Admiralty

Admiralty (pronounced ad-mer-uhl-tee)

(1) In military use, the office or jurisdiction of an admiral.

(2) In military use, the officials or the department of state having charge of naval affairs (not all of whom needed to be admirals); it was analogous with an army's general staff and an air force's air staff.

(3) In the UK, the building in which the lords of the admiralty, in England, transact business.

(4) In law, the branch dealing with maritime law; a court dealing with maritime questions (In England, when jurisdiction was under the division of Divorce, Probate & Admiralty, the lawyers' slang was “wives, wills & wrecks”); the system of jurisprudence of admiralty courts.

(5) In (historic) architecture, a frequent descriptor (Admiralty House, Admiralty Arch etc).

1300–1350: A compound word Admiral + -ty, from the Middle English amiralty, from the French amirauté, from the older form amiralté (office of admiral), from the Late Latin admīrālitās.  The best known sense, “naval branch of the English executive" dates from the early-fifteenth century, root of the word being admiral.  Admiral emerged circa 1200 as amiral & admirail (Saracen commander or chieftain) from the Old French amiral & amirail (Saracen military commander; any military commander) ultimately from medieval Arabic amīr (military commander) probably via the Medieval Latin use of the word for "Muslim military leader".  The suffix –ty is from the Middle English -te, borrowed from the Old French -te, from the Latin -tātem, accusative masculine singular of –tās; an alternative form of –ity, it was used to form abstract nouns from adjectives.  The first English admiral to appear in the records appears to have been Admiral of the Fleet of the Cinque Ports, Gerard Allard of Winchelsea, a royal appointment in 1300.  The Arabic amīr was later Englished as emir.  In another example of Medieval error, because in Arabic use, amīr is constantly followed by -al- in all such titles, amīr-al- was assumed by Christian writers to be a substantive word and variously Latinized.  The process thus was a shortening of the Arabic أَمِير اَلبَحْر‎ (ʾamīr al-baḥr) (commander of the fleet; literally “sea commander”) and the additional -d- is probably from the influence of the otherwise unconnected Latin admirable (admīrābilis).  For those stalkers who take selfies at locations used in movies (Instagram made this niche), the The Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey (listed as the only waterside hotel in Los Angeles with a Five Diamond rating from the AAA) is at 4375 Admiralty Way in Marina del Rey.  It has appeared in a number of productions (film & television), notably Lindsay Lohan's remake of The Parent Trap (1998).  Admiralty & admiral are nouns; the noun plural is plural admiralties.  When used as a proper noun (thus the initial upper case), in Royal Navy use, Admiralty referred (1) the historical naval bases established in the Far East: (1) HMS Tamar (Hong Kong) and (2) HMS Sembawang (Singapore).

Admiralty Arch, London.

An island rather than a continental power and later an empire, for England, the navy assumed an importance in foreign policy standing armies never did and the Royal Navy’s high command, the Admiralty, was for centuries entangled in both military and political matters.  The Admiralty no longer exists, absorbed in 1964, like the high commands of the other services, into the newly created Ministry of Defence.  Over the centuries, the structure of the Admiralty evolved as technology changed, threats and alliances came and went, budgets waxed and waned, political vicissitudes always hovering.  As a bureaucracy, the Admiralty has been staffed by a bewildering array of offices and titles including board members, presidents, sea lords, secretaries, civil lords, controllers, comptrollers, accountants-general, directors-general, storekeepers-general, surveyors, deputy chiefs, vice chiefs & assistant chiefs but in its final incarnation, under a First Lord of the Admiralty (a minister for the navy who sat in parliament and was thus political head of the navy) there were five admirals, known as the sea lords (of which there were eight lords during World War II; things were busy then).  The sea lords each enjoyed a sphere of responsibility for naval operations:

The First Sea Lord (later First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff), directed naval strategy in wartime and was responsible for planning, operations and intelligence, for the distribution of the Fleet and for its fighting efficiency.  He was the military head of the Navy.

The Second Sea Lord (later Second Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Personnel), was responsible for manning & mobilisation and all personnel questions relating to the Royal Navy and Royal Marines.

The Third Sea Lord (later the Controller of the Navy) was responsible primarily for ship design and construction and most material matters including the Fleet Air Arm.

The Fourth Sea Lord (later Chief of Naval Supplies) was responsible for logistics, victualling and medical departments.

The Fifth Sea Lord (later the Chief of Naval Air Services) was responsible for all naval aviation.

Indefatigable

Indefatigable (pronounced in-di-fat-i-guh-buhl)

Incapable of being tired out; not yielding to fatigue; untiring.

1580-1590: From the French indefatigable, from the Latin indēfatīgābilis (untiring; that which cannot be wearied).  The construct was in (in the sense of "not") + defatigare (to tire out) from de- (utterly, down, away) + fatigare (to weary).  A dictionary of 1656 has an entry for defatigable which does seem to have been used in the seventeenth century before going extinct; a revival in 1948 was a jocular back-formation (a la "gruntled" or "combobulated") from indefatigable and one which never caught on.  Indefatigable is an adjective, indefatigableness & indefatigability are nouns and indefatigably is an adverb; the noun plural is indefatigabilities.  It seems indefatigable may have been a back-formations of the adverb indefatigably, the latter recorded as being in use in the mid-sixteenth century.

HMS Indefatigable, a Royal Navy battlecruiser launched in 1909 and sunk while part of Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty's (1871-1936) battlecruiser fleet in the 1916 Battle of Jutland.  Santa Cruz Island, the most populous and second-largest island in Ecuador's Galápagos Islands is also known as Indefatigable Island, the Admiralty bestowing the name in honor of HMS Indefatigable, a ship of the line with a distinguished battle record during Napoleonic Wars and later saw service in the Royal Navy's South America squadron.

Battlecruisers were essentially battleships with less armor, therefore gaining speed at the cost of greater vulnerability.  The theory was they would have the firepower to out-gun all but the battleships and those they could out-run with their greater speed.  The concept seemed sound and in December 1914, at the Battle of the Falkland Islands, two Royal Navy battlecruisers vindicated the theory when they chased and destroyed the German East Asia Squadron.  However, in 1916, the performance of the battlecruisers in the Jutland engagement forced the Admiralty to re-consider.  Jutland was the closest thing to the great battle of the fleets which had been anticipated for decades but proved anti-climatic, both sides ultimately choosing to avoid the decisive encounter which offered the chance of victory or defeat.  What it did prove was that the naval theorists had been right; the battlecruiser could not fight the battleship and if their paths threatened to cross, the less-armored vessel should retreat and rely on greater speed to make good her escape.  There were technical deficiencies in the British ships, without which perhaps three of their battlecruisers wouldn’t have been lost, but what happened at Jutland made it clear to the admirals that uneven contests between the big capital ships were to be avoided.

For naval architects, warship design was a three-way tussle between speed, firepower and armor; to add to one was to detract from at least one of the others.  That was difficult enough when constrained only by physics and economics but after the First World War, international agreements limited the maximum tonnage of the big ships so the choice became either to compromise the design or cheat.  Some countries did the former, some the latter but all seemed to agree the battlecruiser was extinct and indeed, after Jutland, no battlecruiser was laid down for over sixty years.  The pocket-battleships of the 1930s, although similar, were a different breed.

Before the fall: Soviet nuclear-battlecruiser Kirov at anchor in the Baltic, a Krivak I-class guided-missile frigate in the background, December, 1989.  Later re-named the Admiral Ushakov, she and the Admiral Lazarev (ex-Frunze) are now in the throes of being scrapped.

It was thus a surprise when the Soviet navy announced the commissioning of five Kirov class battlecruisers, four of which were built, launched during the 1980s and 1990s.  Although the official Russian designation of the ship-type is heavy nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser (тяжёлый атомный ракетный крейсер), admiralties in the West, still nostalgic about the big ships, choose to revive the old name "battlecruisers".  They’re the largest conventional warships launched since World War II; only aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships have been of greater displacement.  Expensive to operate, only the Pyotr Velikiy (ex-Yuriy Andropov) remains in operational service and, according to recent NATO bulletins, she has been at sea as part of a fleet exercise as recently as mid-2021.  Although the Admiral Nakhimov (ex-Kalinin) is currently undergoing a refit and is now scheduled to re-enter service in 2023, the re-commissioning date has shifted many times and NATO sources remain sceptical she will ever return to the active list.

Many adjectives have been applied to Lindsay Lohan; indefatigable is probably under-used.

Chelengk

Chelengk (pronounced kel-legge)

A headdress or turban ornament traditionally worn by Ottoman and the Mughal rulers in South Asia and Asia Minor.

Circa 1740: From the Ottoman Turkish چـلنك (Çelenk) (wreath or garland).

First awarded during the reign of Mahmud I (Mahmud the Hunchback, 1696–1754; Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1730-1754), the model for the Çelenk was the tradition of attaching a bird's feather to one’s turban as a symbol of bravery and by 1798 it had become a stylized decoration awarded for military merit (ranking above the Gallipoli Star and below the Order of Osmanieh in the Ottoman order of precedence) as late as the 1820s.  Çelenks were awarded as a gift to honor distinguished military commanders or other high-ranking officials and, worn usually on a turban or cap, were a noted symbol of honor and prestige in the Ottoman court.  Çelenks were crafted from gold or silver (the most illustrious of which were diamond-studded) and consisted of a central flower with leaves and buds, topped by upward-facing rays and although no longer part of military tradition, the motif remains popular in modern Türkiye where it’s rendered as a wreath or garland, a circular decoration made from flowers and leaves, usually for ornamental purposes.

Lemuel “Francis” Abbott’s (circa 1760–1803) classic portrait of Nelson (1799) with Chelengk pinned to hat; oil on canvas and completed after his victory in the Battle of the Nile.  Historians of art suspect Abbott painted his work despite having never seen the Chelengk because his depiction is far removed from the actual jewel. 

One of the most famous Chelengks was that awarded to the Royal Navy’s Admiral Lord Nelson (1758-1805) by Selim III (1761–1808; Sultan of the Ottoman Empire 1789-1807) after the Battle of the Nile in 1798, the thirteen diamond encrusted rays representing the French ships captured or destroyed during the engagement.  A clever aspect of the engineering was that the central diamond star was connected to a clockwork mechanism so it would rotate while being worn and it was a particular distinction, being the first Çelenk awarded to a non-Ottoman and the thirteen rays were a departure from the traditional seven.  The admiral wore the Chelengk on his naval hat in much the same manner as Ottoman officers adorned their turbans and he turned out to be a trend-setter, sparking a demand in England for similar jewels and they became one of the most fashionable accessories of the era.  Selim III also awarded a Çelenk  to Russian Admiral Fyodor Ushakov (1745-1817) after the capture of Corfu from the French in 1799.  After Nelson’s death in the Battle of Trafalgar (1805), the Chelengk passed to his family and was frequently seen at the royal court until it was sold at auction in 1895, purchased eventually by the Society for Nautical Research in 1929 and placed on display at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich where it was a star exhibit.  In 1951 the piece was by “an infamous cat-burglar” and has not since been seen.

Lindsay Lohan as she would appear if wearing the replica of Lord Nelson’s chelengk, Paris, March 2015 (digitally altered image).  The replica is said exactly to have duplicated the appearance of the original and features a central flower made of sixteen petals with leaves and buds.  The stalk of the flower is tied by a bow, extending from which are the thirteen rays.  The replica was made for the film Bequest to the Nation (1973) and was subsequently presented to the National Maritime Museum by the production house.

Esquire

Esquire (pronounced es-kwahyuhr or e-skwahyuhr)

(1) An unofficial title of respect (usually with no precise definition or significance and sometimes self-conferred), placed (often in its abbreviated form), after a man's surname in formal written address (used with initial capital letter).

(2) In the US, an informal honorific used by lawyers (male & female).

(3) In the UK, a term applied to a commoner considered to have gained the social position of a gentleman (historically a man belonging to the order of English gentry ranking immediately below a knight).

(4) An alternative form for squire when that was used to mean “a youth who in the hopes of becoming a knight attends upon a knight” (obsolete).

(5) To raise to the rank of esquire; in medieval use the attendant and shield bearer of a knight (and subsequently sometimes knighted themselves), one practical significance of the title being it conferred the right to bear arms.

(6) In heraldry, a bearing similar in form to a gyron, but extending across the field so that the point touches the opposite edge of the escutcheon.

(7) To address as Esquire.

(8) A gentleman who attends or escorts a lady in public; a male escort (rare and long archaic except when applied humorously or euphemistically (as a sanitized alternative to “tame cat”, “rent boy” etc).

1425–1475: From the late Middle English esquier, from the Middle French escuyer & escuier (shield bearer; an attendant young man in training to be a knight), from the Old French esquiere, esquierre & esquarre (square), from the Latin scūtārius (“shield bearer”, “guardsman”, the construct being scūt(um) (shield) + -ārius (-ary).  The suffix -aris was a form of -ālis with dissimilation of -l- to -r- after roots containing an l (the alternative forms were -ālis, -ēlis, -īlis & -ūlis); it was used to form adjectives, usually from noun, indicating a relationship or a "pertaining to").  The form reached modern French as écuyer (shield-bearer, armor-bearer, squire of a knight, esquire, equerry, rider, horseman).  Rather (as some might reasonably suppose) than esquire being formed as e- + - squire, the word squire was a product of apheresis (the suppression or complete loss of a letter or sound (syllable) from the beginning of a word) from the earlier French & English.  Esquire is a noun & verb and esquired & esquiring are verbs; the noun plural is esquires.

Lindsay Lohan in Esquire (Middle East).

Esquire began as a feudal rank ranking below a knight, the origin of the word in the role of a squire who attended upon a knight as a kind of combination of personal assistant, apprentice and servant.  For those not from established families, it was one of the few available paths to knighthood.  As the historic role of knights receded in the sixteenth century, the use broadened to encompass (1) the educated or professional class (especially those practicing in law) & (2) members of the gentry and their sons not otherwise entitled to some title.  In the US, esquire became attached to lawyers (both male & female), probably as an identifier to align in some way with the “Dr” granted to physicians because by convention, those with vocational doctorates (Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur) don’t use the “Dr” like those with higher or research doctorates (Ph.D, D.Sc, DCL et al).  Reflecting the shared origin with lawyers as “men of letters” (the lawyers more anxious to acknowledge their past than the surgeons are to recall they came out of the barber shops) writers and journalists also long liked to adopt an “esq” though much derision means it’s now less common.

Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax KCB.  Lest it be thought multi-element names are a thing exclusive to the British Isles, they exist elsewhere, an example of which was the German Count Graf Philipp-Constantin Eduard Siegmund Clemens Tassilo Tobias von Berckheim (1924-1984).

In England, for historic reasons, the history and current usage is complicated.  The title is granted to the eldest sons of knights, the elder sons of the younger sons of peers and their eldest sons in succession, officers of the king's courts and of the royal household, barristers, justices of the peace while in commission & sheriffs and is available to gentlemen who have held commissions in the military.  It thus enjoys a wide vista but even now a definitive listing of the correct use has never been codified and some view it as pretentious even when technically correct.  Littered in the history of honors are also curiosities like the right of a Knight of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath to appoint three esquires at the time of his installation, something which seems of ancient origin but was formalized in 1815 when the old order of knighthood (KB) was re-organized into three classes: Knight Grand Cross (GCB), Knight Commander (KCB) & Companion (CB).  One task a KCB’s helpful esquire might have performed was to assist translators in formal ceremonies.  In 1939, when Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, KCB, DSO, JP, DL (1880-1967) was introduced at a ceremony in Moscow, diplomatic protocol required his honors be read out in full, the Russian translator rendering his KCB as рыцарь умывальник (rytsar' umyval'nik) (Knight of the Wash Tub).  The Russians couldn’t help but laugh and, fortunately for the then strained diplomatic relations between the Kremlin and Downing Street, the admiral shared their amusement.  In legal documents and uses deemed "formal", a capitalized "Esquire" usually is written in full after the names of those using the designation.  It’s otherwise abbreviated to Esq or (the now less common) Esqr.  Those conventions should in theory be observed also when adding an address to an envelope and American lawyers settled on a post-nominal Esq. (almost always with the needless period (full-stop)) in their e-mail signature blocks.

Lindsay Lohan attending the Esquire and DKNY fashion show, London, June 2014.

Squire was a truncation of esquire, the process known in linguistics as apheresis (the suppression or complete loss of a letter or sound (syllable) from the beginning of a word).  It too was thus from the Old French escuier, from the Late Latin scutarius (shield bearer) which is Old English was spelled scutifer.  The equivalent in the Classical Latin was armiger (arms bearer).  The early meanings of squire were essentially the same as those attached to esquire but it evolved in England by the mid seventeenth century also to describe (with some variations) “a substantial landholder in a town or village who is a landlord to most or many inhabitants”.  The less formal term “lord of the manor” was essentially analogous and given the nature of the class system and economic relations in England, the role of squire often overlapped with offices such as that or mayor or magistrate and that (linguistic) tradition continues in contemporary American use, “squire” the title used for justices of the peace or similar local dignitaries.  Although the attractive slang forms squirearchy & squiress seem not to have survived, in UK working class slang, “squire” is used in a respectful and friendly way between men, a democratic re-purposing of the earlier sense of “country gentlemen”, dating from 1828.  The meaning “a ruler; a carpenter's square; a measure” was derived from the Middle French esquierre (rule, carpenter's square) or the Old French esquire (another form of esquarre (square)) and is long obsolete.

Ford Country Squires: 1951 (with genuine wood, left), 1959 (centre) and 1971 (right).

Long replaced in public favor by even more commodious SUVs, vans and people-movers, mass-market station wagons were a post-war phenomenon which was an element in a number of inter-related economic and sociological trends including (1) rising prosperity which made the "two car family" a standard which tricked down from the middle-class, (2) a shift of the population from urban to more remote suburban locations and (3) the development of suburban shopping malls (including supermarkets) with vast car parks.  The style remain popular until the late 1980s though a few lingered on for another decade.  Consistently the best-selling of the full-sized breed were the big Fords, the top-of-the-range being the Country Squire which was available between 1950-1991.  Its most distinctive feature was the “woodgrain” Appliqué which adorned the sides and for most of the Country Squire’s life it was rendered in DI-NOC, (Diurno Nocturna, from the Spanish, literally “daytime-nighttime” and translated for marketing purposes as “beautiful day & night”), an embossed vinyl or polyolefin material with a pressure-sensitive adhesive backing produced since the 1930s and perfected by Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing (3M).  The early cars (1950-1951) actually used genuine timber in a nod to earlier coach-building traditions which were an economic imperative, station wagons (until the suburban developments of the post-war years made them popular) never produced in sufficient volume to make viable tooling factories for production in metal.  Much cheaper, the plastic DI-NOC replaced the timber in 1952 (although the perimeter moldings remained timber until 1953, after which 3M produced a fibreglass emulation) and other manufacturers copied the idea which eventually (and unfortunately) spread beyond station wagons.  It was very much a thing which suited US tastes, Ford’s attempt to tempt UK & Australian buyers brief and unsuccessful.  They never bothered to trouble the Germans or the French.

One-off 1967 Ford Country Squire with Q-Code 428 V8 and four-speed manual transmission.

In the US, Ford for decades churned out the Country Squires by the thousand but there was the odd oddity.  Like most big station wagons, almost all  Country Squires were built for function and although the engines might sometimes be large (in the 1970s they were available with 429 & 460 cubic inch (7.0 & 7.5 litre) V8s), they were configured to carry or tow heavy loads and were thus sold almost always with heavy-duty automatic transmissions.  In 1967 however, there was a one-off Country Squire built with the combination of a 428 cubic inch (7.0 litre) V8 in Q-Code configuration (the “Q” a marker of the engine's specification which included "Cobra Jet" style cylinder heads with larger valves, a four barrel carburetor (typically a 735 CFM (cubic foot per minute) Holley, a higher compression ration and exhaust manifolds with reduced impedance).  The Q-Code 428 was the most powerful offered that year in full-sized Fords (except for 12 Ford XLs with the 427 V8 derived from a unit built for competition).  Such vehicles are usually unicorns, often discussed and sometimes even created as latter-day “tributes” and are thus rarely "real" but the 1967 Country Squire is a genuine one-off and as a type may be unique not only among Fords but also the entire full-size ecosystem of the era.  The tale is sometimes still repeated that Plymouth built a special order Belvedere station wagon at the request of Bill Harrah (1911–1978) of Harrah's Hotel and Casinos in Nevada (now part of Caesars Entertainment) with the 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) HEMI V8 for the rapid transport of cash across the desert but that is a myth and the coda (that Harrah decided instead to build his own) is just as unverified.  So the 1967 Country Squire is a curious period piece and a collectors’ item; despite its dilapidated appearance, its "one-of-one" status (much-prized in collector circles) meant that in 2020 it sold at auction in the US for almost US$50,000.  When exhibited at the South Carolina’s Hilton Head Island Concours d’Elegance in November 2024, an entry on the car’s placard claimed production of the special order required the personal approval of Lee Iacocca (1924–2019), then vice-president of Ford’s car and truck group.  The one-off wagon received a Palmetto Award in the “Barn Finds” class in which patina is a virtue.

1962 Pontiac Catalina convertible with Riveria "Esquire" Series 300 hard top.

Introduced in 1956 for the 1957 model year, the Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner revived (at a larger scale), the idea of a retractable, full-sized hard-top, last seen in (limited) series production in Europe during the 1930.  Available for three seasons (the name bulked-up to Fairlane 500 Galaxie Skyliner for its last year), in advertising the feature was called the Hide-Away Hardtop and in operation the all-steel apparatus was a mesmerizing piece of early space-age mechanical choreography, controlled by three drive motors, ten solenoids and many relays & circuit breakers, all connected with a reputed 610 feet (186 m) of electrical cabling.  Despite the intricacy, it proved a reliable system.  After that, no manufacturer attempted a removable hard top on the scale of the big Skyliner but at least one aftermarket supplier thought there might be demand for something large and detachable.  Riveria Inc, based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, between 1963-1964 offered the "Esquire" hard-top for the big (then called full or standard-size) General Motors (GM) convertibles.  Such was GM’s production-line standardization, the entire range of models, spread over five divisions and three years could be covered by just three variations of hard top.  Made from fibreglass with an external texture which emulated leather, weight was a reasonable 80 lb (30 kg) but the sheer size rendered them unmanageable for many and not all had storage for such a bulky item, the growth of the American automobile meaning garages accommodative but a few years earlier were now cramped.    

1962 Chevrolet Impala SS (Super Sport) convertible with Riveria "Esquire" Series 100 hard top.

Riveria offered their basic (100 series) hardtop in black or white, a more elaborately textured model (200 series) finished in gold or silver while the top of the range (300 series) used the same finishes but with simulated “landau” irons.  No modification was required to the car, the roof attaching to the standard convertible clamps, the soft- top remaining retracted.  Prices started at US$295 and the company seems to have attempted to interest GM dealers in offering the hard tops as a dealer-fitter accessory but corporate interest must have been as muted as buyer response, Riveria ceasing operations in 1964.

Bathtub

Bathtub (pronounced bath-tuhb or bahth-tuhb)

(1) A tub in which to bathe, variations including permanent installations (either built-in fixtures or free-standing units) in a bathroom and (now less commonly in the developed world) portable constructions (historically of metal or timber although for military and outdoor use, foldable bathtubs (of leather or canvas) have a long history).

(2) An automotive style (most common in the 1950s) in which the bodywork resembled an upturned bathtub.

1825–1835: The construct was bath + tub and the previous related word was “wash-tub”, dating from the turn of the seventeenth century.  Bath was from the Middle English bath & baþ, from the Old English bæþ (bath), from the Proto-West Germanic baþ, from the Proto-Germanic baþą (bath), from the primitive Indo-European root bhē- (to warm).  The corresponding inherited verbs were bathe & beath.  The Old English bæð (“an immersing of the body in water, mud, etc” or “a quantity of water etc., for bathing”) was from the Proto-Germanic badan (the source also of the Old Frisian beth, the Old Saxon bath, the Old Norse bað, the Middle Dutch bat and the German Bad), also from the primitive Indo-European root bhē- with the appended –thuz (the Germanic suffix indicating “act, process, condition” (as in “birth”; “death”)). The etymological sense is of heating, not immersing.  Tub was from the late fourteenth century Middle English tubbe & tobbe (open wooden vessel made of staves), from the Middle Dutch & Middle Flemish tubbe or the Middle Low German tubbe & tobbe, of uncertain origin.  Etymologists have concluded there’s no link with the Latin tubus or the English tube but it was related to the Old High German zubar (vessel with two handles, wine vessel) and the German Zuber.  In the seventeenth century tub was slang for “pulpit”, thus since the 1660s a “tub-thumper” was a particularly forceful preacher who literally “thumped his fists on the pulpit” to emphasize some point; the use was later extended beyond the church to politicians and others who spoke in a loud or dramatic way.  The English city in the county of Somerset (in Old English it was Baðun) was so called from its hot springs.  The convention now probably is to refer to any permanently installed unit as a “bath”, a bathtub something portable.  The word can appear both as bath tub and bath-tub.  Bathtub is a noun and bathtubby is an adjective (bathtubesque & bathtubbish (resembling or characteristic of a bathtub) were jocular constructions); the noun plural is bathtubs.

Lindsay Lohan with claw-footed bathtub, music video release of Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father) (2005).

A “bathtub cockpit” is a cockpit with recessed seating, so that a pilot or driver is sitting in a bathtub-shaped space.  It was often seen in aircraft but the classic example was that used in the delicate, cigar-shape voiturettes built to contest the Formula One World Championship during the 1.5 litre era (1961-1965).  The bathtub curve is a concept from reliability engineering, describing a particular form of the hazard function taking into account three categories of failure rate.  As a theoretical model it assumes the shape of a bathtub (sectioned in the middle and viewed from the side), the three regions being (1) a decreasing failure rate due to early failures, (2) a constant failure rate due to random failures and (3) an increasing failure rate due to wear-out failures.  The slang term “bathtub gin” is a US prohibition era (1919–1933) term to refer to a gin (or other spirit) of such dubious quality it suggests it may have been distilled by an unskilled amateur in their bathtub.  It’s a similar form to “gutrot”, “moonshine” etc and was applied sometimes to any form of illicit alcohol and not just distilled spirit.  “Bathtub racing” literally describes bathtubs being raced.  One of sports more obscure niches, the variations have included (modified) bathtubs being rowed or sailed on waterways or raced on land (either powered, pushed or run on downhill courses.  In economics, the “bathtub theorem” is the charming illustration of the idea that capital accumulation = production - consumption.  The metaphor is that of the water running from the taps (production) and that exiting from the plughole (consumption).  That seems obvious but where the inflow is too great for the capacity of the plughole, the water in the tub (capital) overflows, flooding the place, an elegant explanation of the effects of over-production which can induce recessions or depressions.

Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax KCB.  Lest it be thought multi-element names are a thing exclusive to the British Isles, they exist elsewhere, an example of which was the German Count Graf Philipp-Constantin Eduard Siegmund Clemens Tassilo Tobias von Berckheim (1924-1984).

In the intricate hierarchy of the UK’s honours system, The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is an order of chivalry dating from 1725 and the name really is derived from the use of a bathtub, the reference being to the medieval ceremony under which knighthoods were conferred, bathing being a symbol of purification.  More than most British honours, the Order of the Bath has a tangled history, at times limited to the military and with various restrictions on the numbers of members.  One thing which was once constant however was that recipients were entitled to the post-nominal letters “KB” after their name.  This changed in 1815 when the order was re-organized into three classes: Knight Grand Cross (GCB), Knight Commander (KCB) & Companion (CB) and the transition was handled effortlessly by the experts but one thing which these days annoys those who worry about such things (and there are a few) is that inexpert journalists and others not do sometimes attach a KB to a Knight Bachelor.  The Knight Bachelor actually attracts no post-nominal letters; it’s a kind of “entry-level” knighthood and recipients are not inducted as a member of one of the orders of chivalry (although there have been plenty of awards of the latter to those whose lives have been far removed from the chivalrous, not all of them from the colonies or Dominions).  The Order of the Bath also provided one of the amusing anecdotes in the unpromising field of diplomatic protocol.  In 1939, when Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax KCB (1880-1967) was introduced at a ceremony in Moscow, protocol required his honors be read out in full, the Russian translator rendering his KCB as рыцарь умывальник (rytsar' umyval'nik) (Knight of the Wash Tub).  The Russians honor guard couldn’t help but laugh and fortunately, the admiral shared their amusement.

In December 1917, the US satirist & critic HL Mencken (1880–1956) published a fictitious history of the bathtub.  Intended as an amusing hoax, the story was so convincing that quickly it wildly was promulgated, appearing even in reference works and medical journals.  Around a century later, a similar hoax was perpetrated when a university student edited the electric toaster’s Wikipedia page, claiming it had been invented by a wholly factitious Scottish scientist.  The technique was exactly the same as Mencken’s: use the dry factual approach (ie the classic Wikipedia template) and it remained on-line for some years, presumably because the origin of the toaster is not a matter of great interest or controversy.

1949 Nash Ambassador (left), Evelyn Ay (1933–2008), Miss America 1954, in her “bathtub” Nash Rambler (the official car of the beauty pageant) (centre) and 1957 Nash Ambassador which still showed the legacy of the earlier, more extravagant bathtub styling cues.

The best remembered of the “bathtub” cars were first built in the late 1940s by manufacturers introducing their first genuinely new post-war lines (most of the cars produced in 1945-1946 were slightly updated versions of those which had last been made early in 1942).  Within the industry, engineers first called the motif “envelope styling” but the more evocative (and certainly more accurate because an up-turned bathtub came to mind more than an envelope) “bathtub” quickly became the preferred slang.  Echoes of the lines which became familiar in the next decade can be seen in some of the low-volume and experimental bodies seen in the 1920s & 1930s, many an evolution of the realization the “teardrop” shape was close to aerodynamically optimal (at least on paper, the implications of lift and down-force then not widely understood).  Among the large US manufacturers, Nash and Hudson pursued the bathtub style to its most extreme and persisted the longest.  In the early 1950s, the aerodynamic advantages were apparent and combined with the inherently good weight-distribution afforded by their low-slung “step-down” construction, the Hudson Hornet dominated NASCAR racing between 1951-1954, despite its straight-six engine having both less power and displacement than some of the competition.  Except for the odd quirky niche, the bathtub styling didn’t make it into the 1960s and nor did the Nash & Hudson nameplates, the former in 1954 absorbing the latter to created AMC (American Motor Corporation) and in 1957, both brand-names were retired.

Evolution of the Porsche “bathtub” style 1948-1965, the lines of the original a direct descendant of a pre-war racing car.  1948 Porsche 356-001 (the Gmünd Roadster) (top), 1955 Porsche 356 pre-A 1500 Speedster (centre) and 1965 Porsche 356SC Coupé (bottom).  Although the “bathtub” motif was abandoned with the end of 356 production, the 356’s contribution to the lines of the 911 (introduced in 1964 as the 901) is obvious and in the sixty-odd years since, stylistically, not much has changed.

Laconic

Laconic (pronounced luh-kon-ik)

(1) Using few words; expressing much in few words.

(2) A reply or phrase of this character.

1580–1590: From the Latin Lacōnicus (Spartan) from the Ancient Greek Λακωνικός (Lakōnikós) (Laconian) from Lakōn (a Laconian).  Laconia was the region inhabited and ruled by the Spartans, noted for their economical use of language.  The alternative spelling laconick is long obsolete.  Because of the long history, there's no exact synonym but words in a similar vein include terse, brusque, pithy, brief, compact, compendious, concise, crisp, curt, sententious, short and sweet, succinct, breviloquent & brevity.  Laconic & laconical are adjectives, laconism is a noun and laconically is an adverb; the noun plural is laconisms.

Taking Hemlock with Socrates, gracefully

In Antiquity, Laconia was the region inhabited and ruled by the Spartans, known for their brevity in speech and in English, the meaning "concise, abrupt" emerged in the 1580s (although laconical was created and went extinct a decade earlier).  The origin of this sense was when Philip II of Macedon (382–336 BC; king (basileus) of Macedonia 359-336) threatened the Spartans with the words: "If I enter Laconia, I will raze Sparta to the ground." to which the Spartans' replied: "If."  Although allied when faced with the threat of Persian invasion, Athens and Sparta had a long tradition of enmity, realized most famously in the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC).  Their differences were cultural as well as political for while the Spartans were known for their dry, understated wit (which we now call "laconic humor"), the Athenians more readily displayed their "Attic wit" (the Attic peninsula the region encompassing the city of Athens), something refined, poignant and delicate, though often not brief.

Death of Socrates (1787), oil on canvas by Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

In Ancient Greece, it was in Athens that art, education and literature was most valued, virtues never forgotten by modern historians, many of whom contrast the earthier Spartans unfavorably although, at the time, perhaps not all Athenians shared the view.  Socrates (circa 470–399 BC), in Plato's (circa 427-348 BC) dialogue Protagoras, detected some cleverness in the Spartans' economy of language which hid their wisdom, revealing sometimes with a brief remark a sophistication of thought and understanding.  Scholars tend however to take this with a grain of Attic salt, noting Socrates’ fondness for a little gentle irony.

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

The Laconia Order

The Laconia-Befehl (Laconia Order) was one of the more controversial documents submitted by the prosecution to the International Military Tribunal (IMT) which in 1945-1946 presided over the trial of the leading Nazis.  The order was issued in 1942 by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz (1891–1980; head of the German Navy 1943-1945, German head of state 1945) which he was commanding officer of the Kriegsmarine's (the German Navy) Befehlshaber der Unterseeboote (BdU) (U-boat or submarine) fleet and was pursuant to what became known as the Laconia Incident.  RMS Laconia was a Cunard ocean liner which the British Admiralty had converted to an armed merchant cruiser, making her a legitimate military target.  On 12 September 1942, she was sunk in a U-Boat attack and in the aftermath, while several U-Boats were rescuing survivors with the intention of transferring them to other vessels, they were attacked by US bombers, despite having informed Allied forces by radio that both the Allied soldiers and women and children had been rescued and were sheltering on the decks of the submarines.

In response, the Germans abandoned the rescue operation and cast the survivors adrift.  The new policy was formalized on 17 September when the Laconia Order was signalled to the fleet, dictating, inter alia, henceforth no rescue attempts of survivors were to be attempted unless it was to secure prisoners of military value (captains or ships' engineers) and then only if there was no risk to the U-Boat.  The British prosecution team introduced the order as evidence of a war crime ordered by Dönitz which effectively amounted to ordering the murder of shipwrecked survivors and treated it as the beginning of "unrestricted submarine warfare".  However, the British seem genuinely to have been unaware of the circumstances which led to the issuing of the order and the Americans certainly didn't wish to discuss the conduct of their air-crews, some of whom had been awarded medals for the attack, even though their claim to have sunk the U-Boat were erroneous (though understandable, a crash dive and a sinking visually similar when viewed from the air.  The IMT noted the ambiguity in the order but in the circumstances granted Dönitz the benefit of the doubt and they were further swayed by the affidavit of Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz (1885–1966) who commanded US forces in the Pacific.  Nimitz's submission, supported by others was that the US had conducted unrestricted submarine warfare from the point of the nation's entry into the conflict in December 1941 and that such a policy was wholly lawful under the rules of war at sea.

Defendants in the dock at Nuremberg, Dönitz (in sun glasses), sitting in the back row.

Thus the partial success of Dönitz's sophisticated variation of a tu quoque defense, an attempt by an accused to deny the legitimacy of a charge by alleging those mounting the prosecution committed exactly the same offence and thus stand equally guilty.  The IMT had explicitly banned the use of tu quoque but allowed the argument in this one case because it hung on the notion that unrestricted submarine warfare was, as practiced by both sides, entirely lawful and within the rules of war at sea.  A great many British & US sea captains and admirals agreed (“admirals are a trade union” Anthony Eden (1897-1977; UK prime-minister 1955-1957) would later remark in another context).  The judges must have been impressed but the eventual judgement was certainly murky.  Although convicted on counts two (crimes against peace) and three (war crimes), he received only a ten-year sentence, the shortest term of the seven imposed on those not hanged or acquitted.  Perhaps tellingly, one has to read the summary of the verdicts to work out against which of the indictment's four counts he had been convicted; it really isn't possible to work it out from the judgment and it wasn't until later it emerged it had been written by one of the judges who had voted for his acquittal.