Combat

Combat (pronounced kuhm-bat or kom-bat (verb); kom-bat (noun))

(1) To fight or contend against; vigorously to oppose.

(2) In military matters, certain parts of branches of the services which engage in armed conflict with enemy forces.

(3) An action fought between two military forces.

(4) As a descriptor (in the military and of weapos and weapons systems), a means to distinguish between an item design specifically for use in combat as oppose to one intended for other purpose.

1535-1540: From the Middle English intransitive verb combat (to fight, struggle, contend), from the sixteenth century French combat, from the twelfth century Old French combattre, from the Late Latin combattere, the construct being com (with (each other) (an an archaic form of cum)) + battuere (to beat, fight) (source of the modern English verb "batter").  The transitive sense dates from the 1580s; the figurative use from the 1620s.  The noun combat (a fight (originally especially "a fight between two armed persons" and later distinguished as single combat in the 1620s)), emerged in the 1560s and soon was applied in a general sense to "any struggle or fight between opposing forces".  Combat is a noun, verb & adjective, combater & combatant are nouns, combatted & combatting are verbs and combative is an adjective; the noun plural is combats.

Combative and dressed for combat: Lindsay Lohan in boxing gloves.

The phrase hors de combat (out of action; disabled; no longer able to fight (literally "out of combat")) was constructed from hors (out, beyond), from the Latin foris (outside (literally "out of doors")) + de (of) + combat.  It dates from 1757 and was related originally to battlefield conduct (the principle of which which would later be interpolated into the the rules of war) and is now a literary and rhetorical device.  It shouldn't be confused with the French expression hors concours (out of competition) which, dating from 1884, is applied to works of art in an exhibition but not eligible to be awarded a prize.  Given the sometimes nasty battles waged in galleries, perhaps hors de combat might sometimes be as appropriate but in exhibitions it's most often used of works which have either already won a prize or have been awarded the maximum number provided for in the competition rules.  Other sporting competitions sometimes use hors concours to describe entries which don't conform with the rules of the event but are for a variety of reasons permitted to run (notably in motorsport).  The adjective combative (pugnacious, disposed to fight) is from 1819 and by the mid nineteenth century had become much associated with the long discredited pseudo-science of phrenology, the related forms being combatively and the earlier (1815) combativeness.  Combatant (contending, disposed to combat) was an adjective by the mid fifteenth century and a noun (one who engages in battle) by circa 1855, both from the Old French combatant (which survives in Modern French as combattant) (skilled at fighting, warlike) where it had also been a noun.    The adjective combative (pugnacious, aggressive; disposed to engage in conflict (though not necessarily violence)) seems not pleasing to some because the incorrect spelling combatative is not uncommon.

The Combat: Woman Pleading for the Vanquished, oil on canvas by William Etty (1787-1849), National Gallery of Scotland.

Unusually for works in this tradition, The Combat is not a depiction of a historical or mythological event but a kind of morality tale exploring “the beauty and quality of mercy”.  Structurally, the picture is of a woman clutching a warrior who, with sword raised, seems poised to inflict a fatal strike on his fallen foe whose own blade lies shattered on the ground, the woman begging he be spared.  Praised for its technical accomplishment The Combat also attracted the criticism the ahistorical piece seemed just another of the artist’s opportunistic pretexts for painting more nude figures, long his favourite motif, but the painter dismissed the carping, reminding critics such imaginative works had a tradition dating from Antiquity, the Romans calling that school of composition “the Roman Visions, works not having their origin in history or poetry”.  Mr Etty certainly made a seminal contribution to the genre and he’s regarded as the first English painter of any skill to produce a substantial number of nudes, something which, predictably, has overshadowed his catalogue of estimable still lifes.  His life was solitary and in some ways strange and in much of the popular press his output was damned as “indecent” but when in 1828 proposed for membership of the Royal Academy, he was elected, defeating no less than John Constable 1776–1837) by 18 votes to five so his fellow artists rated him highly.  

The Norton Commando 750 Combat

1968 Kawasaki 500 Mach III (H1).

British manufacturers once regarded competition from the far-east with little concern but by the late 1960s, Japanese motorcycles had become serious machines enjoying commercial success.  Kawasaki’s 500cm³ (H1, Mach III) two-stroke triple debuted in 1968 while Honda’s 750-Four was released a year later, the former fast but lethally unstable, the latter more refined.  Three years on, the release of Kawasaki’s 900 cm³ Z1 confirmed the maturity of the Japanese product and the era of British complacency was over though the realization was too late to save the industry.

Nothing ever quite matched the rawness of the original Kawasaki Mach III.  Riders of high performance machines had for decades distinguished between fast, well-balanced motorcycles and those which, while rapid, needed to be handled with caution if used in anything but a straight line and on a billiard table smooth surface but even in those circumstances the Mach III could be a handful, the engine's power band narrow and the entry to it sudden and explosive.  Probably the best comparison was something like the BRM grand prix car (1947-1955) which used a supercharged 1.5 litre (91 cubic inch) V16; it was only marginally responsive under 8000 rpm but at that point suddenly delivered its extraordinary power which could be as much as 500-600 horsepower.  Many Mach III owners were soon noting while rear tyre life was short, the front lasted well because it spent so little time in contact with the road.  Adding to the trickiness, lacking the rigidity needed to cope with such stresses, the frame design meant there was something of a gyroscopic tendency under hard acceleration which could be at least disquieting and the consequences were often worse.  Still, nobody denied they were quick.  Clearly, only crazy people would buy such a thing but fortunately for Kawasaki (and presumably this was part of the product planning), by 1968 the Western world was populated as never before with males aged 17-25 (peak craziness years) with sufficient credit or disposable income to indulge the madness of youth.  It helped that under the Bretton Woods system (1944) of fixed exchange rates, at ¥360 to the US$, the Mach III was quite a bargain; on cost breakdown, nothing on two wheels or four came close and even at the time it was acknowledged there really were two identifiable generations of Mach IIIs: the ones built between 1968-1972 and those from 1973 until 1975 when production ended.  Not only was the power-band made a little wider (at the expense of the top-end) but a disk front brake was added, the swing-arm was extended and the frame geometry improved; while this didn’t wholly tame the challenging characteristics created by putting what was then the world’s most powerful two-stroke engine in what was essentially the light and not especially still frame used for their 350, it did mean the later Mach IIIs were a little more forgiving and not quite as quick.

1973 Kawasaki 750 Mach IV (H2).

As a design, the Mach III obviously had its flaws but as a piece of engineering, it exhibited typical Japanese soundness and attention to detail.  They borrowed much and while little was genuinely innovative, they had started with a clean sheet of paper and buyers found, unlike the British bikes, electrics were reliable and mechanical parts were not subject to the oil-leaks which the British had for decades claimed were endemic to the breed; far-eastern engineering was now mass-producing bikes a generation or more advanced.  However, the British industry was chronically under-capitalized so, lacking resources to develop new models, resorted to "improving" existing models.  While they were doing that, the Japanese manufacturers moved on and Kawasaki were planning something which would match the Mach III for performance but deliver it in a more civilized (and safer) manner.  This project was a four-stroke, four cylinder 750, developed while the Mach III was being toned down (a little) while the good idea of a broader power band and a (slightly) stiffer frame was used on the Mach IV (750 H2), the ultimate evolution of the two-stroke triple which delivered best of the the Mach III experience while (somewhat) taming the worst of its characteristics.

1969 Honda 750-Four "Sandcast".  The crankcases of the early 750s are referred to as being sandcast but they were actually gravity cast.  The production method for the first batch was was chosen because of uncertainty about demand.

However, in 1969 Honda, the largest in the Japanese industry and the company which in 1964 had stunned Formula One community when their 1.5 litre V12 car won a Grand Prix, released the motorcycle which threatened the very existence of the new big Kawasaki and the four-stroke Honda 750-Four was for a generation to set the template for its genre, as influential for big motorcycles as the Boeing 707 had in 1957 been for commercial airliners.  Kawasaki reviewed this disturbing intrusion on their planning, concluding the Honda was a touring machine and that the Mach III had proved there was demand machines orientated more to high-performance.  The board looked at the demographic charts and decided to proceed, enlarging their project to 900cm³ which, with double overhead camshafts (DOHC) was tuned more for top-end power than the more relaxed, single cam (SOHC) Honda.  Released in 1972, almost a year after the Mach IV, the Z1 attracted praise for its quality and performance, all delivered while offering a stability the charismatic but occasionally lethal triples never approached.  Internally, Kawasaki did their bit to ensure a good reception for the Z1 by making sure it was just a bit quicker than the Mach IV over a quarter mile, the 750 never tuned to the extent possible although as some found, more horsepower quickly and cheaply was available.    

1973 Kawasaki Z1.

The big Nortons, named Commando since 1967, had long been a benchmark for high-performance motorcycles and although the Mach III had (on paper) matched its speed, its handling characteristics were such that it could really be enjoyed only in a straight line and even then, was best handled by cautious experts.  The Honda 750-Four and Kawasaki Z1 were both vastly better as road machines and clearly the future of the breed.  The long-serving big British twins, while their handling was still impeccable, were now outdated, no longer offered a performance premium and still leaked oil.  Norton’s response in 1972 was the hastily concocted Commando Combat, the engine tweaked in the usual British manner with a high compression ratio, bigger carburetors, larger ports and a high-lift, long-duration camshaft.  These modifications, while the orthodox approach for racing engines, are not suitable for the road and the “peaky” Combat’s only advantage was great top-end power though it was noted the clever isolastic engine mounting did work well to limit the extent to which the greater vibration transmitted through the frame.  Unfortunately, the gains high in the rev-range compromised the low and mid-range performance, just where a road-bike most often operates.  Indeed, at points, the torque-curve actually went the wrong way and the only obvious way to disguise this was to lower the gearing which (1) restricted the top-speed to something embarrassing low and (2) meant even cruising speeds demanded high engine revolutions.  Sadly, it wasn’t possible for all long to enjoy the pleasures of all that power because the Combat's specification exposed weaknesses in pistons, bearings and crankshafts.  In some cases, main bearing life could be as little as 4000 miles (7000 km) but a small number of engines succumbed to other failures long before.  As a consolation, even if the Combat wouldn’t keep going, it was easy to stop, the front disk brake (designed by Norton and built by Lockheed, it used a hard chrome-plated cast-iron rotor because the heat-dissipation qualities were superior to stainless steel) was among the best in the industry.

So the most of the things that were changed made things worse.  Other things stayed the same including the oil leaks (the joke being seals existed to keep the dirt out, not the fluids in) and the absence of electric starting, the right legs of Norton owners reputedly more muscular than the left.  For the engine's problems the solution lay in engineering and metallurgy, a combination of a self-aligning spherical roller bearing called a superblend and un-slotted pistons.  But, by the time things were fixed, the fiasco had had triggered irreparable damage to market perceptions and Norton quietly dropped the Combat, applying the improvements to their mainstream engines without trying to match its top-end power.  Despite the reputation, there are owners (many of whom with great success used their Combats in competition) who reported sterling reliability from their machines and the consensus is it was only a relatively small number of Combat engines which failed but in mass-production, a well-publicized consumer-level failure rate well under 5% is enough to create  reputational damage.  Norton went bankrupt within a few years but the name has been revived several times over the past decades.

For those who can remember how things used to be done: 1972 Norton Commando 750 Combat Roadster (left) and 1972 Norton Commando 750 Combat Interstate (with custom drilled disk brake, right).

Introduced in 1972, the Interstate model was a response (as the name suggests) to US demand and was distinguished by the larger fuel tank, some of the additional capacity gained by removing the scalloped knee indentations seen on the Roadsters (which used a 2.2 imperial gallon (10 litre, 2.6 US gallon) tank.  The early Interstates were fitted with a 5.25 imperial gallon (23.9 litre, 6.30 US gallon) unit but in mid-year this was enlarged to a 5.5 imperial gallon (25 litre, 6.6 US gallon) device, the latter size carried-over as an option when in 1973 the Commando 850 was introduced and this remained available until production ended in 1977, by which time only a handful of Roadsters were leaving the line.

1954 Norton Dominator 500 (left), 1967 Norton Atlas 750 (centre) and 1972 Norton Commando 750 Combat (right).

When introduced in 1949, the 497 cm³ (30.3 cubic inch) parallel twin was as good an engine as any then available on two wheels and a great success but that popularity was ultimately what doomed Norton in the 1970s.  Over the years enlarged and tuned for more power, it proved adaptable to new frame designs and was an engine which kept Norton in the front rank of high-performance motorcycles but in not even half a decade between 1968-1972, the manufacturers in the Far East advanced further than the British industry had achieved in twenty years.  In 1967, well aware of the antiquity of the machinery from which they were coaxing another generation, Norton's management had been surprised at both the positive critical reception to the Commando and the volume of orders being received and for a while the immediate feature looked bright.  It perhaps could have been because the clever Isolastic engine mounting system had made it possible to absorb much of the big twin's chronically insoluble vibrations before they reached the rider and the Commando was a rewarding ride but what it should have been was a stop-gap while something better was developed.  Instead, it proved but a stay of execution.

Isolastic-era advertising: The agencies never depicted women riding Norton Commandos but they were a fixture as adornments, usually with lots of blonde hair and a certain expression.  One reason they may not have been suitable to use as riders was the phenomenon known as “helmet hair” (in idiomatic use, the effects of helmet wearing on those with “big hair”), which, upon removing helmet, manifested either as an unintended JBF or a bifurcated look in which the hair above the shoulders was flattened against the scalp while that beneath sat as the wind had determined.  There was also the challenge of kick-starting the big twins, the long-overdue electric-start not installed until 1975.

Psychache

Psychache (pronounced sahyk-eyk)

Psychological pain, especially when it becomes unbearable, producing suicidal thoughts.

1993: The construct was psyche- + ache.  Psychache was coined by US clinical psychologist Dr Edwin Shneidman (1918-2009) and first appeared in his book Suicide as Psychache: A Clinical Approach to Self-Destructive Behavior (1993).  The prefix psych- was an alternative form of psycho-.  Psycho was from the Ancient Greek ψῡχο- (psūkho-), a combining form of ψυχή (psukhḗ) (soul).  Wit was used with words relating to the soul, the mind, or to psychology.  Ache was from the Middle English verb aken & noun ache (noun), from the Old English verb acan (from the Proto-West Germanic akan, from the Proto-Germanic akaną (to ache)) and the noun æċe (from the Proto-West Germanic aki, from the Proto-Germanic akiz), both from the primitive Indo-European heg- (sin, crime).  It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian eeke & ääke (to ache, fester), the Low German aken, achen & äken (to hurt, ache), the German Low German Eek (inflammation), the North Frisian akelig & æklig (terrible, miserable, sharp, intense), the West Frisian aaklik (nasty, horrible, dismal, dreary) and the Dutch akelig (nasty, horrible).  Historically the verb was spelled ake, and the noun ache but the spellings became aligned after Dr Johnson (Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)) published A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), the lexicographer mistakenly assuming it was from the Ancient Greek ἄχος (ákhos) (pain) due to the similarity in form and meaning of the two words.  As a noun, ache meant “a continuous, dull pain (as opposed to a sharp, sudden, or episodic pain) while the verb was used to mean (1) to have or suffer a continuous, dull pain, (2) to feel great sympathy or pity and (3) to yearn or long for someone or something.  Pyscheache is a noun

Psychache is a theoretical construct used by clinical suicidologists and differs from psychomachia (conflict of the soul).  Psychomachia was from the Late Latin psӯchomachia, the title of a poem of a thousand-odd lines (circa 400) by Roman Christian poet Prudentius (Aurelius Prudentius Clemens; 348-circa 412), the construct being the Ancient Greek Greek psukhē (spirit) + makhē (battle).  The fifth century poem Psychomachia (translated usually as “Battle of Spirits” or “Soul War”) explored a theme familiar in Christianity: the eternal battle between virtue & vice (onto which can be mapped “right & wrong”, “good & evil” etc) and culminated in the forces of Christendom vanquishing pagan idolatry to the cheers of a thousand Christian martyrs.  An elegant telling of an allegory familiar in early Christian literature and art, Prudentius made clear the battle was one which happened in the soul of all people and thus one which all needed to wage, the outcome determined by whether the good or evil in them proved stronger.  The poem’s characters include Faith, Hope, Industry, Sobriety, Chastity, Humility & Patience among the good and Pride, Wrath, Paganism, Avarice, Discord, Lust & Indulgence in the ranks of the evil but scholars of literature caution that although the personifications all are women, in Latin, words for abstract concepts use the feminine grammatical gender and there’s nothing to suggest the poet intended us to read this as a tale of bolshie women slugging it out.  Of interest too is the appearance of the number seven, so familiar in the literature and art of Antiquity and the Medieval period as well as the Biblical texts but although Prudentius has seven virtues defeat seven vices, the characters don’t exactly align with either the canonical seven deadly sins, nor the three theological and four cardinal virtues.  In modern use, the linguistic similarity between psychache and psychomachia has made the latter attractive to those seduced by the (not always Germanic) tradition of the “romance of suicide”.

A pioneer in the field of suicidology, Dr Shneidman’s publication record was indicative of his specialization.

Dr Edwin Shneidman (1918-2009) was a clinical psychologist who practiced as a thanatologist (a practitioner in the field of thanatology (the scientific study of death and the practices associated with it, including the study of the needs of the terminally ill and their families); the construct of thanatology being thanato- (from the Ancient Greek θάνατος (thánatos) (death)) +‎ -logy.  The suffix -ology was formed from -o- (as an interconsonantal vowel) +‎ -logy.  The origin in English of the -logy suffix lies with loanwords from the Ancient Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned (eg astrology from astrologia) since the sixteenth century.  French picked up -logie from the Latin -logia, from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).  Within Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía) abstract from λόγος (lógos) (account, explanation, narrative), and that a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).  In English the suffix became extraordinarily productive, used notably to form names of sciences or disciplines of study, analogous to the names traditionally borrowed from the Latin (eg astrology from astrologia; geology from geologia) and by the late eighteenth century, the practice (despite the disapproval of the pedants) extended to terms with no connection to Greek or Latin such as those building on French or German bases (eg insectology (1766) after the French insectologie; terminology (1801) after the German Terminologie).  Within a few decades of the intrusion of modern languages, combinations emerged using English terms (eg undergroundology (1820); hatology (1837)).  In this evolution, the development may be though similar to the latter-day proliferation of “-isms” (fascism; feminism et al).

Death and the College Student: A Collection of Brief Essays on Death and Suicide by Harvard Youth (1973) by Dr Edwin Shneidman.  Dr Shneidman wrote many papers about the prevalence of suicide among college-age males, a cross-cultural phenomenon.

Dr Shneidman was one of the seminal figures in the discipline of suicidology, in 1968 founding the AAS (American Association of Suicidology) and the principal US journal for suicide studies: Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior.  The abbreviation AAS is in this context used mostly within the discipline because (1) it is a specialized field and (2) there are literally dozens of uses of “AAS”.  In Suicide as Psychache: A Clinical Approach to Self-Destructive Behavior (1993) he defined psychache as “intense psychological pain—encompassing hurt, anguish, and mental torment”, identifying it as the primary motivation behind suicide, his theory being that when psychological pain becomes unbearable, individuals may perceive suicide as their only escape from torment.

Although since Suicide as Psychache: A Clinical Approach to Self-Destructive Behavior appeared in 1993 there have been four editions of American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), “psychache” has never appeared in the DSM.  That may seem an anomaly given much in the DSM revolves around psychological disturbances but the reason is technical.  What the DSM does is list and codify diagnosable mental disorders (depression, schizophrenia. bipolar disorder et al), classifying symptoms and behaviors into standardized categories for diagnosis and treatment planning.  By contrast, psychache is not a clinical diagnosis; it is a theoretical construct in suicidology which is used to explain the subjective experience of psychological pain that can lead to patients taking their own lives.  It thus describes an emotional state rather than a psychiatric disorder.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December, 2011.

Despite that, mental health clinicians do actively use the principles of psychache, notably in suicide risk assessment and prevention and models have been developed including a number of “psychache scales”, self-reporting tools used to generate a metric measuring the intensity of psychological pain (categorized with headings such as shame, guilt, despair et al).  The approaches do in detail differ but most follow Dr Shneidman’s terminology in that the critical threshold is the point at which the patient’s pain becomes unbearable or inescapable and the objective is either to increase tolerance for distress or reframe troublesome thoughts.  Ultimately, the purpose of tools is to improve suicide risk assessments and reduce suicide rates.

DSM-5 (2013).

Interestingly, Suicidal Behavior Disorder (SBD) was introduced in Section III of the DSM-5 (2013) under “Conditions for Further Study”.  Then, SBD chiefly was characterized by a self-initiated sequence of behaviors believed at the time of initiation to cause one’s own death and occurring in the last 24 months.  That of course sounds exact but the diagnostic criteria in the DSM are written like that and the purpose of inclusion in the fifth edition was to create a framework so systematically, empirical studies related to SBD could be reviewed so primary research themes and promising directions for future research could be identified.  Duly, over the following decade that framework was explored but the conclusion was reached there seemed to be little utility in the clinical utility of SBD as a device for predicting future suicide and that more research was needed to understand measurement of the diagnosis and its distinctiveness from related disorders and other self-harming behaviors.  The phase “more research is required” must be one of the most frequently heard among researchers.

In the usually manner in which the APA allowed the DSM to evolve, what the DSM-5s tentative inclusion of SBD did was attempt to capture suicidality as a diagnosis rather than a clinical feature requiring attention.  SBD was characterized by a suicide attempt within the last 24 months (Criterion A) and that was defined as “a self-initiated sequence of behaviors by an individual who, at the time of initiation, expected that the set of actions would lead to his or her own death”.  That sounds uncontroversial but what was significant was the act could meet the criteria for non-suicidal self-injury (ie self-injury with the intention to relieve negative feelings or cognitive state in order to achieve a positive mood state (Criterion B) and cannot be applied to suicidal ideation or preparatory acts (Criterion C).  Were the attempt to have occurred during a state of delirium or confusion or solely for political or religious objectives, then SBD is ruled out (Criteria D & E).  SBD (current) is given when the suicide attempt occurred within the last 12 months, and SBD (in early remission), when it has been 12-24 months since the last attempt.  It must be remembered that while a patient’s behavior(s) may overlap across a number of the DSM’s diagnosises, the AMA’s committees have, for didactic purposes, always preferred to “silo” the categories.

DSM-5-TR (2022).

When in 2022 the “text revision” of the DSM-5 (DSM-5-TR) was released, SBD was removed as a condition for further study in Section III and moved to “Other Conditions That May Be a Focus of Clinical Attention” in Section II. The conditions listed in this section are intended to draw to attention of clinicians to the presence and breadth of additional issues routinely encountered in clinical practice and provide a procedure for their systematic documentation.  According to the APA’s editorial committee, the rationale for the exclusion of SBD from the DSM-5-TR was based on concerns the proposed disorder did not meet the criteria for a mental disorder but instead constituted a behavior with diverse causes and while that distinction may escape most of us, within the internal logic of the history of the DSM, that’s wholly consistent.  At this time, despite many lobbying for the adoption of a diagnostic entity for suicidal behavior, the APA’s committees seem still more inclined to conceptualize suicidality as a symptom rather than a disorder and despite discussion in the field of suicidology about whether suicide and related concepts like psychache should be treated as stand-alone mental health issues, that’s a leap which will have to wait, at least until a DSM-6 is published.

How to and how not to: Informatie over Zorgvuldige Levensbeëindiging (Information about the Careful Ending of Life, 2008) by Stichting Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek naar Zorgvuldige Zelfdoding (The Foundation for Scientific Research into Careful Suicide) (left) and How Not to Kill Yourself: A Phenomenology of Suicide (2023) by Clancy Martin (right).

Informatie over Zorgvuldige Levensbeëindiging (Information about the Careful Ending of Life, 2008) was published by a group of Dutch physicians & and researchers; it contained detailed advice on methods of suicide available to the general public, the Foundation for Scientific Research into Careful Suicide arging “a requirement exists within society for responsible information about an independent and dignified ending of life.”  It could be ordered only from the foundation’s website and had the advantage that whatever might be one’s opinion on the matter, it was at least written by physicians and scientists and thus more reliable than some of the “suicide guides” which are sometimes found on-line.  At the time research by the foundation had found that despite legislation in the Netherlands which permit doctors (acting within specific legal limits) to assist patient commit suicide, there were apparently several thousand cases each year of what it termed “autoeuthanasia” in which no medical staff directly were involved.  Most of these cases involved elderly or chronically ill patients who refused food and fluids and it was estimated these deaths happened at about twice the rate of those carried out under the euthanasia laws.  Since then the Dutch laws have been extended to included those who have no serious physical disease or are suffering great pain; there are people who simply no longer wish to live, something like the tragic figure in Blue Öyster Cult’s (Don't Fear) The Reaper (1976) © Donald Roeser (b 1947):

Came the last night of sadness
And it was clear she couldn't go on
Then the door was open and the wind appeared
The candles blew then disappeared
The curtains flew then he appeared
Saying don't be afraid

There is a diverse literature on various aspects of suicide (tips and techniques, theological & philosophical interpretations, cross-cultural attitudes, history of its treatment in church & secular law etc) and some are quite personal, written variously by those who later would kill themselves or those who contemplated or attempted to take their own lives.  In How Not to Kill Yourself: A Phenomenology of Suicide (2023) by Canadian philosopher Clancy Martin (b 1967), it was revealed the most recent of his ten suicide attempts was “…in his basement with a dog leash, the consequences of which he concealed from his wife, family, co-workers, and students, slipping back into his daily life with a hoarse voice, a raw neck and series of vague explanations.”

BKA (the Bundeskriminalamt, the Federal Criminal Police Office of the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany (the old West Germany)) mug shots of the Red Army Faction's Ulrike Meinhof (left) and Gudrun Ensslin (right).

The song (Don't Fear) The Reaper also made mention of William Shakespeare's (1564–1616) Romeo and Juliet (1597) and in taking her own life (using her dead lover’s dagger) because she doesn’t want to go on living without him, Juliette joined the pantheon of figures who have made the tragedy of suicide seem, to some, romantic.  Politically too, suicide can grant the sort of status dying of old age doesn’t confer, the deaths of left-wing terrorists Ulrike Meinhof (1934–1976) and Gudrun Ensslin (1940–1977) of the West German Red Army Faction (the RAF and better known as the “Baader-Meinhof gang”) both recorded as “suicide in custody” although the circumstances were murky.  In an indication of the way moral relativities aligned during the high Cold War, the French intellectuals Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) and Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) compared their deaths to the worst crimes of the Nazis but sympathy for violence committed for an “approved” cause was not the exclusive preserve of the left.  In July, 1964, in his speech accepting the Republican nomination for that year’s US presidential election, proto-MAGA Barry Goldwater (1909–1998) concluded by saying: “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!  And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”  The audience response to that was rapturous although a few months later the country mostly didn’t share the enthusiasm, Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) winning the presidency in one of the greatest landslides in US electoral history.  Given the choice between crooked old Lyndon and crazy old Barry, Americans preferred the crook.

Nor was it just politicians and intellectuals who could resist the appeal of politics being taken to its logical “other means” conclusion, the Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) during the last years of the Cold War writing First We Take Manhattan (1986), the lyrics of which were open to interpretation but clarified in 1988 by the author who explained: “I think it means exactly what it says.  It is a terrorist song.  I think it's a response to terrorism.  There's something about terrorism that I've always admired.  The fact that there are no alibis or no compromises.  That position is always very attractive.”   Even in 1988 it was a controversial comment because by then not many outside of undergraduate anarchist societies were still romanticizing terrorists but in fairness to the singer the coda isn’t as often published: “I don't like it when it's manifested on the physical plane – I don't really enjoy the terrorist activities – but Psychic Terrorism.”

First We Take Manhattan (1986) by Leonard Cohen

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom

For tryin' to change the system from within

I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

 

I'm guided by a signal in the heavens

I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin

I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

 

I'd really like to live beside you, baby

I love your body and your spirit and your clothes

But you see that line there moving through the station?

I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those

 

Ah you loved me as a loser, but now you're worried that I just might win

You know the way to stop me, but you don't have the discipline

How many nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

 

I don't like your fashion business, mister

And I don't like these drugs that keep you thin

I don't like what happened to my sister

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

 

I'd really like to live beside you, baby

I love your body and your spirit and your clothes

But you see that line there moving through the station?

I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those

First We Take Manhattan performed by Jennifer Warnes (b 1947), from the Album Famous Blue Raincoat (1986). 

Whatever they achieved in life, it was their suicides which lent a lingering allure to German-American ecofeminist activist Petra Kelly (1947–1992) & the doomed poet American poet Sylvia Path (1932-1963) and the lure goes back for millennia, the Roman Poet Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso; 43 BC–17 AD) in his Metamorphoses telling an ancient Babylonian tale in which Pyramus, in dark despair, killed herself after finding her young love lifeless.  Over the centuries it’s been a recurrent trope but the most novel take was the symbolic, mystical death in Richard Wagner's (1813–1883) Tristan und Isolde (1865).  Mortally wounded in a duel before the final act, Tristan longs to see Isolde one last time but just as she arrives at his side, he dies in her arms.  Overwhelmed by love and grief, Isolde sings the famous Liebestod (Love-Death) and dies, the transcendent aria interpreted as the swansong which carries her to join Tristan in mystical union in the afterlife.  This, lawyers would call a “constructive suicide”.

Austrian soprano Helga Dernesch (b 1939) in 1972 performing the Liebestod aria from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde with the Berlin Philharmonic under Herbert von Karajan (1908–1989).

While she didn’t possess the sheer power of the greatest of the Scandinavian sopranos who in the mid-twentieth century defined the role, Dernesch brought passion and intensity to her roles and while, on that night in 1972, the lushness of what Karajan summoned from the strings was perhaps a little much, her Liebestod was spine-tingling and by then, Karajan had been forgiven for everything.  Intriguingly, although Tristan und Isolde is regarded as one of the great monuments to love, in 1854 Wagner had written to the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt (1811–1886) telling him:

“As I have never in life felt the real bliss of love, I must erect a monument to the most beautiful of all my dreams, in which, from beginning to end, that love shall be thoroughly satiated.  I have in my head ‘Tristan and Isolde’, the simplest but most full-blooded musical concepion; with the ‘black flag’ which floats at the end of it I shall cover myself to die.”

It’s not known whether Listz reflected on this apparent compositional self-medication for psychache after in 1870 learning from his morning newspaper his daughter Cosima (1837-1930) was to be married to Wagner (then 24 years her senior) but because she’d been for some seven years conducting an adulterous affair with the German the news may not have been unexpected.  He was aware Cosmia’s daughter (Isolde Beidler (1865–1919)) had been fathered not by her then husband (the German conductor Hans von Bülow (1830–1894)) but by Wagner and her second marriage proved happier than the first so there was that.

Sunroof

Sunroof (pronounced suhn-roof)

(1) A section of an automobile roof (sometimes translucent and historically called a moonroof) which can be slid or lifted open.

(2) In obstetrics, a slang term used by surgeons to describe the Caesarean section.

1952: A compound word, the construct being sun + roof.  Sun was from the Middle English sonne & sunne, from the Old English sunne, from the Proto-West Germanic sunnā, from the Proto-Germanic sunnǭ, from the primitive Indo-European shwen-, oblique of sóhw (sun).  The other forms from the Germanic included the Saterland Frisian Sunne, the West Frisian sinne, the German Low German Sünn, the Dutch zon, the German Sonne and the Icelandic sunna.  The forms which emerged without Germanic influence included the Welsh huan, the Sanskrit स्वर् (svar) and the Avestan xᵛə̄ṇg.  The related forms were sol, Sol, Surya and Helios.  Roof was from the Middle English rof, from the Old English hrōf (roof, ceiling; top, summit; heaven, sky), from the Proto-Germanic hrōfą (roof).  Throughout the English-speaking world, roofs is now the standard plural form of roof.  Rooves does have some history but has long been thought archaic and the idea there would be something to be gained from maintaining rooves as the plural to avoid confusion with roof’s the possessive never received much support.  Despite all that, rooves does seem to appear more than might be expected, presumably because there’s much more tolerance extended to the irregular plural hooves but the lexicographers are unimpressed and insist the model to follow is poof (an onomatopoeia describing a very small explosion, accompanied usually by a puff of smoke), more than one poof correctly being “poofs”.  In use, a poof was understood as a small event but that's obviously a spectrum and some poofs would have been larger than others so it would have been a matter of judgement when something ceased to be a “big poof” and was classed an explosion proper.  Sunroof is a noun (sometimes hyphenated); the noun plural is sunroofs.

1973 Lincoln Continental Mark IV with moonroof.

Sunroofs existed long before 1952 but that was the year the word was first adopted by manufacturers in Detroit.  The early sunroofs were folding fabric but metal units, increasingly electrically operated, were more prevalent by the early 1970s.  Ford, in 1973, introduced the word moonroof (which was used also as moon roof & moon-roof) to describe the sliding pane of one-way glass mounted in the roof panel over the passenger compartment of the Lincoln Continental Mark IV (1972-1976).  Moonroof soon came to describe any translucent roof panel, fixed or sliding though the term faded from use and all such things tend now to be called a sunroof.

Lindsay Lohan standing through a sunroof: Promotional photo-shoot for Herbie Fully Loaded (2005).

Unlike many manufacturers, for many years Volkswagen maintained specific “Sunroof” models in the Beetle (Type 1) range.  When in 1945 the British military occupation forces assumed control of the Volkswagen factory and commenced production of civilian models (those made since 1938 delivered almost exclusively to the German armed forces or Nazi Party functionaries), one of the first organizational changes was to replace Herr Professor Ferdinand Porsche’s (1875–1951) internal type designations with a new set and these included the 115 (Standard Beetle Sunroof Sedan (LHD (left-hand drive)), 116 (Standard Beetle Sunroof Sedan (RHD (right-hand drive)), 117 (Export Deluxe Beetle Sunroof Sedan (LHD) & Export Deluxe Beetle Sunroof Sedan (RHD).  The original sunroof was a folding, fabric apparatus and this remained in use until 1963, a steel, sliding (manually hand-cranked) unit was fitted after the release of the 1964 range.  The Beetle used in the original film (The Love Bug (1968)) was a 1963 Sunroof Beetle; at the time they were readily available at low cost but by 2004-2005 when Herbie: Fully Loaded was in production, they were less numerous and some of those used in the filming were actually 1961 models modified (to the extent required in movies) for purposes of continuity.  Interestingly, the one which appears in most scenes appears to be a 1964 model which implies the folding sunroof was at some point added, not difficult because the kits have long been available.

Caesarean section post-operative scar: C-section scar revision is now a commonly performed procedure.

Manufacturers in the 1970s devoted sizeable resources to develop the sunroof because at the time, the industry’s assumption was the implications of US FMVSS (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards) 208 (roll-over protection, published 1970) fully would be realized, outlawing both convertibles and hardtops (certainly the four-doors) but the election of Ronald Reagan (1911–2004; US president 1981-1989) in 1980 changed the regulatory climate.  Reagan, not fond of dopey rules which impinged freedom, assured Detroit there’d be no ban and the first American convertibles since 1976 soon appeared, one consequence of which was legal action brought by some who had purchased (and stored with expectations of profit) 1976 Cadillac Eldorados, claiming they had been induced to buy because of the promotional campaign by General Motors (GM) using the phrase "the last American convertible”.  The cases were dismissed on the basis that GM's statements were “reasonable at the time, based on advice from government”.  No action was possible against the government on several grounds, including the doctrines of remoteness and unforeseeability.

Following Lindsay Lohan's example: President Xi standing through a sunroof, on parade in Hongqi L5 state limousine, Beijing, 2019.

The highlight of the ceremonies marking the 70^th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was the military parade, held in Beijing on 1 October 2019.  Claimed to be the largest military parade and mass pageant in China's 4,000-odd year history (and the last mass gathering in China prior to the outbreak in Wuhan of became the COVID-19 pandemic), the formations were reviewed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping (b 1953; paramount leader of the PRC since 2012).  The assembled crowd was said without exception to be “enthusiastic and happy” and the general secretary's conspicuously well-cut Mao suit was a nice nostalgic touch.

Two generals of the Belarus army take the salute standing in Honggi L5 Parade Convertibles, Minsk, Belarus, June 2017.

Independence Day in Belarus is celebrated annually on 3 June and there is always a significant military component.  Other than the PRC, Belarus is the only known operator of the Honqqi and the four-door convertible parade cars were apparently a "gift" (as opposed to foreign aid) from the Chinese government but the aspect of this photograph which attracted some comment was whether the hats worn by generals in Belarus were bigger than the famously imposing headwear of the army of the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)); analysts of military millinery appeared to conclude the dimensions were similar.  Purists traditionally describe this style of coach-work as "four-door cabriolet" and it was "Cabriolet D" in the Daimler-Benz system but the "parade convertible" is a distinct breed and often includes features such as grab bars for those standing, microphones and loud-speakers so the “enthusiastic and happy” crowd don't miss a word.   

Hongqi L5 state limousine.

The car carrying President Xi was the Hongqi L5, the state limousine of the PRC, the coachwork styling a deliberately retro homage to the Hongqi CA770, the last in the line (dating from 1958) of large cars built almost exclusively for use by the upper echelons of the CCP.  Most of the earlier cars were built on the large platforms US manufacturers used in the 1960s and were powered by a variety of US-sourced V8 engines but the L5 was wholly an indigenous product, built with both a 6.0 litre (365 cubic inch) V12 and 4.0 litre (245 cubic inch) V8 although neither configuration is intended for high-performance.  Interestingly, although Hongqi L5 have produced a version of the L5 with four-door convertible coachwork as a formal parade car and they have been used both in the PRC and in Belarus, the general secretary conducted his review in a closed vehicle with a sunroof.

US President Richard Nixon (1913-1994, US president 1969-1974) with Anwar Sadat (1918–1981; President of Egypt 1970-1981) in a 1967 Cadillac convertible, Alexandria, Egypt, June 1974.  On that day, the motorcade was 180-strong and unlike the reception his appearance in the US now induced, the Egyptian crowd really did seem genuinely enthusiastic and happy.  Within two months, in disgrace because of his part in the Watergate Affair, Nixon would resign.

The CCP didn’t comment on the choice of a car with a sunroof and it may have been made on technical grounds, the provision of a microphone array presumably easier with the roof available as a mounting point and given the motorcade travelled a higher speed than a traditional parade, it would also have provided a more stable platform for the general secretary.  It’s not thought there was any concern about security, Xi Jinping (for a variety of reasons) safer in his capital than many leaders although heads of state and government became notably more reticent about travelling in open-topped vehicles after John Kennedy (1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) was assassinated in 1963.  Some, perhaps encouraged by Richard Nixon being greeted by cheering crowds in 1974 when driven through the streets of Alexandria (a potent reminder of how things have changed) in a Cadillac convertible, persisted but after the attempt on the life of John Paul II (1920–2005; pope 1978-2005) in 1981, there’s been a trend to roofs all the way, sometimes molded in translucent materials of increasing chemical complexity to afford some protection from assassins.

Military parade marking the 70^th anniversary of the founding of the PRC, Beijing, China, 1 October 2019.  Great set-piece military parades like those conducted by the PRC and DPRK (recalling the spectacles staged by both Nazi Germany (1933-1945) and the Soviet Union (1922-1991) are now packaged for television and distribution on streaming platforms and it may be Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) was hoping the "Grand Military Parade" he scheduled in 2025 for his 79^th birthday (ostensibly to celebrate 250 years since the formation of the US Army) would display the same impressive precision in chorography.     

Covering all possibilities during the 24 hour cycle.  US advertisement (1974) for the Renault 17 Gordini Coupe Convertible, the Gordini tag adopted as a "re-brand" of the top-of-the-range R17 (1971-1979).  Gordini was a French sports car producer and tuning house, absorbed by Renault in 1968, the name from time-to-time used for high-performance variants of various Renault models.

Renault over the decades made the occasional foray into the tempting US market but all ended badly in one way or another, their products, whatever their sometimes real virtues, tending not to be suited to US driving habits and conditions.  Sunroofs had long been popular in Europe and, noting (1) what was assumed to be the demise of the convertible and (2) Lincoln's coining of "moon roof", Renault decided Americans deserved a sunroof, moonroof & starroof, all in one.  Actually, they got even more because there was also a removable, fibreglass hardtop for the winter months, Renault correctly concluding there would be little demand for a rainroof.  Physically large as it had to be, unlike a targa top, the 17's panel was intended (like other hardtops) to be stored in a garage until the warmer months.  One quirk of the R17's nomenclature was in Italy, in deference to the national heptadecaphobia, the car was sold as the R177 but the Italians showed little more interest than the Americans.

Porsche, sunroofs, weight distribution and centres of gravity 

Porsche 917K, Le Mans, 1970.

Porsche in the early 1970s enjoyed great success in sports car racing with their extraordinary 917 but greatly innovation and speed disturb the clipboard-carriers at the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the FIA; the International Automobile Federation) which is international sport's dopiest regulatory body.  Inclined instinctively to ban anything interesting, the FIA outlawed the 917 in sports car racing so Porsche turned its glance to the Can-Am (Canadian-American Challenge Cup) for unlimited displacement (Group 7) sports cars, then dominated by the McLarens powered by big-displacement Chevrolet V8s.  Unable to enlarge the 917's Flat-12 to match the power of the V8s and finding their prototype Flat-16 too bulky, Porsche resorted to forced aspiration and created what came to be known as the "TurboPanzer", a 917 which in qualifying trim took to the tracks with some 1,500 horsepower (HP).  There's since been nothing quite like it and for two years it dominated the Can-Am until the first oil shock in 1973 put an end to the fun.  However, the lessons learned about turbocharging the factory would soon put to good use.

The widow-maker: 1975 Porsche 930 with the rare and surprisingly desirable (for some) “sunroof delete” option.

Introduced in 1975, the 911 Turbo (930 the internal designation) had been intended purely as a homologation exercise (al la the earlier 911 RS Carrera) so the engine could be used in competition but so popular did it prove it was added to the list as a regular production model and one has been a permanent part of the catalogue almost continuously since.  The additional power and its sometimes sudden arrival meant the early versions were famously twitchy at the limit (and such was the power those limits were easily reached if not long explored), gaining the machine the nickname “widow-maker”.  There was plenty of advice available for drivers, the most useful probably the instruction not to use the same technique when cornering as one might in a front-engined car and a caution that even if one had had a Volkswagen Beetle while a student, that experience might not be enough to prepare one for a Porsche Turbo.  When stresses are extreme, the physics mean the location of small amounts of weight become subject to a multiplier-effect and the advice was those wishing to explore a 930's limits of adhesion should get one with the rare “sunroof delete” option, the lack of the additional weight up there slightly lowering the centre of gravity.  However, even that precaution may only have delayed the inevitable and possibly made the consequences worse, one travelling a little faster before the tail-heavy beast misbehaved.

Porsche 911 Carrera S, Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, June 2012.

Although it seems improbable, when in 2012 Lindsay Lohan crashed a sunroof-equipped Porsche 911 Carrera, it's not impossible the unfortunate event may have been related to the slight change in the car's centre of gravity when fitted with a sunroof.  She anyway had some bad luck when driving black German cars but clearly Ms Lohan should avoid Porsches with sunroofs.

The interaction of the weight of a 911’s roof (and thus the centre of gravity) and the rearward bias of the weight distribution was not a thing of urban myth or computer simulations.  In the February 1972 edition of the US magazine Car and Driver (C&D), a comparison test was run of the three flavours of the revised 911 (911T, 911E & 911S), using one of each of the available bodies: coupé, targa & sunroof coupé, the latter with the most additional weight in the roof.  What the testers noted in the targa & sunroof-equipped 911s was a greater tendency to twitchiness in corners, something no doubt exacerbated in the sunroof coupé because the sliding panel’s electric motor was installed in the engine bay.  C&D’s conclusion was: “If handling is your goal, it's best to stick with the plain coupe.”  

The Porsche 911 E series and the Ölklappe affair

1971 Porsche 911S (note the flap for the oil filler cap behind the passenger-side door (US market model and thus left-hand drive (LHD)).  The factory confirmed this car was built in July 1971, despite many references to E series production beginning in August.

Although in C&D's 1972 comparison test there was much focus on the rearward weight bias, the three 911s supplied actually had a slightly less tail-heavy weight distribution than either that season's predecessor or successor.  Porsche in 1971 began the build of its E series update (produced between July 1971-July 1972 and generally known as the “1972 models”) of the then almost decade-old 911 and in addition to the increase in the flat-six’s displacement from 2.2 litres (134 cubic inch) to 2.3 (143) (although always referred to as the “2.4”), there were a myriad of changes, some in response to US safety & emissions legislation while others were part of normal product development.  One of latter was the placing of the hinged-flap over the oil filler cap behind the right side door, something necessitated by the dry sump oil tank having been re-located from behind the right rear wheel to in front, one of a number of design changes undertaken to shift the weight distribution forward and improve the handling of the rear-engined machine’s inherently tail-heavy configuration.  In Germany, the addition was known variously as Ölklappe, Oil Klapper or Vierte Tür (fourth door, the fuel filler flap being the third).  Weight reduction (then becoming difficult in the increasingly strict regulatory environment), especially at the rear, was also a design imperative and the early-build E series cars were fitted with an aluminum engine lid and license-plate panel although these components were soon switched to steel because of production difficulties and durability concerns.

Where the troubles began:  The fuel filler flap on the left-front fender (left) and the oil filler flap on the right-rear fender (right).  Apparently, not even the “◀ Oil” sticker in red was sufficient warning.

For the E series 911s, Porsche recommended the use of a multigrade mineral oil (SAE 20W-50 or SAE 15W-40, depending on climate) but were aware those using their vehicles in competition sometimes used a high-viscosity SAE 50 monograde.  With the car’s 10 litre (10.6 US quarts, 8.8 Imperial quarts) oil tank, the fluid’s weight would be between 8.5-9.1 kg (18.7-20.0 lb) and the physics of motion meant that the more rearward the placement of that mass, the greater the effect on the 911’s handling characteristics.  It was thus a useful contribution to what would prove a decades-long quest to tame the behaviour of what, in the early versions, was a car regarded (not wholly unfairly) as handling like “a very fast Volkswagen Beetle” and ultimately the engineers succeeded, it being only at the speeds which should be restricted to race tracks the 911s of the 2020s sometimes reveal the implications of being rear-engined.

VDO instruments in 1971 Porsche 911S.  In home market cars, the oil pressure gauge (to the left of the centrally mounted tachometer) was labelled DRUCK.

However, when in August 1972 the revised F series entered production, the oil tank was back behind the rear wheel and the filler under the engine lid, the retrogressive move taken because there had been instances of gas (petrol) station attendants (they really used to exist) assuming the oil filler flap was the access point for the gas cap and, to be fair, it was in a location used for gas on many front-engined cars (a majority of the passenger-car fleet in most markets where Porsche had a presence).  Quite how often this happened isn’t known but it must have been frequent enough for the story to become part of the 911 legend and the consequences could have been severe and rectification expensive.  The factory paid much attention to oil and also ensured drivers could monitor the status of the critical fluid; all air-cooled 911s ran hot and the more highly tuned the model (in 1971-1972 the 911T, E & S in increasing potency), the hotter they got.  As well as being a lubricant, engine oil functions also as a coolant and the VDO instrumentation included gauges for oil level, oil temperature, and oil pressure; for all three to appear in a road car was unusual but being air-cooled and thus with no conventional fluid coolant, the oil's dynamics were most important.