Macaronic

Macaronic (pronounced mak-uh-ron-ik)

(1) A text composed of or characterized by Latin words mixed with vernacular words or non-Latin words given Latin endings (known in literary theory as the “macaronic verse”).

(2) In latter-day use, a text constructed with words from more than one language (written in a hodgepodge; a work of macaronic character).

(3) In structural linguistics, as macaronics, the study of or instances of macaronic language.

(4) Used loosely, anything mixed of stuff from different sources; a gallimaufry; a jumble (now rare).

(5) Of men, a dandy, foppish, trifling, affected (based on like “a macaroni” when used in that sense) (archaic).

1605–1615: From the sixteenth century New Latin macarōnicus, from the dialectal Italian maccarone (coarse dumpling), from the French macaronique (from the association of macaroni (the pasta) as peasant food with the vernacular language of peasants, thus the implication that mixing languages was indicative of “a lack of sophistication; being uneducated”, the construct being macaron(i) + -icus.  The Latin suffix -icus (feminine -ica, neuter -icum) was from i-stem + -cus and occurred in some original cases, becoming influential in adjectival formation and later used freely.  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek -ικός (-ikós), the Proto-Germanic -igaz (source of the Old High German and Old English -ig, the Gothic - -eigs, the Sanskrit -इक (-ika) and Proto-Slavic -ьcь (the latter becoming fossilized as a nominal agent suffix, but it likely originally also served adjectival functions).  The suffix was appended to nouns to form adjectives denoting (1) belong to, (2) derived from or (3) pertaining to and thus may be compared to the suffixes -ic & -ish.  The spelling macaronick has been obsolete since the eighteenth century.  Macaronic is a noun & adjective and macaronically is an adverb; the noun plural is macaronics.  The comparative is “more macaronic” and the superlative “most macaronic” and those presumably can be used either of (1) the number of “foreign” words in a text or (2) the extent of the perceived inelegance thus created.

Teofilo Folengo (1491–1544 (who wrote under the pseudonyms Merlino Coccajoa & Merlinus Cocaius)) is regarded as one of the earliest and certainly most celebrated of the Italian macaronic poets.  He had become a Benedictine monk after being disowned (and more to the point, disinherited) by his father, disappointed at his son being sent down from university for “bad behavior”, a character trait which the Benedictines seemed not wholly to have suppressed because while in the village close to the monastery, he was ensorcelled by the comely waif Girolama Dieda who led him astray.  They eloped but after years of wandering, he returned to the church, performing the necessary rites of repentance, remaining in “the arms of God” until he died.  It was in 1519 he published Maccaronea, a volume of burlesques in a style which proved influential, encouraging a host of imitators to pen a literature of rough and ribald satire in mingled Latin and Italian verse.  Helpfully, Brother Folengo in 1517 coined the Modern Latin macaronicus, based on the dialectal Italian maccarone (the pasta macaroni) and provided a verse referencing the ingredents: “Quoddam pulmentum farina, caseo, botiro compaginatum, grossum, rude, et rusticanum” which may be translated as “A certain dish made of flour, cheese, and butter, thick, crude, and rustic”, the elements deconstructed as farina (flour), caseo (cheese), botiro (butter), compaginatum (put together), grossum (thick), rude (crude; rough) & rusticanum (rustic).

So the macaronic verse was what might now be called a “mash-up” of vernacular words in a Latin context with Latin endings; applied loosely to verse in which two or more languages are jumbled together with little regard to syntax but so constructed as to be intelligible; that was what lent them the humor, they were obviously “wrong” but enough remained of conventional structures that the meaning was clear.  Because the dish maccarone was so associated with the rural poor (thus “peasant food”), the idea of the tangled, tortured language(s) of the verse was a caricature of the “talk of the uneducated, unsophisticated yokel”; in other words, a literary analogue of macaroni.  Although it was Folengo who popularized the technique its name, he wasn’t the first to publish verse in the style, Tifi (dagli) Odasi (the pen-name of Italian poet Michele di Bartolomeo degli Odasi (circa 1450–1492) in 1490 issuing Carmen macaronicum de Patavinis (Macaronic Song from Padua).  After the enthusiastic response to Folengo, the idea spread throughout Europe and much macaronic verse soon existed in French and German literature (the Germans calling them Nudeloerse although the works seem now to be listed as Knittelvers among the “amusing doggerel).

Portrait of Madame de Pompadour (1756), oil on canvas by François Boucher (1703-1770), Bavarian State Collection.

Soldiers liked pseudo Latin (Illegitimi non carborundum (Don't let the bastards grind you down) a classic of “Barracks Latin” and schoolboys & under-graduates were drawn to the macaronic limerick, the more bawdy the better:

King Louis, when passing through Bruges
Met a lady whose cunt was so huge
That he said, as he came
In that fabulous dame,
“Atta girl! Apris moi le deluge.” 

Apris moi le deluge (After me, the flood) was a phrase attributed to Louis XV (1710–1774; le Bien-Aimé (Louis the Beloved), King of France 1715-1774) who is reputed to have uttered the words to the Marquise de Pompadour (styled usually as Madame de Pompadour (Jeanne Antoinette Poisson (1721-1764), the king's official chief mistress 1745-1751)).  It conveys a feeling both narcissistic and nihilistic, the notion that once one is dead it matters little what happens in the world, an intoxicating sentiment expressed by characters in many novels.

There was a young lady of Nantes
Très jolie, et très élégante, [Very pretty, and very elegant]
But her cunt was so small
It was no good at all,
Except for la plume de ma tante.

La plume de ma tante (The quill (pen) of my Aunt) is notorious for its use in French language teaching and derided as being as useless in general discourse as “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain”, neither “often coming up in conversation”.

Macaroni is of course an obviously Italian word, a quality once exploited for jocular effect by Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), someone not noted for his sense of humor.  In his (partly reliable) memoir, Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) recalled Benito Mussolini’s (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943) 1937 state visit to Berlin being discussed during one of the Führer’s usually dreary social gatherings, recounting the way the sycophantic Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) responded to Hitler extolling the Italian’s virtues, praising his “Caesarean look”.  “Goebbels interposed.  He was surely speaking in the name of all present, he said, if he called attention to the enormous difference between the Duce and the Führer.  After all, the Führer was quite another kind of personality. In Italy Mussolini might be something special, a Roman among plain ordinary Italians, as the Führer had sometimes remarked; but here in Berlin he was, after all, just an Italian among Germans. At any rate he, Goebbels, at times had felt that the Duce had come walking out of an operetta.  Hider’s initial response to this seemed to be one of contradictory emotions. His new friend was being denigrated, but at the same time he felt flattered and stimulated. When Goebbels followed this up with two or three skillful remarks, Hitler began imitating a few of Mussolini’s poses that had struck him as outré: the outstretched chin, the right hand braced against the hip, the straddle-legged stance. While the onlookers laughed obediently, he flung out a number of Italian or Italian-sounding words like patria, Victoria, macaroni, bellezza, belcanto, telegrafico, and basta. His performance was very funny.”  Speer was not much noted for a sense of humor either.

The curious adoption in England, late in the eighteenth century, of “a macaroni” to describe “a dandy, a foppish and extravagantly well-dressed young man” was an allusion to London’s fashionable Macaroni Club, popular with elegant young men from the what were then called “the better classes” who after their obligatory “Grand Tour of the Continent” arrived home affecting French and Italian fashions and accents, something which brought them some derision.  Interestingly, among twenty-first century entertainment figures, affected foreign accents are still heard.  Macaroni also provided the English ruling class with (yet) another way of putting down foreigners: there were “macaroni philosophers” (anything from other than Greek, German or English empiricist traditions), “macaroni marquises” (European titles of nobility of dubious provenance) and “macaroni makers” (a Foreign Office term for Italian diplomats (a later alternative being “ice-cream salesmen”).  Fortunately though, macaroni cheese (Mac ’n’ Cheese) which upon its eighteenth century introduction to London was an “exotic dish” survived to become truly classless comfort food, albeit one which dieticians are inclined to preach against, at least if enjoyed too much or too often.

Lindsay Lohan’s official Mac ‘n’ cheese recipe.

Banjax

Banjax (pronounced ban-jaks)

(1) In UK (originally Irish) slang, a mess or undesirable situation created through incompetence

(2) In UK (originally Irish) slang, to ruin, incapacitate or break; to batter or destroy (a person or thing).

Early 1900s (contested): Apparently a regional (Dublin) slang of unknown origin but the most supported theory is it being a euphemism for “ballocks” (a variant of “bollocks” (in this context meaning “rubbish; nonsense”, but associated also with “the tentacles”, the latter the origin of the vulgarity which demands a euphemism.  The alternative spellings were banjack, bandjax, such variations not unusual in the evolution of slang where so much transmission is oral.  Banjax is a noun & verb and banjaxing & banjaxed are verbs; the noun plural is banjaxes or banjaxs.  The suggestion a banjax was a “type of electric banjo” was wholly facetious.

Although one dictionary of Hiberno-English (the collective name for the dialects of English native to the island of Ireland (known also as Irish English (IrE) & (more confusingly), Anglo-Irish), The Irish Use of English (2006) compiled by Irish lexicographer Professor Terence Dolan (1943–2019) offers two possible sources (1) a possible combination of “bang” & “smash” and (2) a Corkese (a regional dialect of English native to County Cork) word meaning “for public lavatory for females”.  There is support for the link with Corkese because in that dialect the vowel sounds in Corkese significantly can differ from other varieties of IrE and the “a” in “cat” can sound more like “cot” to non-locals which would make “banjax” sound closer to “ballocks” and as early as the 1920s the idea of it as a euphemism for “ballocks” had appeared (described in some cases as a “semi-euphemism”).  Whether or not it’s in any way related to the later meaning isn’t known but there’s a document from 1899 listing “Banjax” as the name of a racehorse belong to one Mr Sweeney; the names of race horses are among the more random studies in language so any link is speculative but the meaning was obvious by September 1909 in the report of court proceedings in the Dublin Daily Express, where the transcript recorded: “In the case of a Nationalist claim when the witness entered the box the Unionist agent said that this was a complete ‘banjax’ (laughter)."

It appears also in Act 3 of the play Juno and the Paycock (1924) by the Irish dramatist and memoirist Seán O'Casey (1880–1964): “I’m tellin’ you the scholar, Bentham, made a banjax o’ the Will.”  O’Casey was of the socialist left and regarded as the “first Irish playwright of note” to focus on the working classes Dublin, including them as fully-developed and explored characters rather than as caricatures or political symbols.  He wasn’t exactly a proto-Angry Young Man (said by some to a tautology in the case of Irish youth) but his Irishness, while genuine, was “tuned”: in 1907 he Gaelicised his name from John Casey to Seán Ó Cathasaigh.  It must have been known as a popular oral form because it’s in a number of examples of Irish literature including A Nest of Simple Folk by Seán Ó Faoláin (1900–1991): “For two streets Johno kept complaining to the driver that it was a nice banjax if a fellow…”  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) noted the certain literary respectability banjax gained when Nobel Prize laureate (Literature, 1969) Samuel Beckett (1906-1989)) included it in a passage in 1956.

Banjaxed cars in California: 2005 Mercedes-Benz SL 65 (R230) AMG roadster (2005, left) and 2012 Porsche 911 (997) Carrera S (2012, right).  Lindsay Lohan had some really bad luck while driving black cars.

Not for the first time, word nerds can thank the Daily Mail for enriching the current vernacular for in September 2024 it began publishing extracts from Unleashed, the memoir of Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) to be released on 10 October.  Being the Daily Mail, the fragments chosen as extracts are perhaps not representative of the whole but they’re doubtlessly the best click-bait, including discussions in Number 10 about the British Army invading Continental Europe (and thus NATO territory) for the first time since the D-Day landings (6 June 1944), observations about the “long and pointy black” nostrils of his predecessor, a non-apologia dismissing the “Partygate” scandal as much ado about, if not quite nothing, not a great deal, his treacherous colleagues and, of course, something about Meghan & Harry.  The probably brief revival of banjax came in the account of his stay in hospital under the care of the National Health Service (NHS) after testing positive in 2020 in the early stages of what would later be named the COVID-19 pandemic.  Fond of quoting the classics, Mr Johnson recalled the plague of Athens (430 BC) which killed perhaps a third of the population but resorted also to the earthy, detailing his declining health as he was “banjaxed” by the virus, descending from his usual “bullish” and “rubicund” state to within days having a face “the colour of mayonnaise”.

Boris Johnson (right) with prize bull (left), Darnford Farm, Banchory, Scotland September, 2019.

Best though was his vivid pen-portrait of Sir Keir Starmer (b 1962; prime-minister of the UK since 2024), his “irritable face” during a COVID-19–era debate in the House of Commons said to be “like a bullock having a thermometer unexpectedly shoved in its rectum”.  That was an allusion to a prime-ministerial barb accusing the then leader of the opposition of being unable to say schools were safe to re-open because it would “go against his masters in the teaching unions”.  “A great ox has stood on his tongue” he told the speaker.  Although the Daily Mail didn’t bother, the use of a simile in which a politician is compared to a bullock does need some footnoting for an international audience.  In the UK, a bullock is “a castrated male bovine animal of any age” while in US English it’s “a young bull (an uncastrated male bovine animal)” and in other places of the old British Empire (Australia, India & New Zealand) it’s an “ox, an adult male bovine used for draught (usually but not always castrated)”.  One can see how these regional differences might make a difference to someone reading Unleashed.

Cyrus Eaton (1883–1979, centre), Mr Eaton’s prize bull (left) and Harry Truman (1884–1972; US president 1945-1953, right), Cleveland, Ohio, June 1955.

Pleasingly, it’s not the first time one politician has used the imagery of another having a medical device “shoved” in his rectum.  Harry Truman in 1951 wrote to an old friend expressing the wish he could shove a trocar (A sharp-pointed hollow cylindrical instrument (enclosed in a cannula), used (1) in medicine for removing fluid from bodily cavities and (2) by vets and ranchers to “relieve intestinal gas” in cattle) up some of the “stuffed shirts” in Congress: “You know what happens when you stick one of them in an old bull that’s clovered [ie suffering excessive internal gas as a result of eating too much clover].  “The report is loud and the wind whistles – but the bull usually comes down to size and recovers.”  President Truman liked “windy” as a way of describing talkative politicians, applying it to the infamous William “Wild Bill” Langer (1886–1959; US senator (Republican-North Dakota 1940-1959)), long a thorn in his side but he never forgot the lessons he learned from old Tom Pendergast (1872–1945) who ran the corrupt Democratic Party machine in Kansas City & Jackson County, Missouri, 1925-1939.  Accordingly, Republicans generally got attacked and another called “windy” was Arthur Vandenberg (1884–1951; US senator (Republican-Michigan 1928-1951)) who was generally supportive of Truman’s foreign policy, something which didn’t save him from being shoved with the (figurative) presidential trocar.  The noun & verb trocar dates from the early 1700s and was from the French trocart (literally “three-sided”), the construct being tro- (a variant of trois (three)) + cart (a variant of carre (side)), from the Latin quadra (something square) (the connection being as a corruption of trois-quart (three-quarters).

Melodrama

Melodrama (pronounced mel-uh-drah-muh or mel-uh-dram-uh)

(1) A dramatic form (used in theatre, literature, music etc) that does not observe the laws of cause and effect and that exaggerates emotion and emphasizes plot or action at the expense of characterization.

(2) Loosely, (sometimes very loosely), behavior or events thought “melodramatic” (overly dramatic displays of emotion or behavior and applied especially to situations in which “things are blown out of proportion”).

(3) In formal definition (seventeenth, eighteenth & nineteenth centuries), a romantic dramatic composition characterized by sensational incident with music interspersed.

(4) A poem or part of a play or opera spoken to a musical accompaniment (technically, a passage in which the orchestra plays a somewhat descriptive accompaniment, while the actor speaks).

(5) A popular nickname conferred on highly-strung young women with a Mel*.* given name (Melanie, Melissa, Melina, Melinda, Melisandre, Melodie, Melody et al).

1784 (used in 1782 as melodrame): From the French mélodrame (a dramatic composition in which music is used), the construct being mélo- , from the Ancient Greek μέλος (mélos) (limb, member; musical phrase, tune, melody, song) + drame (refashioned by analogy with the Ancient Greek δρᾶμα (drâma) (deed, theatrical act) and cognate to the German Melodram, the Italian melodramma and the Spanish melodrama.  The adjective melodramatic (pertaining to, suitable for, or characteristic of a melodrama) came into use in 1789 (unrelated to political events that year).  Melodrama, melodramaticism, melodramaturgy, melodramatics & melodramatist are nouns, melodramatize, melodramatizing & melodramatized are verbs, melodramatic is an adjective and melodramatically is an adverb; the noun plural is melodramas or melodramata.

As late as the mid-nineteenth century “melodrama” was still used of stage-plays (usually romantic & sentimental) in which songs were interspersed, the action accompanied by orchestral music appropriate to the situations.  By the 1880s, the shift towards a melodrama being understood as “a romantic and sensational dramatic piece with a happy ending” and this proved influential, the musical element ceasing gradually to be an essential feature, the addition of recorded sound to “moving pictures” (movies) the final nail in the coffin.  Since then, a “melodrama” is understood to be “a dramatic piece characterized by sensational incidents and violent appeals to the emotions, but with (usually) a happy ending”.

The origins of melodrama lie in late sixteenth century Italian opera and reflect an attempt to convince audiences (or more correctly, composers and critics) that the form (ie opera or melodrama) was a revival of the Classical Greek tragedy.  It was a time in Europe when there was a great reverence for the cultures of Antiquity, something the result of the scholars and archivists (and frankly the publicists) of the Renaissance building a somewhat idealized construct of the epoch and the content providers noted the labels, the German-British Baroque composer Frederick Handel (1685–1759) using both for his works.  In the late eighteenth century French dramatists began to develop melodrama as a distinct genre by elaborating the dialogue and adding spectacle, action and violence to the plot-lines, a technique still familiar in the 2020s, sensationalism and extravagant emotionalism as effective click-bait now it was for ticket sales in earlier times.

The use of “melodrama” to refer to the life of a troubled popular culture figure represents a bit of a jump in meaning but it’s now well-understood.

The path of the musical form had earlier been laid in text, something becoming a more significant influence as the spread of the printing press made mass-market publications more accessible and they spread even within non-literate populations because as public and private readings became common forms of entertainment.  Although elements of what would later be understood as melodrama exist in the gloomy tragedies of the French novelist Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (1707–1777), more of an influence on the composers would be those who wrote with a lighter touch including the Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) whose Pygmalion (1775) and French theatre director and playwright René-Charles Guilbert de Pixerécourt (1773–1844) whose Le Pèlerin blanc ou les Enfants du hameau (The White Pilgrim (or The Children of the Village)) both came to be regarded as part of the inchoate framework of the genre.  Literary theorists still debate the matter of cause & effect between melodrama and the growing vogue of the Gothic novel, one of fiction’s more emotionally manipulative paths, many concluding the relationship between the two was symbiotic.

There was also the commercial imperative.  Literary historians have documented the simultaneous proliferation of melodramas produced for the English stage during the nineteenth century (notably adaptations of novels by popular authors such as Charles Dickens (1812–1870) and Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)) and the paucity in original work of substance.  There are some who have argued the writers had “lost their ear” for dramatic verse and prose but it more likely they realized they had “lost their audiences” and these were people with bills to pay (the term “potboiler” was coined later to describe “books written only to provide food for the stove” but few authors of popular fiction have ever been far removed from concerns with their sales).  The reason the melodramas which flourished in the 1800s were so popular will be unsurprising to modern film-makers, political campaign strategists and other content providers for they can be deconstructed as a class of naively sensational entertainment in which the protagonists & antagonists were excessively virtuous or exceptionally evil (thus all tiresome complexities reduced for something black & white), the conflict played out with blood, thrills and violence (spectres, ghouls, witches & vampires or the sordid realism of drunkenness, infidelity or personal ruin used as devices as required).

The word “melodrama” appears often in commentaries on politics and that’s a trend which was probably accelerated by the presentation moving for most purposes to screens and Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) revolutionizing the business by applying the tricks & techniques of reality TV (itself an oxymoron) meant the whole process can now be thought an unfolding melodrama, indeed, the Trump model cannot work as anything else.  The idea of “politics as theatre” was first discussed in the US in the 1960s but then a phenomenon like Mr Trump would have been thought absurdly improbable.

Because of the popularity of the form, melodrama has rarely found much favor with the critics and that old curmudgeon Henry Fowler (1858–1933) in A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) noted (and, one suspects, not without some satisfaction) that the term generally was “…used with some contempt, because the appeal of such plays as are acknowledged to deserve the title is especially to the unsophisticated & illiterate whose acquaintance with human nature is superficial, but whose admiration for goodness and detestation of wickedness is ready & powerful.”  Henry Fowler moved among only a certain social stratum.  He added that the task of the melodramatist’s was to establish in the audience’s mind the notion of the dichotomous characters as good & wicked and then “…provide striking situations that shall provoke and relieve anxieties on behalf of poetic justice.”  One device once used to produce the desired effect was of course music and a whole academic industry emerged in the mid-twentieth century to explain how different sounds could be used to suggest or summon certain emotions and because music increasingly ceased to be an essential part of the melodramatic form, the situations, dialogue and events in purely textual productions became more exaggerated.

Kammback

Kammback (pronounced cam-bak)

A motif in automotive styling (originally dictated by wind tunnel findings during research into aerodynamic properties) in which rear of the car slopes downwards before being abruptly cut off to terminate in a vertical or near-vertical surface.  The things are known also as the Kamm tail (K-tail).

1950s (the actual design first appearing in 1938): The construct was Kamm + back.  The surname Kamm (related to Kamp) was of Germanic or Jewish (Ashkenazic) origin and translates literally from the German as “comb”.  The German comb was from the Middle High German kamb, kambe, kam & kamme and the Yiddish kam (comb).  Genealogists conclude Kamm was probably an metonymic occupational surname for someone who either made or sold combs, a common tool used for grooming or for textile work such as carding or combing wool.  There’s also the possibility the name of some Kamm clans could have been of topographic origin because in German, Kamm can also mean “ridge” or “crest” of a hill, mountain or some other elevation; it could thus have referred to someone who lived near such a geographical feature.  Less likely is that some arose from nicknames based on physical features or personal characteristics with Kamm used to describe someone with hair resembling a comb or someone with a sharp or distinctive personality.  The surname emerged in the Middle Ages, a time when hereditary family names were becoming more common in German-speaking regions and in addition to the presence in Germany, exists at various scale in areas with a historic patter of German migration (notably the north-eastern US and South Australia.

Back was from the Middle English bak, from the Old English bæc, from the Proto-West Germanic bak, from the Proto-Germanic bakam & baką which may be related to the primitive Indo-European beg- (to bend).  In other European languages there was also the Middle Low German bak (back), from the Old Saxon bak, the West Frisian bekling (chair back), the Old High German bah and the Swedish and Norwegian bak; there are no documented connections outside the Germanic and in other modern Germanic languages the cognates mostly have been ousted in this sense by words akin to Modern English ridge such as Danish ryg and the German Rücken.  At one time, many Indo-European languages may have distinguished the horizontal back of an animal or geographic formation such as a mountain range from the upright back of a human while in some cases a modern word for "back" may come from a word related to “spine” such as the Italian schiena or Russian spina or “shoulder”, the examples including the Spanish espalda & Polish plecy.

Tail was from the Middle English tail, tayl & teil (hindmost part of an animal), from the Old English tægl & tægel (tail), from the Proto-Germanic taglaz & taglą (hair, fibre; hair of a tail) (source also of the Old High German zagal, the German Zagel (tail), the dialectal German Zagel (penis), the Old Norse tagl (horse's tail) and the Gothic tagl (hair), from the primitive Indo-European doklos, from a suffixed form of the roots dok & dek- (something long and thin (referring to such things as fringe, lock of hair, horsetail & to tear, fray, shred)), source also of the Old Irish dual (lock of hair) and the Sanskrit dasah (fringe, wick).  It was cognate with the Scots tail (tail), the Dutch teil (tail, haulm, blade), the Low German Tagel (twisted scourge, whip of thongs and ropes; end of a rope), the dialectal Danish tavl (hair of the tail), the Swedish tagel (hair of the tail, horsehair), the Norwegian tagl (tail), the Icelandic tagl (tail, horsetail, ponytail), and the Gothic tagl (hair). In some senses, development appears to have been by a generalization of the usual opposition between head and tail.  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) suggest the primary sense, at least among the Germanic tongues, seems to have been "hairy tail," or just "tuft of hair," but already in Old English the word was applied to the hairless "tails" of worms, bees etc.  The alternative suggestion is that the notion common to all is that of the "long, slender shape."  It served as an adjective from the 1670s.  A long obsolete Old English word for tail was steort.  Kammback is a noun; the noun plural is kammbacks.  No lexicographer seems to have listed Kammbackesque, Kammbacklike or Kammbackish as standard adjectives but, given the extent of the deviances from Professor Kamm's original which are still labelled as “Kammbacks”, they might be useful forms.  Who wouldn't want to be able to use terms like the comparative “more Kammbackish” and the superlative “most Kammbackish”?

Some notable Kammbacks

The Kammback (also known as the Kamm tail) was named after German engineer & aerodynamicist Professor Wunibald Kamm (1893–1966) who during the 1930s pioneered the shape, his work assisted greatly by some chicanery within the Nazi military-industrial complex which enabled the FKFA (Forschungsinstituts für Kraftfahrwesen und Fahrzeugmotoren Stuttgart (Research Institute of Automotive Engineering and Vehicle Engines Stuttgart) institute he established in 1930s to secure funding to construct a full-sized wind tunnel equipped with a two-part steel treadmill in the floor and an 8.8 metre (350 inch) diameter axial fan, able to drive air at up to 400 km/h (250 mph).  What the two concentric floor turntables allowed was that as well as enabling turbulence to be studied from the side on the running steel belt, slip angles were also possible.   At the time, it was the most modern structure of its kind on the planet, the very existence of which was owed to the priority afforded by the Nazis to re-armament, especially the development of modern airframes, most of the money eventually coming from the Reichs-Luftfahrt-Ministerium (RLM, the State Air Ministry).

A classic Kammback on a 1970 Fiat 850 Coupé (1965-1973), one of the last of the generation of post-war mainstream rear-engined cars built in Western Europe.

While Professor’s Kamm’s work on automobile shapes continued, increasingly the facility became focused on military contracts, contributing to an extraordinary range of novel aircraft designs, some revolutionary and most of which would never reach production.  All of this ceased in July 1944 when the facility was severely damaged in air-raids by Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command, a costly campaign in which one mission incurred a loss-ration of 20% and it wasn’t until the late 1940s that reconstruction began after it was acquired by Daimler-Benz AG which enlarged and modernized the machinery, the early fruits including the 300 SL (the W194, first gullwing coupé) which won the 1952 Le Mans 24 hour race and the W196R “streamliner” Grand Prix race cars which created such a sensation in 1954.  Although he wasn’t part of “Operation Paperclip” (the US project which secured (by various means including the military “smuggling” them into the country despite many being wanted by those investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity) Professor Kann was acknowledged as one of the world’s leading authorities on turbulence and between 1947-1953 was part of the team working at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.  Some of what was undertaken then remains classified but it can be assumed it was all related to military projects and what would later become the space program.

The Kammback which really wasn't: 1976 Chevrolet Vega Kammback.

One often misunderstood aspect of the Kamm tail is that the aerodynamic benefits are realized only if the flat, vertical surface created was no more than about 50% of the total area of the vehicle (as viewed directly from the back).  That’s why even designs which don’t conform to the requirements are often casually referred to as “Kammbacks” and in the US, Chevrolet were cynically opportunistic when the Vega range (1970-1977) included what was nothing more than a two-door station wagon (estate), it was named “Vega Kammback”.  Actually, even the existence of the thing in the US was unusual because at that stage, General Motors (GM) really “didn’t like” small station wagons but many critics did agree the Kammback was the best looking of the Vega’s body-styles.

2023 Ford Mustang coupe (left) and convertible (right).  Three of the Mean Girls (2004) ensemble (Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried (b 1985)), Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert (b 1982)) & Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan (b 1986)) in 2023 filmed a commercial for Pepsi Corporation, one of the props a 2023 Ford Mustang convertible.  So ubiquitous has the Kammback become that its now unnoticed (except in its absence), one quirk being that when convertibles are created from such a base, many of the aerodynamic advantages are lost, one reason why (all else being equal which is rarely the case) a convertible will tend to have slightly inferior performance and slightly higher fuel consumption.

The knowledge gained from aero-engine development during World War I (1914-1918) meant even the mainstream engines of the 1920s were developing much more power so the speeds of cars were rising.  Some intrepid types also took advantage of the number of huge, powerful aero-engines being sold cheaply as “war surplus”, installing them is powerboats and racing cars, resulting in some fast machines and not a few fatalities.  However, it became clear the law of diminishing returns applied as speeds rose because while an increase of 100 horsepower might make possible an increase in top speed from 100 to 120 mph, another 100 hp might yield only another 10 mph; wind resistance increasing too much for the power to overcome.  Thus the interest in aerodynamics, then usually called “streamlining” something which, coincidently, produced some memorable art deco designs buy the engineers were interested in higher speeds and lower fuel consumption for a given quantum of energy input (fuel consumption).

2014 Shelby American Cobra 427 50^th Anniversary Edition in aluminium (left) and 1964 Shelby Daytona Coupe (right).

The AC Shelby Cobra (1962-1967) was small, light and powerful which made it an instant success on the race tracks but, ruggedly handsome though it was, its aerodynamics limited the top speed and on the some fast, open European circuits it gave away as much as 50 km/h (30 mph) to less powerful but more streamlined machines.  More power wasn’t the solution but a new Kammback body was and the Daytona duly won its class in the 1965 World Sports Car Championship.  All used the 289 cubic in (4.7 litre) Ford Windsor V8 although one briefly was fitted with a 390 (6.5) FE V8 and the planned 427 (7.0) version (CSX3027, the so-called “Daytona Super Coupe”) was never completed until sold by Shelby some 17 years later in a “rummage sale”.  The Kammback Daytona was the work of US designer Pete Brock (b 1936) and in a macabre coincidence, his namesake, the Australian racing driver Peter Brock (1945–2006) was killed while competing (in retirement) in a replica Daytona Coupe during the now defunct Targa West (2005-2021) in Western Australia.

Before the Kammback, the state of the aerodynamic art was the airship-like "streamliner" which, although it probably didn't cross the engineers' minds, owed something to the train of a bride's gown.  1939 Lincoln Zephyr V12 Coupe (left) and 1937 Mercedes-Benz 540K (W29) Special Roadster (originally delivered to Mohammad Zahir Shah (1914–2007; the last King of Afghanistan 1933-1973) (right).

What soon became clear was that the shape of the dirigible (better known as the “airship” or “blimp”) was close to ideal and needed to be tweaked only by honing it into a “teardrop shape” with a rounded nose, extending to a long, tapered tail, a shape which in the 1930s caught the imagination of designers who rendered some memorable designs although the most famous were impractical and inefficient in terms of packaging, thus suitable only for the then small market niche which sought speed.  It was to try to gain the benefits of streamlining in a shape more suitable for mass production that Professor Kamm and others took their slide-rules to the wind tunnel began to experiment.  The solution which emerged was to terminate the lovely, long flowing roofline with an abrupt end at a surface which was either vertical or close to it, an unexpected benefit being an improvement in high-speed stability, obviating the need for (a usually central) stabilizing fin (a la an aircraft’s tail).  By 1938, BMW had produced a car with a Kammback and although World War II (1938-1945) interrupted development by the late 1940s the shape had begun to appear in showrooms and in little more than ten years it was common in specially bodied racing cars.  That didn’t mean the allure of the teardrop went away because the aerodynamicists (who now had both access to bigger wind tunnels in which higher speeds could be tested and the novelty of computers which could process previously unimaginable quantities of data) could still prove ultimate slipperiness could be attained only with the teardrop.

Pre-Kammback & non-Kammback.  Porsche 917LH (Langheck (long tail)) at Arnage, Le Mans 24 hour, 1969 (left) and 2020 McLaren Speedtail (right).  Such things are now possible.

It was this which convinced Porsche to use such a tail on their revolutionary 917 in 1969 and having encountered no stability issues on their test track, sent the car to the circuits where it proved as fast as expected.  Unfortunately, the size of the Porsche test facility limited the 917 to 290 km/h (180 mph) and when on the long straights of some European circuits when speeds exceeded 320 km/h, it was clear the thing was lethally unstable.  Although the drivers killed at the wheel of the early 917s didn’t die at such velocities, it was understood it would be only a matter of time so the rear bodywork was redesigned.  When in 2018 McLaren returned to the teardrop for the “Speedtail” (a car which sacrificed just about anything not mandated by law in the quest for top speed), it was able to achieve a safe (it’s a relative term) 400 km/h (250 mph) because advances in aerodynamics, computing, materials & hydraulics had made such things possible although the packaging inefficiencies remained, something not significant for the target market.

Junk

Junk (pronounced juhngk)

(1) In historic nautical use, old cable or cordage used when untwisted for making gaskets, maps, swabs etc and (when picked apart), the oakum used for filling the seams of wooden ships.

(2) A fragment of any solid substance; a thick piece; a chunk (obsolete).

(3) Old, damaged or discarded material (metal, paper, rags et al).

(4) Anything regarded as worthless, meaningless, or contemptible; nonsense; gibberish.

(5) Anything judged cheap or trashy.

(6) In slang, the narcotic heroin (used casually of other injected drugs, the users thus “junkies”).

(7) In historic sailor’s slang, as saltjunk, the salted beef or pork used as rations on long voyages, the origin being the comparisons in taste and texture made with junk (frayed old rope).

(8) In slang, the external genitalia (especially of a male if used as a target in unarmed combat).

(9) In baseball slang, relatively slow, unorthodox pitches, deceptive to the batter in movement or pace (knuckleballs, forkballs et al).

(10) A sea-going sailing vessel with a traditional Chinese design and used primarily in Chinese waters, having square sails spread by battens, a high stern (poop deck) and (usually) a flat bottom.

(11) A sperm whale equivalent of the melon (cetacean)

(12) To cast aside as junk; discard as no longer of use; to scrap.

1350-1400: From the Middle English joynk & junke (old refuse from boats and ships), from the earlier nautical sense of “old rope or cable”, and the use of junk to describe “old rope and such” may have been influenced by the words “join, joint &, juncture”.  The Middle English junk, jonk, jounke, jonke & junck (a rush; basket made of rushes), from the Old French jonc or junc (rush, reed (also used figuratively to describe “something of little value”), from the Latin iuncus (rush, reed) was once often cited as a source but etymologists have concluded there’s “no evidence of connection”.  In nautical use, the extension from “old rope & cables” to “old refuse from boats, ships & ports” had occurred by the 1660s, travelling inland to “old or discarded articles of any kind” by the late nineteenth century, initially with the implication of reusability.(following the naval tradition with rope) as opposed to “scrap” which (except for metals) had an air of finality.  Saltjunk (salt beef or pork used on long voyages) was first recorded in 1762, the slang for heroin (later used loosely of other injected narcotics) dates from 1925, junk food (the term rather than the product” first appeared in the US in 1971, the culinary equivalent of junk art (from a decade earlier and used by conservative critics to decry some modern art).  Junk mail (unsolicited advertizing delivered to the letterbox was so described in 1954 and was later re-used for the electronic version (“junk email” thought just a letter too much and never caught on) while the term junk bond (a financial instrument (originally bonds) rated below “investment grade” due to a high risk of default by the issuer and thus offered at a high interest rate) emerged in 1979.  The verb, dating from 1803, also owed something the old nautical practice of “cutting up ropes for other purposes” in that it conveyed the idea of “to cut off in lumps”, the modern sense of “to throw away as trash, to scrap” appearing a century-odd later.  The synonyms can thus (depending on context) be rubbish, trash, rubble, debris, detritus, refuse, litter or clutter while (in the sense of (to throw away) they include bin, chuck, chuck away, chuck out, discard, dispose of, ditch, dump, scrap, throw away, throw out, toss or trash.  Junk is a noun & verb, junkie & junker are nouns, junky is a noun & adjective, junklike, junkier & junkiest are adjectives and junked & junking are verbs; the noun plural is junk or (of the sailing vessels) junks.

The use to describe the Chinese sailing vessels dates from 1545–1555 and was from the Portuguese junco, either from or influenced by the Dutch jonk, from the Arabic جُنْك (junk), from the thirteenth century Malay (Austronesian) jong (large boat, ship) or Javanese djong (a variant of djung), from the Old Javanese jong (seagoing ship), ultimately from either the Hokkien 船 (chûn) or the Teochew 船 (zung), from the Proto-Min -džion (ship, boat).  The use in Malay may have been influence by the dialectal Chinese (Xiamen) chûn (which may be compared with the Guangdong (Cantonese) dialect syùhn, and the (Mandarin) Chinese chuán).  In sixteenth century English use it was recorded as giunche & iunco.  Unrelated words include junket and the German Junker.  Junket was from the Middle English jonket (basket made of rushes; food, probably made of sour milk or cream; banquet, feast), from the Medieval Latin iuncta, possibly from the Latin iuncus (rush, reed) and thus possible a doublet of jonquil (a species of daffodil and a shade of yellow).  By the 1520s the meaning had shifted to “feast or banquet”, presumably because of the association with “picnic basket”, leading to the early nineteenth century notion of a “pleasure-trip” which later evolved by the 1880s to mean “a trip made ostensibly for business but which is really for leisure or entertainment”.  Junkets remain common (often well-disguised for expense-claim purposes) and in the gambling business, a junket is a gaming room for which the capacity and limits change daily, often rented out to private vendors who run tour groups through them and give a portion of the proceeds to the main casino.  The idea of a junket being “a delicacy” or “a basket” is long obsolete but remains a culinary niche, describing a dessert made of sweetened curds; it was originally a type of cream cheese, the name gained from it being originally prepared and served in a rush basket.  The English Junker was from the German Junker, from the Middle High German juncherre (young lord; not yet knighted nobleman).  As a term it became associated with Prussia militarism and was used to refer to the stereotypical “narrow-minded and anti-liberal, authoritarian attitudes associated with the “Junker class” (the sometimes impoverished) land-owners of “great Prussian estates”, the families which provided the so many of the officer class of the Prussian and later Imperial German Armies (thus “junkerdom”, “junkerish” & “junkerism” entering the language of political science).

Stocking up: Lindsay Lohan buying junk food, Los Angeles, October, 2008.

Junk is widely used in derived terms and idiomatic forms including “Jesus junk” (Christian-specific junk mail or other merchandize), “hunk of junk” (a term which adds no meaning but is a compelling rhyme (compared with “heap of junk”, “pile of junk” “load of junk”, all of which mean the same thing) and often heard in IT departments when discussing components more than a year old), “junkaholic” (either a hoarder of what others perceive as junk or an individual who consumes much junk food), “junkhead” (either a drug user or addict (ie a synonym of “junkie”) or in engineering, an always unusual (no close to extinct) design of internal combustion engine (ICE) in which the cylinder head is formed by a dummy piston mounted inside the top of the cylinder, “junk news” (a early 1980s critique of “journalism” consisting of sensationalized trivia (as opposed to the later “fake news” which was intended to mislead rather than being merely entertaining)), “Junk DNA” (in earlier use in genetics, “any portion of the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid; the so-called “building blocks” or “framework of life”) sequence of a chromosome or a genome with no apparent function” (the term “non-functional DNA” now preferred because there’s now a greater understanding of what was one dismissed as “junk DNA”), “junk in the trunk” (having a big butt), “junk shop” (a shop selling second-hand goods, originally cheap but there are now some “junk shops” with some high-priced items), “ junk drawer” (the place designated for the storage of various miscellaneous, small, but (at least potentially) useful items (and apparently usually the third-drawer down in the kitchen); some residences even have a “junk room”), “junk science” (assertions or methods expressed in the language of science but either with no scientific legitimacy or with data interpreted in a misleading manner), “junk conference” (a nominally “academic” conference run for other purposes (holiday junkets, commercial promotion etc), “junk job” (used variously of employment thought boring, pointless, disrespectable or offering no obvious social benefit, “junkware” (in computing, (1) malicious or unwanted software or (2) software which is buggy or doesn’t work), “junkshot” (in oil drilling, a method to shut off a faulty blowout preventer (BOP) by injecting the BOP with material which will “choke off” the hole), “space junk” (the objects in orbit around the Earth that were created by human activity but which now serve no useful purpose and can be a hazard to satellites (known also as “space debris”), “junk hook” (in whaling, a hook designed for handling or extracting the unwanted material (junk) from the head of a whale) “junkman” (one who works in a “junk yard” (a place where scrapped items (typically cars) are sold for parts or metal recycling).

A little corner in the late Rudi Klein's junkyard, Los Angeles, California.

In the junkyard business, in some jurisdictions, there are cars with “salvage titles” and “junk titles”, both designations related to the condition of a vehicle but serving different purposes and reflecting distinct stages in a vehicle’s lifecycle and potential future.  A Salvage Title can be issued when a vehicle has been damaged or declared a total loss by an insurance company, typically because exceeds a certain percentage of the car's assessed value (75-90%, depending on local regulations).  Despite that, a with a salvage title may be repairable and returned to the road after undergoing proper repairs and inspections although the title usually significantly reduces the resale value and can be a factor in insurance companies limiting or denying subsequent coverage.  A Junk Title (also known as a “Certificate of Destruction”) can be issued for a vehicle that considered irreparable or not safe for use on public roads and thus suitable only for scrap or the salvaging of usable parts.  Once a junk title is issued, the vehicle cannot be registered or driven on public roads again, unlike a salvage title vehicle which can be repaired or restored.  Informally, the terms “junkyard” and “scrapyard” are used interchangeably and while there used to be many “car wreckers”, of late, environmentally respectable titles like “recycling centre” have come into vouge.

The Junkyard: The Rudi Klein Collection

Although well-known in the collector community for its large stocks of rusty and wrecked Porsches, Mercedes-Benz and other notable vehicles from the post-war years, the Californian “junkyard” belonging to Rudi Klein (1936-2001) attracted world-wide interest when details were published of the gems which had for decades been secreted in a large and secure shed on the site.  Mr Klein was a German butcher who in the late 1950s emigrated to the US to work at his trade but quickly discovered a more enjoyable and lucrative living could be had dealing in damaged or wrecked European cars, sometimes selling the whole vehicles and sometimes the parts (“parting out” in junkyard parlance).  His Porsche Foreign Auto business had operated for some time before he received a C&D (cease & desist) letter from the German manufacturer’s US attorneys, the result being the name change in 1967 to Porche (sic) Foreign Auto.

Three dusty Lamborghini P400 Miuras in a corner of Mr Klein's now famous shed.

Unlike many collectors, Mr Klein amassed his collection unobtrusively and, astonishingly to many, apparently with little interest in turning a profit on the rarest, despite some of them coming to be worth (at the time of his death), over a million US dollars.  In the way of such things, just what sat unseen in the big shed was the stuff of speculation and rumor, the mystery enhanced by tales of Mr Klein turning the junkyard’s dogs (“junkyard dog” itself an idiomatic use suggesting the particularly aggressive type of canine associated with such a role and applied figuratively also to people of similar temperament) on those who ventured too close to the locked doors although some trusted souls apparently were give a tour on the basis of maintaining the secret and it seems all respected the confidence.  After Mr Klein died in 2001, his two sons preserved the collection untouched but in October 2024, a series of rolling sales will be conducted by the auction house Sotheby’s.

Period photograph of the 1935 Mercedes-Benz 500 K Special Coupé (the “Caracciola Coupé” Roadster-Limousine).

Undoubtedly, the star of the show will be the 1935 Mercedes-Benz 500 K Special Coupé, built by Sindelfingen (the factory’s in-house coach-building house) for the three-time European Grand Prix Championship winner Rudolf Caracciola (1901-1959).  The leading driver of the Mercedes-Benz racing team, it was said of him by Alfred Neubauer (1891–1980; racing manager of the Mercedes-Benz competition department 1926-1955): “He never really learned to drive, he just felt it, the talent came to him instinctively”.  The one-off 500 K (W29, deconstructed as 5.0 litre (306 cubic inch) straight-eight with kompressor (supercharger)) was a “gift” (ie part of his “package” as a factory driver) and confusingly tagged (the build-sheet is included in the documentation) by Sindelfingen as a “Roadster-Limousine” which neither etymologically nor by coach-building conventions makes sense but was explained by the car being “built on the chassis of a 500 K Special Roadster with limousine-like fittings & appointments.”  As a basis, the sleek 500 K Special Roadster was illustrious enough, described in the post-war years as “the brightest glint of a golden age” so the lines and unique provenance of the “Caracciola Coupé” will attract much interest.

The “Caracciola Coupé” in Mr Klein's shed

It’s believed Caracciola used the car until the late 1930s when it is said to have passed into the hands of Count Galeazzo Ciano (1903–1944; Italian foreign minister 1936-1944), notable both for his entertaining (if not wholly reliable) diaries and having married the daughter of Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943).  The marriage was certainly a good career move (the Italians would joke of the one they called “ducellio”: “the son-in-law also rises”) although things didn’t end well, Il Duce having him shot (at the insistence of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), something which over the years must have drawn the envy of many a father-in-law (and the sentiment was expressed by Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) who didn't always approve of his daughters' choices).  There seems to be no evidence of Count Ciano’s stewardship but even if not true, it’s certainly the sort of car he’d liked to have owned.  Things become murky after the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945) but in 1962 it was discovered in Ethiopia, covered in tarpaulins and hidden in a manure pile.  That may hint at a (probably unrelated) connection between count & car because in 1935, during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War (the last war of the era of European colonialism which even at the time seemed to many an embarrassing anachronism), Ciano had commanded the Regia Aeronautica's (Royal Air Force) 15th Bomber Flight (nicknamed La Disperata (the desperate ones)) in air-raids on primitive tribes during the Italian invasion, being awarded the Medaglia d'argento al valor militare (Silver Medal of Military Valor), prompting some to observe he deserved a gold medal for bravery in accepting a silver one, his time in the air having hardly exposed him to danger.

The “Caracciola Coupé”, "Best in Class" winner, Pebble Beach, Monterey County, California, 1978.

The coupé in 1963 then travelled to the US where it was subject to an 18 month restoration before being entered in the 1966 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, finishing second in class, behind a Bugatti Royale (type 41), beginning a 13 year career as a fixture on the North American concours & classic car circuit becoming, a little ironically given its later 44-year hiatus, one of best-known Mercedes-Benz of the “supercharger era”.  Back on the manicured lawns of Pebble Beach in 1978, it went one better than a decade earlier, this time taking first in class and in 1979 it was purchased by Mr Klein who exhibited at a show at least once.  After that, it was left to languish in the big shed but it remained solid, mechanically original (apparently, in the restoration only the paint, chrome, upholstery and perishable parts were replaced) so as re-commissioning projects go, while unlikely to be “cheap”, it won’t be intimidating.  Sotheby’s haven’t published a price estimate but most are suggesting it should achieve between US$8-10 million.

Out in the California sun: The Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster & aluminum Gullwing with the one-off Iso Griffo A3/L Spider prototype behind the roadster, sitting beneath a Facel Vega HK500.

At auction also among dozens will be a 1957 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster, a rare (one of 29) 1955, aluminum-bodied Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing (long thought lost), a trio of damaged Lamborghini P400 Miuras, the one-off Iso Griffo A3/L Spider prototype (which will need to have its unique front grill assembly re-created) and a 1939 Horch 855 Special Roadster, always prized for its rakish lines and the only 855 known to have survived the war.