Vogue

Vogue (pronounced vohg)

(1) Something in fashion at a particular time or in a particular place.

(2) An expression of popular currency, acceptance, or favor.

(3) A highly stylized modern dance that evolved out of the Harlem ballroom scene in the 1960s, the name influenced by the fashion magazine; one who practiced the dance was a voguer who was voguing.

(4) In Polari, a cigarette or to light a cigarette (often in the expression “vogue me up”).

1565–1575: From the Middle English vogue (height of popularity or accepted fashion), from the Middle French vogue (fashion, success (literally, “wave or course of success”)), from the Old French vogue (a rowing), from voguer (to row, sway, set sail), from the Old Saxon wegan (to move) & wogōn (to sway, rock), a variant of wagōn (to float, fluctuate), from the Proto-Germanic wagōną (to sway, fluctuate) and the Proto-Germanic wēgaz (water in motion), wagōną (to sway, fluctuate), wēgaz (water in motion) & weganą (to move, carry, weigh), from the primitive Indo-European weǵh- (to move, go, transport (and an influence on the English way).  The forms were akin to the Old Saxon wegan (to move), the Old High German wegan (to move), the Old English wegan (to move, carry, weigh), the Old Norse vaga (to sway, fluctuate), the Old English wagian (to sway, totter), the Proto-West Germanic wagōn, the German Woge (wave) and the Swedish våg.  A parallel development the Germanic forms was the Spanish boga (rowing) and the Old Italian voga (a rowing), from vogare (to row, sail), of unknown origin and the Italianate forms were probably some influence on the development of the verb.  Vogue & voguer are nouns (voguette an informal noun), voguing is a noun and adjective, vogued is a verb and vogueing & voguish are adjectives; the noun plural is vogues.

All etymologists seem to concur the modern meaning is from the notion of being "borne along on the waves of fashion" and colloquially the generalized sense of "fashion, reputation" is probably from the same Germanic source.  The phrase “in vogue” (having a prominent place in popular fashion) was recorded as long ago as 1643.  The fashion magazine (now owned by Condé Nast) began publication in 1892 and the young devotees of its advice are voguettes.  In linguistics, vogue words are those words & phrases which become suddenly (although not always neologisms) popular and fade from use or becoming clichéd or hackneyed forms (wardrobe malfunction; awesome; problematic; at this point in time; acid test; in this space; parameters; paradigm et al).  Because it’s so nuanced, vogue has no universal synonym but words which tend to the same meaning (and can in some circumstances be synonymous) include latest, mod, now, rage, chic, craze, currency, custom, fad, favor, mode, popularity, practice, prevalence, style, stylishness, thing, trend & usage.

Lindsay Lohan cover, Vogue (Spanish edition), August 2009.

In Cornwall, the hamlet of Vogue in the parish of St Day gained its name from the Medieval Cornish vogue word for a medieval smelting furnace (blowing house); producing much smoke, vogue was also a word used to mean “fog or mist”.  Clearly better acquainted with law than geography, in early 2022 counsel for Condé Nast sent a cease and desist letter to the inn-keeper of the village’s The Star Inn at Vogue pub, demanding the place change its name to avoid any public perception of a connection between the two businesses.  The pub’s owners declined the request and Condé Nast subsequently apologized, citing insufficient investigation by their staff.

1981 Range Rover In Vogue from the first run with the standard stylized steel wheels (left) and a later 1981 In Vogue with the three-spoke aluminum units.

Much of the 1970s was spent in what to many felt like a recession, even if there were only some periods in some places during which the technical definition was fulfilled and the novel phenomenon of stagflation did disguise some of the effects.  Less affected than most (of course) were the rich who had discovered a new status-symbol, the Range Rover which, introduced in 1970 had essentially created the luxury four-wheel-drive (4WD) segment although the interior of the original was very basic, the car’s reputation based on the excellence of the engineering.  So good was the Range Rover, both on and off-road that owners, used to being cosseted in leather and walnut, wanted something closer to that to which they were accustomed and dealers received enquiries about an up-market version.

Lindsay Lohan at the opening of the Ninety years of Vogue covers exhibition, Crillon Hotel, Paris, 2009.

That had been Rover’s original intention.  The plan had been to release a basic version powered by four cylinder engines and a luxury edition with a V8 but by 1970 time and development funds had run out so the car was released with the V8 power-train and an interior so utilitarian it could be hosed out, something which was touted as a competitive advantage although it’s doubtful it was a feature many owners chose to exploit.  However, if the rich were riding out the decade well, British Leyland (which owned Rover) was not and it lacked the resources to devote to the project.  Others took advantage of what proved a profitable niche and the rich could choose from a variety of limited-production and bespoke offerings including long-wheelbase models, four-door conversions, six wheelers and even open-topped versions from a variety of coach-builders such as Wood & Pickett and low-volume manufacturers like Switzerland’s Monteverdi which anticipated the factory by a number of years with their four-door coachwork.

Rendez-vous à Biarritz, Vogue magazine, March 1981.

However, British Leyland was soon subject to one of the many re-organizations which would seek (without success) to make it a healthy corporation and one consequence was increased autonomy for the division making Range Rovers.  No longer forced to subsidize less profitable arms of the business, attention was turned to the matter of a luxury model, demand for which clearly existed.  To test market reaction, in late 1980, the factory collaborated with Wood & Pickett to design a specially-equipped two-door model as a proof-of-concept exercise to gauge market reaction.  The prototype (HAC 414W) was lent to Vogue magazine, a crafty choice given the demographic profile of the readership and the by then well-known extent of women’s own purchasing power and influence on that of their husbands.  Vogue took the prototype to Biarritz to be the photographic backdrop for the images taken for the magazine’s co-promotion of the 1981 Lancôme and Jaeger fashion collections, published in an eight-page advertising spread entitled Rendez-vous à Biarritz in the March 1981 edition.  The response was remarkable and while Lancôme and Jaeger’s launch attracted polite attention, Vogue’s mailbox (which then was letters in envelopes with postage stamps) was overwhelmingly filled with enquiries about the blinged-up Range-Rover.

Vogue's Range Rover In Vogue (HAC 414W) in Biarritz, 1981, all nuts on board or otherwise attached.

Rover had expected demand to be strong and the reaction to the Vogue spread justified their decision to prepare for a production run even before publication and the Range Rover In Vogue went on sale early in 1981, the limited-edition run all replicas of the photo shoot car except for the special aluminum wheels.  The three-spoke wheels (based on the design Ford had used on the 1979 (Fox) Mustang) had actually proved a problem in Biarritz, the factory supplying the wrong lug nuts which had a tendency to fall off, meaning the staff travelling with the car had to check prior to each shoot to ensure five were present on each wheel which would appear in the picture.  Not until later in the year would the wheels be ready so the In Vogue’s went to market with the standard stylized steel units, meaning the brochures had to be pulped and reprinted with new photographs.  Quite how many were made remains unclear.  The factory said 1000 would be built, all in right hand drive (RHD) but many left hand drive (LHD) examples seem to exist and it’s thought demand from the continent was such that another batch was built although this has never been confirmed.  The In Vogue’s exclusive features were:

Light blue metallic (the model-exclusive Vogue Blue) paint with twin broad coach-lines in two-tone grey
High-compression (9.35:1) V8 engine
Transfer box with taller (0.996:1) high ratio
Air conditioning
Polished-wood door cappings
Stowage box between front seats
Map pockets on back of front seats
Fully carpeted load area
Carpeted spare wheel cover and tool kit curtain
Custom picnic hamper mounted in rear load-space
Stainless steel tailgate capping
Black centre caps for the wheels

Condé Nast would later describe the In Vogue’s custom picnic hamper as the car’s piece de resistance.  Demand for the In Vogue far exceeded supply and production runs of various volumes followed before the Vogue in 1984 became the regular production top-of-the-range model for many years (although when sold in the US it was called the Country).  For both companies, the In Vogue (and the subsequent Vogues) turned out to be the perfect symbiosis.

Vogue, January 1925, cover art by Georges Lepape.

From the start, Vogue was of course about frocks, shoes and such but its influence extended over the years to fields as diverse as interior decorating and industrial design.  The work of Georges Lepape (1887-1971) has long been strangely neglected in the history of art deco but he was a fine practitioner whose reputation probably suffered because his compositions have always been regarded as derivative or imitative which seems unfair given there are many who are more highly regarded despite being hardly original.  His cover art for Vogue’s edition of 1 January 1925 juxtaposed one of French artist Sonia Delaunay’s (1885–1979) "simultaneous" pattern dresses and a Voisin roadster decorated with an art deco motif.

One collector in 2015 was so taken with Pepape’s image that when refurbishing his 1927 Voisin C14 Lumineuse (literally “light”, an allusion to the Voisin’s greenhouse-inspired design which allowed natural light to fill the interior), he commissioned Dutch artist Bernadette Ramaekers to hand-paint a geometric triangular pattern in sympathy with that on the Vogue cover in 1925.  Ms Ramaekers toook six months to complete the project and the car is now being offered at auction.

Voisin's extraordinary visions:  1934 C27 Aérosport (left), 1934-1935 Voisin C25 Aérodynes (centre) & 1931 C20 Mylord Demi Berline (right).

There are few designers as deserving of such a tribute as French aviation pioneer Gabriel Voisin (1880–1973) who made military aircraft during the First World War (1914-1918) and, under the name Avions Voisin, produced a remarkable range of automobiles between 1919-1939, encapsulating thus the whole inter-war period and much of the art deco era.  Because his designs were visually so captivating, much attention has always been devoted to his lines, curves and shapes but the underlying engineering was also interesting although some of his signature touches, like the (briefly in vogue) sleeve valve engine, proved a mirage.  Also a cul-de-sac was his straight-12 engine.  Slow-running straight-12 (there is even a straight-14 which displaces 25,340 litres (1,546,000 cubic inches) and produces 107,290 hp (80,080 kW)) engines are actually not uncommon at sea where they’re used in big container ships but on the road (apart from some slow-running engines in military vehicles), only Voisin and Packard ever attempted them, the former making two, the latter, one.  Voisin’s concept was simple enough; it was two straight-6s joined together, end-on-end, the same idea many had used to make things like V12s (2 x V6s) straight-8s (2 x straight-4s) and even V24s (2 x V12s) but the sheer length of a straight-12 in a car presented unique problems in packaging and the management of the torsional vibrations induced by the elongated crankshaft.

1934 Voisin C15 Saloit Roadster.

The length of the straight-12 meant an extraordinary amount of the vehicle’s length had to be devoted to housing just the engine and that resulted in a high number for what designers call the dash-to-axle ratio.  That was one of the many reasons the straight-12 never came into vogue and indeed was one of the factors which doomed the straight-8, a configuration which at least had some redeeming features.  Voisin must however have liked the appearance of the long hood (bonnet) because the striking C15 Saloit Roadster (which could have accommodated a straight-12) was powered by a straight-4, a sleeve valve Knight of 2500 cm³ (153 cubic inch).  The performance doubtlessly didn’t live up to the looks but so sensuous were those looks that many would forgive the lethargy.

Using one of his trademark outdoor settings, Norman Parkinson (1913-1990) photographed model Suzanne Kinnear (b 1935) adorning a Daimler SP250, wearing a Kashmoor coat and Otto Lucas beret with jewels by Cartier.  The image was published on the cover (left) of Vogue's UK edition in November 1959, the original's (right) color being "enhanced" in pre-production editing.  The "wide" whitewall tyres were a thing at the time, even on sports cars and were a popular option on US market Jaguar E-Types (there (unofficially) called XK-E or XKE) in the early 1960s.

More Issues Than Vogue sweatshirt from Impressions.

The Daimler SP250 was first shown to the public at the 1959 New York Motor Show and there the problems began.  Aware the little sports car was quite a departure from the luxurious but rather staid line-up Daimler had for years offered, the company had chosen the pleasingly alliterative “Dart” as its name, hoping it would convey the sense of something agile and fast.  Unfortunately, Chrysler’s lawyers were faster still, objecting that they had already registered Dart as the name for a full-sized Dodge so Daimler needed a new name and quickly; the big Dodge would never be confused with the little Daimler but the lawyers insisted.  Imagination apparently exhausted, Daimler’s management reverted to the engineering project name and thus the car became the SP250 which was innocuous enough even for Chrysler's attorneys and it could have been worse.  Dodge had submitted their Dart proposal to Chrysler for approval and while the car found favor, the name did not and the marketing department was told to conduct research and come up with something the public would like.  From this the marketing types gleaned that “Dodge Zipp” would be popular and to be fair, dart and zip(p) do imply much the same thing but ultimately the original was preferred and Darts remained in Dodge’s lineup until 1976, for most of that time one of the corporation's best-selling and most profitable lines.  The name was revived between 2012-2016 for an unsuccessful and unlamented compact sedan.

Label

Label (pronounced ley-buhl)

(1) A slip of paper, cloth, or other material, marked or inscribed, for attachment to something to indicate its manufacturer, nature, ownership, destination etc.

(2) A short word or phrase descriptive of a person, group, intellectual movement etc.

(3) A word or phrase indicating that what follows belongs in a particular category or classification.

(4) In architecture, a molding or dripstone over a door or window, especially one that extends horizontally across the top of the opening and vertically downward for a certain distance at the sides.  Now variously called a dripstone, label mold or hood mold.

(5) A brand or trademark, especially used by those who distribute fashion items or recorded music.

(6) In heraldry, a narrow horizontal strip with a number of downward extensions of rectangular or dovetail form, usually placed in chief as the cadency mark of an eldest son.

(7) A strip or narrow piece of anything (obsolete).

(8) In chemistry, to incorporate a radioactive or heavy isotope into (a molecule) in order to make traceable.

(9) In computing, a group of characters, such as a number or a word, appended to a particular statement in a program to allow its unique identification.

(10) In English common law, an alternative name for codicil, meaning to amend or append (both now at least obscure, probably obsolete).

1275-1325: From the Middle English label (narrow band, strip of cloth), from the Old English læppa (skirt, flap of a garment), from the Old French label, lambel & lambel (ribbon, strip of cloth, fringe worn on clothes), from the Old Frankish labba (torn piece of cloth), from the Proto-Germanic lappǭ & lappô (cloth stuff, rag, scraps, flap, dewlap, lobe, rabbit ear) from the primitive Indo-European leb (blade).  The word became lambeau (strip, rag, shred, tatter) in Modern French and etymologists suggest there was (with a diminutive suffix) influence from the Frankish labba or some other Germanic source (such as the Old High German lappa (flap), from the Proto-Germanic lapp- (used to form words for loose cloth etc).

The oldest use was the technical term in heraldry ((6) above).  By the late fifteenth century, use had extended to dangling strips of cloth which would now be called ribbons, used as an ornament in dress or the strip attached to a document to hold a seal.  The modern meaning "tag, sticker, slip of paper" dates from the 1670s; the figurative sense of "to categorize" from 1853.  As used to describe the circular paper glued to the center of gramophone records, use began in 1907, less than for years after mass-production began and the record companies came to be known as “record labels” after 1947.  As a verb in the sense of "to affix a label to", use date from circa 1600 ahile the figurative sense of "to categorize" is from 1853 when used in the novel discipline of sociology.  The related forms are labeled, labeling (or labelling) & labelled.

Labelling Theory

A sociological theory of symbolic interactionism, labelling theory’s origins can be traced to the later work of Émile Durkheim, a seminal figure in the discipline.  It suggests attaching a label to someone influences them to behave in conformity with the label.  Sociologists prefer to write with big words and double negatives but one did offer a simplified description of the theory as “…a specific instance of phenomenology.  The theory hypothesizes that if labels are applied to people, especially stigmatizing labels which encapsulate a societal disapprobation of deviation from the construct of the acceptable, this will tend to promote deviant behavior, becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.”  By sociology’s standards of constructed complexity, that was good because it could be understood unlike some of the dense, difficult stuff in the journals although, with the dumbing-down of higher education in the late twentieth century, it became increasingly a discussion among academics.

Not surprisingly, the early work attracted the attention of criminologists who concentrated on the implications of labelling inducing behavior which conformed to the label although, there was nothing in the theory, once deconstructed, which precluded labelling compelling behavior with which an individual could attempt to disprove the label.  For the behavioralists, either was a type of linguistic determinism; it mattered not the direction in which behavior changed.  Few theories in the social sciences have been so criticized on the basis of the perception of structural bias and, given the obvious limitations imposed on any research, it must be acknowledged labelling theory may appear to be inseparable from a political agenda.  Despite the criticisms, labelling theory did contribute to critiques of the treatment of minorities and the way power-elites used constructs of deviance as one of the means with which assert social and economic control.

Sociology seemed a good idea at the time, left to right:  Auguste Comte (1798-1857), Émile Durkheim (1858-1917) and Max Weber (1864-1920).

1927 Bentley 3-Litre (speed model) Red label Sports Roadster (chassis # TN1559).  

Bentley (then a separate operation from Rolls-Royce) produced the 3 Litre model between 1921-1929.  Although there was the odd one-off, the factory offered the 3 Litre in three variants (1) the Blue label which was the standard touring car available in short (SWB, 117.5 in (2,984 mm) add long (130.0 in (3,302 mm)) wheelbase (LWB) forms, the latter introduced in 1923, (2) the more powerful SWB Red label (speed model) made between 1924-1929 and (3), the rare, highly tuned Green label, production of which ran in parallel with the Red label and was offered only on a 108 in (2,743 mm) wheelbase chassis with a factory guarantee that 100 mph (161 km/h) was attainable.  Bentley has on occasion since used the color label scheme for model differentiation.

Johnny Walker formalized their red & black (more have since been added) labels in 1909 although the company had been selling its blends since 1865 with white (soon discontinued) and later red and black labels although the official names were Old Highland Whisky (with a white label), Special Old Highland Whisky (with a red label) and Extra Special Old Highland Whisky (with a black label).  It was reports from retailers that customers seldom used the product name and asked for “the one with the black label” or “the one with the red label” which convinced the distillery to re-label.

Mercedes-Maybach Study, Tokyo Motor Show, 1997, the design concept for what became the doomed Maybach.  Had it been sold as a top-of-the-line Mercedes-Benz it was, it might have been a success.

The concept of "designer label" is very old and evidence of the concept predates antiquity but the connotations of the word "label" as something exclusive or highly priced has probably been understood in its broad commercial sense only since the mid-nineteenth century.  In the narrow technical sense all brands can be considered labels but low-priced, mass-market commodities are rarely considered labels in that particular sense of the word.  There is the odd brand which successfully straddles entire cost spectrums and one used to be Mercedes-Benz, the label applied to everything from diesel taxis, trucks small and large, sports cars, grand prix machines and limousines.  It was a rare example of a prestigious label which didn't have its reputation tarnished by an association with lower priced products and for decades this was understood by the engineers who ran things.  Unfortunately, in the 1990s the company fell into the hands of salesmen, MBAs and such types who, skilled in the marketing of soft drinks and washing power, decided what was needed was a more prestigious brand to sit above Mercedes-Benz.  That was what Toyota did when it created Lexus and there it made sense but for Mercedes-Benz it made no sense at all to suggest that the brand which had been good enough for royalty, popes, dictators and major figures in organized crime was just not sufficiently prestigious.  Using the Maybach name was about as dopy as the concept given few people alive knew the brand nor its hardly illustrious history.  As a machine, the Maybach was a good piece of engineering and though visually undistinguished, the designers really can't be blamed; wind tunnels are dictatorial.  As a label vis-à-vis Mercedes-Benz however, it represented a misunderstanding of the market by those who purported to be experts in such things.  Mercedes-Benz is still recovering from the damage done by the MBAs.

Lindsay Lohan in sweater with her own visage emblazoned in sequins, created by UK fashion label Ashish, London 2014.

Crisp

Crisp (pronounced krisp)

(1) Hard but easily breakable; brittle (applied especially to food).

(2) Firm and fresh; not soft or wilted (applied especially to food).

(3) Brisk; sharp; clear; decided (applied often to the delivery of words).

(4) Lively; pithy; sparkling.

(5) Clean-cut, neat, and well-pressed; well-groomed.

(6) Invigorating; bracing (usually of the air).

(7) Crinkled, wrinkled, or rippled, as skin or hair.

(8) A snack food, made usually from thinly sliced potato (called chips in some markets).

(9) In cooking, a dessert of fruit, as apples or apricots, baked with a crunchy mixture, usually of breadcrumbs, chopped nutmeats, butter, and brown sugar.

(10) In computing theory, not using fuzzy logic; based on a binary distinction between true and false.

(11) In wine criticism, having a refreshing amount of acidity; having less acidity than green wine, but more than a flabby one.

Pre 900: From the Middle English crisp (curly), from the Old English crisp (curly, crimped, wavy" (of hair, wool etc)), from the Latin crispus (curled, uneven, wrinkled; having curly hair); a doublet of crêpe, crispus was from the primitive Indo-European sker- & ker- (to turn, bend) and cognate with crīnis & crista.  The Old French crespir is related but the English forms came via Latin.  Crisp is a noun, verb & adjective, crisply is an adverb, crisper & crispest are adjectives, crisped & crisping are verbs and crispness & crispation ((1) The act or process of curling, or the state of being curled or (2) a slight twitch of a muscle (both archaic)) are nouns.

The sense of "brittle" may have run in parallel with other meanings but wasn’t recorded until the 1520s and didn’t become a commonly used form until the early nineteenth century, the reason for the sixteenth century evolution unknown but presumably based on the characteristics assumed by certain foods when cooked.  The figurative use to describe something (usually someone) having a "neat, brisk, having a fresh appearance" dates from 1814 and the use to speak of air as “chilly or bracing" apparently didn’t appear until 1869, perhaps surprising give the way earlier romantic poets trawled the language for adjectives.  As a noun, crisp was used from the mid-fourteenth century, originally the name of a light, crinkly material formerly used for kerchiefs, veils etc and a few decades later it was applied to a kind of pastry and by the 1820s, it was a common form of speech by cooks (often a jocular euphemism for "burned to a crisp") to describe anything over-cooked.  Potato crisps, although recipes were circulating in the US as early as 1824, first went on sale in 1897, marketed simply as crisps by 1935 although, in the US, crisps began in 1903 to be used in trade names of breakfast cereals.  The verb crisp (to curl, to twist into short, stiff waves or ringlets (of the hair, beard, mane etc)) was a late fourteenth century derivation from either the adjective or else from the Old French crespir or the Latin crispare, both forms from adjectives.  It was use to mean "to become brittle" after 1805.  The adjective crispy dates from the late fourteenth century in the sense of "curly" and from the 1610s it could also mean "brittle".

Crisps, chips and freedom fries

Smith's "limited edition" Lamington chips, 2020.  The market reaction ensured the edition stayed limited.

The English call them crisps which Australians and New Zealanders once also did but the colonies have long instead called them chips.  They’re called chips also in the US and Canada where it makes sense because what the English call chips, they call French fries which, in the antipodes are called chips.  Despite Australians calling both French fries and crisps “chips”, folk seem not confused, life going on as people adjusting as circumstances dictate.  In Australia, as late as 2003, Smiths still called their chips “crisps” but, bowing to the vernacular, they changed and they’re now definitively “chips”.

About the only place where the names of fried potato snacks proved linguistically controversial was the US when, in the run-up to 2003 invasion of Iraq, after finding the French support for the action insufficiently enthusiastic, the chairman of the committee in charge of operations in the Capitol complex ordered the word "French" removed from all menus, French fries becoming freedom fries and French toast, freedom toast.  It was an echo of one of Washington’s earlier linguistic assaults when, upon the entry of the US to the war in 1917 (which was the act which saw it in 1919 named The World War), German measles had been dubbed liberty measles, hamburgers had become liberty steaks and sauerkraut, liberty cabbage.  Then, even German shepherd dogs had been thought subversive and thus re-named Alsatians although there's no record of the Bush White House taking action against French poodles.  From the Quay d'Orsay, the French Foreign Ministry seemed unimpressed, noting they weren’t devoting much attention to potatoes and that French fries were anyway invented in Belgium in the seventeenth century.  In Washington DC, quietly in 2006 the name changes were reversed.

Stocking up on chips: Lindsay Lohan buying Doritos Nacho Cheese chips and other essential groceries, Los Angeles, 2008.  It's not known if her fondness for Doritos (Doritos the singular, plural and collective form, a single chip being "a Doritos chip") was formed or strengthened by them being on the product-placement list for Mean Girls (2004).

Stocking up on crisps: Lindsay Lohan with former special friend, Samantha Ronson, London, 2008.

Technically and legally, Pringles are not potato chips.  In the snack business the Pringle is a curious outlier because although it looks like a potato chip and most consumers probably think of it as one, the word "chip" appears nowhere on the product packaging or the marketing material.  The company used to use the word but, because Pringles are actually dehydrated potato flakes pressed into their distinctive parabolic shape rather than thin slices of potato, other manufacturers objected and the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) agreed, ruling they couldn't be described as "chips".  Procter & Gamble (which then produced Pringles) thought about it and eventually settled on "potato crisp", a label which was continued when in 2012 the brand was sold to the Kellogg Company.  Introduced in 1968, Pringles are popular with many because they are less greasy than the traditional potato chip (or crisp in some markets).  They're produced by combining dehydrated potato flakes with a mix of corn flour, wheat starch & rice flour to which is added a blend of vegetable oils, seasonings, and additives to form a dough which is rolled into thin sheets and cut into the signature shape.  The cut forms are then fried and coated with a layer of seasoning before being packaged in the famous tubular canister.

Apparatus

Apparatus (pronounced ap-uh-rat-uhs (U) or ap-uh-rey-tuhs (non-U))

(1) A group or combination of instruments, machinery, tools, materials, etc, having a particular function or intended for a specific use:

(2) Any complex instrument or mechanism for a particular purpose.

(3) Any system or systematic organization of activities, functions, processes, etc, directed toward a specific goal; applied especially to government and state control to describe systems and bureaucratic organizations, especially those influenced by political patronage

(4) In physiology, a group of structurally different organs working together in the performance of a particular function:

1620–1630: From the Middle English apparatus (a collection of tools, utensils, etc. adapted as a means to some end), from the Latin apparātus (tools, implements, equipment, originally the act of equipping, preparation), noun of state from the past participle stem of apparāre.  The construct was apparā(re) (to prepare) (ap- the prefix usually found on verbs (and their derived nouns or adjectives) with the meaning “around” or “about”) + parāre (prepare) + -tus (the suffix of verb action)).  The Latin apparātus was the perfect passive participle of apparō (prepare) from ad- (to, towards, at) +‎ parō (prepare, provide) from the primitive Indo-European root pere- (to produce, procure").

The two noun plurals apparatus & apparatuses are both correct although the invariant plural, maintaining the Latin inflection in English on a loanword basis, is less commonly used.  However, because the word also has a mass noun sense in English and it often appears in such a way that its number (singular or plural) is disguised by absence of any inflectional or lexical signals as to which of these two senses is intended, readers may parse it in either sense.  Usually, this creates only a slight ambiguity which affects meaning not at all and is significant only in technical matters such as complex devices where the distinction between single and multiple machines needs to be clear.

Lindsay Lohan inspecting a specific-purpose apparatus in Labor Pains (2009).

In the construction of bras, the most obvious specialized cup is that used with nursing bras which feature an arrangement whereby most of the cup’s fabric can be semi-separated from the superstructure, enabling breast-feeding without the need to remove the whole garment.  English borrowed the word brassiere from the French brassière, from the Old French braciere (which was originally a lining fitted inside armor which protected the arm, only later becoming a garment), from the Old French brace (arm) although by then it described a chemise (a kind of undershirt) but in the US, brassiere was used from 1893 when the first bras were advertised and from there, use spread.  The three syllables were just too much to survive the onslaught of modernity and the truncated “bra” soon prevailed, being the standard form throughout the English-speaking world by the early 1930s.  Curiously, in French, a bra is a soutien-gorge which translates literally and hardly romantically as "throat-supporter" although the scarcely more attractive "chest uplifter" is a better translation.  The etymological origin of the modern "bra" lying in a single garment is the reason one buys "a bra" in the same department store from which one might purchase "a pair of sunglasses".

Among bra manufacturers, there are different implementations by which the functionality of a nursing bra's apparatus is achieved but it’s not clear if chest-feeders (the preferred term among the woke to describe those who used to be called “breast-feeding women”) find one approach preferable or if some suit some more than others; it may simply be that for manufacturers the production-line rationalization achieved by being able to adapt the specialized cups to the structures used for conventional bras are compelling, dictating the choice.  Chest-feeders presumably use whichever is most convenient and it may be a choice of some significance given how often heard is the complaint the process is “tiring”.  To those who will never chest-feed it sounds more a pleasant and diverting relaxation than anything tiring but they all say it so it must be true.

Of and by the structure

French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser (1918–1990) published his essay Idéologie et appareils idéologiques d'État (Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses) in 1970.  Fleshing out his earlier "theory of ideology", it was a description of the particular form of state superstructure adopted under post-war capitalism to control the social formation required continuously and perpetually to maintain the productive forces (labour and the means of production & distribution).  Essentially an account of how a human being becomes a self-conscious subject, the work analysed the necessary relationship between state and subject a given economic mode of production might subsist.  It included not only an analysis of the state and its legal and educational systems but also of the psychological relationship which existed between subject and state as ideology.  Althusser held that regimes were able to maintain control by reproducing subjects who believe that their position within the social structure was a natural one, the ideology being one’s function with the apparatus was part of the way the world must function.  The ideology was instantiated by institutions or “ideological state apparatuses” like family, schools and churches which provided developing subject with categories in which they could recognize themselves.

Althusser, in good Marxist tradition, didn’t suggest the imperative was to replace the ideological state apparatuses as a structure but rather that its underlying ideology should be supplanted so that rather than being productive of the bourgeois subject, it became productive of proletarian or communist subjects.  In the half-century since he wrote, there’s been no indication of that happening but the durability of an apparatus can’t easily be predicted on the basis of perception.  When the revolutions of the Arab Spring flared in 2011, it was entirely predictable the state apparatuses in Libya and Egypt would suppress the threat while the weaker, more disparate, Syrian model was vulnerable yet it was Muammar Gaddafi (circa 1942–2011; ruler of Libya 1969-2011) and Hosni Mubarak (1928–2020; president of Egypt 1981-2011) who were overthrown while Bashar al-Assad (b 1965; ophthalmologist and president of Syria since 2000) sits still in in his palace in Damascus.

The idea of the state (corporatist, autocratic, totalitarian or democratic) as an apparatus is neither recent nor controversial and nor is the notion that the mechanism is more typically a number of apparatus which function sometimes in unison, sometimes separately and sometimes in opposition, these occasionally contradictory dynamics able simultaneously to interact.  For those interested in a case study of one famously apparatus-ridden apparatus, Albert Speer's (1905-1981; minister for armaments in the Third Reich 1942-1945) last published work (Infiltration (1981)), although at time turgid and never lively in style, is a valuable account of the actual workings of what was, even in the post-war decades, still often characterized as an efficient administrative unit.  Although some suggested Infiltration was a study of the way the SS (Schutzstaffel (Protection Squadron)), which began as the Führer's small personal bodyguard and evolved into a vast economic, industrial and military apparatus more than two million strong became a kind of "state within a state", while that was the organization's objective (the apparatuses of the Nazi Party, the German state and the SS engaged in a permanent struggle for dominance), the book's alternative title in some markets (The Slave State: Heinrich Himmler's Masterplan for SS Supremacy) is a more accurate precis.  Infiltration is an account of the endless quarrels among contenders for power and rival bureaucracies in the Third Reich, a tale of scheming and plotting, not against the designated national enemy but against one another in the ever shifting battle for for power and influence.  In the wartime UK & US, the prime-minister & president were more effective dictators than ever was the Führer.

Whatever his other gifts (and whether as architect or administrator opinion remains divided), Speer was no great stylist of prose and the reputation his earlier volumes gained for lucidity owe much to the professional journalist who was his editor.  Speer wrote Infiltration unaided unaided and it's no place to start for anyone who wishes to explore the Third Reich but for those familiar with the history, it's an invaluable source and in some aspect, the ultimate cross-reference book.  Certainly, there's never been penned a better portrait of SS leader Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945; Reichsführer SS 1929-1945) and while such a bloodless bureaucrat can never be made to seem anything like a vivid personality, Speer does capture much missed by many.

Trailer of Labor Pains (2009), dubbed in German.

Pleonasm & Tautology

Pleonasm (pronounced plee-uh-naz-uhm)

(1) In rhetoric, the use of more words than are necessary to express an idea; a redundancy in wording.

(2) An instance of this, as free gift or true fact.

(3) Any redundant word or expression.

(4) In a variety of disciplines, an excess in the number or size of parts (now rare except in pathology).

1580–1590: A learned borrowing from the French pléonasme, from the Late Latin pleonasmus, from the Ancient Greek πλεονασμός (pleonasmós) (redundancy, surplus), from πλεονάζω (pleonázō) (to be superfluous), from pleonázein (to be or have more than enough (in grammatical use "superfluously to add”)), a combining form of πλείων (pleíōn) (more), from the primitive Indo-European root pele- (to fill).  The adjective pleonastic (characterized by pleonasm, redundant in language, using more words than are necessary to express an idea) dates from 1778 although sources list the related pleonastical as being in use since the 1650s.  Pleonasm is a noun, pleonastic and pleonasmic are adjectives and pleonastically & pleonasmically are adverbs; the noun plural is pleonasms.  Despite the modern practice, verb forms seem never to have evolved.

Tautology (pronounced taw-tol-uh-jee)

(1) The needless repetition of an idea, especially in words other than those of the immediate context, without imparting additional force or clarity of meaning.

(2) In formal logic, as a logical tautology, something true under any possible case or interpretation; it differs from the linguistic form in that in propositional logic it’s a compound propositional form in which all instances simultaneously are true.

(3) In pathology, an excess in the number or size of parts (archaic).

(4) In engineering, the addition of a strengthening device to a design in which all calculations prove it unnecessary.  By convention tautology is applied to small-scale instances whereas a redundancy tends to be larger, extending even to duplicated systems.

1570–1580: From the Late Latin tautologia (representation of the same thing in other words), from the Ancient Greek ταὐτολογία (tautología from tautologos) (a repetition of something already said (the word originally from rhetoric)), the construct being ταὐτός (tautós) (the same) + λόγος (lógos) (saying; explanation), related to legein (to say), from the primitive Indo-European root leg- (to collect, gather).  The modern version is tauto- +‎ -logy.  The origin in English of the -logy suffix lies with loanwords from the Ancient Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned (eg astrology from astrologia) since the sixteenth century.  French picked up -logie from the Latin -logia, from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).  Within Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía) abstract from λόγος (lógos) (account, explanation, narrative), and that a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).  In English the suffix became extraordinarily productive, used notably to form names of sciences or disciplines of study, analogous to the names traditionally borrowed from the Latin (eg astrology from astrologia; geology from geologia) and by the late eighteenth century, the practice (despite the disapproval of the pedants) extended to terms with no connection to Greek or Latin such as those building on French or German bases (eg insectology (1766) after the French insectologie; terminology (1801) after the German Terminologie).  Within a few decades of the intrusion of modern languages, combinations emerged using English terms (eg undergroundology (1820); hatology (1837)).  In this evolution, the development may be though similar to the latter-day proliferation of “-isms” (fascism; feminism et al).  Tautology, tautologism & tautologist are nouns, tautologize is a verb, tautologically & tautologously are adverbs and tautological, tautologic & tautologous are adjectives; the noun plural is tautologies.

A tautology is the unnecessary repetition (often in close proximity) of an idea, statement, or word in circumstances in which the meaning has already been expressed.  In the expression 4 am in the morning”, the tautology is created by morning because am (an abbreviation of the Latin ante meridiem (before noon) has already established an unambiguous meaning.  For technical reasons however the odd tautology may be required, 4 am in the morning once used for the lyrics of a pop song because, were either of the tautological elements to be removed, the rhythm of the tune would be lost.  In the same manner a poet might be moved (poets are often moved) to write of the dawn’s sunrise and that’s one word too many but the tautology might be justified if it adds to the lyrical quality (something not guaranteed in poetry).  Tautologies seem sometimes to be used to add emphasis or strengthen a meaning and thus function adjectivally.  To say completely and totally beyond my comprehension and understanding technically loses nothing if either of the two tautological pairs are pared down but the practice is common as a rhetorical device and probably often effective as long as the wordiness is restricted to the odd flourish and doesn’t infect the rest of the speech.  A device of oral use therefore but usually an absurdity in writing.

Tautologies abound but those who condemn need to consider the context and history.  The phrase PIN number has long been ubiquitous and sounds right but seems wrong once deconstructed: undo the acronym and it becomes personal identification number number; what has happened is either PIN has become a word or PIN number an encapsulated phrase.  Democratic English resolves the argument in the usual manner: pedants can have their PINs while the rest of us use pin numbers.  In commerce, tautologies are often part of what the law describes as “mere puffery”.  A phrase like absolutely unique and a one-off, something of a favorite of antique dealers, is not only a tautology but not infrequently also an untruth but in the business such things are understood.  Forgivable then in a way that the linguistic sin very unique is not often tolerated by the fastidious although strangely, quite unique seems to be, presumably because it’s a more elegant construction.

Pleonasm refers to overabundance, and is mow rarely used outside of the medical context in which it describes aspects of tissue growth.  A linguistic pleonasm is usually identified as a phrase with more words than necessary, often by being repetitive or having empty or clichéd words, but is not necessarily wrong or confusing.  At the margins the difference between tautology and pleonasm does get ragged and not all dictionaries and style guides agree.  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) indicates the difference seems to be between redundancy of expression and repetition and as a general principle that’s probably helpful, if not exhaustive.  One suggestion of a method to define a tautology is to substitute an antonym for one of the allegedly offending elements.  That works well if it creates contradictions in terms like 4 pm in the morning or the dawn’s sunset but doesn’t resolve everything.  A pleasurable delight seems a pleonasm because it uses unnecessary words to make the point and, under the test, a tautology because there are presumably no un-pleasurable delights although even then there are nuances because the rare delicacy most would enjoy as a delight might to someone with a specific allergy be not at all enjoyable.

Actually, biological reactions aside, something most would not find a delight can to others be entirely that.  In Freudian psychoanalysis, Lustprinzip (the pleasure principle) describes the driving force of the id: the human instinct to seek pleasure and avoid pain.  However, the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders notes the existence of masochism in various forms which involve pleasure being gained from pain.  Thus the connotations of words are a subjective and not objective test for there are those for whom pleasurable pain needs to be distinguished from un-pleasurable pain, the latter a mere tautology to most.  Sexual masochism disorder (SMD) had an interesting history in the DSM.  It wasn’t in the first edition (DSM-1, 1952) but in the second edition (DSM-II 1968) the only mention of masochism was in the categorization of sexual deviations, then defined as applying to those individuals for who sexual interest was directed primarily towards objects other than people of the opposite sex, toward sexual acts not usually associated with coitus, or toward coitus performed under bizarre circumstances as in necrophilia, pedophilia, sexual sadism, and fetishism.  It was noted that while many patients found their practices distasteful, they were unable to substitute normal sexual behavior and the diagnostic criteria was also exclusionary, noting the diagnosis was not appropriate for individuals who perform deviant sexual acts because normal sexual objects are not available to them.  This changed little in the third & fourth editions issued between 1980-2000 which refined the technical description and diagnostic criteria.  In the fifth editions (2013-2022), while classified as one of the paraphilias (algolagnic disorders) and thus "anomalous activity preferences", clinicians were advised a formal diagnosis of SMD was appropriate only if individual experiences clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.  By 2013 the DSM seemed to be back where Freud had started.

A mammary pleonasm (or tautology depending on one's view): Jasmine Tridevil during addition and the final result.

Pleonasm should not be confused with pleomastia (now largely supplanted by polymastia in clinical use) which is the condition of having more than two mammary glands (breasts) or nipples.  It’s a rare condition which doesn’t present in the geometrically perfect example presented in 2014 by Jasmine Tridevil, the stage name of Florida massage therapist Alisha Jasmine Hessler (b 1993).  Ms Tridevil initially claimed to have had the central unit implanted by a plastic surgeon but later admitted it was a construction made substantially of latex and silicone, attached to her with surgical glue, helpfully providing photographs of the maintenance being undertaken.  However, encouraged by enjoying more than fifteen minutes of fame, in 2019 Ms Tridevil sought to crowdfund the money (apparently US$50-000) needed actually to have the surgery performed.  Progress on this project hasn’t been reported but Ms Tridevil has maintained her presence on a number of internet platforms including vlogs on topics as varied as "How to dominate your boyfriend" and “My gothic Christmas tree”.

The offence caused by unnecessary words is such that not only do tautology and pleonasm exist but for serious critics there’s also auxesis (from the Ancient Greek: αὔξησις (aúxēsis) (growth; increase (which in rhetoric references various forms of increase)) and describes exaggerated language, battology (from the Ancient Greek βαττολογία (battología) (stammering speech)) which is the repeated reiteration of the same words, phrases, or ideas and perissology (from the Latin perissologia) which is the use of more words than are necessary to convey meaning.  At the margins, there’s often a bit of overlap so care need to be taken that one’s critique of a redundant (and all the constructions are really forks of that) word or phrase doesn’t itself commit the same offence.  Grammar Nazis of course delight in faulting others when they use a tautology, some particularly pedantic even correcting other obsessives who might wrongly have tagged a tautology when really they should have perceived a pleonasm.