Homage

Homage (pronounced hom-ij, om-ij or oh-mahzh)

(1) Respect or reverence paid or rendered.

(2) In feudal era custom & law, the formal public acknowledgment by which a feudal tenant or vassal declared himself to be the man or vassal of his lord, owing him fealty and service; something done in acknowledgment of vassalage (archaic).

(3) The relation thus established of a vassal to his lord (archaic).

(4) Something done or given in acknowledgment or consideration of the worth of another.

(5) To render homage to (archaic except in artistic or historic use).

(6) An artistic work imitating another in a flattering style.

(7) A (sometimes controversial) way of describing an imitation, clone or replica of something.

(8) A demonstration of respect, such as towards an individual after their retirement or death (often in the form of (an obviously retrospective) exhibition).

1250–1300: From the Middle English hommage, omage & umage (the existence of “homage” is contested), from the Old French homage & hommage, from the Medieval Latin homināticum (homage, the service of a vassal or 'man'), the construct being (h)ome (man), from the from Latin hominem, accusative of homō (a man (and in Medieval Latin “a vassal”)) + -āticum (the noun-forming suffix) (-age).  The suffix -age was from the Middle English -age, from the Old French -age, from the Latin -āticum.  Cognates include the French -age, the Italian -aggio, the Portuguese -agem, the Spanish -aje & Romanian -aj.  It was used to form nouns (1) with the sense of collection or appurtenance, (2) indicating a process, action, or a result, (3) of a state or relationship, (4) indicating a place, (5) indicating a charge, toll, or fee, (6) indicating a rate & (7) of a unit of measure.  The verb homage was derived from the noun in the late sixteenth century (the agent noun homager noted from the turn of the fifteenth).  Homage is a noun & verb, homager is a noun, homageable is an adjective and homaging, & homaged are verbs; the noun plural is homages.  In Scots the spelling was homage and in Irish, ómós and the old synonym manred has been obsolete since the fourteenth century.  The predominately US pronunciation with a silent h happened because of a conflation with the nearly synonymous doublet hommage, pronounced thus.

By convention, the modern use of the form is usually as “pay homage to” but because of the variations in pronunciations (the h silent and not), homage is sometimes preceded by the article “a” and sometimes by “an” and under various influences in popular culture, the French pronunciation has in some circles become fashionable.  The term “lip homage” is much the same as “lip service”: something expressed with “mere words”.  In Middle English, the meanings variously were (1) An oath of loyalty to a liege performed by their vassal; a pledge of allegiance, (2) Money given to a liege by a vassal or the privilege of collecting such money, (3) A demonstration of respect or honor towards an individual (including prayer), (4) The totality of a feudal lord's subjects when collected and (5) Membership in an organized religion or belief system.

In feudal times, a homage was said to be an “act of fealty”.  The Middle English noun fealty dates from the twelfth century and was from feaute, from the Old French feauté, from fealte (loyalty, fidelity; homage sworn by a vassal to his overlord; faithfulness), from the Latin fidelitatem (nominative fidelitas) (faithfulness, fidelity), from fidelis (loyal, faithful), from the primitive Indo-European root bheidh- (to trust, confide, persuade).  In feudal law, to attorn was to “transfer homage or allegiance to another lord”.  The verb attorn (to turn over to another) was from the Middle English attournen, from the Old French atorner (to turn, turn to, assign, attribute, dispose; designate), the construct being a- (to) + tourner (to turn), from the Latin tornare (to turn on a lathe) from tornus (lathe), from the Greek tornos (lathe, tool for drawing circles), from the primitive Indo-European root tere- (to rub, turn).  Attornment was a part English real property law but was not directly comparable with the operation of those laws which in matters of slavery assigned property rights over human beings which technically were no different than those over a horse.  Attornment recognized there was in the feudal system some degree of reciprocity in rights & obligations and it was held to be unreasonable a tenant should become subject to a new lord without their own approval.  At law, what evolved was the doctrine of attornment which held alienation could not be imposed without the consent of the tenant.  Given the nature of feudal relations it was an imperfect protection but a considerable advance and attornment was also extended to all cases of lessees for life or for years.  The arrangement regarding the historic feudal relationships lasted until the early eighteenth century but attornment persists in modern property law as a mechanism which acts to preserve the essential elements of commercial tenancies in the event of the leased property changing hands.  It provides for what would now be called “transparency” in transactions and ensures all relevant information is disclosed, thereby ensuring the integrity of the due diligence process.

The historical concepts of homage and tribute are sometimes confused.  Homage was a formal ritual performed by a vassal to pledge loyalty and submission to a lord or monarch.  There were variations but the classic model was one in which the vassal would kneel before the lord, place his hands between the lord's hands, and swear an oath of loyalty and service.  That was not merely symbolic for it signified the vassal's acknowledgment of the lord's authority and their willingness to serve and protect the lord in exchange for a right to live on (and from) the land.  The relationship was that creature of feudalism; something both personal and contractual.  Tributes were actual payments made by one ruler or state to another as a sign of submission, acknowledgment of superiority, or in exchange for protection or peace.  Tribute could be paid in gold, other mediums of exchange or in the form of  goods or services.  Tribute was something imposed on a subordinate entity by a dominant power, either as a consequence of defeat in war or as a way of avoiding being attacked (ie a kind of protection racket).  The meaning of homage in feudal property law was quite specific but synonyms (depending on context) now include deference, tribute, allegiance, reverence, loyalty, obeisance, duty, adoration, fealty, faithfulness, service, fidelity, worship, adulation, honor, esteem, praise, genuflection, respect, awe, fidelity, loyalty & devotion.  However, those using homage for anything essentially imitative might find out other synonyms include fake (and more generously faux, tribute, reproduction, pastiche, clone or replica).

Sample from Ariana Grande’s (b 1993) Thank U, Next (2018). 

Singer Ariana Grande’s (b 1993) song Thank U, Next (2018) was one of the year’s big successes and the video included well-constructed references to a number of early-century pop culture products including Legally Blonde (2001) and Mean Girls (2004).  Within popular culture, there seems to be a greater tolerance of works which are in some way a homage, the term “sampling” presumably chosen to imply what was being done was (1) taking only a small fragment of someone else’s work and (2) for all purposes within long established doctrine of “fair use”.  Interestingly, instead of regarding sampling as fair use, US courts initially were quite severe and in many early cases treated the matter as one of infringement of copyright, apparently because while a attributed paragraph here and there in a paper of dozens or hundreds of pages could reasonably seen as “fair use”, a recurring snatch of even a few seconds in a song only three minutes long was not.  Of late, US appeal courts seem to have been more accommodating of sampling and have taken the view the legal doctrine of de minimis which has been used when assessing literary or academic works should apply also to sampling but the mechanics of calculating “fair use” need to be considered in the context of the product.  The Latin phrase de minimis (pertaining to minimal things) was from the expressions de minimis non curat praetor (the praetor does not concern himself with trifles) or de minimis non curat lex (the law does not concern itself with trifles) and was an exclusionary principle by which a court could refuse to hear or dismiss matters to trivial to bother the justice system.  One Queen of Sweden preferred the more poetic Latin adage, aquila non capit muscās (the eagle does not catch flies).  As a legal doctrine, it actually predates its fifteenth century formalization in the textbooks and there are records in civil, Islamic and ecclesiastical courts of Judges throwing out cases because the matters involved were of such little matter.  In many jurisdictions, governments now set a certain financial limit for the matters to be considered, below which they are either excluded or referred to a tribunal established for such purposes.

One suspects artists, architects, film directors and such are inclined to call their work a homage (or probably the French hommage (pronounced omm-arge)) as a kind of pre-emptive strike against accusations of plagiarism or a lack of originality.  Car manufacturers are apt to do it too, examples in recent decades including the BMW Mini, Volkswagen Beetle, Dodge Challenger and Chevrolet Camaro, all of which shamelessly followed the lines of the original versions from generations earlier.  The public response to these retro-efforts was usually positive although if clumsily executed (Jaguar S-Type) derision soon follows.  Sometimes, it’s just a piece which is homaged.  On the Mercedes-Benz CL (C215 1998-2006), the homage was to the roofline of the W111 & W112 coupés (1961-1971), especially the memorable sweep of the rear glass although all of that was itself a homage to the 1955 Chryslers.  It was a shame the C215 didn’t pick up more of the W111’s motifs, the retrospective bits easily the best.

1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 (left) and 2023 Chevrolet Camaro.  The original Chevrolet Camaro (1966-1969) was a response to the original Ford Mustang (1964) which had made the pony-car segment a wildly popular and profitable place to be and it in turn not the shape the Mustang would follow but certainly the engineering but the styling attracted Chrysler which adopted the lines just as Chevrolet abandoned them.  Chevrolet however picked them up again in 2010 but their homage to 1966 was perhaps a little too heavy-handed, dramatic though the effect was.  Still, the result doubtlessly was better that what would have been delivered had the designers come up with anything original and that's not a problem restricted cars.  One wishes architects would more often pay homage to mid-century modernism or art deco but the issue seems to be all the awards architects give each other are only for originality, thus the assembly line of the ugly but distinctive.

1970 Dodge Challenger (left) and 2023 Dodge Challenger (right).  The original Challenger (and its corporate companions the Plymouth Barracuda & Cuda) was a homage to the 1966 Camaro and so well executed that Chrysler’s pair are thought by many to be the best looking pony cars of the muscle car era.  In 2008 when the look was reprised, it was thought a most a accomplished effort and better received than would be the new Camaro two season later.  Chevrolet must have been miffed Dodge was so praised for paying homage to what in 1969 had been borrowed from their 1966 range.

1979 Volkswagen Beetle Cabriolet by Karmann (left) and 2015 Volkswagen Beetle Cabriolet (right).  First produced in 1938, Volkswagen clung to the rear-engine / air-cooled formula so long it almost threatened the company’s survival and while the public showed little enthusiasm for a return to the mechanical configuration (the Porsche crew are a separate species which, if they had their way, would still not have to bother with cooling fluid), the shape of the Beetle did appeal and over two generations between 1997-2019, the company sold what was initially called the “New Beetle”.  Despite the pre-war lines imposing significant packaging inefficiencies, it was popular enough to endure for over a decade.

1966 Austin Mini-Cooper 1275 S (left) and 2001 BMW Mini (right).  Students of the history of design insist the BMW Mini was not so much a homage to the British Motor Corporation’s (BMC) original Mini (1959) but actually to some of the conceptual sketches which emerged from the design office between 1957-1958 but were judged too radical for production.  That was true but there are enough hints and clues in the production models for nobody to miss the point.

1965 Jaguar 3.8 S-Type (left) and 1999 Jaguar S-Type.  Released in 1963, the Jaguar S-Type was an updated Mark 2 with the advantage of more luggage space and markedly improved ride and handling made possible by the grafting on of the independent rear-suspension from the E-Type (XKE) and Mark X (later 420G).  The improvements were appreciated but the market never warmed to the discontinuity between the revised frontal styling and the elongated rear end, the latter working better when a Mark X look was adopted in front and released as the 420.  Still, although never matching the appeal of the classic Mark 2 with its competition heritage, it has a period charm and has a following in the Jaguar collector market.  According to contemporary accounts, the homage launched in 1999 was a good car but it seemed a curious decision to use as a model a vehicle which has always been criticized for its appearance although compared with the ungainly retro, the original S-Type (1963-1968) started to look quite good, the new one the answer to a question something like "What would a Jaguar look like if built by Hyundai?".  As an assignment in design school that would have been a good question and the students could have pinned their answers to the wall as a warning to themselves but it wasn't one the factory should ever have posed.  Quietly, the new S-Type was dropped in 2007 after several seasons of indifferent sales.

1956 Chrysler 300B (left), 1970 Mercedes-Benz 280 SE Coupé (centre) and 2005 Mercedes-Benz SL65 (right).

The 1955-1956 Chryslers live in the shadow cast by the big fins which sprouted on the 1957 cars but they possess a restraint and elegance of line which was lost as a collective madness overtook the industry.  Mercedes-Benz in 1961 paid due homage when the 220 SE Coupé (W111; 1961-1971) was released and returned to the roofline with the C215 (1998-2006).  The big coupé was the closest the factory came to styling success in recent years (although the frontal treatment was unfortunate) but one must be sympathetic to the designers because so much is now dictated by aerodynamics.  Still, until they too went mad, the BMW design office seemed  to handle big coupés better.  

In the collector market, there are many low-volume models which have become highly prized.  Some were produced only in low numbers because of a lack of demand, some because the manufacturer needed to make only so many for homologation purposes and some because production was deliberately limited.  Such machines can sell for high prices, sometimes millions so, especially where such vehicles are based on more mundane models produced in greater numbers, many are tempted to “make their own”, a task which car range from the remarkably simple to the actually impossible.  Those creating such things often produce something admirable (and technically often superior to the original) and despite what some say, there’s really no objection to the pursuit provided there is disclosure because otherwise it’s a form of fraud.  When such machines are created, those doing the creating seldom say fake or faux and variously prefer tribute, clone, recreation, homage or replica and those words in this context come with their own nuanced meanings, replica for example not meaning exactly what it does in geometry or database administration.

A 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO in silver (US$70 million) and a fine replica by Tempero of a 1963 model in rosso corsa (US$1.2 million).

As an extreme example of the homage was inspired by the Ferrari 250 GTO, of which it’s usually accepted 36 were built although there were actually 41 (2 x (1961) prototypes; 32 x (1962–63) Series I 250 GTO; 3 x (1962–1963) “330 GTO”; 1 x (1963) 250 GTO with LM Berlinetta-style body & 3 x (1964) Series II 250 GTO).  The 36 in the hands of collectors command extraordinary prices, chassis 4153GT in June 2018 realizing US$70 million in a private sale whereas an immaculately crafted replica of a 1962 version by Tempero (New Zealand), said to be better built than any original GTO (although that is damning with faint praise, those who restore pre-modern Ferraris wryly noting that while the drive-trains were built with exquisite care, the assembly of the coachwork could be shoddy indeed) was listed for sale at US$1.3 million.  Even less exalted machinery (though actually more rare still) like the 1971 Plymouth Hemi Cuda convertible also illustrate the difference for there are now considerably more clones / replicas / recreations etc than ever there were originals and the price difference is typically a factor of ten or more.  On 13 November 2023, the market will be tested when a Ferrari 250 GTO (chassis 3765LM) will be auctioned in New York, RM Sotheby’s, suggesting a price exceeding $US60 million.  A number which greatly exceeds or fails by much to make that mark will be treated a comment on the state of the world economy.

Bug

Bug (pronounced buhg)

(1) Any insect of the order Hemiptera, especially any of the suborder Heteroptera (a hemipteran or hemipteron; a hemipterous insect), having piercing and sucking mouthparts specialized as a beak (rostrum) and known loosely as the “true bug”.

(2) Any of various species of marine or freshwater crustaceans.

(3) In casual use, any insect or insect-like invertebrate (ie used often of spiders and such because of their supposed “bug-like” quality).

(4) In casual use, any micro-organism causing disease, applied especially to especially a virus or bacterium.

(5) An instance of a disease caused by such a micro-organism; a class of such conditions.

(6) In casual (and sometimes structured) use, a defect or imperfection, most associated with computers but applied also to many mechanical devices or processes.

(7) A craze or obsession (usually widespread or of long-standing).

(8) In slang, a person who has a great enthusiasm for such a craze or obsession (often as “one bitten by the bug”).

(9) In casual (and sometimes structured) use, a hidden microphone, camera or other electronic eavesdropping device (a clipping of bugging device) and used analogously of the small and effectively invisible (often a single-pixel image) image on a web page, installed usually for the purpose of tracking users.

(10) Any of various small mechanical or electrical gadgets, as one to influence a gambling device, give warning of an intruder, or indicate location.

(11) A mark, as an asterisk, that indicates a particular item, level, etc.

(12) In US horse racing, the five-pound (2¼ kg) weight allowance able to be claimed by an apprentice jockey and by extension (1) the asterisk used to denote an apprentice jockey's weight allowance & (2) in slang, US, a young apprentice jockey (sometimes as “bug boy” (apparently used thus also of young female jockeys, “bug girl” seemingly beyond the pale.)).

(13) A telegraph key that automatically transmits a series of dots when moved to one side and one dash when moved to the other.

(14) In the slang of poker, a joker which may be used only as an ace or as a wild card to fill a straight or a flush.

(15) In commercial printing, as “union bug”, a small label printed on certain matter to indicate it was produced by a unionized shop.

(16) In fishing, a any of various plugs resembling an insect.

(17) In slang, a clipping of bedbug (mostly UK).

(18) A bogy; hobgoblin (extinct).

(19) In slang, as “bug-eyed”, protruding eyes (the medical condition exophthalmos).

(20) A slang term for the Volkswagen Beetle (Type 1; 1938-2003 & the two retro takes; 1997-2019).

(21) In broadcasting, a small (often transparent or translucent) image placed in a corner of a television program identifying the broadcasting network or channel.

(22) In aviation, a manually positioned marker in flight instruments.

(23) In gay (male) slang in the 1980s & 1990s as “the bug”, HIV/AIDS.

(24) In the slang of paleontology, a trilobite.

(25) In gambling slang, a small piece of metal used in a slot machine to block certain winning combinations.

(26) In gambling slang, a metal clip attached to the underside of a table, etc and used to hold hidden cards (a type of cheating).

(27) As the Bug (or Western Bug), a river in Eastern Europe flows through Belarus, Poland, and Ukraine with a total length of 481 miles (774 km).  The Southern Bug (530 miles (850 km)) in south west Ukraine flows into the Dnieper estuary and is some 530 miles (850 km) long.

(28) A past tense and past participle of big (obsolete).

(29) As ISO (international standard) 639-2 & ISO 639-3, the language codes for Buginese.

(30) To install a secret listening device in a room, building etc or on a telephone or other communications device.

(31) To badger, harass, bother, annoy or pester someone.

1615–1625: The original use was to describe insects, apparently as a variant of the earlier bugge (beetle), thought to be an alteration of the Middle English budde, from the Old English -budda (beetle) but etymologists are divided on whether the phrase “bug off” (please leave) is related to the undesired presence of insects or was of a distinct origin.  Bug, bugging & debug are nouns & verbs, bugged is a verb & adjective and buggy is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is bugs.  Although “unbug” makes structural sense (ie remove a bug, as opposed to the sense of “debug”), it doesn’t exist whereas forms such as the adjectives unbugged (not bugged) and unbuggable (not able to be bugged) are regarded as standard.

The array of compound forms meaning “someone obsessed with an idea, hobby etc) produced things like “shutterbug” (amateur photographer) & firebug (arsonist) seems first to have emerged in the mid nineteenth century.  The development of this into “a craze or obsession” is thought rapidly to have accelerated in the years just before World War I (1914-1918), again based on the notion of “bitten by the bug” or “caught the bug”, thus the idea of being infected with an unusual enthusiasm for something.  The use to mean a demon, evil spirit, spectre or hobgoblin was first recorded in the mid-fourteenth century and was a clipping of the Middle English bugge (scarecrow, demon, hobgoblin) or uncertain origin although it may have come from the Middle Welsh bwg (ghost; goblin (and linked to the Welsh bwgwl (threat (and earlier “fear”) and the Middle Irish bocanách (supernatural being).  There’s also speculation it may have come from the scary tales told to children which included the idea of a bugge (beetle) at a gigantic scale.  That would have been a fearsome sight and the idea remains fruitful to this day for artists and film-makers needing something frightening in the horror or SF (science fiction) genre.  The use in this sense is long obsolete although the related forms bugbear and bugaboo survive.  Dating from the 1570s, a bugbear was in folklore a kind of “large goblin”, used to inspire fear in children (both as a literary device & for purposes of parental control) and for adults it soon came to mean “a source of dread, resentment or irritation; in modern use it's an “ongoing problem”, a recurring obstacle or adversity or one’s pet peeve.  The obsolete form bugg dates from circa 1620s and was a reference to the troublesome bedbug, the construct a conflation of the middle English bugge (scarecrow, hobgoblin) and the Middle English budde (beetle).  The colloquial sense of “a microbe or germ” dates from 1919, the emergence linked to the misleadingly-named “Spanish flu” pandemic.

Like the rest of us, even scientists, entomologists and zoologists generally probably say “bug” in general conversation, whether about the insects or the viruses and such which cause disease but in writing academic papers they’ll take care to be more precise.  Because to most of us “bugs” can be any of the small, creepy pests which intrude on our lives (some of which are actually helpful in that quietly and unobtrusively they dispose of the really annoying bugs which bite us), the word is casually and interchangeably applied to bees, ants, bees, millipedes, beetles, spiders and anything else resembling an insect.  That use may be reinforced by the idea of the thing “bugging” us by their very presence.  To the professionals however, insects are those organisms in the classification Insecta, a very large class of animals, the members of which have a three-part body, six legs and (usually) two pairs of wings whereas a bug is a member of the order Hemiptera (which in the taxonomic system is within the Insecta class) and includes cicadas, aphids and stink bugs; to emphasize the point, scientists often speak of those in the order Hemiptera as “true bugs”.  The true bugs are those insects with mouthparts adapted for piercing and sucking, contained usually in a beak-shaped structure, a vision agonizingly familiar to anyone who has suffered the company of bedbugs.  That’s why lice are bugs and cockroaches are not but the latter will continue to be called bugs, often with some preceding expletive.

9 September 1947: The engineer's note (with physical evidence) of electronic computing's "first bug".

In computing, where the term “bug” came to be used to describe “glitches, crashes” and such, it has evolved to apply almost exclusively to software issues and even if events are caused by hardware flaws, unless it’s something obvious (small explosions, flame & smoke etc) most users probably assume a fault in some software layer.  The very first documented bug however was an interaction recorded on 9 September 1947 between the natural world and hardware, an engineer’s examination of an early (large) computer revealing an insect had sacrificially landed on one of the circuits, shorting it out and shutting-down the machine.  As proof, the unfortunate moth was taped to the report.  On a larger scale (zoologically rather than the hardware), the problem of small rodents such as mice entering the internals of printers, there to die from various causes (impact injuries, starvation, heat et al) remains not uncommon, resulting sometimes in mechanical damage, sometimes just the implications of decaying flesh.

The idea of a bug as a “defect, flaw, fault or glitch” in a mechanical or electrical device was first recorded in the late 1800s as engineer’s slang, the assumption being they wished to convey the idea of “a small fault” (and thus easily fixed, as opposed to some fundamental mistake which would necessitate a re-design).  Some sources suggest the origin lies with Thomas Edison (1847-1931) who is reported as describing the consequences of an insect “getting into the works”.  Programmers deploy an array of adjectives to "bug" (major, minor, serious, critical & non-critical et al) although between themselves (and certainly when disparaging of the code of others) the most commonly heard phrase is probably “stupid bug”.  The “debugging” (also as de-bugging) process is something with a wide definition but in general it refers to any action or set of actions taken to remove errors.  The name of the debug.exe (originally debug.com) program included with a number of (almost all 16 & 32-bit) operating systems was a little misleading because in addition to fixing things, it could be used for other purposes and is fondly remembered by those who wrote Q&D (quick & dirty) work-arounds which, written in assembler, ran very fast.  The verb debug was first used in 1945 in the sense of “remove the faults from a machine” and by 1964 it appeared in field service manuals documenting the steps to be taken to “remove a concealed microphone”.  Although the origin of the use of “bug” in computing (probably the now most commonly used context) can be traced to 1947, the term wasn’t widely used beyond universities, industry and government sites before the 1960s when the public first began to interact at scale with the implications (including the bugs) of those institutions using computerized processes.  Software (or any machinery) badly afflicted by bugs can be called “buggy”, a re-purposing of the use of an adjective dating from 1714 meaning “a place infested with bugs”.

Some bugs gained notoriety.  In the late 1990s, it wasn’t uncommon for the press to refer to the potential problems of computer code using a two-numeral syntax for years as the “Y2K bug” which was an indication of how wide was the vista of the common understanding of "bug" and one quite reasonable because that was how the consequences would be understood.  A massive testing & rectification effort was undertaken by the industry (and corporations, induced by legislation and the fear of litigation) and with the coming of 1 January 2000 almost nothing strange happened and that may also have been the case had nothing been done but, on the basis of the precautionary principle, it was the right approach.  Of course switching protocols to use four-numeral years did nothing about the Y10K bug but a (possible) problem 8000 years hence would have been of little interest to politicians or corporate boards.  Actually, YxK bugs will re-occur (with decreasing frequency) whenever a digit needs to be added.  The obvious solution is trailing zeros although if one thinks in terms of infinity, it may be that, in the narrow technical sense, such a solution would just create an additional problem although perhaps one of no practical significance.  Because of the way programmers exploit the way computers work, there have since the 1950s been other date (“time” to a computer) related “bugs” and management of these and the minor problems caused has been handled well.  Within the industry the feeling is things like the “year 2029 problem” and “year 2038 problem” will, for most of the planet, be similarly uneventful.

The DOSShell, introduced with PC-DOS 4.0; this was as graphical as DOS got.  The DOSShell was bug-free.

Bugs can also become quirky industry footnotes.  As late as 1987, IBM had intended to release the update of PC-DOS 3.3 as version 3.4, reflecting the corporation’s roadmap of DOS as something of an evolutionary dead-end, doomed ultimately to end up in washing machine controllers and such while the consumer and corporate market would shift to OS/2, the new operating system which offered pre-emptive multi-tasking and access to bigger storage and memory addressing.  However, at that point, both DOS & OS/2 were being co-developed by IBM & Microsoft and agreement was reached to release a version 4 of DOS.  DOS 4 also included a way of accessing larger storage space (through a work-around with a program called share.exe) and more memory (in a way less elegant than the OS/2 approach but it did work, albeit more slowly), both things of great interest to Microsoft because they would increase the appeal of its upcoming Windows 3.0, a graphical shell which ran on top of DOS; unlike OS/2, Windows was exclusive to Microsoft and so was the revenue stream.  Unfortunately, it transpired the memory tricks used by PC-DOS 4.0 were “buggy” when used with some non-IBM hardware and the OS gained a bad reputation from which it would never recover.  By the time the code was fixed, Microsoft was ready to release its own version as MS-DOS 4.0 but, noting all the bad publicity, after a minor updates and some cosmetic revisions, the mainstream release was MS-DOS 4.01.  In the code of the earlier bug-afflicted bits, there is apparently no difference between MS-DOS 4.01 the few existing copies of MS-DOS 4.0.

Lindsay Lohan with Herbie the "Love Bug", Herbie: Fully Loaded (Disney Pictures, 2005). 

In idiomatic and other uses, bug has a long history.  By the early twentieth century “bugs” meant “mad; crazy" and by then “bug juice” had been in use for some thirty years, meaning both “propensity of the use of alcoholic drink to induce bad behaviour” and “bad whiskey” (in the sense of a product being of such dubious quality it was effectively a poison).  A slang dictionary from 1811 listed “bug-hunter” as “an upholsterer”, an allusion to the fondness bugs and other small creatures show for sheltering in the dark, concealed parts of furniture.  As early as the 1560s, a “bug-word” was a word or phrase which “irritated or vexed”.  The idea of “bug-eyed” was in use by the early 1870s and that’s thought either to be a humorous mispronunciation of bulge or (as is thought more likely) an allusion to the prominent, protruding eyes of creatures like frogs, the idea being they sat on the body like “a pair of bugs”.  The look became so common in the movies featuring aliens from space that by the early 1950s the acronym BEM (bug-eyed monster) had become part of industry slang.  The correct term for the medical condition of "bulging eyes" is exophthalmos.

To “bug someone” in the sense of “to annoy or irritate” seems not to have been recorded until 1949 and while some suggest the origin of that was in swing music slang, it remains obscure.  The now rare use of “bug off” to mean “to scram, to skedaddle” is documented since 1956 and is of uncertain origin but may be linked to the Korean War (1950-1953) era US Army slang meaning “stage a precipitous retreat”, first used during a military reversal.  The ultimate source was likely the UK, Australian & New Zealand slang “bugger off” (please leave).  The “doodle-bug” was first described in 1865 and was Southern US dialect for a type of beetle.  In 1944, the popular slang for the German Vergeltungswaffen eins (the V-1 (reprisal weapon 1) which was the first cruise missile) was “flying bomb” or “buzz bomb”) but the Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots preferred “doodle-bug”.

The ultimate door-stop for aircraft hangers: Bond Bug 700.

The popularity of three wheeler cars in the UK during the post-war years was a product of cost breakdown.  They were taxed at a much lower rate than conventional four-wheel vehicles, were small and thus economical and could be operated by anyone with only a motorcycle licence.  Most were actually genuine four-seaters and thus an attractive alternative for families and, being purely utilitarian, there were few attempts to introduce elements of style.  The Bond Bug (1970-1974) was an exception in that it was designed to appeal to the youth market with a sporty-looking two-seater using the then popular “wedge-styling” and in its most powerful form it could touch 80 mph (130 km/h), faster than any other three wheeler available.  However, the UK in 1973 introduced a value-added tax (VAT) and this removed many of the financial advantages the three-wheelers.  In an era of rising prosperity, the appeal of the compromise waned and coupled with some problems in the early productions runs, in 1974, after some 2¼ thousand Bugs had been built, the zany little machine was dropped; not even the oil crisis of the time (which had doomed a good number of bigger, thirstier cars) could save it.  Even in its best years it was never all that successful, essentially because it was really a novelty and there were “real” cars available for less money.  Still, the survivors have a following in their niche at the lower end of the collector market.

The business of spying is said to be the “second oldest profession” and even if not literally true, few doubt the synergistic callings of espionage and war are among man’s earliest and most enduring endeavors.  Although the use of “bug” to mean “equip with a concealed microphone” seems not to have been in use until 1946, bugging devices probably go back thousands of years (in a low-tech sort of way) and those known to have been used in Tudor-era England (1485-1603) are representative of the way available stuff was adapted, the most popular being tubular structures which, if pressed against a thin wall (or preferably a door’s keyhole) enabled one to listen to what was being discussed in a closed room.  Bugging began to assume its modern form when messages began to be transmitted over copper wires which could stretch for thousands of miles and the early term for a “phone bug” was “phone tap”, based upon the idea of “tapping into” the line as one might a water pipe.  Bugs (the name picked-up because many of the early devices were small, black and “bug-like”), whether as concealed microphones or phone taps, swiftly became part of the espionage inventory in diplomacy, commerce and crime and as technology evolved, so did the bugging techniques.

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr (1902–1985), US Ambassador to the UN (United Nations) at a May 1960 session of the Security Council, using the Great Seal bug to illustrate the extent of Soviet bugging.  The context was a tu quoque squabble between the Cold War protagonists, following Soviet revelations about the flight-paths of the American's U2 spy planes.  Lodge would be Richard Nixon’s (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) running mate in that year's presidential election.     

A classic bug of High Cold War was the Great Seal bug, (known to the security services as the thing), a Soviet designed and built concealed listening device which was so effective because it used passive transmission protocols for its audio signal, thereby rendering it invisible to conventional “bug-detection” techniques.  The bug was concealed inside large, carved wooden rendition of the US Great Seal which, in 1945, the Kremlin presented as a “gift of friendship” to the US Ambassador to the USSR Averell Harriman (1891-1986); in a nice touch, it was a group of Russian school children who handed over the carving.  Sitting in the ambassador’s Moscow office for some seven years, it was a masterpiece of its time because (1) being activated only when exposed to a low-energy radio signal which Soviet spies would transmit from outside, when subjected to a US “bug detection” it would appear to be a piece of wood and (2) as it needed no form of battery or other power supply (and indeed, no maintenance at all), its lifespan was indefinite.  Had it not by chance been discovered by a communications officer at the nearby British embassy who happened to be tuned to the same frequency while the Soviets were sending their signal, it may well have remained in place for decades.  Essentially, the principles of the Great Seal bug were those used in modern radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems.

Tiger

Tiger (pronounced tahy-ger)

(1) A large, carnivorous, tawny-colored and black-striped feline, Panthera tigris, of Asia, ranging in several subspecies from India and the Malay Peninsula to Siberia.

(2) In non-technical use, the cougar, jaguar, thylacine, or other animal resembling the tiger (in wide use in southern Africa of leopards).

(3) A person of some fierceness, noted for courage or a ferocious, bloodthirsty and audacious person.

(4) In heraldry, a representation of a large mythological cat, used on a coat of arms, often with the spelling tyger or tygre (to distinguish the mythological beast from the natural tiger (also blazoned Bengal tiger), also used in heraldry).

(5) A pneumatic box or pan used in refining sugar.

(6) Any of several strong, voracious fishes, as a sand shark.

(7) Any of numerous animals with stripes similar to a tiger's.

(8) A servant in livery who rides with his master or mistress, especially a page or groom (archaic).

(9) In entomology & historic aviation, a clipping of tiger moth (in the family Arctiidae), tiger beetle or tiger butterfly (in tribe Danaini, especially subtribe Danaina).

(10) Any of the three Australian species of black-and-yellow striped dragonflies of the genus Ictinogomphus.

(11) In US, slang, someone noted for their athleticism or endurance during sexual intercourse.

(12) In southern African slang, a ten-rand note.

(13) As TIGR (pronounced as for “tiger”), the abbreviation for Treasury Investment Growth Receipts: a bond denominated in dollars and linked to US treasury bonds, the yield on which is taxed in the UK as income when it is cashed or redeemed.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English tygre & tigre, from the Old English tīgras (plural) and the Anglo-Norman tigre (plural), from the Latin tīgris, from the Ancient Greek τίγρις (tígris), from an Iranian source akin to the Old Persian tigra- (sharp, pointed) and related to the Avestan tighri & tigri (arrow) and tiγra (pointed), the reference being to the big cats “springing” on to their prey but the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) notes no application of either word (or any derivative) to the tiger is known in Zend.  It was used of “tiger-like” people since the early sixteenth century and that could be complementary or pejorative although the female form (tigress) seems only to have been used in zoology since the 1610s and was never applied to women.  The tiger's-eye (yellowish-brown quartz) was first documented in 1886.  The word “liger”, like the creature it described, was a forced mating of lion and tiger.  As a modifier, tiger is widely used including the forms: American tiger, Amur tiger, Asian Tiger, Mexican tiger, Siberian tiger, tiger barb, tiger beetle, tiger bench, tiger-lily, tiger lily, tiger's eye, tiger shark & tiger's milk.  The alternative spellings tigre & tyger are both obsolete.  Tiger & tigerishness are nouns, tigerly, tigerish & tigerlike are adjectives and tigerishly is an adverb; the noun plural is tigers (feminine tigress).

Lindsay Lohan with tiger in Kult Magazine (Italy), January 2012, photograph by Vijat Mohindra, makeup by Joyce Bonelli.

In idiomatic use, a country said to have a “tiger economy” (rapid and sustained economic growth), especially if disproportionate to population or other conventional measures.  “Tiger parent” (and especially “tiger mother”) refers to a strict parenting style demanding academic excellence and obedience from children; it’s associated especially with East Asian societies.  The “tiger cheer” dates from 1845 and originated in Princeton University, based on the institution’s mascot and involved the cheerleaders calling out "Tiger" at the end of a cheer accompanied by a jump or outstretched arms.  Beyond Princeton, a “tiger cheer” is any “shriek or howl at the end of a cheer”.  The phrase "paper tiger" was apparently first used by comrade Chairman Mao Zedong (1893–1976; chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 1949-1976) when discussing his thoughts about the imperialist powers.  A calque of the Chinese 紙老虎／纸老虎 (zhǐlǎohǔ), it referred to an ostensibly fierce or powerful person, country or organisation without the ability to back up their words; imposing but ineffectual.  Phrases in the same vein include "sheep in wolf's clothing" and "a bark worse than their bite".  To be said to “have a tiger by the tail” suggests one has found one’s self in a situation (1) that has turned out to be much more difficult to control than one had expected and (2) difficult to extricate one’s self from, the idea being that while holding the tiger’s tail, things are not good but if one lets go, things will likely become much worse.

The Sunbeam Tigers

Sunbeam Tiger, LSR run, Southport Beach, March 1926.

There have been three Sunbeam Tigers, the first illustrious, the second fondly remembered and the last so anti-climatic it’s all but forgotten.  The first was a dedicated racing car, built between 1923-1925 and, those being times when there was less specialization, it was used both in circuit racing and, most famously, in setting the world Land Speed Record (LSR).  Although aerodynamic by the standards of the time (the techniques of streamlining learned in World War I (1914-1918) military aviation applied), there was little innovation in the platform except for the engine, the nature of which ensured the Tiger’s place in history.  For Grand Prix events conducted for cars with a maximum displacement of 2.0 litres (122 cubic inches), Sunbeam had earlier built a two litre straight-six, the limitations imposed by the relatively small size being offset by the use of the then still novel double overhead camshafts (DOHC) which allowed both more efficient combustion chambers and much higher engine speeds, thereby increasing power.  It was a robust, reliable power-plant and when contemplating an attempt on the LSR, instead of developing anything new or using the then popular expedient of installing a big & powerful but heavy and low-revving aero engine, the engineers paired two of the blocks and heads on a single crankcase, creating a 75° 3,976 cm³ (243 cubic inch) V12.  When supercharged, power outputs as high as 312 hp (233 kW) were registered.

Deteriorating weather conditions meant there wasn’t time even to paint the bodywork before the Tiger was rushed to the banked circuit at Brooklands for testing in September 1925 where performance exceeded expectations.  Over the winter, further refinements were made including a coat of most un-British bright red paint and it was in this color (and thus nick-named “Ladybird”) it was in March 1926 taken to the flat, hard sands of Southport Beach where duly it raised the LSR mark to 152.33 mph (245.15 km/h).  That was broken within a year but the Tiger still holds the record as the smallest displacement internal combustion-engine ever to hold the LSR and a hundred-odd years on, it’s a distinction likely to be retained forever.  After the run on the beach, it returned to the circuits.  A sister car was built and named Tigress; fitted with one of the big Napier Lion W12 aero engines, it still competes in historic competition but the Tiger is now a museum piece although, 65 years on, it did have a final fling when in 1990 it made one last run and this time set a mark of 159 mph (256 km/h).

1960 Sunbeam Alpine with the original tail fins.

Although successful in competition and the manufacturer of some much admired road cars, financial stability for Sunbeam was marginal for most of the 1920s and the Great Depression of the early 1930s proved its nemesis, the bankrupt company in 1934 purchased by the Rootes Group which was attracted by Sunbeam’s production facilities and their well-regarded line of commercial chassis for bus & truck operators.  Rootes over the years used the Sunbeam name in a desultory way, the vehicles little more than “badge engineered” versions of their Hillman, Singer, Humber & Talbot lines but one aberration was the Sunbeam Alpine, a small sports car (1959-1968).  Rootes had used the Alpine name before, adopted to take advantage of the success enjoyed in the 1953 Alpine Rally but the new roadster was very different.  Although the platform was taken, unpromisingly, from a small van and the rest of the structure was a mash up of components from the Rootes parts bin, as a package it worked very well and the body was modern and attractive, owing more to small Italian sports cars than the often rather agricultural British competition from MG and Triumph.  The rakish fins drew the eye (not always uncritically) but they were very much of their time (and soon pruned), taller even than those on the Daimler SP250 released the same year.  The Alpine was also pleasingly civilized with a heater which actually worked, a soft-top which didn’t leak (at least as much as others), external door handles and wind-up windows, none of which were guaranteed to exist on most of the local competition.  It was also commendably quiet, conversations possible and the radio able to be listened to even at cruising speed, then something novel in little roadsters.

1965 Sunbeam Tiger Mark 1.

With an engine capacity initially of 1.5 litres (91 cubic inch), the Alpine was never fast although that was hardly the point and Rootes advertising aimed at what was then known as the “ladies market”.  Slightly larger engines would improve things but the performance deficit was better addressed when in 1964, a version of the Alpine called the Tiger was released, this time with Ford’s then new 260 cubic inch (4.2 litre) “thinwall” Windsor V8, about to become well known from its use in both the Ford Mustang and Shelby’s Cobra, the latter based on a much-modified AC Ace.  The Windsor V8 was called a “thinwall” because genuinely it was small and light (by V8 standards) but even so it only just fitted in the Alpine’s engine bay and so tight was the fit that a small hatch was installed in the firewall (under the dashboard) so a mechanic could reach in to change one otherwise inaccessible spark plug.  Nevertheless, the package worked and all those who wrote test reports seemed to enjoy the Tiger, noting the effortless performance, fine brakes and predictable handling, all in something conveniently sized.  Even then though, more than one journalist observed that although the Ford V8 used was in the mildest state of tune Ford offered (the ones Shelby put in the Cobra producing almost 100 hp (75 kW) more), it was clear the classis was probably close to the limit of what would be sensible.

Despite that, in the mid 1960s there was in the US quite an appetite for cars not wholly sensible for street use and for the North American market, a revised version was released, this time with a 289 cubic inch (4.7 litre) Windsor V8 and although there had been some attention to the underpinnings, it was now obvious that while still in the low-power state Ford used in station wagons, the 289's increased output exceeded the capability of the chassis.  For the journalists of course, that was highly entertaining and so they were prepared to forgive, one cautioning only that the Tiger:

“…doesn’t take kindly to being flung around.  It’s a car with dignity as asks to be driven that way.  That doesn’t mean slowly, necessarily, but that there’s sufficient power on tap to embarrass the incautious.  But if you treat it right, respecting it for what it is, the Tiger can offer driving pleasure of a very high order.”

In the era, there were other over-powered machines which could behave worse and those able to read between the lines would know what they were getting but there may have been some who were surprised and tellingly, the Tigers were never advertised to the “ladies market” although one pink 289 Tiger was in 1965 given as the traditional pink prize to Playboy’s Playmate of the Year.  Presumably she enjoyed it.

Jo Collins (b 1945), 1965 Playboy Playmate of the Year with Sunbeam Tiger Mark II.  The tail fins had by now been pruned.

The US was a receptive market for the little hot rod and one featured in the Get Smart TV series, although it’s said that for technical reasons, a re-badged Alpine was actually used, the same swap effected for the 2008 film adaptation, a V8 exhaust burble dubbed where appropriate, a trick not uncommon in film-making.  In 1967, after taking control of Rootes Group, Chrysler had intended to continue production of the Tiger, by then powered by the 289 but with Chrysler’s 273 cubic inch (4.4 litre) LA V8 substituted.  Unfortunately, while 4.7 Ford litres filled it to the brim, 4.4 Chrysler litres overflowed; the Windsor truly was compact.  Allowing it to remain in production until the stock of already purchased Ford engines had been exhausted, Chrysler instead changed the advertising from emphasizing the “…mighty Ford V8 power plant” to the vaguely ambiguous “…an American V-8 power train”.  Still a popular car in the collector community, so easily modified are the V8s that few survive in their original form and many have been fitted with larger Windsors, the 302 (4.9 litre) the most popular and some have persuaded even the tall-deck 351 (5.8) to fit.  The fate of Ms Collins' pink Tiger is not known.

1972 Hillman Avenger Tiger.  The Avenger is now remembered mostly for the distinctive  "hockey stick" tail-lamps.

While not quite the sublime to the ridiculous, the third and final Tiger certaining lacked the lustre of its predecessors and was actually marketed under the Hillman and not the Sunbeam badge, the old Rootes group now owned by Chrysler.  Based on the Hillman Avenger (1970-1981), a competent if unexciting family car, the Avenger Tiger was initially a show car but such was the reaction a production run was arranged and, based on the Avenger GT, it was a genuine improvement, fitted with twin Weber carburettors on a high-compression cylinder head with larger valves and improved porting.  The power increase was welcome but wasn’t so dramatic as to demand any modification of the GT’s suspension beyond a slight stiffening of the springs.  On the road, the well-sorted rear wheel drive (RWD) dynamics meant it was good to drive and the performance was a notch above the competition although Chrysler never devoted the resources to develop it into a machine which could have been competitive with Ford’s Escort in racing and rallying.  The first run of 200-odd early in 1972 were all in “sundance yellow” with a black stripe (and in case that was too subtle, a “Tiger” graphic adorned the rear panels) but red was added as an option when another 400 made to meet demand.

Tigerish: Lindsay Lohan imagined in cara gata (cat face) by Shijing Peng.