Gypsy

Gypsy (pronounced jip-see)

(1) A once common term for the Roma or Romani but now largely socially proscribed as disparaging and offensive (sometimes with initial capital letter).  The Roma or Romani are scattered throughout Europe and North America and often maintain a nomadic way of life even in urbanized, industrialized societies, their source apparently a wave of migration from north-west India from around the ninth century onwards.

(2) The Indic language of the Roma or Romani although not in formal academic or technical use (always with initial capital letter).

(3) A person held to resemble a Roma or Romani, especially in physical characteristics (notably the combination of darker skin and dark, curly hair) or in a traditionally ascribed lifestyle and inclination to move from place to place.

(4) Of or relating to the Roma or Romani (can be used neutrally but is often applied as a disparaging and offensive slur).

(5) In informal use, working independently or without a license; a vagrant; an itinerant person or any person, not necessarily Romani; a tinker, a traveller; a circus or carnival performer; any itinerant person, or any person suspected of making a living from dishonest practices or theft.

(6) In informal use, free-spirited (though distinct from “bohemian” which implies something more sophisticated).

(7) In informal use, a sly, roguish woman.

(8) In informal use, a fortune teller (now rare).

(9) A move in contra dancing in which two dancers walk in a circle around each other while maintaining eye contact (but not touching as in a swing), the variations including the whole gyp, the half gyp, and the gypsy meltdown (in which this step precedes a swing); out of context the terms can be disparaging and offensive.

(10) In theater, a member of a Broadway musical chorus line.

1505–1515: A back formation from gipcyan, a Middle English dialectal form of egypcien (Egyptian) which over centuries lost the unstressed initial syllable), adopted in this context because of the mistaken perception Gypsies came originally from Egypt.  It was used as an adjective since the 1620s (with the sense "unconventional; outdoor) and the modern (and now archaic) UK word gippy was in use by at least 1889 as a truncated colloquial form of “Egyptian” although gip & gyp as abbreviations of gipsy & gypsy were known since the 1840s, the related verbs being gipped & gipping.  It was cognate with the Spanish Gitano and close in sense to the Turkish & Arabic Kipti (gypsy) although the literal meaning of that was “Coptic” (the form of Christianity most common in Egypt).  In Middle French the closest term was Bohémien (although that tended to be a geographical reference without the same associations familiar from modern use), the Spanish also using Flamenco (from Flanders) in the same way.  Those adoptions of use do hint at the manner in which the Roma have so often been treated as “outsiders”, “outlanders” or “foreigners” in just about any country where they were found although the nuances of “gypsy” were very different to notions such as “rootless cosmopolitans” which were attached to the Jews.  The alternative spellings were gipsy, gipsey, gypsey, gypsie & gyptian, all of which except gipsy are thought archaic.

In his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926), Henry Fowler (1858–1933) noted the special significance of Gypsy (rather than gipsy) being the preferred spelling in English, a development not related to the practice imposed on other words (tyre, syphon et al) where a ‘y’ was substituted for an ‘I’ for no better reason than the effect was thought decorative.  Henry Fowler thought it helpful because it existed as a relic to remind those concerned that the original meaning was “Egyptian” but noted also the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) statement that (in the early twentieth century) the preferred spelling appeared to be gipsy by the plural form gypsies was far from uncommon, presumably because users found awkward the “…appearance and repetition of ‘y’”.  Gypsy is a noun, verb & adjective; gypsydom, gypsyhood & gypsyism are nouns, gypsying & gypsied are verbs and gypsyesque, gypsyish, gypsy-like & gypseian are adjectives; the noun plural is gypsies.

Noted traveller Lindsay Lohan, Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), 2009.

The terms "Gypsy", "Roma", "Traveller" and "Romani" are often used interchangeably, but there are differences.  Gypsy is a term that historically referred to the Romani people, who are believed to have originated in the Indian subcontinent and migrated to Europe and other parts of the world over many centuries but it’s usually now thought a derogatory slur because of the history of use in stereotyping and discriminating against Romani people.  Roma is now the preferred term for the Romani people, and it is often used to refer to the ethnic group as a whole.  Romani is an adjective that refers to anything related to the Roma people, such as Romani culture or the Romani language.  It is used also as a noun to refer to an individual member of the Roma people.  Traveller is a term used to describe various groups of people who live a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle, including the Roma people. However, there are other groups of people who are also considered Travellers, such as the Irish Travellers in Ireland and the UK.

Lymantria dispar: The moth formerly known as gypsy (their appearance is subject to wide variations between regions).  

TheAwareness of the sense shift of “gypsy” from something purely descriptive to a racial slur has also had consequences in zoology.  In 2021, the Entomological Society of America (ESA) announced it was removing “gypsy moth” and “gypsy ant” as the sanctioned common names for two insects.  The link between the insects and the slur is not as remote as some may suspect because as Romani scholar Professor Ethel Brooks noted, the common name of the species Lymantria dispar was gained from the behavior of the hairy larvae of the caterpillar stage during which the larvae would swarm and strip the leaves from a tree, leaving behind so much destruction that they were habitually referred to as “a plague”.  Tellingly, nobody ever cursed the Lymantria dispar but all blamed the “gypsy moth caterpillars”.  Dr Brooks made the connection between peoples’ view of the ravenous bugs and her own experience of the way the Roma were often disparaged.  She however confessed to being surprised her advocacy for change succeeded with the entomologists although the ESA was aware the Lymantria dispar’s common name was derogatory and had received a request for change as early as 2020, forming a Better Common Names Project, a task force to review and replace offensive or inappropriate insect common names.

Other branches of science are also acting.  The American Ornithological Society in 2020 announced the formation of an ad hoc committee to look into nomenclatures, some of the more obvious changes being the replacement of bird-names based on the names of people with dubious histories in colonialism or slavery.  In genetics, there’s also a move to rename the “Gypsy jumping genes”, a class noted for their propensity to make copies of themselves and insert them back into the genome.   In genetics, such revisions are not unknown; some years ago a number of genes were renamed because their original names, thought whimsical at the time, were held to be offensive to those with certain physical characteristics or suffering some forms of mental illness.  In ichthyology, attention is also being paid to names.  The Atlantic goliath grouper was historically referred to as the "jewfish" and while the origin of the name is obscure, a review determined it was likely the species' physical characteristics were connected habitually deployed caricatures of anti-Semitic beliefs and as long ago as 1927, the New York Aquarium changed the fish's name to Junefish.  In 2001, the American Fisheries Society (AFS) changed the name to "goliath grouper".

South African de Havilland DH.60G Gipsy Moth c/n 842 ZS-ABA, registered to The Johannesburg Light Plane Club At Baragwanath Airfield and pictured with Junkers A50 Junior ZS-ABV c/n 3511 and Avro 594 Avian II ZS-AAN c/n 124.  The de Havilland Gipsy aero-engine enjoyed a very long life.  First produced in 1927, it was used in an extraordinary number of airframes, most famously de Havilland’s Gipsy Moth and Tiger Moth.  The last variant, the Gipsy Queen 70, left the assembly line almost thirty years after the first.

Stanton Special in its original 1953 hill climb form (left) and as re-configured in 1954 with a Weltex Mistral body for land speed record competition (right).    

One curious footnote in the long career of the Gipsy engine was its use in the 1953 Stanton Special, a New Zealand built race-car.  Although not a classic racing-car power-plant, the Gipsy was light, reliable and produced a lot of torque over a wide power-band, making it ideal for the hill-climbs for which it was intended.  A product typical of the practical improvisation which characterized so much of the early motor-sport scene in New Zealand, the engine was salvaged from a Tiger Moth used for aerial-spraying and the Stanton Special quickly was dubbed “the cropduster”, the aero-engine’s distinctive exhaust note meaning it was never mistaken for anything else.  So effective did it proved in hill climbs it attracted comments suggesting that were something done to improve its dubious aerodynamic properties, it might enjoy some success in events where speeds were higher.  Accordingly, Christchurch-based Weltex Plastics, one of the pioneers in the production of fibreglass structures, in 1954 furnished one of its Mistral bodies (a design produced under license from the UK’s Microplas), complete with a tail fin to enhance straight-line stability (a la that year’s Jaguar D-Type at Le Mans).  Thus configured and with the engine tuned further with the addition of an Abbott supercharger & four Amal carburetors, it was entered in some national land speed contests and won convincingly, managing an elapsed time of 12.96 seconds in the standing quarter-mile (400 m) and a flying quarter at 154 mph (248 km/h).  The tweaking continued and in 1958 it set an Australasian land speed record which would stand for ten years, covering the standing kilometre in 22.95 seconds with a terminal velocity of 175 mph (281 km/h).  The aerodynamics must have been good but remarkably no wind-tunnel time was part of the design process, the stylist apparently sketching something which “looked slippery”.

Heckblende

Heckblende (pronounced hek-blend or hek-blend-ah (German)

A moulded piece of reflective plastic permanently mounted between a car’s taillight (also as tail light, tail-light, taillamp, tail lamp & tail lamp) assemblies and designed to make them appear a contiguous entity

1980s: A German compound noun, the construct being Heck (rear; back) + Blende (cover).  As a surname, Heck (most common in southern Germany and the Rhineland) came from the Middle High German hecke or hegge (hedge), the origin probably as a topographic name for someone who lived near a hedge.  The link with hedges as a means of dividing properties led in the Middle Low German to heck meaning “wooden fencing” under the influence of the Old Saxon hekki, from the Proto-West Germanic hakkju.  In nautical slang "heck" came to refer to the “back of a ship” because the position of the helmsman in the stern was enclosed by such a fence and from here it evolved in modern German generally to refer to "back or rear".  The Modern German Blende was from blenden (deceive), from the Middle High German blenden, from the Old High German blenten, from the Proto-Germanic blandijaną, from the primitive Indo-European blend- and was cognate with the Dutch blenden and the Old English blendan.  Because all German nouns are capitalized, Heckblende is correct but in English, heckblende is the usual spelling.

The German blende translates as “cover” so the construct Heck + Blende (one of their shorter compounds) happily deconstructs as “back cover” and that obviously describes the plastic mouldings used to cover the space between a car’s left and right-side taillights.  Blenden however can (as a transitive or intransitive) translate as (1) “to dazzle; to blind” in the sense of confuse someone’s sight by means of excessive brightness”, (2) (figuratively and usually as an intransitive) to show off; to pose (try to make an impression on someone by behaving affectedly or overstating one’s achievements) and (3) “to dazzle” in the sense of deception (from the 1680s German Blende (an ore of zinc and other metals, a back-formation from blenden (in the sense of "to blind, to deceive") and so called because the substance resembles lead but yields none (but should not be confused with the English construct hornblende (using the English “blende” in the sense of “mix”) (a dark-green to black mineral of the amphibole group, calcium magnesium iron and hydroxyl aluminosilicate)).  A heckblende thus (1) literally is a cover and (2) is there to deceive a viewer by purporting to be part of the rear lighting rather than something merely decorative (sic).  If a similar looking assembly is illuminated and thus part of the lighting system, then it's not a heckblende but part of a full-width taillight. 

1934 Auburn Boat-tail Speedster.

On cars, the design of taillights stated modestly and few were in use before 1914, often a small, oil-lit single lens the only fitting.  Electric lights were by the 1920s standardized (although the oil lamps lingered on some commercial vehicles into the next decade) while early legislation passed in many jurisdictions specified the need for red illumination to the rear (later also to indicate braking) but about the only detail specified was a minimum luminosity, shape, size and placement left to manufacturers.  Before the late 1940s, most taillights were purely functional with little attempt to make them design motifs although during the art deco era, there were some notably elegant flourishes but despite that, they remained generally an afterthought and on lower priced models, a second taillight was sometimes optional, the standard of a left and right-side unit not universal (in the West) until the 1950s.

A tale of the tails of two post-war economies:  1959 MGA Twin-Cam FHC & 1959 Daimler Majestic (upper) and 1959 Chevrolet Impala (batwing) flattop & 1959 DeSoto Adventurer convertible (lower).

It was in the 1950s the shape of tail lights became increasingly stylized.  With modern plastics freeing designers from the constraints the use of glass had imposed and the experience gained during World War II (1939-1945) in the mass-production of molded Perspex, new possibilities were explored.  In the UK and Europe, there was little extravagance, manufacturers content usually to take advantage of new materials and techniques mostly to fashion what were little more than larger, more rounded versions of what had gone before, the amber lens being adopted as turn indicators to replace the mechanically operated semaphore signals often little more than a duplication of the red taillight or an unimaginatively styled appendage.

1961 Chrysler Turboflite show car (left) and 2024 Dodge Charger (right).

Across the Atlantic, US designers were more ambitious but one idea which seems not to have been pursued was the full-width taillight and that must have been by choice because it would have presented no challenges in engineering.  Instead, as the jet age became the space age, the dominant themes were aeronautical or recalled the mechanism of rocketry, taillights styled to resemble the exhausts of jet-engines or space ships, the inspiration as often from SF (science fiction or Sci-Fi) as the runway.  Pursuing that theme, much of the industry succumbed to the famous fin fetish, the tails of their macropterous creations emphasizing the vertical more than the horizontal.  Surprisingly though, despite having produced literally dozens of one-off “concept” and “dream” cars over the decade, it seems it wasn’t until 1961 when Chrysler sent their Turboflite around the show circuit that something with a genuine full-width taillight was shown.  The corporation revived the look for the eighth generation (LB) Dodge Charger introduced in 2024.

1936 Tatra T87 (left), 1961 Tatra T603A prototype (centre) & 1963 Tatra T-603-X5 (right).

That same year, in Czechoslovakia, the Warsaw Pact’s improbable Bohemian home of the avant-garde, Tatra’s engineers considered full-width taillights for their revised 603A.  As indicated by the specification used since before the war (rear-engined with an air-cooled, 2.5 litre (155 cubic inch) all-aluminum V8), Tatra paid little attention to overseas trends and were influenced more by dynamometers and wind tunnels.  However, the taillights didn’t make it to volume production although the 603A prototype did survive to be displayed in Tatra’s Prague museum.  Tatra’s designs, monuments to mid-century modernism, remain intriguing.

1967 Imperial LeBaron four door Hardtop.

If the idea didn’t impress behind the iron curtain, it certainly caught on in the West, full-width assemblies used by many US manufacturers over the decades including Mercury, Imperial, Dodge, Shelby, Ford, Chrysler & Lincoln.  Some genuinely were full-width taillights in that the entire panel was illumined, a few from the Ford Motor Corporation (FoMoCo) even with the novelty of sequential turn-signals (outlawed in the early 1970s, bureaucrats seemingly always on the search for something to ban).  Most however were what would come to be called heckblendes and were intended to created only an illusion.

FoMoCo's take on the idea: Clockwise from top left: 1974 ZG Fairlane (AU), 1977 Thunderbird (US), 1966 Zodiac Mark IV (UK), 1970 Thunderbird (US), 1973 Landau (AU) & 1970 Torino (US).

Whether heckblendes or actually wired assemblies, Ford became especially fond of the idea which in 1966 made an Atlantic crossing, appearing on the Mark IV Zodiac, a car packed with advanced ideas but so badly executed it tarnished the name and when it (and the lower-priced Zephyr which made do without the heckblende) was replaced, the Zephyr & Zodiac names were banished from Europe, never to return.  Ford Australia picked-up the style (and typically several years later), using heckblendes on the ZF & ZG Fairlanes (1972-1976) and the P5 LTD & Landau (1973-1976).  The Fairlane’s heckblendes weren’t reprised when the restyled ZH (1976-1979) model was released but, presumably having spent so much of the budget on new taillights, the problem of needing new front end styling was solved simply by adapting that of the 1968 Mercury Marquis (the Marquis name also shamelessly borrowed for the up-market version), colonies often run with hand-me-downs.

The 1968 HK Holdens used the taillight assemblies to denote a model's place in the hierarchy: The basic Belmont (top left), the better equipped Kingswood (top left, the blinged-up Premier (bottom left) and the sporty Monaro GTS (bottom right).  By their heckblende (or its absence), they shall be known.  It's not believed Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) modelled the fall of his tie on the HK Premier but there may be a connection.

In Australia, the local outpost of General Motors (GM) applied a double fake.  The "heckblende" on the HK Holdens (1968-1969), as a piece of cost-cutting, was actually red-painted metal rather than reflective plastic and unfortunately prone to deterioration under the harsh southern sun; it was a fake version of a fake taillight.  Cleverly though, the fake apparatus was used as an indicator of the model's place in the hierarchy, the basic Belmont with just taillights, the (slightly) better-appointed Kingswood granted heckblendesque extensions, the up-market Premier with extended extensions and the Monaro GTS with the full-width part.  Probably the Belmont and Premier were ascetically most successful.  Exactly the same idea was recycled for Holden's VH Commodore (1981-1984), the SL/E (effectively the Premier's replacement) model's taillight assemblies gaining stubby extensions which, unfortunately, looked as "tacked-on" as they were.

Holdens: 1967 HR Premier (left), 1969 HT Brougham (centre) & 1971 HQ Premier (right).

The idea of a full-width decorative panel wasn’t new, Holden having used such a fitting as a signifier of "more expensive" on earlier Premiers.  Known as the “boot appliqué strip”, it began small on the EJ (1962-1963), EH (1963-1965) & HD (1965-1966) before becoming large and garish on the HR (1966-1968) but although not then known as bling, that must have been thought a bit much because it was toned down and halved in height when applied to the elongated (the trunk (boot) rather than the wheelbase!) and tarted-up Brougham (1968-1971 and a model reflecting what the industry then thought appealed to the bourgeoisie) and barely perceptible when used on the HQ Premier (1971-1974).  Holden didn’t however forget the heckblende and a quite large slab appeared on the VT Commodore (1997-2000) although it wasn’t retained on the revised VX (2000-2002) but whether in this the substantial rise in the oil price (and thus the cost of plastic) was a factor isn’t known.

Germans, factory and not: 1973 Porsche 914 2.0 (left), 1983 BMW 323i (E30, centre) & 1988 Mercedes-Benz 300E (W124, right).

Although, beginning with the 914 in 1973, Porsche was an early European adopter of the heckblende (since used with some frequently), it was the 1980s which were the halcyon days of after-market plastic, owners of smaller BMWs and Mercedes-Benz seemingly the most easily tempted.  The additions were always unnecessary and the only useful way they can be catalogued is to say some were worse than others.  Predictably, the fad spread to the East (Near, Middle & Far) and results there were just as ghastly although the popularity of the things must have been helpful as a form of economic stimulus, such was the volume in which they were extruded; reputedly, one factory in Pakistan had to expand to meet demand.  Among males aged 17-39, few things have proved as enduringly infectious as a love of gluing or bolting to cars, pieces of plastic which convey their owner's appalling taste. 

2019 Mercedes-Benz EQC 400 with taillight bar.

After the 1980s, fewer manufacturers used heckblendes as original equipment and when they did the terminology varied, the nomenclature including "decor panels", "valances" or "tail section appliqués".  However, although it seemed the heckblende may have been headed for extinction, full-width taillights still entice stylists and modern techniques of design and production, combined with what LEDs (light-emitting diodes) & OLEDs (Organic Light Emitting Diode) have made possible, mean it’s again a popular feature, the preferred term now “taillight bar”.  Hopefully, the moment for resuscitated fad will be brief. 

Nude & Naked

Nude (pronounced nood or nyood)

(1) Naked or unclothed, as a person or the body.

(2) Without the usual coverings, furnishings etc; bare.

(3) In art, being or prominently displaying a representation of the nude human figure.

(4) In law, a contract made without a consideration or other legal essential and therefore invalid (nudum pactum).

(5) In historic commercial use (usually for underwear), a light grayish-yellow brown to brownish-pink color (no longer in common use; now considered offensive because of the cultural implications of its association with white skin).

1531: As an artistic euphemism for naked, use was first applied to sculpture first emerged in the 1610s but the term not common in painting until the mid-nineteenth century when the idea of "the nude" was recognized as a genre.  The origin of the use in painting in the sense of "the representation of the undraped human figure in visual art" is said to date from 1708 and be derived from the French nud, an obsolete variant of nu (naked, nude, bare) also from the Latin nūdus.  The phrase idea of being in the nude (in a condition of being unclothed) emerged in the 1850s in parallel with the use in art criticism.

The adjective nude in legal use dates from the 1530s and meant "unsupported, not formally attested", the use from the Latin nūdus (naked, bare, unclothed, stripped) from the primitive Indo-European root nogw- (naked).  In legal matters it was typically applied in contract law (hence the "nude contract") and, by extension, the general sense of "mere, plain, simple" emerged twenty years later.  is attested from 1550s. In reference to the human body, "unclothed, undraped," it is an artistic euphemism for naked, dating from 1610s (implied in nudity) but not in common use in this sense until mid-nineteenth century.  The noun nudie (a nude show) dates from 1935 while the much earlier noun nudification (making naked) was from 1838, presumably a direct borrowing of the French nudification which had been in use since 1833.  The practice of nudism actually has roots in Antiquity but nudist (as applied to both practitioners and practice) came into use only in 1929 as an adjective and noun, both influenced by the French nudiste.  The noun nudism (the cult and practice of going unclothed) also dates from 1929 and in the UK, however inaccurately, it was described as a cult of German origin which had been picked up also by the more bohemian of the French, the more respectable London press linking the practice with vegetarianism, physical exercise, pagan worship and the eating of seeds.  Nude, nudeness  & nudist are nouns & adjectives and nudity & nudism are nouns; the noun plural is nudes.

Naked (pronounced ney-kid (U) or neck-ed (non-U))

(1) Being without clothing or covering; nude.

(2) Without adequate clothing.

(3) A natural environment bare of any covering, overlying matter, vegetation, foliage, or the like.

(4) Bare, stripped, or destitute.

(5) A descriptor of the most basic version of something sometimes more elaborate or embellished.

(6) In optics, as applied to the eye, sight etc, unassisted by a microscope, telescope, or other instrument.

(7) Defenseless; unprotected; exposed.

(8) Not accompanied or supplemented by anything else.

(9) In botany, (of seeds) not enclosed in an ovary; (of flowers) without a calyx or perianth; (of branches etc) without leaves; (of stalks, leaves etc) without hairs or pubescence.

(10) In zoology, having no covering of hair, feathers, shell etc.

(11) In motorcycle design, a machine in which the frame and engine are substantially exposed by virtue of screens and fairings not being fitted.

Pre 900: From the Middle English nakede & naked (without the usual or customary covering" (of a sword etc)) from the Old English nacod (nude, bare, empty or not fully clothed); related to the Old High German nackot, the Old Norse noktr and Latin nudus; cognate with the Dutch naakt, the German nackt, the Gothic naqths; akin to the Old Norse nakinn, the Latin nūdus, the Greek gymnós and Sanskrit nagnás.  Source was the Proto-Germanic nakwathaz, also the root of the Old Frisian nakad, the Middle Dutch naket, the Old Norse nökkviðr, the Old Swedish nakuþer and the Gothic naqaþs and ultimate source the primitive European nogw (naked), related to the Sanskrit nagna, the Hittite nekumant, the Old Persian nagna, the Lithuanian nuogas, the Old Church Slavonic nagu, the Russian nagoi, the Old Irish nocht and the Welsh noeth.  As applied to qualities, actions, etc, use emerged in the early thirteenth century, the phrase “naked truth” first noted in 1585 in Alexander Montgomerie's (circa 1550-1598) The Cherry and the Slae.  The phrase “naked as a jaybird (1943) was earlier referenced as “naked as a robin” (1879); the earliest known comparative based on it was the fourteenth century “naked as a needle”.  “Naked eye” is from 1660s, the form unnecessary in the world before improvements in lens grinding technology led to the invention of telescopes and microscopes.  The adjective nakedly (without concealment, plainly, openly) was from circa 1200.  The noun nakedness was from the Old English nacedness (nudity, bareness).  Naked is a verb & adjective and nakedness & nakedhood are nouns.  The special use of naked as a noun applies to motorcycles in which case the noun plural is nakeds.

Naked motorcycles:  2010 Ducati 1098 Streetfighter (left) and 2015 MV Agusta Stradale (right).  Men can spend a long time admiring the intricacy of machines like these.

The concept of the naked motorcycle is a machine reduced to its essence of a frame, wheels and an engine, thereby making it lighter than more exotically configured models which may include flashings, windshields, saddlebags or fairings.  Simple physics mean a machine with less mass accelerates, turns and stops with less demand of energy and at low speed they tend to be easier to manoeuvre, are lighter to hold up when static and certainly easier to mount on a centre-stand.  There's also the attraction there are fewer things to break, fibreglass fairings being notorious for getting cracked, scratched or broken and Perspex screens are, with age, prone to cloudiness.  The look however is why some buy naked bikes, the intricacies of the exposed mechanicals appealing especially to engineers anxious to display the quality of the frame's welding or the indefinable but real attraction of Allen-headed bolts.  They're also quick.  Although sacrificing the aerodynamic advantages gained by fairings means in some cases the naked machines can have lower top speeds, they tend to accelerate with more alacrity, offer instant responsiveness and, in street use, top speeds are now anyway rarely approached. 

Nude or naked?

In many places the words may correctly be used interchangeably.  In law, a nude and a naked contract are the same, a pact which is unenforceable because if doesn’t possess all the elements required to be valid.  The legal maxim nuda pactio obligationem non parit signifies a naked promise which is a promise without anything being provided in return.  Nuda pactio obligationem non parit thus does not create a legal obligation.

Kenneth Clark. The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form. Bollingen Series, New York, Pantheon Books, 1956.

Kenneth Clark, a cultural elitist of a kind now perhaps either extinct or rendered silent by a less deferential culture, opened The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1956) by noting naked implied something embarrassing yet nude “… carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone”.  Clark’s view was there were works of art in which there were nudes but other depictions were just variations of nakedness for whatever purpose.  The nude, he concluded, "…is not the subject of art, but a form of art."  In other word, the models in men's magazines were photographed in a state of nakedness while the women rendered in fine art were part of the tradition of the nude.  Photographers who thought their work artistic didn't agree and the onset of cultural relativism means such debates no longer happen.  However, the adoption by some that nude was something to used exclusively about works of art dates only from the eighteenth century, a movement led by critics and the commercial art industry which wanted the English market again to start buying the many nudes available for sale but which, even before the Victorian era, had fallen from fashion.

New York Magazine, February 2008 (Spring Fashion Issue).

Bert Stern’s (1929-2013) nude photo shoot of Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) was commissioned by Vogue magazine and shot over three days, some six weeks before her death.  In book form, the images captured were compiled and published as The Last Sitting (first edition, William Morrow and Company (1982) ISBN 0-688-01173-X).  Stern reprised his work in 2008 with Lindsay Lohan, the photographs published in February 2008’s spring fashion issue of New York magazine.  Stern chose the medium of forty-six years earlier, committing the images to celluloid rather than using anything digital.  The reprised sessions visually echoed the original with a languorous air though the diaphanous fabrics were draped sometimes less artfully than all those years ago.  He later expressed ambivalence about the shoot, hinting regret at having imitated his own work but the photographs remain an exemplar of peak-Lohanary.

First published in 1968, New York magazine is now owned by Vox media and, unlike many, its print edition still appears on surviving news-stands.  The editorial focus has over the decades shifted, the most interesting trend-line being the extent to which it could be said to be very much a “New York-centred” publication, something which comes and goes but the most distinguishing characteristic has always been a willingness (often an eagerness) to descend into pop-culture in a way the New Yorker's editors would have distained; it was in a 1985 New York cover story the term “Brat Pack” first appeared.  Coined by journalist David Blum (b 1955) and about a number of successful early twenty-something film stars, the piece proved controversial because the subjects raised concerns about what they claimed was Blum’s unethical tactics in obtaining the material.  The term was a play on “Rat Pack” which in the 1950s had been used of an earlier group of entertainers although Blum also noted another journalist's coining of “Fat Pack”, used in restaurant-related stories.

Lindsay Lohan, Playboy magazine, January/February 2012.

Nudity & nakedness are defined by both context & circumstances.  The cover photograph for Lindsay Lohan's 2012 Playboy shoot was, in the narrow technical sense, ambiguous because the chair could have been concealing a pair of delicate lace knickers.  Importantly, even though there are stilettos on the feet, this is still a nude shot because, in this context, shoes don't count; everybody knows that.

Actually, in the context of nude shots it’s probably more correct to say stilettos can be part of the construct of "the nude", the shoes having a long history as an element in such photo sessions, the connotation well-understood.  For that reason, the motif was the one addition to a “nude pin-up calendar” published in 2010 by EIZO Corporation (株式会社, EIZO Kabushiki-gaisha), a Japanese visual technology company which began in 1968 as a television manufacturer.  The name EIZO is an unaltered use of the Japanese 映像 (eizō) (image).  As electronics became progressively cheaper and more powerful there was a proliferation in the use of screens for many purposes and EIZO responded by diversifying into products such as arcade game hardware, computer monitors, VCRs (video cassette recorders) and cassette players.  In 2002, a range of monitors for medical imaging was introduced and the novel calendar appeared to promote its radiological devices.

Eizo Pin-up calendar, 2010.

Advertising Agency: Butter, Berlin & Duesseldorf, Germany
Creative Director: Matthias Eickmeyer
Art Director: Nadine Schlichte
Illustrator/CGI: Carsten Mainz
Copywriter: Reinhard Henke

The theme of the calendar was a model scanned in twelve stereotypical “pin-up” poses, the young lady nude except for her stilettos with the images in the form of classic X-Ray film.  What that meant was the model was in a sense more naked than most nudes because all that was visible (except for the stilettos) was the skeleton and an adumbrated outline of the skin; like the more “artistic” pornography, much was achieved by having a viewer’s mind “fill in the gaps” as it were.  It attracted much interest but it soon was revealed no model was irradiated in the making of the calendar, the images all created with CGI (computer-generated imagery).  The concept came from Berlin-based creative agency Butter and in terms of brand-recognition was an outstanding success because before images of the calendar went viral, it’s doubtful many outside the Japanese electronics industry had heard of EIZO.

What a stiletto imposes on the wearer’s “metatarsophalangeal joint between the metatarsal and proximal phalangeal bones” attracted some comment.  It seems a small price to pay for the pleasure men gain from seeing a foot in these classic shoes.

Being the internet, the images were of course deconstructed even before Butter revealed the truth.  Those well acquainted with medical imaging pointed out it was obvious they were digital composites because some things appeared as “white” when they should have been “black”, Miss July’s nipples apparently an obvious clue to a trained eye while others pointed out a “conspicuous absence of bowel gas and pulmonary vascularity.”  To reassure the internet no model was required to be exposed to a high-dose of radiation, Butter published pictures of the physical wireframes constructed for the CGI modelling; while that proved she was all pixels and there was no exploitation, a feminist critique would still detect the gratuitous objectification of the female form.  Still, neither agency or client could resist the tagline: “The EIZO Medical pin-up calendar – just like EIZO monitors – really does show every detail.”

Nude bras by Flora & Fauna (left) and Capeizo (right).

The concept of the “nude bra” was one of the unanticipated consequences of the emergence of DEI (diversity, equality & inclusion) as part of the West’s linguistic and cultural framework.  The beige bra has long been an industry staple and although the products are sometimes described as a “boring beige bra”, their usual qualities (comfortable, supportive and unobtrusive) made them an “everyday essential”.  However, the functional, if unexciting, garments tended once to be marketed as “skin-tone” which obviously was intrinsically exclusionary because it implied skin was “beige” and thus one of the many examples of “white privilege”.  Accordingly, mostly the industry shifted to value-free descriptors such as beige, black, brown, green, grey, ivory, pink, purple, red, white etc.  The purpose of a nude bra is to be nearly imperceptible under clothing, achieved by the fabric as closely as possible matching the skin tone and the obvious implication is what is a nude bra for one might be quite the opposite for another.  Glamour has a a helpful on-line guide based on the idea of skin's undertones able to be classified as cool, warm, or neutral and notes that while in underwear "black" and "white" tend to be universal, colors like beige or brown are spectrums and there are variations, both between manufacturers and even within their ranges,  That's good because even within a construct like "black skin" or "white skin", there are variations so ideally the selection of a nude bra will involve a consumer comparing fabric with flesh.

Functionalism

Functionalism (pronounced fuhngk-shuh-nl-iz-uhm)

(1) An early twentieth century movement which advocated design in engineering, architecture, furniture and objects as pure fulfilments of material requirements, the aesthetic effect derived from proportions and finish with decorative effects being excluded or greatly subordinated.  Essentially, the theory that the form of a thing should be determined by its use.

(2) In psychology, a doctrine which emphasizes the adaptive flexibility in mental or behavioral processes.  Essentially, a system of thought based on the premise that all mental processes derive from their usefulness to the organism in adapting to the environment.

(3) In sociology (and styled usually as structural functionalism) a theoretical construct of societies as systems of interdependent parts whose functions contribute to the stability and survival of the system.  The analysis suggests things continue to exist because they perform some useful function.

(4) In anthropology (as biological functionalism), a utilitarian theory which maintains individual survival is the provocation of actions and the importance of social rigidity is negligible.

1914:  A compound word, function + al +‎ ism.  Function was from the Middle French function from the Old French fonction, from the Classical Latin functionem (accusative of functiō) (performance, execution) from functus (perfect participle of fungor) (I perform, I execute, I discharge).  The -al suffix was from the Middle English -al, from the Latin adjectival suffix -ālis, ((the third-declension two-termination suffix (neuter -āle) used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or numerals) or the French, Middle French and Old French –el & -al.  It was use to denote the sense "of or pertaining to", an adjectival suffix appended (most often to nouns) originally most frequently to words of Latin origin, but since used variously and also was used to form nouns, especially of verbal action.  The alternative form in English remains -ual (-all being obsolete).  The origin remains uncertain but the Latin is thought likely formed from the Etruscan genitive suffix.  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  First used in 1914 in the social sciences, it entered use in architectural criticism in 1930.  Functionalism was also a briefly fashionable school of thought in international relations in the early inter-war years and in any context, it’s often used with an initial capital letter.

Functionalist architecture: Bauhaus School building, Dessau (1925-1926).

Sociology: Three of the the discipline's usual suspects

Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) was a French sociologist who developed the theory of functionalism from data he collected while exploring links between social integration and suicide; his findings suggesting social institutions should be understood in terms of the contribution their existence makes to society.   In a nod to Hobbes (and even Marx and Freud), Durkheim described man as homo duplex in which all have dual natures, one selfish, the other concerned with shared moral values.

US sociologist Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) was the dominant theorist in American sociology during the mid-twentieth century whose most important work was The Social System (1951) in which he describes the most elaborate model yet constructed of the ways institutions in society contribute to social order. He was influential but later attracted criticism for his work being too derivative of earlier German models of the two dichotomous sociological types, gemeinschaft & gesellschaft (community and society).

Robert Merton (1910–2003) was an American sociologist, who work saw phrases from academic sociology (such as “self-fulfilling prophecy”) enter popular use.  He suggested in different societies, institutions, however functional may tend to act with some autonomy so that a change in a particular institution may have little or no effect on others.  He noted also that despite the implications of Durkheim’s work, not all social systems necessarily perform a positive function and that some institutions like family or religion aren’t part of all human societies.  Merton claimed his method of analysis meant functionalism could no longer be perceived as ideological.

Structural Functionalism

Structural functionalism was a dominant school of thought in sociology for much of the twentieth century.  It built models of a symbiotic society where the framework was its institutions and its bonding energy the functions they fulfilled, viewing human interaction as producing a complex system of parts, each with a specific function which contributed to the stability and functioning of the whole.  Sometimes appearing unimportant if viewed in isolation, the component parts were understood as interdependence building blocks of social institutions, their function in the structure their role in maintaining social order and stability.  The structural functionalist model asserts every society has certain structures (divided classically into organizations, institutions & norms) which fulfil important functions ensuring the operation of society.  In the language of the discipline, the functions can be manifest (intended and recognized) or latent (unintended and often unrecognized), social stability maximized when these structures and functions are in balance.

In sociology, functionalism is where it's found and it's found by neo-Marxists, Mean Girls (2004) fans and others.

In the way of academia, the remarkably simple theoretical model of structural functionalism attracted very clever sociologists who published papers by the thousand adding layers of nuanced complexity, mapping onto the ever-growing literature models every imaginable social dynamic, some of which (notably power structures, race conflict, social change, feminism and sexual politics) exposed the limitations of the approach.  For that reason, it came to be much criticized, not because the theory’s theoretical framework was fundamentally wrong but because some some contradictions in specific interactions exposed flaws which meant it could never be a global “theory of everything”.  Long unfashionable, its core assumptions continue to underlie (and even underpin according to some) a number of modern orthodoxies in sociology.

1939 Mercedes-Benz T80, Mercedes-Benz Museum, Stuttgart, Germany.

When building machines to set the world's lands speed record (LSR), nothing matters except functionalism, everything else discarded as extraneous.  Designed by Ferdinand Porsche (1875–1951), the Mercedes-Benz T80 was built between 1937-1939 to lay siege to LSR but with the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945), the attempt was never made.  It was a single-purpose machine designed to achieve maximum terminal velocity and for that reason, the T80 was an exercise in pure functionalism; not one nut or bolt was used other than for the purpose of ensuring its top speed would be as high as possible.  Cognizant of the existing record, the initial goal was 550 km/h (342 mph) but as others in the late 1930s raised the mark, so were Professor Porsche’s ambitions and when the final specification was set in 1939, the target was 650 km/h (404 mph) (not 750 km/h (466 mph) as is sometimes quoted).  Configured with six wheels, the T80 would have used a supercharged, fuel-injected, 44.5 litre (2716 cubic inch) Daimler-Benz DB 603 inverted V12 aero-engine, an enlarged version of the DB 601 which powered a number of Messerschmitts and other warplanes.  Intended for use in bombers, the T80’s engine was actually the third DB 603 prototype and tuned initially to generate some 2237 kW (3000 horsepower) on an exotic cocktail of methyl alcohol (63%), benzene (16%), ethanol (12%), acetone (4.4%), nitrobenzene (2.2%), avgas (2%), and ether (0.4%) with MW (methanol-water) injection for charge cooling and as an anti-detonant.  This was more than twice the output of the Hurricanes, Spitfires and Messerschmitts which in 1940 fought the Battle of Britain but Porsche’s calculations suggested 2,574 kW (3,500 hp) would be needed to touch the 650 km/h target and the DB 603 would have been tweaked to achieve this as an EWR (emergency war rating, a concept of extracting maximum power at the expense of component longevity).

1939 Mercedes-Benz T80, Mercedes-Benz Museum, Stuttgart, Germany.

Some 8 metres (26 feet) in length with two of the three axles providing drive, the weight when fuelled and crewed was some 2600 kg (2.9 short tons) while the measured coefficient of drag (CD) was reported at 0.18, an impressive figure for such a thing as late as the 1990s and it would have been lower still, had wind-tunnel testing not revealed the need to add two small “winglets” to provide sufficient down-force to ensure the shape didn’t at speed assume the characteristics of an aeroplane and "try to take off"; notably, when in 1964 the Bluebird-Proteus CN7 ran on Australia's Lake Eyre salt flats, it was the first LSR machine to include “ground effect” technology to reduce lift.  Fundamentally, the aerodynamics are thought sound although there would be the usual vulnerability to cross-winds, the cause of several deaths in such attempts and the surface conditions of what was a temporarily closed public road would also have been critical; whether the tyre technology of the time would have been adequate under such conditions will never be known.  Had the T80 been run on the long, flat straights of the salt flats in the US or Australia, the prospects of success would have been better but for propaganda purposes (always a theme for the Nazis) the LSR runs had to be on German soil.

Bluebird-Proteus CN7, Lake Eyre, Australia, 1964.

The plan was for the attempt to be staged in January 1940 during what the regime dubbed RekordWoche (Record Week) on a section of the Berlin-Halle-Leipzig autobahn (now part of the A9), closed for the occasion.  The legend is that Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) himself choose the nickname Schwarzer Vogel (Black Bird) but that too may have been propaganda.  Hitler did though like romantic names so the story is least plausible.  He also had so little regard for titles he used them like cheap gifts and bribes, creating 26 field marshals during his rule including 7 after in February 1943 he'd declared he'd never appoint another.  That vow was prompted by his disappointment at Friedrich Paulus (1890–1957) declining to shoot himself and instead capitulating to the Red Army besieging Stalingrad.  Hitler had promoted Paulus the very day he surrendered and despite Hitler offering him this "one final satisfaction", he chose not to blow his brains out "for that Bohemian corporal" (a phrase attributed to Generalfeldmarschall Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934; Reichspräsident (1925-1934) of Germany 1925-1934) who misunderstood the geography of Hitler's birthplace).  The Führer also appointed Ferdinand Porsche a professor although that was in recognition of his stellar work in the armaments industry rather than his equally impressive contributions to designing fast cars and anyway not too much should be made of it, Hitler conferring the academic honor even on his favorite photographer.  The design of the T80 was done in the era of slide rules and although some computer work has been applied to simulating the event, there’s no consensus on whether the thing really would have hit 650 km/h and set a new LSR.  As it was, it wasn't until August 1963 a turbojet-powered machine was clocked at 655.722 km/h (407.447) mph in a run on the Bonneville Salt Flats.  It was there in November 1965 a machine powered by four fuel injected Chrysler 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) hemi V8s recorded a two-way average of 658.526 km/h (409.277 mph) and, in the class for wheel-driven vehicles, that mark stood for some 43 years.  In July 1964, it had been rain-affected surface conditions on the salt flats at Lake Eyre which had sabotaged the run by the gas turbine-powered Bluebird-Proteus CN7, limiting the speed to 648.73 km/h (403.10 mph).  Had the surface still been as hard and true as it had been when surveyed in 1962, the Bluebird would have a higher average over the measured distance because it was clocked at 710 km/h (440 mph) towards the end of a run.  The vehicle had a theoretical maximum speed of some 800 km/h (500 mph) but that was calculated in what was still the age of the slide rule and most experts now doubt that was attainable although something in excess of 450 mph (720 km/h) was plausible.  No wheel-driven car has ever come close to 500 mph.