Brand

Brand (pronounced brand)

(1) The kind, grade, or make of a product or service, as indicated by a stamp, trademark, or such.

(2) A mark made by burning or otherwise, to indicate kind, grade, make, ownership (of both objects and certain animals) etc.

(3) A mark formerly put upon slaves or criminals, made on the skin with a hot iron.

(4) Any mark of disgrace; stigma.

(5) A kind or variety of something distinguished by some distinctive characteristic.

(6) A set of distinctive characteristics that establish a recognizable image or identity for a person or thing.

(7) A conflagration; a flame.  A burning or partly burned piece of wood (now rare except regionally although the idea of brand as “a flaming torch” still exists as a poetic device).  In the north of England & Scotland, a brand is a torch used for signalling. 

(8) A sword (archaic except as a literary or poetic device).

(9) In botany, a fungal disease of garden plants characterized by brown spots on the leaves, caused by the rust fungus Puccinia arenariae

(10) A male given name (the feminine name Brenda was of Scottish origin and was from the Old Norse brandr (literally “sword” or “torch”).

(11) To label or mark with or as if with a brand.

(12) To mark with disgrace or infamy; to stigmatize.

(13) Indelibly to impress (usually in the form “branded upon one’s mind”)

(14) To give a brand name to (in commerce including the recent “personal brand).

Pre 950: From the Middle English, from the Old English brond & brand (fire, flame, destruction by fire; firebrand, piece of burning wood, torch (and poetically “sword”, “long blade”) from the Old High German brant, the ultimate source the primitive Indo-European bhrenu- (to bubble forth; brew; spew forth; burn).  It was cognate with the Scots brand, the Dutch & German Brand, the Old Norse brandr, the Swedish brand (blaze, fire), the Icelandic brandur and the French brand of Germanic origin.  The Proto-Slavic gorěti (to burn) was a distant relation.  Brand is a noun & verb, brander is a noun, brandless is an adjective, branded is a verb and branding is a noun & verb; the noun plural is brands.  Forms (hyphenated and not) like de-brand, non-brand, mis-brand & re-brand are created as required and unusually for English, the form brander seems never to have been accompanied by the expected companion “brandee”.

Some work tirelessly on their “personal brand”, a term which has proliferated since social media gained critical mass.  Lindsay Lohan’s existence at some point probably transcended the notion of a personal brand and became an institution; the details no longer matter.

The verb brand dates from the turn of the fifteenth century in the sense of “to impress or burn a mark upon with a hot iron, cauterize; stigmatize” and originally described the marks imposed on criminal or cauterized wounds, the used developed from the noun.  The figurative use (often derogatory) of “fix a character of infamy upon” emerged in the mid-fifteenth century, based on the notion of the association with criminality.  The use to refer to a physical branding as a mark of ownership or quality dates from the 1580s and from this developed the familiar modern commercial (including “personal brands”) sense of “brand identity”, “brand recognition”, “brand-name” etc.  Property rights can also attach to brands, the idea of “brand-equity”.

Although it’s unknown just when the term “branding iron” (the (almost always) iron instrument which when heated burned brands into timber, animal hides etc) was first used (it was an ancient device), the earliest known citation dates only from 1828.  The “mark made by a hot iron” was older and in use since at least the 1550s, noted especially of casks and barrels”, the marks indicating variously the maker, the type of contents, the date (of laying down etc) or the claimed quality..  By the early-mid nineteenth century the meaning had broadened to emphasise “a particular make of goods”, divorced from a particular single item and the term “brand-name” appears first to have been used in 1889, something significant in the development of the valuable commodity of “brand-loyalty” although that seems not to have been an acknowledged concept in marketing until 1961.  The idea of “brand new” is based on the (not always accurate) notion a brand was the last thing to be applied to a product before it left the factory.

BMC ADO16 brands, clockwise from top left: Wolseley 1300, Riley Kestrel 1300, MG 1300, Austin 1300 GT, Morris 1100 and Vanden Plas Princess 1300.

The British Motor Corporation's (BMC) ADO16 (Austin Drawing Office design 16) was produced between 1962-1974 and was a great success domestically and in many export markets, more than two million sold in 1.1 & 1.3 litre form.  The Austin & Morris brands made up the bulk of the production but versions by Wolseley, Riley, MG & Vanden Plas versions were at various times available.  All were almost identically mechanically with the brand differentiation restricted to the interior trim and the frontal panels.  This was the high (or low) point of the UK industry's “badge engineering”.  The abbreviation ADO is still sometimes said to stand for “Amalgamated Drawing Office”, a reference to the 1952 creation of BMC when the Austin & Morris design & engineering resources were pooled.  Like many such events subsequently, the amalgamation was more a “takeover” than a “merger” and the adoption of “Austin Drawing Office” reflected the priorities and loyalties of Leonard Lord (later Lord Lambury, 1896–1967), the former chairman of Austin who was appointed to head the conglomerate.  The appearance of “Amalgamated Drawing Office” appears to be a creation of the internet age, the mistake still circulating.

US market 1964 MG Princess 1100 brochure.  The advertising theme may have been ambitious but BMC also described MG's other US market ADO16 (a LHD (left-hand-drive) version of the home market MG 1100) as a "sports sedan" which, although legally "mere puffery", seems at least misleading.

BMC's six-brand spread for ADO16 is well-known and often used as a case-study for the way the approach should and should not be pursued.  A neglected footnote in the multi-brand ADO16’s tale was the MG Princess 1100, sold in the US between 1964-1966.  The MG Princess was the by then familiar Vanden Plas 1100 (all with a manual transmission, no automatic ever offered) modified to the extent of being adorned with an MG badges on the trunk (boot) lid and hubcaps although it must have been thought that wasn't getting the message across because in mid-1964 the octagonal symbol was added also to the Vanden Plas grill.  The rationale behind this most curious hybrid of the ADO16's many badged engineered iterations was the perception the US market would respond well to a “luxury version” of the basic vehicle (and how the US industry would handle that notion in the next two decades proved the idea was sound) but the “Vanden Plas” name  essentially was unknown in the US whereas MG had strong “brand recognition” because of the post-war success of first the updated pre-war “square riggers” (the TC, TD & TF (1945-1955)) and the later MGA (1955-1962), Midget (1961-1979) & MGB (1962-1980) sports cars.  Thus the MG Princess 1100, introduced in February 1964 at the New York Motor Show, but while the sports cars continued to enjoy strong demand, BMC shifted a paltry 156 units of the MG Princess and in 1966 the model was withdrawn from the US market.  As the Austin America, the ADO16 would later be sold in the US between 1968-1972; it was not a great success.

Since the beginnings of mass-production made possible by powered industrial processes and the ability to distribute manufactured stuff world-wide, brand-names have become (1) more prevalent and (2) not of necessity as distinctive as once they were.  Historically, in commerce, a brand was an indication of something unique but as corporations became conglomerates they tended to accumulate brands (sometimes with no other purpose than ceasing production in order to eliminate competition) and over time, it was often tempting to reduce costs by ceasing separate development and simply applying a brand to an existing line, hoping the brand loyalty would be sufficient to overlook the cynicism.  The British car manufactures in the 1950s use the idea to maintain brand presence without the expense of developing unique products and while originally some brand identity was maintained with the use of unique mechanical components or coachwork while using a common platform, by the late 1960s the system had descended to what came to be called “badge engineering”, essentially identical products sold under various brand-names, the differences restricted to minor variations in trim and, of course, the badge.

Grounds of the Mercedes-Benz factory decorated in honor of a visit to Stuttgart by Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), the display visible from his aircraft (1936, top left), a Mercedes-Benz showroom in Munich, Lenbachplaz (1935, top right) and 1938 Mercedes-Benz W125 Rekordwagen (bottom).  Although, tucked away in a corner of the corporate website there is a single page which contains a rather perfunctory acknowledgement of company’s complicity in some of the crimes against humanity committed by the Nazi regime between 1933-1939 there’s little attempt to discuss the matter, an understandable reticence and quite a gap in the otherwise extensively documented history which dates back to 1886 with the debut of what is claimed to be the world’s “first automobile”.  Brand-management can be as much about what is left unsaid or hidden as what is projected. 

When used in events other straight-line speed record attempts (ie where corners needed to be negotiated) the streamlined version of the W125 Formel-Rennwagen (race car built in accord with defined rules) didn’t use the spats (fender-skirts) covering the wheels.  It was used thus on Berlin’s high-speed Avusrennen with its two, uniquely long straights and differed from the conventional W125 in that it was powered by V12 engine rather than the usual big-bore straight-eight, the lower hood (bonnet) line further reducing drag.  Fitted with the spats, W125 Rekordwagen (record car) was used in 1938 to achieve a speed of 432.7 km/h (269 mph) over the flying kilometre, then the fastest timed speed achieved on a public road and a record which stood until 2017.  It’s now on display in the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, although, the swastika with which it was once adorned has been removed from the aluminum skin (displays of the swastika banned in Germany except as authorized).

Australia Day vs Invasion Day: The case for a re-brand

Although it came to be known as “Australia’s national day” and in some form or other had been celebrated or at last marked since the early nineteenth century, as a large-scale celebration (with much flag waving) it has been a thing only since the 1988 bi-centennial of white settlement.  What the day commemorated was the arrival in 1788 in what is now Sydney of the so-called “First Fleet” of British settlers, the raising of the Union Flag the first event of legal significance in what ultimately became the claiming of the continental land-mass by the British crown.  Had that land been uninhabited, things good and bad would anyway have happened but in 1788, what became the Commonwealth of Australia was home to the descendants of peoples who had been in continuous occupation sine first arriving up to 50,000 years earlier (claims the history extends a further 10,000 remain unsupported by archaeological evidence); conflict was inevitable and conflict there was, the colonial project a violent and bloody business, something the contemporary records make clear was well understood at the time but which really entered modern consciousness only in recent decades.

What the colonial authorities did was invoke the legal principle of terra nullius (from the Latin terra nūllīus (literally “nobody's land”)) which does not mean “land inhabited by nobody” but “land not owned by anyone”.  The rational for that was the view the local population had no concept of land “ownership” and certainly no “records” or “title deeds” as they would be understood in English law.  Given that, not only did the various tribes not own the land but they had no system under which they could own land; thus the place could be declared terra nullis.  Of late, some have devoted much energy to justifying all that on the basis of “prevailing standards” and “accepted law” but even at the time there were those in London who were appalled at what was clearly theft on a grand scale, understanding that even if the indigenous population didn’t understand their connection to the land and seas as “ownership” as the concept was understood in the West, what was undeniable by the 1830s when the doctrine of terra nullius was formally interpolated into colonial law was that those tribes understood what “belonged” to them and what “belonged” to other tribes.  That’s not to suggest it was a wholly peaceful culture, just that borders existed and were understood, even if sometimes transgressed.  Thus the notion that 26 January should better be understood as “Invasion Day” and what is more appropriate than a celebration of a blood-soaked expropriation of a continent is there should be a treaty between the colonial power (and few doubt that is now the Australian government) and the descendants of the conquered tribes, now classified as “first nations”.  Although the High Court of Australia in 1992 overturned the doctrine of terra nullius when it was recognized that in certain circumstances the indigenous peoples could enjoy concurrent property rights to land with which they could demonstrate a continuing connection, this did not dilute national sovereignty nor in any way construct the legal framework for a treaty (or treaties).

The recognition that white settlement was an inherently racist project based on theft is said by some to be a recent revelation but there are documents of the colonial era (in Australia and elsewhere in the European colonial empires) which suggest there were many who operated on a “we stole it fair and square” basis and many at the time probably would not have demurred from the view 26 January 1788 was “Invasion Day” and that while it took a long time, ultimately that invasion succeeded.  Of course, elsewhere in the British Empire, other invasions also proved (militarily) successful but usually these conflicts culminated in a treaty, however imperfect may have the process and certainly the consequences.  In Australia, it does seem there is now a recognition that wrong was done and a treaty is the way to offer redress.  That of course is a challenging path because, (1) as the term “first nations” implies, there may need to be dozens (or even hundreds according to the count of some anthropologists) of treaties and (2) the result will need to preserve the indivisible sovereignty of the Commonwealth of Australia, something which will be unpalatable to the most uncompromising of the activists because it means that whatever the outcome, it will still be mapped onto the colonial model.

As the recent, decisive defeat of a referendum (which would have created an constitutionally entrenched Indigenous advisory body) confirmed, anything involving these matters is contentious and while there are a number of model frameworks which could be the basis for negotiating treaties, the negotiating positions which will emerge as “the problems” are those of the most extreme 1% (or some small number) of activists whose political positions (and often incomes) necessitate an uncompromising stance.  Indeed, whatever the outcome, it’s probably illusory to imagine anything can be solved because there are careers which depend on there being no solution and it’s hard to envisage any government will be prepared to stake scare political capital on a venture which threatens much punishment and promises little reward.  More likely is a strategy of kicking the can down the road while pretending to be making progress; many committees and boards of enquiry are likely to be in our future and, this being a colonial problem, the most likely diversion on that road will be a colonial fix.

One obvious colonial fix would be a double re-branding exercise.  The New Year’s Day public holiday could be shifted from 1 January to December 31 and re-branded “New Year’s Eve Holiday”, about the only practical change being that instead of the drinking starting in the evening it can begin early in the day (which for many it doubtless anyway does).  Australia Day could then be marked on 1 January and could be re-branded to “Constitution Day” although given the history that too might be found objectionable.  Still, the date is appropriate because it was on 1 January 1901 the country and constitution came into existence as a consequence of an act of the Imperial Parliament, subsequently validated by the parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia (an institution created by the London statute).  It’s the obvious date to choose because that was the point of origin of the sovereign state although in the narrow technical sense, true sovereignty was attained only in steps (such as the Statute of Westminster (1931)), the process not complete until simultaneously both parliaments passed their respective Australia Acts (1986).  The second re-branding would be to call 26 January “Treaty Day” although the actual date is less important than the symbolism of the name and Treaty Day could be nominated as the day on which a treaty between the First Nations and the Commonwealth could be signed.  The trick would be only to name 26 January as the date of the signing, the year a function of whenever the treaty negotiations are complete.  The charm of this approach is the can can be kicked down the road for the foreseeable future.  Any colonial administrator under the Raj would have recognized this fix.

Caprice

Caprice (pronounced kuh-prees)

(1) A sudden, unpredictable change, as of one's mind or the weather.

(2) A tendency to change one's mind without apparent or adequate motive; whimsicality; capriciousness; a disposition to be impulsive.

(3) In music, as capriccio, a term for a kind of free composition.

(4) A brief (and hopefully torrid) romance; a fling

(5) A model name used by General Motors (GM) in several markets.

1660-1670: From the French caprice (whim) & capricieux (whimsical), from the Italian capriccioso from capriccio (a shivering), possibly from capro (goat), from the Latin capreolus (wild goat).  Another theory, drawn from folk etymology, connects the Italian compound capo (head) + riccio (hedgehog) suggesting a convulsive shudder in which the hair stood on end like a hedgehog's spines.  The application in musical composition to describe a kind of free composition dates from the 1690s, the sense drawn from the Italian capriccio (the music characterized by a “sudden start or motion”); earlier it meant "a prank, a trick".  The closest synonym is probably whim but vagary, notion, fancy & fling can, depending on context, summon a similar meaning.  An act of caprice differs from a fiat in that the latter, although it may be arbitrary, is an authoritative sanction issued by those vested with a certain legal authority.  The descendents include the Danish kaprice, the German Caprice and the Romanian: capriciu.  Caprice & capriciousness are nouns, capricious is an adjective and capriciously is an adverb; the noun plural is caprices.

Infamously capricious in her youth, Lindsay Lohan is now a mature and responsible mother.

Ford, and the rest of the industry, learned much from the Edsel debacle of the late 1950s.  Although unlucky to be launched into the teeth of the worst recession of the post-war boom, mistakes in conception, design and production had been many and may anyway have been enough to kill the thing.  The lessons learned had been expensive, depending on the source, a loss between US$250-300 million is usually quoted and that was at a time when a million dollars was a lot of money although how much of that loss was real or a product of taking advantage of accounting rules has never been clear.  None of the most expensive aspects to design and build (1) engine, (2) transmission, (3) suspension, (4) body platforms and (5) assembly plant production lines were unique to the Edsel, all being shared variously with other Ford, Mercury and Lincoln models; surprisingly little was exclusive to the Edsel, indeed that sameness was one of the complaints about a car which Ford had puffed-up as “all new”.  That essentially left interior and exterior trim, body panels, marketing and the distribution network to pay for.  Ford certainly lost a lot of money on the Edsel but perhaps not quite as much as the books suggest.  Still, it was a big loss and the corporate capriciousness wasn’t repeated in the 1960s.  The Edsel had been a bad implementation of a sound concept: a spread of brand-identities across a market with a wide price-spread so a corporation can achieve economies of scale using many of the same resources to produce products which to compete both at the low-end on cost-breakdown and in segments where prestige or exclusivity matters.  Ford’s notion was that General Motors (GM) and Chrysler were at the time better able to cover the market because both had more brand-names, GM having five: Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick & Cadillac as did Chrysler: Plymouth, Dodge, De Soto, Chrysler & Imperial.  Ford had only three: Ford, Mercury & Lincoln (the short-lived Continental Division (1956-1957) a failure).

Thus the attraction of adding another, an idea which worked well with products like washing powder although, in the auto industry, costs tended to be higher and the model wasn’t essential to cover a broad market, Mercedes-Benz for decades successfully using the one brand for diesel taxis, trucks small and large, Formula One racing cars and cars up to the grandest limousines.  Indeed, the idea by Daimler-Benz to resurrect adopt the long moribund Maybach name to sit atop the range was a failure, reflecting the misunderstanding by the MBA-types involved of the value of the Mercedes-Benz brand which had been acceptable for kings, queens, popes, presidents and potentates.  Only salesmen with no background would think dotcom millionaires and the other newly-rich would be more attracted to Maybach than Mercedes.  Another brand might not have been a bad idea but Maybach should have been positioned as a platform for the front wheel drive and other categories which, frankly have only devalued the three-pointed star; while some have been good cars, they simply were not Mercedes-Benz as they once were understood. 

Nor is the idea infinitely scalable.  GM at one time had nine divisions and the pattern evolved that the brand names tend to appear in times of economic buoyancy (al la Edsel) and disappear during or after recessions (Edsel & De Soto after 1958; Imperial after the first oil shock, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Mercury and Plymouth in the wake of the global financial crisis from 2008).  So, while the 1960s were about the most buoyant years yet, Ford didn’t repeat quite the mistake though they certainly repeated one aspect of the Edsel debacle although the implications of that wouldn’t play out for decades.

1965 Ford LTD.

In 1965, Ford reverted to the business model which had worked in pre-Edsel times and introduced the LTD as an up-market option for their full-sized Galaxie.  It seemed a good idea at the time and it was, the option proving popular with customers and lucrative for Ford, the option package costing about US$175 to install yet it added some US$335 to the sticker price and the psychology of turning the mainstream Ford into a “luxury car” seemed also to exert a pull on the buyers’ wallets because it was possible to work through the option list and add some 30% to the bottom line.  Unlike most Galaxie customers, LTD buyers were inclined to tick the boxes.  Even at the time, although generally impressed with the thing (and in fairness to Ford much attention had been devoted to some basic engineering to ensure it was quieter and smoother than before), reviewers did ponder quite what the effect of moving a Ford up-market would be on the companion Mercury Division, positioned since 1938 as up-market from Ford, yet well short of Lincoln.  The corporation aimed to solve that problem by maintaining some differentiation between the two brands and to some degree this worked for decades but eventually the point of maintaining three distinct layers had ceased to have value for Ford and in 2011 Mercury was shuttered.

1965 Ford LTD.

The LTD (it apparently meant “Lincoln Type Design” and not “Limited”) did though have quite an effect on the completion with the entry level ranges of others soon augmented with similar options.  Chevrolet called their effort the “Caprice”, Plymouth, like Ford” preferred a TLA (three letter acronym) and opted for “VIP” while AMC used “DLP” which apparently stood for “Diplomat”.  Of them all, only the Caprice and the LTD endured but the concept overtook the industry which switched increasingly to adding variations of their basic models with as many “luxury” fittings added as the budget would permit.  There were critics at the time who criticized all this as “gingerbread” but buyers responded and soon tufted, pillowed upholstery in crushed velour or even leather could be had in even the most humble showrooms.  A popular name for such models was “Brougham”, borrowed from a nineteenth century horse-drawn carriage named after a member of the UK’s House of Lords and even if most weren’t aware of the etymology, they knew it sounded suitably aristocratic which was all that mattered.  What came in retrospect to be known as the “brougham era” lasted into the 1980s.

1969 Chevrolet Caprice four-door hardtop.

While never the biggest sellers, dealers liked to have four-door hardtops on display because of the perception they generated showroom traffic and although the collector market prefers two-doors (especially convertibles), the four-door hardtops were often Detroit’s most ascetically successful coachwork for full-sized cars.  In 1969, Chevrolet restricted the Caprice range to two & four door hardtops because the more elaborate interior trim (compared to the cheaper Biscayne, Bel Air & Impala) was more susceptible to sun damage which precluded offering a convertible.  That may have been the reason why in the same era some European manufacturers switched from timber veneer to leather for some vulnerable surfaces in a few convertibles although the published explanations were sometime different.  Improvements in the durability of materials meant that when the revised range was released in 1973, a convertible Caprice was added to the range.

1981 Holden WB Caprice.

Holden, the General Motors operation in Australia began selling their own Caprice in 1974.  In the usual way it was a more elaborately-appointed version of an existing model and in GM tradition replaced an existing badge as the top-of-the-range, the Statesman de Ville relegated to become the entry-level of the long-wheelbase cars, the basic Statesman (always aimed at the hire-car business) retired, mirroring Ford which dropped its Fairlane Custom and, added the Marquis (a name borrowed from Mercury) as a Caprice competitor atop the Fairlane 500.  The early Statesman & Caprice never quite matched the appeal of the competition but it did go out in surprisingly fine style, the WB range (1980-1984) a remarkably successful re-styling of the HQ-HJ-HX-HZ platform (1971-1980) which endured for almost half a decade after the smaller, Opel-based Commodore had replaced the mainstream models.  Developed in unusual secrecy, Holden were miffed to learn Ford’s ZJ Fairlane & FC LTD (released in 1979) had beaten them to the market by six months and included the additional side window they’d hoped would make such a splash on the WB.  Instead, they made much of the Caprice having a grill made from steel.  Not that long before, all grills had been made from steel but most had long switched to extruded plastic so to have one genuinely hand-assembled in steel was a point of differentiation although the public response was muted.  Despite the age of the platform, the attention to the underpinnings which began to be taken seriously after 1977 meant the thing was a capable, if thirsty road car and among the dedicated customer base, there was genuine regret when production ended in 1984.  In 1990, Holden revived the name for a stretched Commodore (some of which were even exported to the US and the Middle East to be sold as Chevrolets) and production continued until the Australian operation was shuttered in 2017.

Simonize

Simonize (pronounced sahy-muh-nahyz)

(1) To polish the exposed surfaces of an automobile (specifically using Simoniz brand products; later used generically).

(2) To shine or polish something to a high sheen, especially with wax.

Circa 1921: A creation of US English meaning "polish by the application of Simoniz wax”, from Simoniz, the registered trademark for a brand of car polish invented by George Simons who, in association with Elmer Rich of the Great Northern Railway, in 1910 formed the Simons Manufacturing Company (Chicago) to produce and sell the products.  The construct was Simoniz + “e”, the addition an emulation of the –ize prefix  Said to have been in oral use since circa 1921, lexicographers began to add simonize (as a verb with the noted meaning) to dictionaries in 1935.   In the English-speaking world, the word often appeared (outside North America) as simonise.  Simonize, simonized & simonizing are verbs.

The –ize suffix was from the Middle English -isen, from the Middle French -iser, from the Medieval Latin -izō, from the Ancient Greek -ίζω (-ízō), from the primitive Indo-European verbal suffix -idyé-.  It was cognate with other verbal suffixes including the Gothic -itjan, the Old High German –izzen and the Old English -ettan (verbal suffix).  It was used to form verbs from nouns or adjectives which (1) make what is denoted by the noun or adjective & (2) do what is denoted by the noun or adjective.  The alternative form is –ise.  Historically, the –ize suffix was used on words originating from Greek while –ise was preferred (most prevalently as -vise, -tise, -cise and –prise) on words derived from various roots, many of which entered English via French.  In the nineteenth century, under the influence of French literature, in the UK and other parts of the British Empire, -ise often replaced –ize even when there was a long tradition of the latter’s use.  The authoritative Oxford English Dictionary (OED) never changed its spellings which meant that throughout the Empire (and later the Commonwealth), both forms appeared and before the advent of spell-checkers (which ensured that at least within a given document there was consistency) use was mixed although, under the Raj and beyond, India tended to stick to –ise.  The –ize has always been the preferred form in North America.

Spa day service station, Connecticut Avenue. Washington DC, September 1940 (left) and Kimble Garage and Gas, Harrison Street, Fort Wayne, Indiana, circa 1937.

Although the verb simonize rapidly came to mean (in a generic sense) “to shine or polish something to a high sheen, especially with wax”, one of the early conditions imposed to permit the advertising of “Simonizing” as a service was the exclusive use of genuine Simoniz brand products.  So, the “Simonizing” bay was where one's car was taken to be simonized with Simoniz Wax (and other of the brands products) while if in the “Lubritory”, one's car would be lubricated which meant changing the oil as required (engine, gearbox, differential) and greasing the many lubrication points.  Although “one-shot lubrication” systems (a central reservoir of grease which, active by a lever or plunger, delivered a measured shot of grease to various chassis points) began to appear in some more expensive cars in the mid-1920s, it never became universal and by the late 1960s had been almost wholly replaced by the use of sealed, permanently lubricated components.

One reason companies registered trademarks used to be a wish to control the use of the name, businesses wishing to prevent their exclusive brand becoming so popular it came to be used to describe, and to some extent even define, all similar products.  The process was called genericide by the experts in business and marketing, the idea being that in becoming a generic term, some of the value invested in the product and its name was transferred to competitors.  The classic example was the vacuum cleaner made by Hoover, the word catching on to the extent that within years, just about all vacuuming came to be called “hoovering”, regardless of the manufacturer of the device doing the sucking.  The problem was that while trademark holders could restrict their use by corporations, what the public did was beyond their control and language just evolved by popular use.

The early Xerox photocopiers were always advertised as devices to be used by women.

The literature often cites Xerox as an example of the problem of the public perception of a corporation being defined in their imagination by its best known product.  The phrase “xerox it” had by the late 1960s become the default expression meaning “photocopy it” and was of concern to the corporation because they feared their differentiation in the market place would be lost.  Time however change and now, Microsoft would doubtless be delighted if “bing it” became as much a term of everyday speech as “google it”.  That is of course a little different because “Bing” is one of Microsoft’s many trademarks rather than the corporate name but the modern view now generally is that the public “verbing-up” a trademark is a very good thing and an easy way to extend the prized “brand awareness”.

The perfect secretary did much "xeroxing" but according to Xerox, would never say "xerox it".

Twitter’s case is a variation on the theme and a case study on how such matters must be managed.  The verb form “to tweet” became a verb through popular use which induced Twitter to trademark the term in 2009.  From there, the company announced they would not seek to restrict its use by third parties using “tweet” for Twitter-related services and apps but warned they would seek both injunctive relief and damages were there evidence of a “confusing or damaging project” to “to protect both our users our brand."  What Twitter wanted to do was ensure “tweet” was used in a way beneficial and not detrimental to them.

The Great Crash of 2005

Crashed and towed, Los Angeles, 2005.

In October 2005, Lindsay Lohan went for a drive in her Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG roadster.  It didn’t end well.  Based on the R230 (2001-2011) platform, the SL 65 AMG was produced between 2004-2012, all versions rated in excess of 600 horsepower, something perhaps not a wise choice for someone with no background handling such machinery though it could have been worse, the factory building 400 (175 for the US market, 225 for the RoW (rest of the world)) of the even more powerful SL 65 Black Series, the third occasion since 1954 a SL was offered without a soft-top and the second time one had been configured with a permanent fixed-roof.  A production number of 350 is sometimes quoted for the R230 Black Series but those maintaining registers insist it was 400.

Fixed and simonized, Texas, 2007.

By 2007, the car (still with California registration plates (5LZF057) attached) had been repaired, detailed & simonized and was being offered for sale in Texas, the odometer said to read 6207 miles (9989 km).  Bidding was said to be “healthy” so it was thought all's well that ends well but once the vehicle's provenance was brought to the attention of the repair shop, it was realized the celebrity connection might increase its value so it was advertised on eBay with more detail, including the inevitable click-bait of LiLo photographs.  However, either eBay doesn't approve of commerce profiting from the vicissitudes suffered by Hollywood starlets or they'd received a C&D (cease & desist) letter from someone's lawyers and the auction ended prematurely.  It proved a brief respite, the SL 65 soon back on eBay Motors but with the offending part of the blurb limited to "previously owned by high profile celebrity", leaving it to prospective buyers to join the dots.  According to Business Insider, the car sold for US$111,000 which was much higher than would be expected for one which had been repaired after an accident, albeit it a low-speed impact.  The R230s anyway had a complex construction and the AMG versions added even more intricacy so although it is possible to restore a damaged AMG to the state in which it left the factory, it does require both expertise and some often expensive parts.  Because of that, repaired Mercedes-Benz AMG cars trade usually at a significant discount so the amount realized was indicative of the perceived value of a celebrity association.

Label

Label (pronounced ley-buhl)

(1) A slip of paper, cloth, or other material, marked or inscribed, for attachment to something to indicate its manufacturer, nature, ownership, destination etc.

(2) A short word or phrase descriptive of a person, group, intellectual movement etc.

(3) A word or phrase indicating that what follows belongs in a particular category or classification.

(4) In architecture, a molding or dripstone over a door or window, especially one that extends horizontally across the top of the opening and vertically downward for a certain distance at the sides.  Now variously called a dripstone, label mold or hood mold.

(5) A brand or trademark, especially used by those who distribute fashion items or recorded music.

(6) In heraldry, a narrow horizontal strip with a number of downward extensions of rectangular or dovetail form, usually placed in chief as the cadency mark of an eldest son.

(7) A strip or narrow piece of anything (obsolete).

(8) In chemistry, to incorporate a radioactive or heavy isotope into (a molecule) in order to make traceable.

(9) In computing, a group of characters, such as a number or a word, appended to a particular statement in a program to allow its unique identification.

(10) In English common law, an alternative name for codicil, meaning to amend or append (both now at least obscure, probably obsolete).

1275-1325: From the Middle English label (narrow band, strip of cloth), from the Old English læppa (skirt, flap of a garment), from the Old French label, lambel & lambel (ribbon, strip of cloth, fringe worn on clothes), from the Old Frankish labba (torn piece of cloth), from the Proto-Germanic lappǭ & lappô (cloth stuff, rag, scraps, flap, dewlap, lobe, rabbit ear) from the primitive Indo-European leb (blade).  The word became lambeau (strip, rag, shred, tatter) in Modern French and etymologists suggest there was (with a diminutive suffix) influence from the Frankish labba or some other Germanic source (such as the Old High German lappa (flap), from the Proto-Germanic lapp- (used to form words for loose cloth etc).

The oldest use was the technical term in heraldry ((6) above).  By the late fifteenth century, use had extended to dangling strips of cloth which would now be called ribbons, used as an ornament in dress or the strip attached to a document to hold a seal.  The modern meaning "tag, sticker, slip of paper" dates from the 1670s; the figurative sense of "to categorize" from 1853.  As used to describe the circular paper glued to the center of gramophone records, use began in 1907, less than for years after mass-production began and the record companies came to be known as “record labels” after 1947.  As a verb in the sense of "to affix a label to", use date from circa 1600 ahile the figurative sense of "to categorize" is from 1853 when used in the novel discipline of sociology.  The related forms are labeled, labeling (or labelling) & labelled.

Labelling Theory

A sociological theory of symbolic interactionism, labelling theory’s origins can be traced to the later work of Émile Durkheim, a seminal figure in the discipline.  It suggests attaching a label to someone influences them to behave in conformity with the label.  Sociologists prefer to write with big words and double negatives but one did offer a simplified description of the theory as “…a specific instance of phenomenology.  The theory hypothesizes that if labels are applied to people, especially stigmatizing labels which encapsulate a societal disapprobation of deviation from the construct of the acceptable, this will tend to promote deviant behavior, becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.”  By sociology’s standards of constructed complexity, that was good because it could be understood unlike some of the dense, difficult stuff in the journals although, with the dumbing-down of higher education in the late twentieth century, it became increasingly a discussion among academics.

Not surprisingly, the early work attracted the attention of criminologists who concentrated on the implications of labelling inducing behavior which conformed to the label although, there was nothing in the theory, once deconstructed, which precluded labelling compelling behavior with which an individual could attempt to disprove the label.  For the behavioralists, either was a type of linguistic determinism; it mattered not the direction in which behavior changed.  Few theories in the social sciences have been so criticized on the basis of the perception of structural bias and, given the obvious limitations imposed on any research, it must be acknowledged labelling theory may appear to be inseparable from a political agenda.  Despite the criticisms, labelling theory did contribute to critiques of the treatment of minorities and the way power-elites used constructs of deviance as one of the means with which assert social and economic control.

Sociology seemed a good idea at the time, left to right:  Auguste Comte (1798-1857), Émile Durkheim (1858-1917) and Max Weber (1864-1920).

1927 Bentley 3-Litre (speed model) Red label Sports Roadster (chassis # TN1559).  

Bentley (then a separate operation from Rolls-Royce) produced the 3 Litre model between 1921-1929.  Although there was the odd one-off, the factory offered the 3 Litre in three variants (1) the Blue label which was the standard touring car available in short (SWB, 117.5 in (2,984 mm) add long (130.0 in (3,302 mm)) wheelbase (LWB) forms, the latter introduced in 1923, (2) the more powerful SWB Red label (speed model) made between 1924-1929 and (3), the rare, highly tuned Green label, production of which ran in parallel with the Red label and was offered only on a 108 in (2,743 mm) wheelbase chassis with a factory guarantee that 100 mph (161 km/h) was attainable.  Bentley has on occasion since used the color label scheme for model differentiation.

Johnny Walker formalized their red & black (more have since been added) labels in 1909 although the company had been selling its blends since 1865 with white (soon discontinued) and later red and black labels although the official names were Old Highland Whisky (with a white label), Special Old Highland Whisky (with a red label) and Extra Special Old Highland Whisky (with a black label).  It was reports from retailers that customers seldom used the product name and asked for “the one with the black label” or “the one with the red label” which convinced the distillery to re-label.

Mercedes-Maybach Study, Tokyo Motor Show, 1997, the design concept for what became the doomed Maybach.  Had it been sold as a top-of-the-line Mercedes-Benz it was, it might have been a success.

The concept of "designer label" is very old and evidence of the concept predates antiquity but the connotations of the word "label" as something exclusive or highly priced has probably been understood in its broad commercial sense only since the mid-nineteenth century.  In the narrow technical sense all brands can be considered labels but low-priced, mass-market commodities are rarely considered labels in that particular sense of the word.  There is the odd brand which successfully straddles entire cost spectrums and one used to be Mercedes-Benz, the label applied to everything from diesel taxis, trucks small and large, sports cars, grand prix machines and limousines.  It was a rare example of a prestigious label which didn't have its reputation tarnished by an association with lower priced products and for decades this was understood by the engineers who ran things.  Unfortunately, in the 1990s the company fell into the hands of salesmen, MBAs and such types who, skilled in the marketing of soft drinks and washing power, decided what was needed was a more prestigious brand to sit above Mercedes-Benz.  That was what Toyota did when it created Lexus and there it made sense but for Mercedes-Benz it made no sense at all to suggest that the brand which had been good enough for royalty, popes, dictators and major figures in organized crime was just not sufficiently prestigious.  Using the Maybach name was about as dopy as the concept given few people alive knew the brand nor its hardly illustrious history.  As a machine, the Maybach was a good piece of engineering and though visually undistinguished, the designers really can't be blamed; wind tunnels are dictatorial.  As a label vis-à-vis Mercedes-Benz however, it represented a misunderstanding of the market by those who purported to be experts in such things.  Mercedes-Benz is still recovering from the damage done by the MBAs.

Lindsay Lohan in sweater with her own visage emblazoned in sequins, created by UK fashion label Ashish, London 2014.

Vagina & Vulva

Vagina (pronounced vuh-jahy-nuh)

(1) In anatomy & zoology, in many female mammals, the moist, tube-shaped canal part of the reproductive tract which runs from the cervix of the uterus through the vulva (technically between the labia minora) to the outside of the body.

(2) In botany, the sheath formed by the basal part of certain leaves where they embrace the stem.

(3) A sheath-like part or organ (now rare even in technical literature).

(4) In colloquial (and now general) use, the vulva, or the vulva and vaginal passage collectively.

(5) In derogatory colloquial use, an un-masculine man; a weakling (now rare, “pussy” the preferred modern term).

1675-1685: A creation of Medical Latin, a learned borrowing of the Latin vāgīna.  As used in anatomy, the seventeenth century coining was a specialized application of the Latin vāgīna (a sheath, scabbard; a covering, holder; sheath of an ear of grain, hull, husk) of uncertain origin, the suggestion by some etymologists it may have been cognate with the Lithuanian vožiu & vožti (to cover with a hollow thing) dismissed by others as “speculative” or even “gratuitous proposal”.  The use in medicine is exclusive to modern science, the Latin word not used thus during Antiquity.  Vagina is a noun, vaginal & vaginalike are adjectives, vaginally is an adverb; the noun plural is vaginas or vaginae (the old spelling vaginæ is effectively extinct); the part of the anatomy used for copulation & childbirth in female mammals and a similar organ exists in some invertebrates.

NoToe's “NOTOE Cameltoe Proof Thong” solution.

Borrowed from zoology, “cameltoe” is popular modern slang which specifically references the vulva's labia majora, comparing the bifurcated (at certain angles) appearance with the even-toed hoof of a camel, the hooves of the ungulate mammals (known as Artiodactyls) an adaptation to the typically loose, sandy environment in which they evolved.  The slang form (also as camel toe & camel-toe) was re-purposed as “Cameltoe Harris”, a derogatory reference to Kamala Harris (b 1964; VPOTUS 2021-2025), use seemingly dating from 2015 while she was serving in California as attorney-general.  The bifurcation intrinsic to the “cameltoe” inspired the vulgar slang “veavage”, the construct being v(aginal) + (cl)eavage and the user-generated Urban Dictionary has an entry from 2010 but it didn’t catch on and veavage has since been re-purposed.  Just as in many fields where “there’s an app for that”, for those wishing to avoid the look, “there are knickers for that”.  Brisbane-based Australian operation NoToe's Cameltoe Proof Thong is made with “a Nylon/Spandex blend”, the design said to be “…breathable, seamless, tagless and roll-free thanks to its silicone grip.  And of course, it's cameltoe proof!”  In addition to removing the cameltoe, the thong also eliminates the dreaded VPL (visible panty line) and the product is “Designed Down Under for Down Under.”  One more gap in the market has been filled so that's good.

A damp Lindsay Lohan demonstrates the “cameltoe” look, Los Angeles, 2009.

The vluva and vagina have for centuries attracted the coining of slang terms, not all of them derogatory.  In idiomatic use “vaginamoney” is (often embittered) slang for alimony, child support etc, money paid by men to ex-partners after the sundering of a relationship.  One slang form which may not survive is "hairy check book" (cheque book outside the US) because (1) checks are declining in use and (2) body-hair fashions have changed.  In psychiatry, the condition vaginaphobic describes “a fear of or morbid aversion to vaginas) and vaginaphile (an admiration for vaginas) is listed by only some dictionaries which is surprising given authors are so often given to write about them and painters are drawn to painting them (in the sense of oil on canvas etc although there’s doubtless a niche for applying paint directly).  Dating from 1908, the term “vagina dentata” entered psychiatry and its popularization is usually attributed Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) although this perception may be attributable to Freud’s works being better known and more widely read, the term used by many in the profession.  The Latin vagina dentata (toothed vagina) referenced the folk mythology in which a woman's vagina contained teeth, the implication being a consequence of sex might be emasculation or at least severe injury.  The tale was also used as a warning about having sex with unknown women and as a way of discouraging rape.  The vivid imagery of a vagina dentata (in somewhat abstract form) was used by the US military as a warning about the dangers of STIs (sexually transmitted infection (once known as sexually transmitted diseases (STD) & VD (venereal disease).  Some writers have speculated on what this revealed about Freud and his much discussed understanding of women.

Vulva (pronounced vuhl-vuh)

(1) The external female genitalia of female mammals (including the labia, mons veneris, clitoris and vaginal orifice.

(2) In helminthology, a protrusion on the side of a nematode (multivulva used to describe a phenotype of nematode characterized by multiple vulvas).

(3) In arachnology, the spermatheca and associated ducts of the female reproductive system (also known as internal epigyne or internal genitalia).

(4) An internal genital structure in female millipedes (known also as the cyphopod).

Late 1300s: A learned borrowing from the Latin vulva, from the earlier volva (womb, female sexual organ) (perhaps in the literal sense of a “wrapper”), from volvere (to turn, twist, roll, revolve (also “turn over in the mind”)), probably from volvō (to turn, to roll, to wrap around), from the primitive Indo-European root wel- (to turn, revolve), the derivatives referring to curved, enclosing objects.  In the 1970s, when Volvo automobiles weren’t noted for their precise handling, journalists enjoyed noted the translation of the Latin volvō as: “I roll”.   It was akin to the Sanskrit उल्ब (úlba) (womb).  The adjectives vulvalike (also vulva-like) & vulviform both describe objects or designs having the shape of a vulva.  Vulva is a noun, vulval, vulvaless, vulviform, vulvar, vulvate & vulvic are adjectives; the noun plural is vulvas, vulvae or vulvæ.

Ms Gillian Anderson’s “vagina dress”

Gillian Anderson, Golden Globes award ceremony 2024.

So much interest was generated by the dress (which the designer dubbed “vulvalicious”) that the handbag (there are those who would insist it’s a “purse”) escaped much attention which was a shame because it was a clever design.  Aquazzura’s Mini Purist Metallic Pouch blends the utilitarian function of the classic night-time mini bag with the swinging style of a shoulder bag, imagined as a semi-circle.  What the adjustable silver shoulder strap afforded was the choice of it being carried off the shoulder or, if removed, used as a conventional handbag, the hard golden top handle folding from the base.  The semi-circle is of course a less than efficient shape for a handbag (or purse) in the sense of a "storage device" but it gives the stylists a nice curve with which to work.  

There’s nothing novel in the critical deconstruction of what appears on red carpets but the dress worn by actor Gillian Anderson (b 1968) at the 2024 Golden Globe ceremony also attracted the attention of word nerds.  Designed by Gabriela Hearst (b 1976), the strapless, ivory corset gown was embroidered with individually stitched embellishments in the shape of vulvas, each of which absorbed some 3½ hours of the embroider’s time.  In an allusion to her sexual wellness brand (G spot), when interviewed, Ms Anderson said she wore the piece: “…for so many reasons. It’s brand appropriate.”  The response in the press and on-line appeared to be (mostly) positive but what did attract criticism was the widespread use of “vagina” to describe the designs, a descriptor used even by Ms Anderson herself.  The more strident of the critics seemed to detect sexual politics in what they claimed was anatomical imprecision, the implication being this lack of respect for gynaecological terminology was casual misogyny: Doubts were cast anyone would dare confuse a scrotum with the testicles.

Annotated anatomical sketch (left) 1958 Edsel Citation convertible (centre) and the detail on Gabriela Hearst's gown (right).  Although Ms Anderson probably didn't give the 1958 Edsel a thought, it does illustrate why her use of "vagina" to describe the embroidered motifs is defensible.

The pedants are correct in that technically the “vulva” describes on the external portion of the genitalia that leads to the vagina; the vulva including the labia majora, labia minora, and clitoris.  The labia is also a complex structure which includes the labia majora (the thick, outer folds of skin protecting the vulva’s internal structure) and the labia minora (the thin, inner folds of skin directly above the vagina).  However, for almost a hundred years, the term “vagina” has widely been used to refer to the vulva and has come to function as a synecdoche for the entire female genitalia and so prevalent has the use become that even medical professionals use “vagina” thus unless great precision is required.  Still, given Ms Anderson’s brand is concerned with such matters, perhaps the historically correct use might have been better but the actor herself noted “…it has vaginas on it” so linguistically, her proprietorial rights should be acknowledged.

Google Ngram (a quantitative and not qualitative measure): Because of the way Google harvests data for their Ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, Ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts (typically a scanner might misread an “f” for a long “s” or a “u” for an “n”) of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI (artificial intelligence) should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.

Yonic (or or relating to or in the shape of a vulva) is analogous to phallic (relating to, or characteristic of the penis; shaped like an erect human penis (in figurative use, relating to or exhibiting masculine or patriarchal traits)) but the former is vanishingly rare compared to the latter although yoni did in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have its brief moments.  The disparity in use is quite striking and while that may not tell us much about language, it must say something about people.  For those assessing various Edsels and BMWs, the comparative is “more yonic”, the superlative “most yonic”.  Yonic was from the Sanskrit योनि (yoni) (the vulva or vagina, or a symbol of them, especially as an object of veneration) and phallic was from the Latin phallus (membrum virile, phallus, or a figure thereof), from the Ancient Greek φαλλός (phallós).

Figurative use of phallic.

Comrade Kim Jong-Un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)) since 2011) and his daughter comrade Kim Ju-ae (b circa 2013; the Supreme Leader's reputed heir apparent) attend the opening ceremony of the National Defence Revolution Museum of the Second Economic Committee, October, 2026.  The image was released by the KCNA (Korean Central News Agency), one of the planet's most energetic and productive agencies.  Like many teen-age girls, comrade Kim Ju-ae finds the phallic beauty of ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) most fetching.  This one is a Hwasong-20, sitting next to a WS51200 transporter, the largest of the WS series built by Wanshan Special Vehicles in China.  Interestingly, as far as is known, the Korean People's Army (KPA) is the only military using the WS51200, none appearing to be in service with the Chinese PLA (People’s Liberation Army) and it’s believed the DPRK obtained eight WS51200s in 2011, supplied as timber and logging transporters to evade UN sanctions.

The Edsel, the grill and the myths

1958 Edsel Citation convertible.

Although it went down in industrial history as one of capitalism’s most expensive failures, objectively, Ford Motor Corporation’s Edsel really wasn’t a dramatically worse car than the company’s companion brands Ford & Mercury.  Indeed that was one of the reasons for the failure in the market; sharing platforms, engines, transmissions, suspension and some body parts with Fords & Mercurys, the thing simply lacked sufficient product differentiation.  That sharing of components (and assembly plants; Ford sending the Edsels down the existing production lines in the same factories) also makes it hard to believe the often quoted US$300 million (between US$2.5-3 billion expressed in 2025 values) Ford booked as a loss against the abortive venture as anything but an opportunity taken by the accountants to dump all the bad news in one go, certain taxation advantages also able to be gained with this approach. 

1959 Edsel Corsair two-door hardtop.

The very existence of Edsel was owed to a system devised by Alfred P Sloan (1875–1966) while president of General Motors (GM).  Sloan is now mostly forgotten by all but students of industrial & economic history but he was instrumental in the development some of the concepts which underpinned the modern economy including frequent product changes (for no functional purpose), planned obsolescence and consumer credit.  What the "Sloan ladder" did was provide GM’s customers with a structured incremental status indicator, defined by a range of products (with substantial cross-amortization) at price points which encouraged them to “step up” to the next level as disposable income increased.  At one point, GM’s brand-range had nine rungs but the Great Depression of the 1930s necessitated some pruning and, after a cull in 1931 cut the brands to six, what eventually emerged after 1940 was a five rung system which would be sustained until the twenty-first century: Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick & Cadillac.  In the 1950s, when the US economy enjoyed the unusual conjunction of rising incomes, stable prices and a remarkably (by both historic and contemporary standards) small disparity between the wealth of rich and poor, this produced the swelling middle class which was the target market for most consumer products and certainly those on the Sloan ladder.  Ford had in 1938 added a rung when the Mercury brand was spliced between Ford and Lincoln but in the mid 1950s, the MBAs convinced the company the Sloan system was the key to GM’s lead in the market and they too re-structured the company’s products into five rungs: Ford, Mercury, Edsel, Lincoln & Continental.  Actually, in a harbinger, the loss-making Continental Division lasted barely two seasons, folded into Lincoln before the Edsel debuted for the 1958 model year but the MBAs kept the faith.

1958 Edsel (left) and 1958 Oldsmobile (right).  One can see why someone at Time magazine thought of "an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon".

That faith turned out to be misplaced although in fairness to them, the circumstances in 1958 were unfortunate, a short but sharp recession shocking consumers who had become accustomed to growth and stability, believing that such unpleasantness belonged to the pre-war past.  The Edsel never recovered.  Although sales in 1958 were disappointing, given the state of the economy, it could have been worse but Ford’s market research (focus groups a thing even then) had identified problems and in response toned down the styling and moved the brand down-market, notionally to sit between Ford & Mercury, a gap which in retrospect didn’t exist.  Sales dropped that year by about a third and the writing was on the wall although, surprising many, a pared-down Edsel range was released for 1960 using Ford’s re-styled bodies but not many were fooled and fewer than 3000 left the factory before late in 1959 the end of the brand quietly 

1960 Edsel Ranger Sedan.

By 1960, the Edsel really was a "gorped-up" (a certain type of bling before that term came into vogue) Ford and the 34 days it was in production happened only to fulfil contractual obligations and avoid tiresome legal proceedings.  In little more than two years, Edsel went from "too much, too soon", to "too little, too late".  Although the 1960 Edsels are among the rarest of the breed (there were for example only 76 1960 Edsel Ranger convertibles), prices in the collector market are not especially high with the 1958 models preferred because the styling was "peak Edsel" (with all that implies).  Despite that, within the Edsel community, there are dark rumors of 1960 convertibles being "faked", something technically not difficult because of the structural similarities with Ford's Sunliner. 

Although it began as something more than a gorped-up Ford, the Edsel wasn't that much more and it failed because for such a hyped product it was a disappointment and in that it can be compared to something like the administration of Barack Obama (b 1961; POTUS (US president) 2009-2017).  Barack Obama was not a bad president and he didn’t lead a bad government, indeed most objective analysts rate his term as “above average” (the perhaps biased Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) dissenting from this view) but he disappointed because he promised so much, the soaring rhetoric (“highfalutin nonsense” as the press baron Lord Beaverbrook (1879-1964) would have put it) offering hope and change never realized.  Still, President Obama did receive the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize "for not being George W Bush" (George XLIII, b 1946; POTUS 2001-2009) so there was that.  There was also the Edsel’s styling.  There was much clumsiness in the detailing (although almost the whole US industry was similarly afflicted in 1958) but the single most polarizing aspect was the vertical grill assembly, controversial not because it was a regression to something which had become unfashionable in the “longer, lower, wider” era but because of the shape which to some suggested a woman’s vulva.  Some used the words “vagina” or “genitalia” but in those more polite times some publications were reluctant to use such words in print and preferred to suggest the grill resembled a “horse collar” or “toilet seat” although the latter was (literally) a bit of a stretch and anyway already used of some of the trunk (boot) lids on Chryslers styled to excess by Virgil Exner (1909–1973); more memorable was Time magazine’s “an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon”.

Quirkiness coming & going: 1958 Edsel Bermuda “Woodie” station wagon.

The “woodie” nickname was applied to the station wagons from all manufacturers although after the early 1950s the “wood” was a combination of fibreglass and the DI-NOC plastic appliqué, the look intended to evoke that of the partially timber-bodied station wagons in production until the early 1950s.  Strangely, Chrysler and Mercury in the 1960s even did a few convertibles with the stuff glued on (recalling some earlier such things from the 1940s which used real wood), the former later unable to resist the temptation for the vaguely cartoonesque LeBaron Town & Country convertible (1983-1984).  Ford’s attempt in the 1960s to persuade British & Australian buyers of station wagons DI-NOC was charming proved brief and unsuccessful but in the domestic market the popularity lasted until 1990s.  As much as the sedans and convertibles, Edsel station wagons were just as unwanted.  The Bermuda was offered only for the 1958 model year and it sold a dismal 2,235, 779 being the nine-seater version with an additional row of seating in the rear section, a configuration always popular with US buyers in the era of larger families and before the age of mini-vans and SUVs (sports utility vehicles).  The three-row Bermuda was the rarest of the 1958 Edsels but collectors still price them below the convertibles, reflecting the usual practice in which (with the odd exceptions such as Mercedes-Benz Gullwings, 1963 Chevrolet Corvettes and certain rear-engined Porsches), convertible coach-work trumps all other styles.  If the vulva-themed front end was confronting, there was a strangeness too at the rear, the turn-indicator lights in the shape of an arrow, a traditional symbol to indicate one's intended direction of travel but bizarrely, the Edsel’s arrows pointed the opposite way, something necessitated by the need to blend the shape with that of the body’s side moldings.

1959 Edsel Villager 6 passenger Station Wagon.

Like the grill, for 1959 the tail of the station wagon was toned-down from bizarre to baroque.  It didn’t much stimulate demand and only 5,687 were sold while in the same season, Ford shifted 147,748 station wagons (123,412 Country Sedans & 24,336 Country Squires).  In 1958 the relationship between the Villager & Bermuda had reflected that of Ford’s Country Sedan to the more expensive (and DI-NOCed) Country Squire and while Ford would for decades top the station wagon sales charts, after 1960 the only more expensive versions offered by the corporation would be Mercurys.  As a footnote, along with the Ranger, the Villager did survive as part of the quixotic 1960 range when a mere 275 left the line, lending it the dubious distinction of being the rarest Edsel station wagon.  Despite that usually compelling statistic, collectors still prefer the 1958 & 1959 wagons, probably because the 1960 models lack the distinctive grill which is the most identifiable part of an Edsel's once dubious "brand recognition".

Heading in the right direction, the CCP's sports car: 2025 MG Cyberster.

The Shanghai-based SAIC Motor Corporation picked up the idea of arrows for turn-signals and a pair appeared on the MG Cyberster but unlike Edsel, the Chinese engineers had them pointing in the correct direction.  The MG Cyberster is a battery electric roadster and a modern take on the traditional MG sports car though stylistically not an obvious homage in the way the 1989 Mazda Mitia (MX-5) paid homage to the original Lotus Elan (1962-1975).  While some critics have complained the platform is not sufficiently focused to be a “sports car”, the Cyberster really is in the tradition of what most of the classic MGBs were: a roadster which does what most people want to do most of the time.  SAIC is state-owned and acquired the MG marque in 2007; thus far the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) has been more adept at building reliable roadsters than was the nationalized British Leyland when MG was part of that doomed conglomerate in the 1970s.  Having concluded it’s faster and easier to buy "brand-recognition" than to create it, the Chinese are proving successful in making products which are coming to define the modern electric car, one consequence of the country controlling most aspects in the production cycle of the essential elements of such things and, in a nice touch, although the Cyberster is built in China, MG’s past in acknowledged by the rear directional turn-signals including in the design a part the UK’s Union Flag (Union Jack).  Economists are watching the modern Chinese economy with interest because its particular blend of central planning and crony capitalism is a hybrid never before attempted at scale.  On paper, central planning should ensure the most efficient allocation of resources and thus produce the best aggregate outcomes but previous ventures such as the Soviet Union (1922--1991) or the British in their (1960s-1970s) nationalization phase both failed (though for different reasons).  Drawing from the long tradition of Chinese commerce, the CCP may yet prove to be the best at capitalism and the country's truly "communist" phase (1949-1989) is already being seen as a historical aberration.

BMW's grills, "narrow-set" & wide-set"

Bavarian takes on the cameltoe: 1938 Frazer-Nash BMW 328 Roadster with the grill's centre bars in non-standard red (top left), 1959 BMW 507 (top right), 1971 BMW 3.0 CSL (E9), one of the 169 first series leichtbau (light construction) CSLs with twin downdraft Zenith carburetors, (bottom left) and 2022 BMW M4-Competition-xDrive Convertible (G82, bottom right).

Ford might have felt the Edsel was criticized unfairly (at least on a anatomical basis) because, since the 303 in 1933, BMW had been fitting grills which blatantly were “cameltoesque” in appearance although perhaps they escaped opprobrium because it wasn’t until 1962 with the release of 1500 (the so-called Neue Klasse (New Class, 1962-1972)) the design assumed aspect ratios close to that of the typical human female, exemplified by the elegant E9 coupés (1968-1975).  BMW also came to use physiology as a descriptor for the style but delved deeper, preferring the gender-neutral “twin kidney”.  Interestingly, for the lovely 507 roadsters (1956-1959) the twin apertures were stretched wide and the look was greeted with acclaim (Pontiac, with aplomb, taking up the “twin-grill” concept) and it wasn’t until BMW's huge, gaping apparatuses appeared in the twenty-first century that the style Nazis condemned the look as “absurd”.  The deep and wide-set grills of the BMWs of the 2020s are the cameltoe at scale and for those who question the anatomical reference because they doubt “wide set vaginas” are a thing, their existence was confirmed in Mean Girls (2004).

1969 BMW 2000 C (left) as the factory did it and as re-imagined with the "twin kidney" grill in the twenty-first century "wide-set" style (right).

Architecturally, a half-century before the G82, BMW had the space to anticipate the M4’s “wide-set” look.  The E9’s predecessor was a coupé based on the Neue Klasse platform with the four-cylinder engine enlarged to 2.0 litres (121 cubic inch) and offered as the 2000 C (single carburetor) and 2000 CS (twin carburetor) between 1965-1969.  The new coupé replaced the low-volume and expensive 3200 CS (1962-1965) which had been powered by a 3.2 litre (193 cubic inch) V8 and the most commented upon aspect of the design was the frontal styling, the word upon which most critics settled being “polarizing”.  It was the then unusual headlight treatment which induced the “love it or hate it” feelings, the chrome-framed asymmetric glass fairings something which later would become familiar but in 1965 it was “the shock of the new”.  Between the fairings there was a lot of space but BMW didn’t then take the opportunity to tempt buyers with the “wide-set vagina” look which would have to wait for the next century, instead maintaining a familial link with the grill on the Neue Klasse sedans.  The styling of the 2000 C/CS is regarded now as an interesting period piece and an example of something which might have been a trend-setter but the industry went in other directions, one of which was the E9 which remains BMW’s finest achievement, something unlikely ever to be said of anything in the company's 2025 range.

The wide-set and the Brazilian.

Recently, it emerged there can be financial implications for the wide-set (ie those who anatomically identify more with the BMW G82 than the E9).  The details were revealed in a text message between a beauty salon operative (the waxer) and her client (the waxee) who had just enjoyed (the verb used in the sense of "to have had the use or benefit of something") the application of a Brazilian (an ellipsis of “Brazilian wax”, a specific style of pubic hair removal in which only a narrow strip or triangle of growth is retained on the mons pubis, known irreverently also as the "landing strip" or "flight deck").  What the waxer advised was: “Just in future I’ll have to charge you a little more for the size of the area.  I hope that makes sense, nothing crazy, like $5 or $10 extra.”  The waxer’s rationale for that was based on the waxee having a FUPA (fatty upper pubic area, a normal variation in human anatomy rather than a condition) which means a greater surface area.  That, in the context of performing a Brazilian, demands (1) a higher consumption of consumable product (wax), (2) more time required to apply wax and (3) more time required to remove wax.  Reaction on social media was mixed, a few arguing the economics justified the surcharge although most condemned the waxer and thought pricing should be universal with, over time, the relative few needing more wax being balanced out by the relative few needing less.  That's standard economic theory but it's doubtful pubic hair removal has ever appeared in the textbooks as a case study.  For those who find it tiresome to try to remember acronyms, a probably more mnemonic alternative to FUPA comes from the ever productive world of Australian vulgar slang: gunt, the construct being g(ut) + (c)unt. 

A J.D. Vance meme with sofa (in US memes referred to usually as a "couch").

The Edsel ran its historic race more than a decade before the Watergate scandal so there was never a "grillgate" or "Edselgate" but the vulva did in 2024 return to the news with couchgate-themed memes.  In July that year, a post appeared on X (formerly known as Twitter) claiming there was a passage in J.D. Vance’s (b 1984; VPOTUS since 2025) book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (2016) in which the then US senator (Republican-Ohio) boasted of having enjoyed a sexual act with a latex glove, strategically placed between a sofa’s cushions.

It was fake news and nothing in the book even hinted at such an experience but quickly the post went viral; it once could take years for urban myths to spread between localities but in the social media age such things whiz around the planet in minutes.  Quickly the tale was debunked but couchgate was a popular choice among the meme-makers and it says something about US politics that so many really wanted to believe "couchgate" was true.  Whether latex glove sales spiked because suddenly there were those wishing to try the hopefully novel technique isn't known but there will be places on the internet where those tempted will document their experience(s).

Heavy duty (HD), neoprene-coated latex gloves (medium/large) from Walmart.

After Francis (1936-2025; pope 2013-2025) died, posts began to circulate noting that hours before he dropped dead he'd had an audience with recent Catholic-convert J.D. Vance and comparisons were made with the death of Elizabeth II (1926-2022; Queen of the UK 1952-2022) coming barely two days after meeting Liz Truss (b 1975; UK prime-minister Sep-Oct 2022).  The pope of course was head of the Roman Catholic Church and the queen was Supreme Governor of the Church of England and it seemed striking both should succumb so soon after the pleasure of a conversation with a right-wing fanatic.  It must be assumed both events were just bad luck but Mr Vance is a serious convert to the faith and better-acquainted than most with Roman Catholic theology and he'll be familiar with the "visitation of the angel of death", a figure sent by God to tap on the shoulder one for whom the time has come to quit the world.

For most of the republic's existence, holders of the office of vice-president tended to be obscure figures noted only if they turned out to be crooks like Spiro Agnew (1918–1996; VPOTUS 1969-1973) or assumed the presidency in one circumstance or another and during the nineteenth century there was a joke about two brothers: “One ran off to sea and the other became vice-president; neither were ever heard from again.”  That was an exaggeration but it reflected the general view of the office which has few formal duties and can only ever be as powerful or influential as a president allows although the incumbent is “a heartbeat from the presidency”.  John Nance Garner III (1868–1967, VPOTUS 1933-1941), a reasonable judge of these things, once told Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; VPOTUS 1961-1963 & POTUS 1963-1969) being VPOTUS was “not worth a bucket of warm piss” (which in polite company usually is sanitized as “...bucket of warm spit”).  In the US, a number of VPOTUSs have become POTUS  and some have worked out well although of late the record has not been encouraging, the presidencies of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon (1913-1994; VPOTUS 1953-1961, POTUS 1969-1974), George H.W. Bush (George XLI, 1924-2018; US president 1989-1993) and Joe Biden (b 1942; VPOTUS 2008-2017, POTUS 2021-2025) all ending badly, respectively in despair, disgrace, defeat and decrepitude.

Still, in the post-war years, the VPOTUS has often assumed a higher profile or been judged to be more influential, the latter certainly true of Dick Cheney (1941-2025; VPOTUS 2001-2009) and some have even been given specific responsibilities such as LBJ’s role as titular head of the space program (which worked out well) or Kamala Harris co-ordinating the response to difficulties on the southern border (a role in which either she failed or never attempted depending on the source).  So wonderfully unpredictable is Donald Trump that quite what form the Vance VPOTUSship will assume is guesswork but conspiracy theorists already are speculating part of MAGA forward-planning is to have Mr Vance elected POTUS in 2028, simply as part of a work-around in a constitutional jigsaw puzzle.

The conspiracy revolves around the words in Section 1 of the Twenty-second Amendment (ratified in 1951): “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice” and even the most optimistic MAGA lawyers concede not even Brett Kavanaugh (b 1965; SCOTUS associate justice since 2018) or Clarence Thomas (b 1948; SCOTUS associate justice since 1991) could construct an interpretation which would allow Mr Trump to be elected for a third term (although Justice Thomas might make a heroic attempt).  The constitution is however silent on whether any person may serve a third (or fourth, or fifth!) term so that makes possible the following sequence:

(1) In the 2028 election J.D.Vance is elected POTUS and somebody else (matters not who) is elected VPOTUS.

(2) In 2029, J.D. Vance and somebody else (matters not who) are sworn into office as POTUS-48 & VPOTUS respectively.

(3) Somebody else (matters not who) resigns as VPOTUS.

(4) J.D. Vance appoints Donald Trump as VPOTUS who is duly sworn-in.

(5) J.D. Vance resigns as POTUS-48 and, as the constitution dictates, Donald Trump becomes POTUS-49 and is duly sworn-in.

(6) Donald Trump appoints J.D.Vance as VPOTUS.

Although in those maneuvers there are hints of how Mr Putin (Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999) and Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev (b 1965; president of Russia 2008-2012 & prime minister of Russia 2012-2020) once "worked their way" around a tiresome clause in the Russian constitution, whatever the politics, constitutionally, there is nothing controversial about those six steps because there’s a precedent, the sequence picking-up some of what happened between 1968 when Nixon & Agnew were elected POTUS and VPOTUS and 1974 when the offices were held respectively by Gerald Ford (1913–2006; VPOTUS 1973-1974 & POTUS 1974-1977) and Nelson Rockefeller (1908–1979; VPOTUS 1974-1977), neither of the latter pair having been elected.  Of course, in January 2029 somebody else (matters not who) would be a “leftover” but he (it seems a reasonable assumption somebody else (matters not who) will be male but for such an obviously expendable role for MAGA to use a "suitable" female is not impossible) can, depending on this and that, be appointed something worthy like secretary of agriculture or to a sinecure such as an ambassadorship in a nice (non-shithole) country with a pleasant climate and a majority white population.

There is of course the obstacle of the concluding sentence in the final paragraph of the Twelfth amendment: “But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”  That seemingly unambiguous sentence would seem to preclude any notion of “third-termism” but the MAGA “third-termists” appear not deterred, arguing the Twenty-second Amendment is about preventing an individual being “elected” for a third time, not being “appointed” and certainly not “serving”.  Students of sophistry would applaud that distinction and with the odd nudge it can be persuaded to fit into some traditions of US constitutional interpretation, based on the argument if those who wrote the amendment meant “No person shall serve in the office of the president more than twice” they would have used that phrase rather than “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice”.  So, were the mechanism of “appointment” to be attempted, it’d be a matter of whether a majority of SCOTUS judges would hold the method to be constitutional.  Given the history of US constitutional interpretation that would seem a stretch but what can’t be predicted is the composition of the bench in January 2029.  Right now, the consensus among political scientists is Mr Trump will neither run in 2028 nor be appointed by some circuitous route and most scholars of the constitution believe presidential third terms are precluded by even an imaginative reading of the two relevant amendments.  Still, these are interesting times and, in the last few years, the SCOTUS has gone where it was once thought judges would fear to tread.