Gang

Gang (pronounced gang)

(1) A group of (usually male) adolescents who associate closely, often exclusively, for social reasons, especially such a group engaging in delinquent behavior.

(2) A group of people who associate together or act as an organized body for criminal or illegal purposes; A group of people with compatible tastes or mutual interests who gather together for social reasons:

(3) To arrange in groups or sets; form into a gang.

(4) An alternative term for a herd of buffaloes or elks or a pack of wild dogs

(5) A group of shearers who travel to different shearing sheds, shearing, classing, and baling wool (mostly New Zealand rural).

(6) In electronics, to mount two or more components on the same shaft, permitting adjustment by a single control.

(7) In mechanization and robotics, a series of similar tools arranged to work simultaneously in parallel (eg a gang saw is an assembly of blade and conveyor, pulling logs across its blades to cut an entire section into planks with one pass).

(8) As chain gang, a term to describe a work-gang of convicts chained together, usually by the ankles (mostly US, south of the Mason-Dixon Line).

(9) An outbuilding used as a loo (obsolete).

(10) To go, walk, proceed; a going, journey, a course, path, track (chiefly Britain dialectal, northern England & Scotland).

Pre 900: From the Middle English gangen from the Old English gang, gong, gangan and gongan (manner of going, passage, to go, walk, turn out) from the Proto-Germanic ganganą (to go, walk), from the primitive Indo-European ghengh (to step, walk).  It was cognate with the Scots gang (to go on foot, walk), the Swedish gånga (to walk, go), the Old High German gangan, the Old Norse ganga, the Gothic gaggan, the Faroese ganga (to walk), the Icelandic ganga (to walk, go), the Vedic Sanskrit जंहस् (jáṃhas & jangha) (foot, walk) and the Lithuanian žengiu (I stride").  Gang emerged as a variant spelling of gangue; scholars have never found any relation to go.  Gang & ganging are nouns & verbs, ganged is a verb, ganger is a noun and gangster is a noun, verb & adjective; the noun plural is gangs.

A counter-revolutionary gang of four.

The evolution of gang from a word meaning “to walk” to one with a sense of “a group formed for some common purpose” appears to have happened in the mid-fourteenth century, probably via "a set of articles that usually are taken together in going", especially a set of tools used on the same job.  By the 1620s this had been extended in nautical speech to mean "a company of workmen" and, within a decade, gang was being used as a term of disapprobation for "any band of persons travelling together", then "a criminal gang or company" and there was a general trend between the seventeen and nineteenth centuries for it to be used to describe animal herds or flocks.  In US English, by 1724, it applied to slaves working on plantations and by 1855, it was used to mean a "group of criminal or mischievous boys in a city".  Synonyms include clan, tribe, company, clique, crew, band, squad, troop, set, party, syndicate, organization, ring, team, bunch, horde, coterie, crowd, club, shift and posse.  Despite the meaning-shift, both gangway and gang-plank preserve the original sense of the word.

HPM 4 gang power outlet (240v / 10a) with pin pattern used in  Argentina, Australia, China, New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Solomon Islands & Papua New Guinea.  This is a "four gang" outlet and not a "gang of four" which is something else.

The seemingly curious use in electrical hardware of the term “gang” to refer to the number of switches or sockets grouped in a housing unit or faceplate arose because electricity was a late arrival to the building industry.  In such hardware, each switch or socket is considered a “gang” (1 gang, 2 gang etc).  The electrical industry borrowed “gang” from its various uses in carpentry, plumbing and mechanical engineering where it was applied to just about any equipment where there existed different versions with different groupings or assemblies of similar items.  In the building industry, “gang” had become a standardized term long before there were electrical products so it was natural it be adopted rather than invent new jargon.

The Gang of Four

Although the term (and variations) has since often been used in both politics and popular culture, the original Gang of Four was a faction of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the four members all figures of significance during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976).  The best known of the four was comrade Chairman Mao Zedong's (1893–1976; chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 1949-1976) last wife and the extent to which wife and gang, rather than Chairman Mao, were responsible for what happened in the Cultural Revolution remains a dispute among sinologists.  The Gang of Four were arrested within a month of Mao’s death in 1976 and labelled "counter-revolutionaries”.  After a CCP show trial, they were sentenced either to death or long prison-terms although the capital sentences were later commuted.  All have since died, either in prison or after release in the late 1990s.

The Gang of Four on trial, Beijing, 1981.

Comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) conducted the most notorious of his "show trials" during the great purges of the 1930s but he didn't have television as a platform to spread the message (even so, the Soviet populations seemed to "get it").  The CCP however did arrange edited "packages" of the trial of the Gang of Four to be shown on domestic television and while few would have been on tenterhooks waiting for the verdicts, it must have been an interesting insight to the way the CCP presented such things and a rare glimpse of the actual workings of the party's legal mechanisms.  Although sometimes characterized as the "last act" of the Cultural Revolution, it might be more correct to think of it as a coda and although any legal precedents set or upheld may not have been of much significance, the affair has left a linguistic legacy, "gang of four" used for many purposes both in China and the West.  Such is the power of the phrase in China that in a place like Hong Kong, anyone a bit suspicious (and they know who they are) are advised to meet to groups of no more than three.

Chenille

Chenille (pronounced shuh-neel)

(1) A thick soft tufty silk or worsted velvet cord or yarn used in embroidery and for trimmings and other embellishments.

(2) A fabric made with such a fringed silken thread used as the weft in combination with wool or cotton; it’s a popular fabric for garments such as sweaters.

(3) In casual use, any fabric with a protruding pile, as in certain rayon bedspreads.

(4) A deep-pile, durable, woolen carpeting with chenille weft: the most expensive of the power-loomed floor coverings in volume production.

(5) In botany, the chenille plant (Acalypha hispida), a shrub with colorful furry flowers

1738: from the French chenille (velvety cord used in embroidery, fringes etc (literally “hairy caterpillar” and a doublet of canicule)), from the Latin canīcula (which under a strict etymological breakdown suggests “little dog” but the only documented use was in the senses “shrewish woman”; “dogfish”; “the star Sirius” (canicular); the worst throw in a game of dice); it was a diminutive of canis (dog), from the from primitive indo-European root kwon- (dog).  All uses are derived from the furry look of certain caterpillars.  Chenille is a noun and chenillelike (also as chenille-like) is an adjective; the noun plural is chenilles.

Renault UE Chenillette with trailer, the combination configured as a refueling unit for the infantry, circa 1932.

The unrelated noun chenillette originally described a class of small (most not even 3 metres (10 feet) in length), armored vehicles built for the French Army during the 1930s.  Because they were tracked, they were sometimes referred to as tankettes (a noun later adopted as military slang for scaled-down tanks) but that was misleading because they were really armored utility vehicles intended to tow artillery pieces or trailers with supplies.  The earliest had provision only for a driver and were unarmed but later designs expanded both capacities.  By the standards of the time they were fast and being cheap to produce and operate were produced in large numbers and used by a number of militaries as late as the 1950s.  In the UK, the Chenille name was adopted for a tracked sidewalk tractor, especially one equipped with plough-like device for clearing snow, the name an allusion to the (vaguely) caterpillar-like appearance.  In arctic regions, snowcats (tracked, truck-like enclosed vehicles used to transport people and supplies across snow & ice) are sometimes referred to as chenillettes, the term used also for some of the machines operated by ski resorts or others in alpine areas.

The inspiration: Woolly Bear caterpillar (Pyrrharctia isabella), the caterpillar the larval stage of the Isabella tiger moth.

Chenille is a type of fabric construction available in a range of designs and valued for qualities as varied as disguising wrinkles and retaining an opulent sheen meaning it is adaptable and widely used.  The name comes from the French chenille (caterpillar) and in an allusion to the creature’s soft, fluffy appearance although this shouldn’t be taken too literally because some caterpillars have stinging hairs which can induce health problems such as itching, conjunctivitis, sore throats and various localized irritations which can in some cases lead to infections and because the hairs can even be flown off by gusts of wind, even being in close proximity can expose one to risk.  The chenille technique used to produce the fabric involves placing several short piles of yarn between two core yarns, weaving them together to create a raised (ie hairy) effect.

Lindsay Lohan in a pale pink chenille midi-dress by David Koma (b 1985), Clarins new product launch party, Los Angeles, March 2024.

Thick, durable, and water-resistant, chenille is popular with furniture manufacturers and used for upholstery and its seen often in bed sheets, rugs and linens but most photographed are the sweaters, dresses and such, the industry liking the look because it’s so easy to achieve a lustrous, opulent appearance and customers like it because the texture is such that it “absorbs” crushing, crinkling and wrinkling without obvious effect.  Quite which type of chenille should be chosen will be dictate by the appearance desired and that is a product of the materials used in the construction: cotton, silk, and wool chenille lend a soft and luxurious texture, polyester versions have a shiny, almost velvety sheen while rayon chenille is famously lush, durable valued for its shimmering iridescence.  The cost breakdown of course dictates patterns of consumption and polyester chenilles are by far the cheapest and most widely used for furniture, especially where the surface areas large or subject to high use.  Natural fibres such as wool raises the cost and demand more maintenance but no synthetic can match the softness, natural feel and desired degree of fuzziness.

Examples of chenille fabrics.

Chenilles are among the more recent fabrics, the technique coming into use in France only in the mid-eighteenth century although then it was the preserve of artisans and it wasn’t until the 1830s that industrial production began in Scotland.  Initially the fabrics were expensive because the process was broken into several stages and although mechanized, it remained labor intensive until dedicated machines were developed.  The centre of production shifted to the US and by the 1930s, despite the onset of the Great Depression, the sector emerged as a bright spot for the industry because chenilles were adaptable to purposes as diverse as floor mats, bedspreads and upholstery, the economics particularly attractive because the production process made such efficient use of the cotton crop.  Use actually declined in the post-war years but new techniques and the expansion of mass-market fashion in the 1960s & 1970s saw renewed interest in it for garments and fashion houses at all levels four it a flexible and adaptable fabric.  Not unexpectedly, as manufacturing in the 1980s shifted to South Asia and the Far East, “faux chenille” soon hit the high street.

Appellate

Appellate (pronounced uh-pel-it)

(1) Of or pertaining to that which can be reviewed by a power or authority vested with the necessary jurisdiction.

(2) A court, tribunal or other body having the power or authority to review and decide appeals made against decisions issued by subordinate individuals or institutions; that which legally can be appealed to.

1726: From the Classical Latin appellātus (called upon, summoned), past participle of appellāre (to appeal) and perfect passive participle of appellō (address as, call by name), the construct being ad (to, towards) +‎ pellō (push; impress).  The noun appellant (one who appeals from a lower to a higher court) dates from the 1610s, from the Anglo-French & French appellant, noun use of present participle of the French appeller (make an appeal), from the Old French apeler, from the Latin appellare (appeal to).  Appellate is an adjective and appellant is a noun; the noun plural is appellants.

Unrelated to the hierarchy of courts, there are words used formal grammar and linguistics including the noun appellative (a common noun; an epithet), the adjective appellative (of or pertaining to an appellative noun or common noun; of or pertaining to ascribing names), the noun appellativeness (the state or quality of being appellative), the adverb appellatively (after the manner of appellative nouns; so as to express whole classes or species and the noun appellativization (the process of a proper name becoming a common noun (such as hoover; kleenex; google et al)).  The antonym is proprialization (White House, Grand Canyon et al).  The noun appellation (designation, name given to a person, thing, or class) entered English in the mid-fifteenth century, from the twelfth century Old French apelacion (name, denomination), from the Latin appellationem (nominative appellatio) (an addressing, accosting; an appeal; a name, title), the noun of action from the past-participle stem of appellare (address, appeal to, name).  An appellation is a descriptive and specific term (Joan of Arc’s appellation was Arc; John the Baptist's was Baptist while those who were most associated with the political discussions which culminated in the formation of the United States of America (USA) are given the appellation “Founding Fathers”.  An appellation differs thus from an official or honorary title such as earl, bishop, general, professor et al but technically, these too are appellations.  The adjective appellative dates from the early fifteenth century (of a noun, serving to name or mark out, common (as opposed to proper))," from the Latin appellativus, from appellat-, past-participle stem of appellare (address, name, appeal to).  As a noun, it was in use by at least the 1590s in the sense of “a common” and by the 1630s as a “title or descriptive name”.

Courts of appeal

Appellate courts, usually styled as courts of appeal, are those vested with the jurisdiction to an appeal from a subordinate court within the same hierarchy.  In Australia, as a general principle, the court system exists in three layers (1) a trial court, (2) an intermediate appellate court and (3) a final court of appeal although variations exist and appeals from lower courts are not always of right; in many cases an application for leave to appeal can be declined.  Details of appellate jurisdiction in English courts appear in Sir William Blackstone's (1723–1780) Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769), a matrix which has since been a thing of repeated change.  The hierarchical nature of the appellate food-chain is of significance because ultimately it's the final stage which is decisive: A case might for example be heard by eleven eminent judges, one in the supreme court at first instance, three on a court of appeal and seven at a high court so if the first appeal is decided 3-0 and the final 4-3 then one party can have enjoyed the concurrence of 7 of the 11 yet still lose.  That's how the appellate system works.

The Australian court systems are now unitary which means that, depending on the law(s) involved, the avenue of appeal lies to a state, territory or Commonwealth court, appeals to the Privy Council (actually the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC)) in London sundered for Commonwealth matters in 1968 and for those involving the states in 1986 by the Australia Acts although there is one historic relic.  Section 74 of the constitution provides for an appeal from the High Court of Australia (HCA) to the the Privy Council if the court issues a certificate that it is appropriate for the Privy Council to determine an inter se (a case concerning constitutional relations between the Commonwealth and one or more states or between states) matter.  The only such certificate was issued in 1912 and in 1985, the High Court judges (unanimously) observed that the power to grant such a certificate “…has long since been spent… and is obsolete".  However, it’s there with full legal force so, in the strict constitutional sense, an appeal from the HCA to the JCPC, however unlikely, remains possible.

In the matter of Grand Theft Auto (GTA5): Lindsay Lohan v Take-Two Interactive Software Inc et al, New York Court of Appeals (No 24, pp1-11, 29 March 2018)

Truly a martyr, Lindsay Lohan hasn't had much luck in appellate courts.  In a case which took an unremarkable four years from filing to reach New York’s highest appellate court, Lindsay Lohan’s suit against the makers of video game Grand Theft Auto V was dismissed.  In a unanimous ruling in March 2018, six judges of the New York Court of Appeals rejected her invasion of privacy claim which alleged one of the game’s characters was based on her.  The judges found the "actress/singer" in the game merely resembled a “generic young woman” rather than anyone specific.  Unfortunately the judges seemed unacquainted with the concept of the “basic white girl” which might have made the judgment more of a fun read.

Beware of imitations: The real Lindsay Lohan and the GTA 5 ersatz, a mere "generic young woman".

Concurring with the 2016 ruling of the New York County Supreme Court which, on appeal, also found for the game’s makers, the judges, as a point of law, accepted the claim a computer game’s character "could be construed a portrait", which "could constitute an invasion of an individual’s privacy" but, on the facts of the case, the likeness was "not sufficiently strong".  The “… artistic renderings are an indistinct, satirical representation of the style, look and persona of a modern, beach-going young woman... that is not recognizable as the plaintiff" Judge Eugene Fahey (b 1951; associate judge of New York Court of Appeals from 2015-2021) wrote in his ruling.  Ms Lohan’s lawyers did not seek leave to appeal.

In happier times: Gladys Berejiklian (b 1970; Premier (Liberal) of New South Wales 2017-2021) & Daryl Maguire (b 1959, MLA (Liberal) for Wagga Wagga 1999-2018).

Also not having much luck with a matter taken on appeal is former New South Wales (NSW, Australia) Premier Gladys Berejiklian, compelled in 2021 to resign after being found to have committed an act of Billigung, her crucial phrase in a secretly recorded conversation being "I don't need to know about that bit" when her then (secret) lover began to tell her some details of his dubious deals.  To that pertinent observation, Mr Maguire replied "No, you don't".  The suggestion is the premier failed to declare a conflict of interest when dealing with the allocation of taxpayer funds which would be to the benefit of Mr Maguire.

The German Billigung is not so much hard to translate as able to be translated in a number of senses; context is everything.  The way it is used to mean “looking away; avoiding specific knowledge of something which one knows or suspects is happening” was clarified in 1977.  Albert Speer (1905-1981, Nazi Minister for Armaments 1942-1945), the convicted war criminal, had always denied any knowledge of the holocaust and was displeased when sent the English translation of a profile to be published in Die Zeit magazine in which Billigung had been rendered as his “...tacit consent...” of the final solution.  This he corrected, explaining Billigung in this context meant “looking away”.  This meant he averted his gaze from the worst crime of the criminal régime he served in order to be able to deny he knew of it.  Speer, predictably, was able to summon a word to explain this too: Ahnumg (the sensing of something without quite knowing exactly what).  He did at least concede the implication of his translation “...is as grave…” as the original, one biographer noting that had Speer said as much at his trial “…he would have been hanged.”  Other historians and some lawyers disagreed with that but it was an assertion the author was unable to pursue.  When she tried to nudge Speer a little further, pointing out that for one to look away from something, one must first know it's there, he didn’t deny what he’d earlier said but added they “…must never speak of it again".  The moment passed and within weeks he would be dead, dying "on the job" in police slang.  Some have noted the feeling Speer conveyed of always somehow longing to confess his knowledge of the holocaust.  He so often came so close to admitting he knew what he'd always denied, as if the last great act of his life would have been to admit worst of the the guilt he convinced himself (and some others) he'd evaded when the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the first Nuremberg  Trial (1945-1946) convicted him of war crimes & crimes against humanity (counts 3 & 4) and sentenced him to twenty years imprisonment.  Had he then told the truth, he'd have been hanged.

The words used by Ms Berejiklian: "I don't need to know about that bit" are best understood in modern use as an attempt to manufacture "plausible deniability" and may be compared with how Herr Speer described his response in mid-1944 to being warned by a friend "never, under any circumstances" "to accept an invitation to inspect a concentration camp in Upper Silesia".  Speer's friend explained that at that place he'd "...seen something there which he was not permitted to describe and moreover could not describe".  Having received what he claimed was his first knowledge of Auschwitz, Speer asked no questions of anyone, later admitting: "I did not want to know what was happening there".  That was what he later called Billigung.  There's obviously quite some difference between knowledge of the Holocaust and the dodgy dealings of a politician but the Billigung principle is the same. However, the former premier may have been comforted that unlike the IMT at Nuremberg, the ICAC wasn't vested with capital jurisdiction so there was that.

Enjoying their pipes: Albert Speer in conversation with his lawyer Dr Hans Flächsner (1896-dod unrecorded) and a legal associate, Nuremburg, 1945.     

On 1 October 2021, the NSW ICAC (Independent Commission against Corruption) announced an investigation into the former premier's conduct in office, later handing down a finding she had committed “serious corrupt conduct”.  Interestingly,  despite that, the ICAC made no recommendation criminal charges be pursued because the evidence Ms Berejiklian was required to provide to the ICAC wouldn’t be admissible in a court because there, the rules of evidence are different and a defendant can’t be compelled to provide an answer which might be self-incriminating.  In other words a politician can be forced to tell the truth when before the ICAC but not before a court when charged.  That’s an aspect of the common law’s adversarial system which has been much criticized but it’s one of the doctrines which underpins Western law where there is a presumption of innocence and the onus of proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt lies with the prosecution.

Ms Berejiklian challenged the findings and validity of the ICAC’s findings, her appeal heard by the NSW Court of Appeal, the state’s highest appellate court.  Her grounds for the appeal were claims (1) the ICAC made errors of law and (2) their report may have been delivered outside its legal authority due the expiration of the term of one of the ICAC’s assistant commissioners prior to the report being delivered.  In a split (2-1) decision handed down in July 2024, the court dismissed the appeal (with costs), the dissenting judge finding that because one assistant commissioner was engaged as a consultant after her term had expired (a role which included assisting in drafting the final report and writing assessments of the credibility of witnesses including Ms Berejiklian) what they did was act outside the limits of the authority conferred on a consultant.  The majority disagreed, finding the appointment as a consultant was in all ways “valid and effective” and also rejected the other grounds cited in the appeal.

So the ICAC’s finding of “serious corrupt conduct” stands.  Responding to the court’s decision, Ms Berejiklian didn’t mention that “c-word”) but thanked the court for its consideration given “...the limited nature of a challenge that can be made to ICAC findings by any citizen.  As the court noted, the ICAC Act does not permit a ‘merits’ review of the findings of ICAC.”  She also noted the split decision and concluded “Serving the people of NSW was an honour and privilege which I never took for granted. I always worked my hardest to look after the welfare and interests of the people of NSW.” 

Appellate courts, the hair police and black letter law

Appellate courts are best known for their rulings in cases of great public interest or legal significance; in the former category these typically are those involving celebrities, sex or anything especially gruesome and in the latter, constitutional matters.  There are exceptions (and some appellate courts do also function in certain specialized matters as courts of first instance) and the US Supreme Court (USSC) has agreed to hear parking-ticket and other minor matters if the law under which a conviction was obtained happened in a jurisdiction where the offence was deemed one of absolute liability and an appeal not permitted.  In those matters, the court held that in the US, a legal principle existed that the state could not convict a citizen of something without granting a means of appealing the decision.  Courts of appeal also hear the quirky and bizarre and in 2022 an appeal was lodged in the Supreme Court of Japan, a young woman in Osaka Prefecture seeking to overturn a ruling from the Osaka High Court that her former high school’s rules and guidance forcing her to dye her brown hair black were lawful.

The young lady had in 2015 enrolled in a high school (operated by the prefectural government) and in the original case (decided by the Osaka District Court) she alleged teachers had at least weekly told her to dye her hair black, instructions which continued despite her explanation she was born with brown hair and it was her natural color.  In September 2016, she began refusing to go to school, her suit against the prefectural government alleging she had suffered mental stress.  In 2021, the district court ordered the prefectural government to pay ¥330,000 (US$3,100) to the former student for certain actions (such as such as removing her name from school rosters after she stopped attending) but ruled also the school’s enforcement of the hair-related regulation exceed the discretionary authority it had been granted.  The plaintiff took the case to Osaka High Court (the first appellate layer) which held that, on the basis: “a wide range of discretion must be permitted for school education in order to allow diversified educational guidance in line with individual and collective conditions”, the ruling of the district court was upheld.  The case was well publicized and attracted much public interest (and comment) and, presumably nudged, the Osaka’s Prefectural Board of Education undertook a survey of rules at high schools under their control but concluded the “compulsory black hair” rule was “necessary”, issuing a statement saying “We will meticulously explain the necessity in order to gain understanding from students’ parents”.  That didn’t please the by now bolshie (former) schoolgirl and in her appeal to the Supreme Court (the next appellate layer) claimed banning brown hair was “unconstitutional”, citing Article 13 of Japan’s Constitution, which stipulates people’s right to pursue happiness.

The case attracted the interest of Doshisha University’s Professor Kayoko Oshima (b 1959) who explained the substantive matter was more the repeated demands the girl “dye her hair black rather than the rule itself”, his point being that the purpose of the rule was to prevent the dying of hair to ensure lurid greens or blues (or, God forbid, blondes) weren’t seen and in the case of someone with natural brown hair, the ruling shouldn’t be enforced.  In other words, for these purposes there should be the legal fiction that “brown is black”, something like the “honorary white” status the Apartheid-era South African government would sometimes grant to visiting PoCs (persons of color; typically athletes or politicians).  The rule, according to the professor, was thus rational but, in certain circumstances, its enforcement was not; an example of the “unintended consequences” which sometimes occur in the application of “black letter law”.

While the matter proceed through Japan's not especially rapid civil system, news organizations began reporting other interesting rules school impose on their female students including mandating white underwear and banning pony-tails on the basis that were the nape of the neck so scandalously to be exposed, it would risk “sexually exciting” male students.  Hair color, length and pony-tails are subject obviously to visual inspection but it's not clear if the underwear dictates are enforced by the same method.  The wide publication of these rules drew much derision and in response, early in 2022, the Tokyo prefecture announced those with natural hair other than black would no longer be required to dye to conform and that underwear need no longer exclusively be white.  The Tokyo authorities took an omnibus approach to reform, announcing also that a wider range of hairstyles would be permitted including the “two-block” (short on the sides and back while long on top) which was interesting because like the also permitted bob, the risk of napes being flaunted was obviously there.  Legal observers commented it was an example of a typically Japanese attempt to be flexible yet not be seen over-turning long defended-rules.  Thus the pony-tail proscription stands even though its rationale was undermined by the new permissiveness extending to the bob; again, black letter law.  Collectively, the “draconian rules” are known in Japan asブラック校則 (buraku kosoku) (black rules) and they have existed since the 1970s when it was noted “foreign influences” were beginning to intrude, resulting in previously unknown "behavioral issues".  As well as hair color and seductive pony tails, the most rigorously policed seems to have been skirt length, particular attention devoted to detecting the devious trick of “skirt-folding”, the standard workaround for those seeking the “above-knee look”.  Knees, it would seem, are thought as potentially provocative as the naked nape of the neck.

Ai Nishida San (b 1992) as she is (left) and as her school decided history would remember her (left).

Interestingly, high-tech Japanese school administrators have proved that even if the day comes when they can no longer make black hair compulsorily, with a little judicious digital editing, retrospectively they can make it seem as if uniformity is maintained.  In 2021, one student circulated a “before & after” pair of images, one her school photograph in untouched form (left), the other as it appeared in her school’s yearbook (right), the latter with hair in an acceptably shiny black.  Commenting on the editing, the former student said the message conveyed by the practice was it “…enforces the idea that black straight hair, a stereotypically Japanese look, is right”, the obvious implication being anything else is wrong and thus un-Japanese.  Her school had actually been accommodating, telling her that because it was her natural color, she was exempt the attention of the hair police and she thought little more about it until she received her 2007 yearbook when she realized she had been rendered “more Japanese”.  Ai Nishida San called the school’s actions “racist” and while, in the narrow technical sense, it might be more correct to suggest the motives were “racialist”, it’s certainly either and hardly in the spirit of the submission Japan’s delegation to the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920) made, arguing for racial equality to be recognized as one of the core concepts underpinning international relations in the post-war (which turned out to be the inter-war) era.

Nightmare

Nightmare (pronounced nahyt-mair)

(1) A terrifying dream in which the dreamer experiences feelings of helplessness, extreme anxiety, sorrow etc.

(2) A condition, thought, or experience suggestive of a nightmare.

(3) A monster or evil spirit once believed to oppress persons during sleep.

1250–1300: From the Middle English nightmare, from the Old English nihtmare, the construct being night +‎ mare (evil spirit believed to afflict a sleeping person).  It was cognate with the Scots nichtmare and nichtmeer, the Dutch nachtmerrie, the Middle Low German nachtmār and the German Nachtmahr.  Another Old English word for it was niht-genga.

Night was from the Middle English nighte, night, nyght, niȝt & naht (night), from the Old English niht, neht, nyht, neaht & næht (night), from the Proto-Germanic nahts (night), from the primitive Indo-European nókwts (night).  It was cognate with the Scots nicht & neicht (night), the West Frisian nacht (night), the Dutch nacht (night), the Low German & German Nacht (night), the Danish nat (night), the Swedish & Norwegian natt (night), the Faroese nátt (night), the Icelandic nótt (night), the Latin nox (night), the Greek νύχτα (nýchta) (night), the Russian ночь (nočʹ) (night) and the Sanskrit नक्ति (nákti) (night).  Mare had a second etymological track from the sense of the female horse (mare from the Old English mīere).  The sense of “nightmare, monster” is from the Old English mare from the Proto-Germanic marǭ (nightmare, incubus) and can be compared with the Dutch dialectical mare, the German dialectical Mahr from the Old Norse mara which produced also the Danish mare and the Swedish mara (incubus, nightmare).  The ultimate root was the primitive Indo-European mor (feminine evil spirit).  The English and European forms were akin to the Old Irish Morrígan (phantom queen), the Albanian merë (horror), the Polish zmora (nightmare), the Czech mura (nightmare, moth) and the Greek Μόρα (Móra); doublet of mara.

The original meaning (incubus, an evil female spirit (later often called a goblin) afflicting men (or horses) in their sleep with a feeling of suffocation) dates from the thirteenth century, with the meaning shift from the incubus to the suffocating sensation it causes emerging in the mid sixteenth century.  The sense of "any bad dream" is recorded by 1829; that of "very distressing experience" is from 1831.  Nightmare and nightmarishness are nouns, nightmarish is an adjective and nightmarishly an adverb; the noun plural is nightmares.  The adjective nightmaresque is non-standard but use is not infrequent.

Bad dreams

Waking from a bad dream, Lindsay Lohan in Scary Movie 5 (2013).

Nightmares are regarded by mental health clinicians essentially as part of the human condition.  In this they differ from night terror (sometimes called sleep terror), a disorder inducing panic or feelings of morbid dread, typically during the early stages of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and usually brief in duration, lasting no more than 1-10 minutes.  Sleep terrors appear most often to begin in childhood, decreasing (usually) with age but their frequency and severity can be affected, inter alia, by sleep deprivation, medications, stress, fever and intrinsic sleep disorders.  Evidence does seem to suggest a predisposition to night terrors may be congenital and there may be an increase in prevalence among those with first-degree relatives with a similar history but the link to inheritance is dismissed by some academics as "speculative".

The Nightmare (1781), oil on canvas by the Swiss-English painter John Henry Fuseli (Johann Heinrich Füssli; 1741-1825), Detroit Institute of Arts.  It's a popular image to use to illustrate something "nightmare related".

When the political activist Max Eastman (1883–1969) visited Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) in Vienna in 1926, he observed a print of Fuseli's The Nightmare, hung next to Rembrandt's  (Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn; 1606-1669) The Anatomy Lesson.  Although well known for his work on dream analysis (although it’s the self-help industry more than the neo-Freudians who have filled the book-shelves), Freud never mentions Fuseli's famous painting in his writings but it has been used by others in books and papers on the subject.  The speculation is Freud liked the work (clearly, sometimes, a painting is just a painting) but nightmares weren’t part of the intellectual framework he developed for psychoanalysis which suggested dreams (apparently of all types) were expressions of wish fulfilments while nightmares represented the superego’s desire to be punished; later he would refine this with the theory a traumatic nightmare was a manifestation of “repetition compulsion”.  The juxtaposition of sleeping beauty and goblin provoked many reactions when first displayed and encouraged Fuseli to paint several more versions.  The Nightmare has been the subject of much speculation and interpretation, including the inevitable debate between the Freudians and Jungians and was taken as a base also by political cartoonists, a bunch more nasty in earlier centuries than our more sanitized age.

The current diagnostic criteria for sleep terrors

The fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5, 2013) revised the diagnostic criteria for sleep terror disorder, requiring:

(1) Recurrent periods where the individual abruptly but not completely wakes from sleep, usually occurring during the first third major period of sleep.

(2) The individual experiences intense fear with a panicky scream at the beginning and symptoms of autonomic arousal, such as increased heart rate, heavy breathing, and increased perspiration. The individual cannot be soothed or comforted during the episode.

(3) The individual is unable or almost unable to remember images of the dream (only a single visual scene for example).

(4) The episode is completely forgotten.

(5) The occurrence of the sleep terror episode causes clinically significant distress or impairment in the individual's functioning.

(6) The disturbance is not due to the effects of a substance, general medical condition or medication.

(7) Coexisting mental or medical disorders do not explain the episodes of sleep terrors.

Brougham

Brougham (prounced broo-uhm, broom-uhm or broh-uhm)

(1) In horse-drawn passenger transport, a four-wheeled, boxlike, closed carriage for two or four persons with the having the driver's seat outside.

(2) In automotive use, an early designation for a with an open driver's compartment.

(3) In automotive use, an early designation for a style of coachwork resembling a coupé but tending to be powered by an electric motor.

(4) In automotive use, a post-war designation used (mostly in the US) as a model name (more commonly as a sub-name) for luxury versions of mass-produced models.

1849: The coach was named after Henry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868; Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain 1830-1834) who in 1839 took delivery of one in the style.  Although he would sometimes prove a difficult colleague, Lord Brougham’s achievements during his political career were notable and it was while he was Lord Chancellor that the parliament passed both the first Reform Act (1832) (the first substantial building block which would culminate in the democratic nature the British constitution eventually attained in the twentieth century) and the Slavery Abolition Act (1833).  Although Lord Brougham was born in Edinburgh, the surname “Brougham” is of English origin and thought derived from a place name in Westmorland (now part of Cumbria, in north-west of England).  Genealogists believe the name was originally locational, the construct being burg (fort or castle) + hām (homestead or village) and thus understood as “the homestead or village by the fort”.  Brougham Manor (purchased by Lord Brougham in 1926) and the nearby Cumbrian village of Brougham have a long association with the Brougham family.  Brougham is a noun, the noun plural is broughams (initial upper case if used as a proper noun).

The forbidding visage of Lord Brougham (left) and a mid-nineteenth century coach-builder’s advertisement for a Hansom Cab based on the concept of the brougham, the compact dimensions idea for European cities, many with districts still built around tight systems of streets dating from Medieval or even Roman times.

Lord Brougham’s design was very much to suit his requirements and he drew up the specifications simply because no coach was then available with the combination of features he desired.  What he wanted was a compact carriage designed to seat two (although many versions would, for occasional use, often include two small, foldable “jump” seats, a concept which later would be included in many limousines) in an enclosed compartment (the driver sitting outside) with a particular emphasis of ease of ingress and egress.  Its light weight and easy manoeuvrability made the brougham ideal for urban use and the style was influential, not only widely imitated but also productive in that variations (smaller and larger) appeared and it soon became the preferred middle-class carriage of the era.  It differed from the earlier Hansom Cab which was even smaller and designed to accommodate two in a cabin which often wasn’t enclosed.  The Hansom Cab was the ancestor of the modern taxi and they were produced almost exclusively for the use by hire-operators whereas the larger, better appointed brougham was aimed at the private market.

Harold Wilson (1916–1995; UK prime minister 1964-1970 & 1974-1976) outside 10 Downing Street with his Rover 3.5 saloon (P5B, 1967-1973) left, the 3.5 coupé with the lowered roofline (the first of the four-door breed of coupé), centre and Lindsay Lohan with Porsche Panamera 4S (introduced in 2009 in response to the Mercedes-Benz CLS (2004-2023) which revived the concept of the "four-door coupé), right.  Porsche doesn't use the designation "four door coupé". 

Confusingly for modern audiences, in the nineteenth century, the terms “brougham” and “coupé” often were used interchangeably.  In English, coupé (often and increasingly as “coupe”) was from the French coupé (low, short, four-wheeled, close carriage without the front seat, carrying two inside, with an outside seat for the driver (also “front compartment of a stage coach”)), a shortened form of carrosse coupé (a cut-off or shortened version of the Berlin (from Berliner) coach, modified to remove the back seat), the past participle of couper (to cut off; to cut in half), the verbal derivative of coup (blow; stroke); a doublet of cup, hive and keeve, thus the link with goblets, cups & glasses.  It was first applied to two-door automobiles with enclosed coachwork by 1897 while the Coupe de ville (or Coup de ville) dates from 1931, describing originally a car with an open driver's position and an enclosed passenger compartment.

1957 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham.  Cadillac in the 1950s used "Brougham" as just a model name, the same approach as in 1916 when it had no relationship with the historic coach-building styles. 

In the coach-building business, the critical part of the etymology was “a shortened form” and the coupé thus came to be understood as a “smaller” version of the original; originally this meant “shorter” but the industry soon came to use the term to apply to vehicles which were lower, lighter or in any other way down-scaled.  It’s for this reason the use of coupé (usually coupe in US use) came during the 1930s to be (sort of) standardized as a two-door version of a platform which typically appeared also in other forms.  Coupes in the US were by the later 1930s usually enclosed vehicles of a particular style (typically more rakish than two-door “sedans”) but the English clung more closely to the origin of the word by coining “fixed head coupé” (the FHC, ie what in the US would be a “coupe” of some sort) and the “drop-head coupé (the DHC, what would in other places be called a convertible or cabriolet (though not to be confused with a roadster or phaeton).

Named as a homage to the style of US First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy (1929-1994; US First Lady 1961-1963), Pinninfarina's memorable, one-off Cadillac "Brougham Jacqueline" presents an extraordinary contrast with the 1961 Cadillac on which it was based.  Shown at the 1961 Paris Motor Show, it's a glimpse of what Lancia might have built had they been able to offer 390 cubic inch (6.4 litre) V8s.

During the twentieth century, there was significant fragmentation of meaning in the terms which to coach-builders had once meant something quite specific.  By the 1960s, cars sold as coupés could have four doors and although the earliest versions of these made some concession to the etymology by being configured with a lowered roof-line, for others it was just a model name which might be indicative of sleeker lines but not always and the fate of “brougham” was more quixotic still, eventually for a time becoming the US industry’s term of choice when wanting to impart the impression of “up-market”, “luxurious” etc.  That wasn’t something out of the blue because as early as 1916 Cadillac introduced a model called “Brougham” which owed little to the obvious features of Lord Brougham’s carriage, the fully-enclosed, four-door Cadillac being now understood as a saloon, sedan or limousine depending on where one lives.  Those things which distinguished Lord Brougham’s design: (1) the enclosed passenger compartment and (2) the open section for the driver came instead to be associated with something called the "sedanca de ville" although few of these combined this with any quality of compactness.  Cadillac would from time to time flirt with the Brougham name but it’s now best remembered for what’s called “the great Brougham era”.  That term seems to have been invented by Curbside Classic, a curated website which is a gallimaufry of interesting content, built around the theme of once-familiar and often everyday vehicles which are now a rare sight until discovered by Curbside Classic’s contributors (who self-style as "curbivores"), parked next to some curb.  These are the often the machines neglected by automotive historians and collectors who prefer things which are fast, lovely and rare.  According to Curbside Classic, the “great brougham era” began in 1965 with the release of the LTD option for the mass-market Ford Galaxie and that approach was nothing new because even the Galaxie name had in 1959 been coined for a "luxury" version of the Fairlane 500, a trick the US industry had been using for some time.

However, for whatever reason, Ford’s LTD in 1965 created what would now be called a paradigm and it caught not only the public imagination but more importantly convinced them to spend their money buying one and sales were strong.  Profits were also strong because it cost Ford considerably less to tart up a Galaxie than the premium they charged for the LTD package (it was originally an option before becoming a separate model line) and the other mass-market players scrambled to respond, the most blatantly imitative being the Chevrolet Caprice and Plymouth VIP, both released within months of Ford's venture.  Of course, Ford, General Motors (GM) and Chrysler all had other brands, the purpose of which once had been to use the same platform in tarted up form so this internal corporate cannibalization is an interesting case-study in marketing and it’s worth remembering once somewhat up-market brand-names like Mercury and Oldsmobile no longer exist.  By the standards of Broughams which would follow, the “luxury” fittings of the LTD, Caprice and VIP were modest enough but the trend had been started and soon what came to be called the “gingerbread” was being laid on with a trowel: faux wood (plastic), faux chrome (anodized plastic), faux silk (polyester brocade), faux wire wheels (these were at least mostly metal) and that status symbol of the age, the vinyl roof.  The first cars actually to wear a “Brougham” badge seem to have appeared in late 1966 for the 1967 model year and over the decades there would some two dozen using the nomenclature, each understood as being something “more expensive” and therefore “better”.

Landmarks of the great brougham era

1965 Ford LTD:

The 1965 LTD is remembered now for the extra trim and the effect on the industry but in fairness to Ford, the car benefited greatly from the redesigned chassis which included coil-spring suspension on all four wheels.  There was also much attention (Ford spoke in terms of man-years) devoted to the then novel art & science of NVH (noise, vibration & harshness) and fearlessly advertised the thing as being quieter than a new Rolls-Royce.  Many probably thought that mere puffery but more than one publication duly hired acoustic engineers who installed their equipment and ran their tests, confirming the claim.  As a piece of marketing, the extra trim proved quite an enticement and LTD buyers, although they got as standard a 289 cubic inch (4.7 litre) V8 and automatic transmission, got little else and many ticked the boxes on the option list, adding features such as power brakes, power steering, brakes, electric windows and even air-conditioning, then a rarity.  Once all those boxes had been ticked, it wasn’t uncommon for LTDs to be sold for more than the cost of many a nominally up-market Mercury and even the cheapest Lincoln was remarkably close in price.

1971 Holden HG Premier (left) & 1968 Holden HK Brougham (right).

The Holden Brougham (1968-1971) was not so much a landmark of the era as a cul-de-sac but it did indicate how quickly the “brougham” label had come to be associated with prestige and like Chevrolet’s Caprice, the Brougham was a response to a Ford.  In Australia, Ford had been locally assembling the full-sized Galaxies for the government and executive markets but tariffs and the maintenance of the Australian currency peg at US$1.12 meant profitability was marginal, so the engineers (with a budget said to be: "three-quarters of four-fifths of fuck all") took the modest, locally made Falcon, stretched the wheelbase by five inches (125 mm), changed the front and rear styling (which although hardly radical resulted in a remarkably different look), added a few extra features and named it Fairlane.  The Fairlane name was chosen because of the success the company had had in selling first the full-sized US Fairlanes (nicknamed by locals as the “tank Fairlane”) between 1959-1962 and later the compact version (1962-1965).  It proved for decades a successful and lucrative approach.  Holden, General Motors's (GM) local outpost, took a rather bizarre approach in trying to match the Fairlane, the Brougham created by extending the tail of the less exalted Premier by 8 inches (200 mm), the strange elongation a hurried and far from successful response.

1957 Continental Mark II (left) and 1972 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Regency (right).  The Continental Mark II (1956-1957) was at the time the most expensive car produced in the US and substantially "hand made" but the relative austerity of the interior compared with the various "broughams" of later decades illustrates how profoundly the manufacturers shaped consumer tastes during the era. 

By 1972, there were so many “Broughams” on the market Oldsmobile must have thought the tag was becoming a bit common so to mark the company’s 75th anniversary, they called their new creation the “Regency”.  Vague as most Americans might have been about the origin of “brougham”, most probably knew “regency” often had something to do with royalty so as an associative pointer it was good.  The Ninety-Eight Regency in 1972 was however as audacious as the LTD had half-a-decade earlier been tentative because it seemed the target was Oldsmobile’s senior stable-mate (two rungs up the ladder in the GM hierarchy), the top-of-the-range Cadillac and there was nothing in Cadillac’s showrooms which could match the conspicuous opulence of the black or covert gold “pillow effect”, tufted velour upholstery.  Each Regency was registered at Tiffany's which supplied the specially designed clock and provided the owner with a distinctive sterling silver key ring; if lost, the keys could be dropped in a mailbox and Tiffany's would return them to the owner.  Take that Cadillac.  A limited run of 2,650 75th anniversary Ninety-Eight Regency cars was built, all of them four-door hardtops and the (non-anniversary) model continued in 1973.  By 1982, Oldsmobile concluded the message needed again to be drummed into buyers and introduced the Regency Brougham.

Peak brougham: 1977 Chrysler New Yorker Brougham four-door hardtop.

The high-water mark of the great brougham era was set by the Cadillac Fleetwood Talisman (1974-1976), the Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham D'Elegance (those produced in 1988-1989) and the most expensive cars from Chrysler Corporation (the Imperials and Chrysler New Yorkers) during the last days of the full-sized cars (1974-1978).  After this, designers really could go no further in this direction and had to think of something else.