and thus needs no longer to be treated as a truncation.

Of the zeitgeist, early in the third millennium: Paramount Pictures promotional poster for Mean Girls (2004).

Where a foreign word or phrase, however familiar in English, depends for technical or other reasons on the original form to convey its meaning, it should be spoken as written.  Words of this class are often legal Latin such as obiter dictum (from the Latin and literally "something said in passing and not critically to what's being discussed" and in law describing a judge's expression of opinion not essential to the verdict and thus not binding as a precedent) and habeas corpus (from the Latin habeas corpus ad subjiciendum (literally "You (shall) have the body to be subjected to (examination)" and now a mechanism to challenge the lawfulness of a detention (ie the detainee must be brought before a court).  Status quo (from the Latin status (state) (sometimes used in the ablative statū) + quō (in which), the ablative of quī (which)) is well-known and widely used as kind of verbal shorthand to avoid clumsy English constructions yet the Status Quo is an Ottoman era firman (from the Ottoman Turkish فرمان‎ (ferman), from the Persian فرمان‎ (farmân) (command, order, decree)) which defines certain unchanging understandings among religious communities with respect to nine shared religious sites in Jerusalem and Bethlehem and to translate this to anything else would rob it of the meaning which relies on its historic context.  So, words evolve to be defined as assimilated into English or not according to "rules" which are a bit vague but in use there's probably a consensus things like "obiter dictum" and "habeas corpus" remain ways of expressing something with a foreign phrase because they're still used in their original (legal) context whereas "status quo" has become an English phrase because use is so diverse and distant from its origins.

Fastback

Fastback (pronounced fast-bak or fahst-bak)

(1) A form of rearward coachwork for an automobile body consisting classically of a single, unbroken convex curve from the top to the rear bumper line (there are variations of this also called fastbacks).

(2) A car having using such styling (also used as a model name by both car and motorcycle manufacturers).

(3) A type of pig developed from the landrace or large white and bred for lean meat.

(4) In computing, a product-name sometimes used for backup software.

1960–1965: The construct was fast + back.  Fast was from the Middle English fast & fest, from the Old English fæst (firmly fixed, steadfast, constant; secure; enclosed, watertight; strong, fortified), from the Proto-West Germanic fast, from the Proto-Germanic fastu & fastuz (firm) (which was the source also of the Old Frisian fest, the Old Norse fastr, the Dutch vast and the German fest), from the primitive Indo-European root past- (firm, solid), the source for the Sanskrit pastyam (dwelling place).  The original meaning of course persists but the sense development to “rapid, speedy” dates from the 1550s and appears to have happened first in the adverb and then transferred to the adjective.  The original sense of “secure; firm” is now restricted to uses such as “hard & fast” description of track conditions in horse racing but the derived form “fasten” (attach to; make secure) remains common.  Back was from the Middle English bak, from the Old English bæc, from the Proto-West Germanic bak, from the Proto-Germanic bakam & baką which may be related to the primitive Indo-European beg- (to bend).  In other European languages there was also the Middle Low German bak (back), from the Old Saxon bak, the West Frisian bekling (chair back), the Old High German bah and the Swedish and Norwegian bak; there are no documented connections outside the Germanic and in other modern Germanic languages the cognates mostly have been ousted in this sense by words akin to Modern English ridge such as Danish ryg and the German Rücken.  At one time, many Indo-European languages may have distinguished the horizontal back of an animal or geographic formation such as a mountain range from the upright back of a human while in some cases a modern word for "back" may come from a word related to “spine” such as the Italian schiena or Russian spina or “shoulder”, the examples including the Spanish espalda & Polish plecy.  Fastback is a noun; the noun plural is fastbacks.

1935 Chrysler Imperial C2 Airflow (top left), 1936 Cadillac V16 streamliner (top centre), 1936 Mercedes Benz 540K Autobahnkurier (Motorway Cruiser) (top right), 1948 Pontiac Streamliner (bottom left), 1948 Cadillac Series 62 (bottom centre) and 1952 Bentley Continental R (bottom right).

Although it was in the 1960s the fastback became a marketing term as the range of models proliferated, it was then nothing new, the lines appearing on vehicles even before 1920, some of which even used the teardrop shape which wind tunnels would confirm was close to optimal, as least in terms of reducing drag although it would be decades before the science evolved to the point where the importance of the trade-off between drag and down-force was completely understood.  To some extent this was explained by (1) so many of the early examples being drawn from aviation where shapes were rendered to optimize the twin goals of reducing drag & increasing lift and (2) road vehicles generally not being capable of achieving the velocities at which the lack of down-force induced instability to a dangerous extent.  Rapidly that would change but there was quite a death toll as the lessons were learned.  By the 1930s, streamlining had become one of the motifs of the high-performance machinery of the era, something coincidently suited to the art deco moment through which the world was passing and in both Europe and the US there were some remarkable, sleek creations.  There was also market resistance.  Chrysler’s engineers actually built one of their sedans to operate backwards and ran tests which confirmed that in real-world conditions the results reflected exactly what the wind-tunnel had suggested: it was quicker, faster and more economical if driven with the rear bodywork facing the front.  Those findings resulted in the release of the Airflow range (1934-1937) and while the benefits promised were realized, the frontal styling proved to be too radical for the time and commercial failure ensued.  People however seemed to like the fastback approach (then often called “torpedo style”) and manufacturers added many to their ranges during the 1940s and 1950s.

Ford Galaxies, Daytona, 1963 (top), 1966 Dodge Charger (bottom left), 1968 Plymouth Barracuda (bottom centre) and 1971 Ford Torino (bottom right).

Ford in 1962 inadvertently provided a case study of relative specific efficiencies of rooflines. The sleek Starliner roof on the 1961 Galaxies used in NASCAR racing sliced gracefully through the air and while sales were initially strong, demand soon slowed and the marketing department compelled a switch to the “formal roofline” introduced on the Thunderbird; it was a success in the showroom but less than stellar on the circuits, the buffering induced by the steep rear windows reducing both stability and speed.  Not deterred, Ford resorted to the long NASCAR tradition of cheating, fabricating a handful of fibreglass hard-tops which would (for racing purposes) turn a convertible Galaxie into a Starliner.  Unfortunately, to be homologated for competition, such parts had to be produced in at least the hundreds and be available for general sale.  Not fooled by Ford’s mock-up brochure, NASCAR banned the plastic roof and not until 1963 when a “fastback” roofline was added was the car’s competitiveness restored.  Actually, it wasn’t really a fastback at all because full-sized cars like the Galaxie had become so long that even a partial sweep from the windscreen to the rear bumper would create absurd proportion but the simple expedient of a sharply raked rear window turned out to work about as well.  Even on intermediates like the Dodge Charger and Ford Torino the pure fastback didn’t really work, the result just too slab-sided.  The classic implementation was when it was used for the shorter pony cars such as the Plymouth Barracuda and Ford Mustang.

1968 Ford Mustang GT 390 Coupé (top left) & 1967 Shelby Mustang GT500 (top right); 1971 Ford Mustang 351 Coupé (bottom left) & 1971 Ford Mustang Mach 1 429 Super CobraJet SportsRoof.

The fastback for a while even influenced roofs not fast.  The original Mustang coupé (1964) was a classic “notchback” but such was the impact in the market that later in the year a fastback was added, joining the convertible to make a three body-style range.  The fastback’s popularity was bolstered by Carroll Shelby (1923–2012) choosing that style for his Shelby Mustangs which over the course of half a decade would evolve (or devolve depending on one’s view) from racing cars with number plates to Mustangs with bling but it would also influence the shape of the coupé.  By 1971 the fastback Mustangs (by then called “SportRoofs”) had adopted an even more severe angle at the rear which was dramatic to look at but hard to look through if inside, the almost horizontal rear window restricting visibility which made the more upright coupé (marketed as “Hardtop”) a more practical (and safer) choice.  However, such was the appeal of the fastback look that the profile was fastbackesque, achieved by the use of small trailing buttresses which made their own contribution to restricting reward visibility although not to the extent of some, like Ferrari’s Dino 246 which in some jurisdictions was banned from sale for just that reason.

1965 Rambler Marlin (top left), 1967 AMC Marlin (top centre), 1968 AMC Javelin (top right), 1969 AMC AMX (bottom left), 1974 AMC Javelin (bottom centre) and Lindsay Lohan in 1974 AMC Javelin (bottom right).

American Motors Corporation was (until the arrival of Tesla), the “last of the independents” (ie not part of General Motors (GM), Ford or Chrysler) and at its most successful when filling utilitarian niches the majors neglected, their problem being their successes were noticed and competition soon flooded the segments they’d profitably created.  As a result, they were compelled to compete across a wider range and while always a struggle, they did for decades survive by being imaginative and offering packages which, on cost breakdown could be compelling (at one point they joined Rolls-Royce as the only company to offer sedans with air-conditioning fitted as standard equipment).  Sometimes though they got it wrong, and that they did with the Marlin, introduced in 1965 as a fastback based on their intermediate Rambler Classic.  Although the fastback was all about style, AMC couldn’t forget their history of putting a premium on practicality an accordingly, the roof-line grafted on to the classic also ensured comfortable headroom for the rear-seat passengers, resulting in a most ungainly shape.  Sales were dismal for two seasons but AMC persisted, in 1967 switching the fastback to the full-sized Ambassador line which all conceded was better though that was damning with faint praise.  More successful was the Javelin (1968), AMC’s venture into the then lucrative pony-car business which the Mustang had first defined and then dominated.  The early Javelins were an accomplished design, almost Italianate in the delicacy of their lines and the fastback was nicely balanced.  Less balanced but more intriguing was the AMX, a two seat “sports car” created in the cheapest way possible: shorten the Javelin’s wheelbase by 12 inches (300 mm) and remove the rear seat.  That certainly solved the problem of rear seat headroom and over three seasons the AMX received a generally positive response from the press but sales never reached expectations, even a pink one being chosen as the car presented to Playboy magazine's 1968 Playmate of the Year not enough to ensure survival and when the Javelin was restyled for 1971, the two seat variant wasn’t continued although AMX was retained as a name for certain models.  The new Javelins lacked the subtlety of line of the original and the fastback part was probably the best part of the package, much of the rest rather overwrought.  The pony car ecosystem declined in the early 1970s and Javelin production ceased in 1974 although it did by a few months outlive what was technically the first pony-car of them all, the Plymouth Barracuda.

1969 Norton Commando Fastback.

The Norton Commando was produced between 1968-1977.  All Commandos initially used the distinctive tail section which, like the fuel tank, was made of fibreglass and the slope of the molding instantly attracted the nickname “fastback”, an allusion to the body-style then becoming popular for sports cars.  It was the first British motorcycle built in volume of “modern” appearance but, apart from the odd clever improvisation, much of the engineering was antiquated and a generation or more behind the coming Japanese onslaught which would doom the local industry.  In 1969, as other models were added to the Commando range, all of which used more conventional rear styling, the factory formally adopted Fastback as a model name for the originals which remained in production, upgraded in 1970 (as the Fastback Mark ll), fitted with much admired upswept exhausts.  With minor changes, after only four months, it was replaced with the Mark III which served until 1972 when the Mark IV was released, the most notable change being the fitting of a front disk brake.

1970 Norton Commando Fastback (with retro-fitted disk brake).

One interesting variant was the Fastback Long Range (LR) which, although in production for almost two years during 1971-1972, only around 400 were built, most apparently exported to Australia where the distance between gas (petrol) stations was often greater than in Europe or the US.  Although there were other detail differences, the main distinguishing feature of the LR was the larger capacity (in the style of the earlier Norton Atlas) petrol tank, a harbinger of the “Commando Interstate” which became a regular production in 1972 and lasted until Commando production ceased in 1977 by which time it constituted the bulk of sales.  Fastback production ended in 1973 and although some were fitted with the doomed 750 “Combat” engine, none ever received the enlarged unit introduced that year in the Commando 850.

1965 Ford GT40 Mark 1 (road specification) (left), 1967 Ford GT40 Mark IV (J-Car prototype) (centre) and 1967 Ford GT40 Mark IV, Sebring, 1967.

Impressed by Ferrari’s “breadvan”, Ford, this time with the help of a wind-tunnel, adopted the concept when seeking to improve the aerodynamics of the GT40.  Testing the J-Car proved the design delivered increased speed but the resultant lack of down-force proved lethal so the by then conventional fastback body was used instead and it proved successful in the single season it was allowed to run before rule changes outlawed the big engines.

1966 Fiat 850 Coupé (top left), 1970 Daf 55 Coupé (top centre), 1974 Skoda 110 R (top right), 1972 Morris Marina Coupé (bottom left), 1972 Ford Granada Fastback (later re-named Coupé) (bottom centre) and 1973 Coleman-Milne Granada Limousine (bottom right).

The Europeans took to the fastback style, not only for Ferraris & Maseratis but also to add some flair (and profit margin) to low-cost economy vehicles.  It produced some rather stubby cars but generally they were aesthetically successful and the Skoda 110 R (from Czechoslovakia and thus the Warsaw Pact’s contribution to the fastback school of thought) lasted from 1973-1980 and as the highly modified 130 RS gained an improbable victory in the 1981 European Touring Car Championship against a star-studded field which included BMW 635s, Ford’s RS Capris & Escorts, Audi GTEs, Chevrolet Camaros and Alfa Romeo GTVs.  It was a shame comrade Stalin didn’t live to see it.  Generally, the Europeans were good at fastbacks but the British had some unfortunate moments.  In fastback form, the appearance of the Morris Marina was from the start compromised by the use of the sedan’s front doors which meant the thing was fundamentally ill-proportioned, something which might have been forgiven if it had offered the practicality of a hatchback instead of a conventional trunk (boot).  A dull and uninspiring machine (albeit one which sold well), the Marina actually looked best as a station wagon, an opinion many hold also of its corporate companion the Austin Allegro although the two frequently contest the title of Britain’s worst car of the 1970s (and it's a crowded field).  Even Ford of England which at the time was selling the well-styled fastback Capri had a misstep when it offered the ungainly fastback Granada, many made to look worse still by the addition of the then fashionable vinyl roof, the mistake not repeated when the range was revised without a fastback model.  Compounding the error on an even grander scale however was coach-builder Coleman-Milne which, bizarrely, grafted the fastback’s rear on to a stretched Granada sedan to create what was at the time the world’s only fastback limousine.  Although not entirely accurate, there are reasons the 1970s came to be called “the decade style forgot”.