Brunette

Brunette (pronounced broo-net)

(1) Of the hair (particularly females), dark in color, tending to black.

(2) Of a person (less commonly), having dark hair and, often, dark eyes and darkish or olive skin.

(3) A person (particularly if female), with dark hair.

1660s: From the French brunette, the feminine of brunet (of a woman, in complexion, having a brownish tone to the skin and hair), from the Old French brunet (brownish, brown-haired, dark-complexioned), the feminine diminutive of the twelfth century brun (brown), of West Germanic origin, from the Proto-Germanic brunaz, from the primitive Indo-European root bher- (bright; brown); a doublet of burnet.  The now familiar use as a noun (woman with dark hair and eyes and of a dark complexion) emerged in the 1710s and the metathesized form (the Old French burnete) was the source of the surname Burnett.  Burnete was a high quality woolen dyed-cloth of superior quality and originally a dark brown.  The alternative spelling brunet is now rare, even in the US.  Brunette is a noun & adjective and brunetteness is a noun; the noun plural is brunettes.  The adjective brunetteish is non-standard.

Misty was a weekly British comic magazine for girls which, unusually, was found also to enjoy a significant male readership.  Published UK house Fleetway, it existed only between 1978-1980 although Misty Annual appeared until 1986.  The cover always featured the eponymous, raven haired beauty.

Dictionaries vary but little in the rage of definitions offered of brunette, most entries something like that in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED): “noun: a woman or girl with dark brown hair”.  In the US, the spelling brunet is listed not as an alternative spelling but a variant, Merriam-Webster noting the distinction between the two as something like the convention of use governing blonde (of females) and blond (of males), brunette being: “a person having brown or black hair and often a relatively dark complexion (spelled brunet when used of a boy or man and usually brunette when used of a girl or woman).  Thus, at least some authoritative sources acknowledge there’s been a shift in the meaning of brunette from the “dark brown hair” inherited from the French to a range of dark shades, extending from brown even to black, essentially all those not blonde, red-headed, grey or white.  So brunette does some heavy-lifting, presumably because there’s no noun for those with true black hair although there are adjectives including “raven-haired” and “jet-black” and of course they’re in the spectrum of those called “dark-haired”.  Suggestions English speakers adopt noirette (black-haired woman) seem to have been ignored and the idea use of the French noiraud & noiraude (the masculine & feminine forms meaning “swarthy” was a good idea didn’t survive the revelation the terms were used mostly by farmers of black cattle.

Melanotrichousness: In English, as it applies to hair, brunette has enjoyed a meaning shift from "dark brown" to a spectrum extending even to pure black and now really just denotes "not blonde or a red-head".  Natural red-head Lindsay Lohan illustrates some of the range. 

If one insists the original meaning must be observed, brunette is thus often used with imprecision but there’s clearly been a bit of a meaning-shift and for most purposes the raven haired are now often lumped with the brunettes, something which seems not much to disturb them.  Raven-haired though is probably preferable because it’s so poetic but it seems now to be used only in literature which, given it’s well understood, seems strange but perhaps it has suffered by being so popular in fantasy novels, a genre of which not all approve.  Coal-black (the blackest black) really wasn’t appealing even before climate change made the substance unfashionable although pitch-black might be worse still, pitch a dark, highly viscous material remaining in still after distilling crude oil and tar.  Jet-black is interesting in that it’s both often used (and more often of stuff other than hair) and misunderstood, most apparently thinking there’s some connection to jet-engines.  Jet-black describes a color which is very black and almost wholly devoid of light reflection and the reference is actually to a type of mineraloid known as jet (a black or dark brown fossilized coal-like material formed from the remains of wood that has undergone a specific type of decay under high pressure).  The mineral has for thousands of years been used for decorative and functional applications, such as jewelry and ornamentation, much prized for the striking color (technically an absence of color) and the shiny surface achieved when polished.

A brunette with blue eyes, rendered by a GAI (generative artificial intelligence) engine.  In real life (IRL), the natural combination of black hair & blue eyes is rare although the look can be achieved with either (or both if need be) hair dye or colored contact lens.  With GAI, anything is possible.

So it’s all a question of what one wants to achieve: “brunette” has wide utility because it’s understood by all to mean “not a blonde or red-head”, phrases like “raven-haired beauty” will always have a certain appeal and if one needs to be more precise about brunettes there’s “auburn”, “chestnut” or even just “brown” white the truly black can be called “jet black”.  One with black hair may be said to be melanotrichous, the word meaning “having or characterized by black pigmentation”, from melanosis (abnormal deposition of melanin in tissue), the construct being melan-, from the Ancient Greek μέλᾱς (mélās) (black, dark) + -osis.  The –osis suffix was from the Ancient Greek -ωσις (-ōsis) (state, abnormal condition, or action), the construct being -όω (-óō) (added to a noun or adjective to make a verb with a causative or factitive meaning) + -σις (-sis) (added to verb stems to form abstract nouns or nouns of action, process, or result).  In pathology, the suffix appended to create a word describing a functional disease or condition).

Blond & blonde

Blond & blonde (pronounced blond)

(1) Of hair, light-colored (with descriptive variations, strawberry, platinum, golden, dirty, ash, sandy, honey, flaxen et al).

(2) Of a person having light-colored hair.

(3) Of timbers or veneers used for decorative purposes, light in tone.

(4) Silk lace, originally unbleached but now often dyed any of various colors but especially white or black.

1475–1485: From the Old French & Middle French blund & blont (blond, light brown, feminine of blond) thought most likely of Germanic origin and related to the Late Latin blundus (yellow) from which Italian picked up biondo and Spanish gained blondo.  It was akin to the Old English blondenfeax (gray-haired), derived from the Classical Latin flāvus (yellow) and in Old English, there was also blandan (to mix).  There exists an alternative etymology which connects the Frankish blund (a mixed color between golden and light-brown) to the Proto-Germanic blundaz (blond), the Germanic forms derived from the primitive Indo-European bhlnd (to become turbid, see badly, go blind) & blend (blond, red-haired)).  If so, it would be cognate with the Sanskrit bradhná (ruddy, pale red, yellowish).   

In his dictionary (1863-1873), Émile Littré (1801–1881) noted the original sense of the French word was "a color midway between golden and light chestnut" which might account for the notion of "mixed."  In the Old English beblonden meant "dyed," so it is a possible root of blonde and the documentary record does confirm ancient Teutonic warriors were noted for dying their hair.  However the work of the earlier French lexicographer, Charles du Fresne (1610-1688), claimed that blundus was a vulgar pronunciation of Latin flāvus (yellow) but cited no sources.  Another guess, and one discounted universally by German etymologists, is that it represents a Vulgar Latin albundus from the Classical Latin alba (white).  The word came into English from Old French where it had masculine and feminine forms and the English noun imported both, thus a blond is a fair-haired male, a blonde a fair-haired female and even if no longer a formal rule in English, it’s an observed convention.  As an adjective, blonde is now the more common spelling and can be applied to both sexes, a use once prevalent in the US although most sources note the modern practice is to refer to women as blonde and men as fair.  Even decades ago, style guides on both sides of the Atlantic maintained, to avoid offence, it was better to avoid using blond(e) as a stand-alone noun-descriptor of women.

Photograph used for Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde (1966).

Bob Dylan (b 1941) used the spelling “blonde” for the title of his album Blonde on Blonde (1966) and in 2016 he won the Nobel Prize in Literature so it may be presumed the choice was deliberate.  Mr Dylan appears never to have discussed the meaning of the title but if he followed convention (something he wasn't always apt to do), it may have something to do with women although critics have speculated it may be musically or linguistically symbolic.

Originally, the title wasn't printed on the gatefold cover of the double album although many record stores added removable stickers.  The image used was taken by US celebrity photographer and film-maker Jerry Schatzberg (b 1927), who choose New York's meat-packing district as a location because the buildings there provided the sort of backdrop he sought.  That the photograph is blurred has sometimes been interpreted as an allusion to drug use but it was just one of more than a dozen Mr Schatzberg presented to the singer.  All the others were, as one would expect from a professional, perfectly developed with no blurring but it was the “flawed” Mr Dylan choose.  That the fuzzy image might have been thought a “message” about drug use was not unreasonable because it was the psychedelic era and not until October 1968 was LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) prohibited in the US by being classified as a Schedule I controlled substance under the Staggers-Dodd Bill which meant it became unlawful to manufacture, possess or distribute the stuff.  This was formalized in 1970 when, as part of Richard Nixon's (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) "War on Drugs", it was listed as a Schedule 1 substance (those considered to have a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use) in the Controlled Substances Act (1970).

Variations on a theme of blonde: Lindsay Lohan.

There is also blond timber.  Usually, inanimate objects are treated as male (except among traditionalists at admiralties who call ships "she") so it’s correct to refer to light-toned timber furniture as blond but this is a convention of English use.  So, when Starbucks uses the feminine form for its blonde roast coffee, it’s not incorrect because those conventions don’t apply to commerce, indeed marketing and advertising sometimes depends for its effect on breaking the formal rules of English.

Brunette & redhead "protest", staged to publicize the premier of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) staring Jane Russell (1921–2011, the brunette) & Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962, the blonde), Hollywood, July, 1953.  The "protest" was staged as a promotion for the film, press photographers advised in advance.

The lure of blondness has been noted for millennia.  In antiquity, a trade existed to supply the wig-makers of Athens and Rome with blonde hair imported from northern Germanic lands, Pliny the Elder (circa 24-79) mentioning fashionable ladies who liked to glisten as well as shine, would have gold dust sprinkled on their borrowed locks, a technique actually borrowed from sculptors who would adorn the tresses of statues.  The blonde seems as eternal as the city.

Such is the interest in all things blonde, a hoax "scientific study" circulated between 2002-2006.  It erroneously claimed the existence of a WHO (World Health Organization) report, written by (unnamed) German researchers, concluding blond hair would be extinct by 2202, mentioning even the last blonde soul would be born in Finland.  Shocked, reputable news organizations rushed to publication without verifying the story, thus, before the term became fashionable, creating fake news, neither the WHO nor anyone else having written such a paper.  The report's greatest impact was on brunettes, some of whom expressed regret it would take that long for the competition to die off.

The blonde-extinction claim actually had a history in scientific literature dating back the publication in the 1860s of the work of biologist Gregor Mendel (1822–1884), an Augustinian abbot and founder of the science of genes, the discrete inheritable units of life.  The blonde scandal, like most false predictions in the field, was based on brute-force extrapolation and a misunderstanding of recessiveness in genetics.  Gene occurrence in populations tends generally towards stability unless the forces of natural selection confer some advantage in their extinction.  That applies especially in large population clusters (such as northern Europe and Scandinavia) where a critical mass is sustained; even rare genes will persist over generations.  It matters not whether genes are dominant or recessive, the causative agents of disappearance are a population falling below critical mass or the mechanism of natural selection.

Pasha

Pasha (pronounced pah-shuh, pash-uh, puh-shah or pur-shaw)

(1) In historic use, a high rank in the Ottoman political and military system, granted usually to provincial governor or other high officials and later most associated with the modern Egyptian kingdom; it should be placed after a name when used as a title, a convention often not followed in the English-speaking world.

(2) A transliteration of the Russian or Ukrainian male given name diminutive Па́ша (Páša).

(3) A surname variously of Islamic and Anglo-French origin (ultimately from the Latin).

(4) In casual use, anyone in authority (used also pejoratively against those asserting authority without any basis); the use seems to have begun in India under the Raj.

(5) As the “two-tailed pasha” (Charaxes jasius), a butterfly in the family Nymphalidae.

1640–1650: From the Turkish pasa (also as basha), from bash (head, chief), (there being in Turkish no clear distinction between “b” & “p”), from the Old Persian pati- (maste), built from the primitive Indo-European root poti- (powerful; lord) + the root of shah (and thus related to czar, tzar, csar, king & kaisar).  The related English bashaw (as an Englishing of pasha) existed as early as the 1530s.  Pasha’s use as an Islamic surname is most prevalent on Indian subcontinent but exists also in other places, most often those nations once part of the old Ottoman Empire (circa 1300-1922) ) including Albania, Republic of Türkiye and the Slavic region.  As a surname of English origin, Pasha was a variant of Pasher, an Anglicized form from the French Perchard, a suffixed form of Old French perche (pole), from the Latin pertica (pole, long staff, measuring rod, unit of measure), from the Proto-Italic perth & pertikā (related also to the Oscan perek (pole) and possibly the Umbrian perkaf (rod).  The ultimate source of the Latin form is uncertain.  It may be connected with the primitive Indo-European pert- (pole, sprout), the Ancient Greek πτόρθος (ptórthos) (sprout), the Sanskrit कपृथ् (kapṛth) (penis) although more than one etymologist has dismissed any notion of extra-Italic links.  Pasha, pashaship & pashadom are nouns and pashalike is an adjective; the noun plural is pashas.  The adjectives pashaish & pashaesque are non-standard but tempting.

Fakhri Pasha (Ömer Fahrettin Türkkan (1868–1948), Defender of Medina, 1916-1919).

In The Struggle for Survival, 1940–1965 (1966) (extracts from the diary of Lord Moran (Charles Wilson, 1882-1977, personal physician to Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955)), there’s an entry in which, speaking of her husband, Clementine Churchill (1885–1977) told the doctor: “Winston is a Pasha.  If he cannot clap his hands for servant he calls for Walter as he enters the house.  If it were left to him, he'd have the nurses for the rest of his life ... He is never so happy, Charles, as he is when one of the nurses is doing something for him, while Walter puts on his socks.”  In his busy youth, Churchill has served as a subaltern in the British Army’s 4th Queen's Own Hussars, spending some two years in India under the Raj; he would have been a natural pasha.

Debut of 928 & the pasha: Ferdinand "Ferry" Porsche (1909–1998) with the Porsche 928 displayed at the Geneva Auto Salon, 17 March, 1977.

The car (pre-production chassis 928 810 0030) was finished in the Guards Red which in the next decade would become so emblematic of the brand and this was not only the first time the pasha trim was seen in public but also the first appearance of the “phone-dial” wheels.  Although the factory seems never to have published a breakdown of the production statistics, impressionistically, the pasha appeared more often in the modernist 924 & 928 than the 911 with its ancestry dating from the first Porsches designed in the 1940s. 

The “Pasha” flannel fabric was until 1984 available as an interior trim option for the 911 (1964-1989), 924 (1976-1988) & 928 (1977-1995) in four color combinations: black & white, black & blue, blue & beige and brown & beige.  Although not unknown in architecture, the brown & beige combination is unusual in fashion and it's doubtful the kit once donned by New Zealand’s ODI (one day international) cricket teams was influenced by the seats of pasha-trimmed Porsches; if so, that was one of the few supporting gestures.

1979 Porsche 930 with black & white pasha inserts over leather (to sample) (left) and 1980 Porsche 928S with brown & beige pasha inserts over brown leather.

It was known informally also as the Schachbrett (checkerboard) but it differed from the classic interpretation of that style because the objects with which the pattern was built were irregular in size, shape and placement.  Technically, although not usually listed as a velvet or velour, the pasha used a similar method of construction in that it was a “pile fabric”, made by weaving together two thicknesses of fine cord and then cutting them apart to create a soft, plush surface, rendering a smooth finish, the signature sheen generated by the fibres reflect light.  It was during its run on the option list rarely ordered and in the Porsche communities (there are many factions) it seems still a polarizing product but while “hate it” crowd deplore the look, to the “love it” crowd it has a retro charm and is thought in the tradition of Pepita (or shepherd’s check), Porsche’s unique take on houndstooth.

Reproduction Porsche pasha fabric available from the Sierra Madre Collection.

There are tales about how Porsche’s pasha gained the name including the opulent and visually striking appearance evoking something of the luxury and flamboyance associated the best-known of the Ottoman-era pashas, much publicized in the West for their extravagant ways.  There seems no basis for this and anyway, to now confess such an origin would see Porsche damned for cultural appropriation and at least covert racism.  It may not be a “cancellation” offence but is trouble best avoided.  Also discounted is any link with lepidopterology for although the “two-tailed pasha” (Charaxes jasius, a butterfly in the family Nymphalidae) is colourful, the patterns on the wings are not in a checkerboard.  Most fanciful is that during the 1970s (dubbed to this day “the decade style forgot” although that does seem unfair to the 1980s), in the Porsche design office was one chap who was a “sharp dresser” and one day he arrived looking especially swish, his ensemble highlighted by a check patterned Op Art (optical art, an artistic style with the intent of imparting the impression of movement, hidden images, flashing & vibrating patterns or swelling & warping) scarf.  The look came to the attention of those responsible for the interiors for the upcoming 928 and the rest is history... or perhaps not.  More convincing is the suggestion it was an allusion to the company’s success in motorsport, a chequered (checkered) flag waved as the cars in motorsport cross the finish-line, signifying victory in an event.  What the pasha’s bold, irregular checkerboard did was, in the Bauhaus twist, create the optical illusion of movement.

Publicity shot for Porsche 911 Spirit 70, released as a 2026 model.

When on the option list, the Pasha fabric was never a big seller but, being so distinctive, memories of it have never faded and it transcended its lack of popularity to become what is now known as “iconic”.  Originally, the use of “iconic” was limited to the small objects of religious significance (most associated with the imagery in Eastern Orthodox Christianity where the concept didn’t always find favour, the original iconoclasts being literally those destroyed icons) and later co-opted for analogous (often secular) use in art history.  It was in the 1960s, perhaps influenced by the depictions in pop-art (many of which were icon-like) of pop culture figures such as Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) that there meaning shifted to apply to those highly influential, recognizable, or emblematic in some aspect of what was being discussed, be that a look, brand, cultural phenomenon or whatever.  In that sense, Porsche over the years has been associated with a few “iconic” objects including certain wheels, rear spoilers and entire vehicles such as the 911 or 917.  Even before the internet reached critical mass and accelerated the trend, the word was in the 1980s & 1990s a common form but in the twenty-first century such was the overuse the value was diminished and its now not uncommon for it to have to be used with modifiers (genuinely iconic, truly iconic etc).  So, the path has been from sacred to symbolic to cultural to viral to clichéd, and by the 2020s, were something to be described as “totally iconic”, there was a fair chance it would within a week be forgotten.

2026 Porsche 911 Spirit 70.  The Pasha fabric is standard on the door panels and seat cushions but optional for the seat squabs and dashboard (left).  The Pascha-Teppich (Pasha mat) in the frunk is included (right).

Porsche however seems assured the Pasha fabric is part of the company’s iconography and in April 2025 announced the look would be reprised for the 911’s latest Heritage Edition model.  Dubbed the 911 Spirit 70, the name is an allusion to the “company’s design philosophy of the seventies” and that may be something worth recalling for during that “difficult decade”, not only did some of Porsche’s most memorable models emerge but most than most manufacturers of the time, they handled the troubles with some aplomb.  Production of the Spirit 70 will be limited to 1,500 units, all in Olive Neo (a bespoke and (in the right light) untypically vibrant olive) with retro-inspired livery and trimmed in the revived Pasha fabric upholstery (although use on the seat squabs and dashboard is optional).  Mechanically, the car is based on the Carrera GTS Cabriolet, availability of which has spanned a few of the 911’s generations and for those who don’t like the graphics, they’re a delete option.

Lindsay Lohan (during “brunette phase”) in bandage dress in black & white pasha, rendered as an adumbrated pen & ink sketch in monochrome.

Although made with "pasha" fabric, this is not a “pasha-style” dress.  Some purists deny there’s such a thing and what people use the term to describe is correctly an “Empire” or “A-Line” dress, the industry has adopted “pasha” because it’s a romantic evocation of the style of garment often depicted being worn by notables in the Ottoman Empire.  The (Western) art of the era fuelled the popular imagination and it persists to this day, something which was part of the critique of Palestinian-American academic Edward Said (1935–2003) in Orientalism (1978), an influential work which two decades on from his death, remains controversial.  As used commercially, a pasha dress can be any longer style characterized by a flowing silhouette, sometimes with a wrap or corset detailing and so vague is the term elements like ruffles or pagoda sleeves can appear; essentially, just about any dress “swishy” enough to “waft around” dress can plausibly be called a pasha.  Since the symbiotic phenomena of fast-fashion and on-line retailing achieved critical mass, the number of descriptions of garment styles probably has increased because although it's difficult to create (at least for saleable mass-produced products) looks which genuinely are "new", what they're called remains linguistically fertile. 

For the Porsche owner who has everything, maXimum offers “Heel Trend Porche Pasha Socks”, the "Porche" (sic) a deliberate misspelling as a work-around for C&Ds (cease & desist letters) from Stuttgart, a manoeuvre taken also by legendary accumulator of damaged Porsches (and much else), German former butcher Rudi Klein (1936-2001) whose Los Angeles “junkyard” realized millions when the contents were auctioned in 2024.  His “Porsche Foreign Auto” business had operated for some time before he received a C&D from German lawyers, the result being the name change in 1967 to Porche Foreign Auto.  It’s a perhaps unfair stereotype Porsche owners really do already have everything but the socks may be a nice novelty for them.

Chairs, rug & occasional tables in black & white pasha.

A minor collateral trade in the collector car business is that of thematically attuned peripheral pieces.  These include models of stuff which can be larger than the original (hood ornaments, badges and such), smaller (whole cars, go-karts etc) or repurposed (the best known of which are the engines re-imagined as coffee-tables (almost always with glass tops) but there are also chairs.  Ideal for a collector, Porsche dealership or restoration house, one ensemble consisting of two chrome-plated steel framed chairs, a circular rug and brace of occasional tables was offered at auction.  The “Porsche Pasha” chosen was the black & white combo, something which probably would be approved by most interior decorators; with Ferraris there may be “resale red” but with furniture there’s definitely “resale black & white”.

Diversity

Diversity (pronounced dih-vur-si-tee (U) or dahy-vur-si-tee (non-U))

(1) The state or fact of being diverse; difference; unlikeness; nonuniformity.

(2) The inclusion of individuals representing more than one national origin, color, religion, socioeconomic stratum, sexual orientation etc.

(3) In mathematical logic, the relation that holds between two entities when and only when they are not identical; the property of being numerically distinct.

(4) In politics, the social policy of encouraging tolerance for people of different cultural and racial backgrounds

(5) In politics as multiculturalism or more specific legislation mandating diversity, an attempt to redress historic discrimination.

(6) In biology, as biodiversity, the degree of variation of life forms within an ecosystem.

(7) In zoological taxidermy, as species diversity, the effective number of species represented in a data set.

(8) In genetics, as genetic diversity, the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a species.

(9) In agriculture, as crop diversity, the variance in genetic and phenotypic characteristics of plants used in agriculture.

(10) In electronic communications, the principle of the deployment of multiple channels or devices to improve reliability.

(11) In electrical engineering, as diversity factor, the ratio of the sum of the maximum demands of the various part of a system to the coincident maximum demand of the whole system.

(12) In law, a term often used in equal-opportunity legislation when codifying specific metrics.

1300–1350: From the Middle English diversite (originally "variety; range of differences" and by the late fourteenth century "quality of being diverse, fact of difference between two or more things or kinds; variety; separateness; that in which two or more things differ" (usually in a technical or neutral sense), from the Old French diversité (difference, diversity, unique feature, oddness (and when used in a degoratory sense "wickedness, perversity; contradiction") (which survives in the Modern French as the twelfth century diversité), from the Latin diversitatem (nominative dīversitās) (contrariety, wickedness, perversity, disagreement (and in a secondary sense "difference, diversity")), the construct being  diversus (past particle of divertere) (contradiction, difference; turned different ways (and in Late Latin "various") +‎ tas.  The Latin tas suffix was from the primitive Indo-European tehts, from the Ancient Greek της (tēs) and Sanskrit ताति (tāti).  In English, the construct uses the suffix ity which is used to form abstract nouns indicating a state of being.  Suffix is from the Middle English ite, a borrowing from the Old French ité and directly from the Latin itatem (nominative itas).  As used as a suffix denoting state or condition, in Latin it was built with a connective i + tas.  Fowler’s Modern English Usage (1926) notes that in English, a word with the ity suffix usually means the quality of being what the adjective describes, or concretely an instance of the quality, or collectively all the instances whereas a word with an ism appended means the disposition, or collectively all those who feel it.  Diversity is a noun, diverse is an adjective (and collective a noun) and diversely is an adverb; the noun plural is diversities.

Diversity: The path to DEI

Diversity had the distinct negative meaning "perverseness, being contrary to what is agreeable or right; conflict, strife; perversity, evil" in English from late fourteenth century but was obsolete after the seventeenth (although the twenty-first century critiques of wokeness and political correctness has seen "diversity" again used in this way in certain quarters).  Diversity as a virtue in the political construction of nation-states was an idea which grew as modern democracies developed in the decades after the French Revolution (1789) because it was thought essential to prevent one faction from arrogating all power (and discussed in The Federalist (now usually called The Federalist Papers) 85 essays published in 1788 and written by some of the Founding Fathers of the United States to advocate ratification of the constitution).  The word however was also used under the Raj where many of the British colonial "fixes" (at which they excelled) used existing divisiveness (which they encouraged and sometimes even created) as part of the principle of "divide & rule".  Diversity under the Raj was real, cross-cutting and multi-layered but for from the modern sense in which ethnicity, gender and sexual identity are the typical determinates, this use emerging as now understood in the early 1990s, the original purpose being to provide for the "inclusion and visibility of persons of previously under-represented minority identities".

Projecting diversity: Lindsay Lohan in rainbow T-shirt, the T-shirt of the T-shirt created through Yoshirt's portal.

Although the use of diversity (in a positive sense) as applies to race, gender etc. appears to date only from 1992, the term "affirmative action", as government policy designed to promote or achieve diversity in various aspects of life, was first used in an executive order signed by US President Kennedy in 1961.  That was a decree which required that government contractors "…take affirmative action to ensure applicants are employed, and employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin".  Such policies have become widespread, especially since the 1980s and, in the west, are applied exclusively for the benefit of groups or individuals thought disadvantaged.  Beyond the west, other countries have adopted such policies although sometimes they’re applied for the benefit of a defined majority.  Increasingly, in the US, affirmative action policies are being challenged, sometimes by groups themselves defined as "diverse".

To demonstrate a corporate commitment to workplace DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), always include a brunette in photos. 

In the West, not all approve of diversity positive initiatives.  In March 2018, the University of Sydney Union issued a statement noting the application of an affirmative action policy to its debating team would promote diversity and prevent domination by “affluent, white, privately educated students”.  The union’s press release was prompted by a report in the Murdoch press that the new affirmative action policies will mean the university would be sending not necessarily its best team to the annual debating tournament, but one “…meeting quotas for women, people of colour, and others oppressed by the white male supremacy”.

Former senator Eric Abetz

Anxious always to expose conspiracies by communists, LGBTQQIAAOP agitators, Trotskyists, trade unionists and other malcontents, then Senator Eric Abetz (b 1958; senator for Tasmania (Liberal) 1994-2022) labelled the move “Stalinist dogma’’ dressed up as progressive thinking, adding the union’s move was evidence of “stifling political correctness’’ which threatened to “damage the future generations who are taught this nonsense as fact’’.  The former senator was perhaps not someone good at recognizing white privilege or understanding its implications for those from diverse backgrounds but he did take a Churchillian stand defending the nation when the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands declared war on Australia so there's that.

The young ladies of Alpha Gamma Delta: ἐννέα κόραι, ἑπτὰ αὐτῶν ξανθαί (ennéa kórai, heptà autôn xanthai).

Alpha Gamma Delta (ΑΓΔ and clipped usually to "Alpha Gam") decided to adopt “DEI best practice” in choosing their webpage banner, including not one but three brunettes.  Dating from 1904 when the first chapter was founded at New York’s Syracuse University, AGD is an international women's fraternity and social organization with over 200,000 members, some 200 collegiate chapters and over 250 alumnae groups.  There is an on-line shop (Alpha Gam Boutique) with lines of hats, T-shirts, stoles, tank-tops & such and there's the helpful facility of "custom chapter orders".

Hot Dog

Hot dog (pronounced hot-dawg)

(1) A frankfurter.

(2) A sandwich consisting of a frankfurter (or some sort of sausage of similar shape) in a split roll, eaten usually with (1) mustard, sauerkraut & relish or (2) mustard & ketchup.

(3) Someone who performs complex, showy, and sometimes dangerous manoeuvres, especially in surfing or skiing (hotdogging sometimes a defined class in competition).

(4) Someone thought a show-off, especially in sporting competition.

(5) In informal use, an expression of joy, admiration or delight (occasionally also used ironically in the manner of “that’s great”).

(6) In New Zealand, a battered, deep-fried sausage or saveloy on a stick (essentially the same concept as the US corn dog and the Australian Dagwood dog).

(7) In slang, the human penis, a variation of which is the “man sausage”.

(8) In slang, a sexually suggestive physical gesture involving hip movement (usually as hotdogging).

1894: A coining in US English for commercial purposes, the idea being the vague resemblance of the sausage to a dachshund dog, the “hot” from the traditional use of mustard as a condiment although there’s evidence the early suspicion some hot dogs included actual canine meat weren’t entirely without foundation.  The use as (1) an interjection expressing joy, admiration or delight was another US creation dating from around the turn of the twentieth century (the circumstances unknown) and (2) a descriptor of someone who performs showy, often dangerous stunts was also an Americanism from the same era.  It seems to have begin in sport and is still widely used but has become best known for its use in skiing and surfing where it’s institutionalized to the extent some competitive categories have been named thus.  The variation “hot diggety dog” (also clipped to “hot diggety” was used in the same sense as the interjection “hot dog”, the interpolated “diggety” there for emphasis and rhetorical effect.  The slang synonyms (mostly in the US and not applied exclusively to hot dogs) have included “tubular meat on a bun”, “frank”, “frankfurt”, “frankfurter”, “glizzy”, “pimp steak”, “tube steak”, “wiener”, “weeny”, “ballpark frank”, “cheese coney”, “cheese dog”, “Chicago-style”, “Chicago dog”, “chili dog”, “Coney Island”, “corndog”, “footlong”, “junkyard dog”, “not dog”, “pig in a blanket”, “steamie” “veggie dog” & “frankfurter in a bun”.  In informal use, both single word contractions (hotdog) and hyphenated forms (hot-dog, hot-dogger etc) are common and “hot dog!” as an interjection is heard in the US, especially south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Extra mustard: Lindsay Lohan (during "brunette phase") garnishing her hot dog, New York, 2010.

The construct was hot + dog.  Hot was from the Middle English hot & hat, from the Old English hāt, from the Proto-Germanic haitaz (hot), from the primitive Indo-European kay- (hot; to heat) and was cognate with the Scots hate & hait (hot), the North Frisian hiet (hot), the Saterland Frisian heet (hot), the West Frisian hjit (hot), the Dutch heet (hot), the Low German het (hot), the German Low German heet (hot), the German heiß (hot), the Danish hed (hot), the Swedish het (hot) and the Icelandic heitur (hot).  Dog was from the Middle English dogge (source also of the Scots dug (dog)), from the Old English dogga & docga of uncertain origin.  Interestingly, the original sense appears to have been of a “common dog” (as opposed one well-bred), much as “cur” was later used and there’s evidence it was applied especially to stocky dogs of an unpleasing appearance.  Etymologists have pondered the origin:  It may have been a pet-form diminutive with the suffix -ga (the similar models being compare frocga (frog) & picga (pig), appended to a base dog-, or doc-(the origin and meaning of these unclear). Another possibility is Old English dox (dark, swarthy) (a la frocga from frog) while some have suggested a link to the Proto-West Germanic dugan (to be suitable), the origin of Old English dugan (to be good, worthy, useful), the English dow and the German taugen; the theory is based on the idea that it could have been a child’s epithet for dogs, used in the sense of “a good or helpful animal”.  Few support that and more are persuaded there may be some relationship with docce (stock, muscle), from the Proto-West Germanic dokkā (round mass, ball, muscle, doll), from which English gained dock (stumpy tail).  In fourteenth century England, hound (from the Old English hund) was the general word applied to all domestic canines while dog referred to some sub-types (typically those close in appearance to the modern mastiff and bulldog.  By the sixteenth century, dog had displaced hound as the general word descriptor. The latter coming to be restricted to breeds used for hunting and in the same era, the word dog was adopted by several continental European languages as their word for mastiff.  Unmodified, the English Hot Dog has been borrowed by dozens of languages.  Hot dog is a noun, verb & adjective, hotdoggery & hotdogger are nouns, hotdogging & hotdogged are verbs; the noun plural is hot dogs.

For the 2016 Texas State Fair, the manufacturer went retro, reviving the "Corny Dog" name although, in a sign of the times, vegetarian dogs were available.

The corn-dog (a frankfurter dipped in cornmeal batter, fried, and served on a stick), although the process was patented in 1927, seems to have come into existence between 1938-1942 (the sources differ with most preferring the latter) but it received a lexicographical imprimatur of when it began to appear in dictionaries in 1949 and it was certainly on sale (then as the “corny dog”) at the 1942 Texas State Fair.  In Australia, the local variation of the US corn dog is the Dagwood dog (a batter-covered hot dog sausage, deep fried in batter, dipped in tomato sauce and eaten off a wooden stick), not to be confused with the “battered sav”, a saveloy deep fried in a wheat flour-based batter (as used for fish and chips and which usually doesn’t contain cornmeal).  The Dagwood Dog was named after a character in the American comic strip Blondie.  Dagwood, Blondie’s ineptly comical husband, did have a dog albeit not one especially sausage-like and it may simply have been it was at the time the country’s best known or most popular cartoon dog.

The hot dog as class-identifier: David Cameron showing how the smart set handle a hot dog while on the campaign trail, April 2015.

After leaving Downing Street, Harold Macmillan (1894–1986; UK prime-minister 1957-1963) visited Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1969-1969) in the White House and was served lunch, a meal the former prime-minister found so remarkable that in his six-volume memoirs it warranted a rare exclamation mark: "Hotdogs!"  He didn’t comment further but it’s assumed his experience of the culinary treat must have been the Old Etonian’s first and last.  The hot dog certainly can be political, David Cameron (b 1966; UK prime-minister 2010-2016 and another Old Etonian) attracting derision after being photographed eating his hot dog with knife and fork, something declared “out-of-touch” by the tabloid press which, while usually decrying the class system, doesn’t miss a chance to scorn toffs behaving too well or chavs too badly.  Cameron had other problems with takeaway snacks, caught being untruthful about his history of enjoying Cornish pasties, another working class favourite.  So it would seem for politicians, hot dogs are compulsory but only if eaten in acceptable chav style.

Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) and David Cameron eating hot dogs (both in approved manner) at a college basketball game between Mississippi Valley State and Western Kentucky, Dayton Arena, Ohio, March 2012 (Western Kentucky won 59-56) (left) and UK Labour Party politician Ed Miliband (b 1969) enjoying what came to be known as "the notorious bacon sandwich moment", May 2014 (right).  Mr Miliband didn't attend Eton and some of his high school education was undertaken in the US so presumably he knows how to handle a hot dog.  If so, he has no excuse because a toastie is less challenging. 

Curiously, Mr Cameron, had some three years earlier undergone "hot dog eating training", supervised by President Obama, noted for his expertise (both theoretical and practical) in the subject.  So he knew how it should be done and immediately there was speculation he resorted to knife & fork to avoid any chance of something like Ed Miliband's "notorious bacon sandwich moment", something which had resulted in ridicule and a flood of memes after the photograph was published in Rupert Murdoch's (b 1931) tabloid The Sun on the eve of the 2015 general election.

Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the Liberal Party of Australia 2022-2025) enjoying a Dagwood Dog (in approved bogan manner), Brisbane Exhibition (Ekka), Australia, 2022 (left) and Lena Katina (b 1984) sucking on a popsicle (band-mate Julia Volkova (b 1985) looking sceptical) in a publicity shot for t.A.T.u., Moscow, 2002 (right).

On seeing the photo, Mr Dutton observed of such things: "There is no good angle" and one can see his point but he need not be apologetic about his technique because, as Ms Katina demonstrated, his method was immaculate.  Looking damnably like a neon-green hotdog, the shapes of the two snacks essentially are identical so they're eaten in a similar manner.  In Australia, it’s probably good for a politician to be known to eat Dagwood dogs but not necessarily be photographed mid-munch.  Interestingly, despite many opportunities, Mr Dutton has never denied being a Freemason.  Promoted as a pair of lesbian schoolgirls, t.A.T.u. (1999-2011) was a Russian pop cum electronica act, best remembered for being denied their deserved victory in the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest because of obvious irregularities in the voting; that the duo were neither lesbians nor schoolgirls was not the point.  Music critics and political scientists all agree Mr Putin (Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999) was probably a (secret) fan and it may be even comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) might have enjoyed the tunes; he liked music he could whistle and t.A.T.u.'s melodic qualities would have appealed.  On the basis of their political views, comrade Stalin might (while whistling along) have sent them to the Lubyanka (the old KGB headquarters on Moscow's Lubyanka Square) or the Gulag but never would he have accused them of formalism.  

Instinctively, Jacqui Lambie (b 1971, senator for Tasmania, 2014-2017 and since 2019) can sense the populist potential in an image and in 2019 posted an appropriately captioned one of her enjoying a Dagwood Dog at the Autumn Festival in Tasmania’s Derwent Valley.  Historically, in Tasmania, these were sold as “Pluto Pups” but “Dagwood Dog” is now commonly used.  As this illustrates, Mr Dutton's technique was correct so it's good Senator Lambie and Mr Dutton can agree on something.

The Dagwood dog was responsible for an amusing footnote in Australian legal history, a dispute from the 1949 Sydney Royal Easter Show played out in the Supreme Court of New South Wales in its equity jurisdiction, the press reports at the time noting one happy outcome being an “uninterrupted supply of hot dogs during the next few days.”  Hot dogs were one of the show’s big sellers but a dispute arose when allegations were made there had been breaches of letters patent for "improvements in sausage goods" giving the patentees (who sold “Pronto Pups”) "exclusive enjoyment and profit within Australia for sixteen years from September, 1946.  The plaintiffs (holders of the patent), sought an injunction against those who had begun selling “Dagwood Dogs" at the show, preventing them from vending or supplying any of the improvements in sausages described in the patent, the writ claiming Dagwood dogs embodied the patented improvements and that as a consequence of the infringement, the plaintiffs were suffering economic loss.  The trial judge, ordered a hearing for an assessment (a taking of accounts) of damages to be scheduled for the following April and issued a temporary order requiring the defendants undertook to pay into a trust account the sum of ½d (half a penny) for each for each axially penetrated sausage sold.  The culinary delight has since been a fixture at city and country shows around the country although the name Pronto Pup didn’t survive; after the judgment in the Supreme Court it was replaced by “Pluto Pup” which also didn’t last although whether that was a consequence of a C&D (“cease & desist letter”) from Walt Disney’s lawyers isn’t known.  Anyway, since then it’s been Dagwood dogs all the way except in South Australia (proud of their convict-free past, they often do things differently) where they’re knows as “Dippy Dogs” (an allusion to the generous dip in the tomato sauce pot) which may be of Canadian origin, although there. in at least some provinces, they’re sold as “Pogos”.

Robert Mitchum (1917–1997) paying attention to what Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) is saying.

There are a number of “hot dog” stories about the film star Robert Mitchum, all told in the vein of him arriving at a Hollywood fancy-dress party covered in tomato ketchup and when asked to explain replying: “I’m a hot dawg!”.  That was representative of the sanitized form in which the tale was usually published, the original apparently involved the ketchup being applied to something which, anatomically, more resembled the hot dog’s sausage.

Zimbabwe's T20 cricket team, winners of the inaugural Women's T20 cricket tournament at the 13^th African Games, Accra, Ghana, March 2024.

Hotdog Stand color scheme, Microsoft Windows 3.1, 1992.

The industry legend is the “Hotdog Stand” color scheme Microsoft in 1992 shipped with Windows 3.1 was the winner of an informal contest between the designers to see who could concoct the worst possible combination.  Whether or not the competition was alcohol-fueled depends on which version of the story is told but all agree the winner based her entry on a vision of a hot dog, smothered in mustard and ketchup.  It’s doubtful many deliberately chose “Hotdog Stand” as their default scheme although there were certainly sysadmins (system administrators) who vengefully would impose it on annoying users, the more vindictive adding insult to injury by ensuring the user couldn’t change it back.  However, Hotdog Stand did briefly find a niche because it turned out to be the scheme which provided the best contrast on certain monochrome monitors, then still prevalent in corporations.  Windows 3.1 was the first version of the environment (it ran on the PC/MS/DR-DOS operating system) to attain wide corporate acceptance, whereas Windows 3.0 (1990) had tantalized while being still too unstable.  Windows 3.0 was unusual in being (apart from the short-lived 1.0) the only version of Windows released in a single version.  Although it ran in three modes: Real (on machines with only 640K RAM), Standard (requiring an 80286 CPU & 1 MB RAM) and Enhanced (requiring an 80386 CPU & 2 MB RAM), it shipped as a single product, the user with a command line switch (/r, /s or /e respectively) able to "force" the mode of choice, depending on the hardware in use.  Real mode didn't make it into Windows 3.1 and v3.11 ran exclusively as "Enhanced" so, in a sense, "Enhanced" had become standard.

2016 Maserati GranTurismo MC. 

Microsoft's Hotdog Stand scheme didn’t survive the August 1995 transition to Windows 95 but a quarter of a century on, someone may have felt nostalgic because a buyer of a 2016 Maserati GranTurismo MC configured their car in bright yellow (Giallo Granturismo) over leather trim in red (Rosso Corallo).  As eye-catching in 2016 as Microsoft's Hotdog Stand had been in 1992, the Maserati’s recommended retail price was US$163,520.  Displayed first at the 2007 Geneva Motor Show, the GranTurismo (Tipo M145) remained in production until 2019, the MC Sport Line offered between 2012-2019; it's not known how many buyers chose this color combination.  The OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) wheels were all-black but on this MC were replaced with two-tone 21 & 22 inch Forgiato S201 ECL units in black and yellow on which were mounted Pirelli P Zero tyres (255/30-21 front & 315/25-22 rear).  Finishing the wheels in red and yellow might nicely have augmented the hot dog vibe but between the spokes Maserati's red brake calipers can be seen.  For the right buyer, this was the perfect package.

Juan Manuel Fangio, Maserati 250F, German Grand Prix, Nürburgring, August, 1957.

It’s drawing a long bow but the vivid combo may have be picked as a tribute to the Maserati 250F with which Juan Manuel Fangio (1911–1995) won the 1957 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, an epic drive and his most famous.  Fangio was Scuderia Alfieri Maserati’s team leader and a splash of yellow was added to the nosecone of his 250F so easily it could be identified, the color chosen because it was one of the two allocated to his native Argentina.  The 250Fs of the other team members also had nosecones painted in accordance with the original international auto racing colours standardized early in the century, American Harry Schell (1921–1960) in white and Frenchman Jean Behra (1921–1959), blue, all atop the factory’s traditional Italian red.

Chart of the standard semaphore alphabet (top left), a pair of semaphore flags (bottom left) and Lindsay Lohan practicing her semaphore signaling (just in case the need arises and this is the letter “U”), 32^nd birthday party, Mykonos, Greece, July, 2018 (right).

Semaphore flags are not always red and yellow, but the colors are close to a universal standard, especially in naval and international signalling.  There was no intrinsic meaning denoted by the use of red 7 yellow, the hues chosen for their contrast and visual clarity, something important in maritime environments or other outdoor locations when light could often be less than ideal although importantly, the contrast was sustained even in bright sunshine.  Because semaphore often was used for ship-to-to ship signalling, the colors had to be not only easily distinguishable at a distance but not be subject to “melting” or “blending”, a critical factor when used on moving vessels in often pitching conditions, the operator’s moving arms adding to the difficulties.  In naval and maritime semaphore systems, the ICS (International Code of Signals) standardized full-solid red and yellow for the flags but variants do exist (red, white, blue & black seem popular) and these can be created for specific conditions, for a particular cultural context or even as promotional items.

L-I-N-D-S-A-Y-space-L-O-H-A-N spelled-out in ICS (International Code of Signals) semaphore.  One cannot predict when this knowledge will come in handy.

Green & yellow alternatives: Saint Patrick's Day hot dog (left) and vegan hotdog (right). 

Although the ketchup and mustard combination is most associated with the hot dog, not all hot dogs are in a theme of red & yellow, the most common alternative formations being green & yellow.  Some of these are seasonal and created for the cultural & religious holiday celebrated as Lá Fhéile Pádraig (literally “the Day of the Festival of Patrick” and often described as the “Feast of Saint Patrick”) which marks the death of Saint Patrick (circa 385–circa 461), the foremost patron saint of Ireland and missionary who converted the Island from paganism to Christianity.  Others are usually vegetarian or vegan hot dogs and green components, while not essential, often are added as a form of virtue-signaling. 

1981 Chevrolet Corvette: 190 horsepower (HP). 

The 2016 Maserati GranTurismo was certainly distinctive but strange color-combos are sometimes seen although in recent decades, factories have restricted not only the ranges offered but also the way they can be combined.  The 1981 Chevrolet Corvette (above) definitely didn’t leave the assembly line in yellow & green; that season, yellow (code 52) was available but there was no green on the color chart and while two-tone paint was a US$399.00 option, the only choices were Silver/Dark Blue (code 33/38); Silver/Charcoal (code 33/39); Beige/Dark Bronze (code 50/74) & Autumn Red/Dark Claret (code 80/98).  After taking in the effect of the yellow/green combo, the camel leather trim (code 64C/642) seems anti-climatic.

2025 John Deere 9900 Self-Propelled Forage Harvester: 956 HP.

Modern harvesters are machines of extraordinary efficiency, one able in an hour to reap more than what would once have taken a large team of workers more than a day.  Mechanized harvesters were an early example of the way technology displaces labor at scale and because historically women were always a significant part of the harvesting workforce, they were at least as affected as men.  The development meant one machine operator and his (and they were almost exclusively men) machine could replace even dozens of workers, something which profoundly changed rural economies, the participation of the workforce engaged in agriculture and triggered the re-distribution of the population to urban settlements.  Artificial intelligence (AI) is the latest innovation in technology applied to agriculture as just a one operator + machine combo replaced dozens of workers, multiple machines now go about harvesting with an AI bot handling the control and a dozen or more of these machines can be under the supervision of a single individual sitting somewhere on the planet, not so much controlling the things and monitoring for errors and problems.  Removing the on-site human involvement means it becomes possible to harvest (or otherwise work the fields) 24/7/365 without concerns about intrusions like light, the weather or toilet breaks.  Of course people remain involved to do tasks such as repairs, refueling and such but AI taking over many of these roles may be only a matter of time.

Maybe the Corvette's repaint was ordered by a fan of John Deere’s highly regarded farm equipment because JD’s agricultural products are always finished in a two-tone yellow/green (their construction equipment being black & yellow).  For the 1981 Corvette, a single engine was offered in all 50 states, a 350 cubic inch (5.7 litre) small-block V8 designated L81 which was rated at the same 190 HP (142 kW) as the previous season’s base L48; no high-output version was now available but the L81 could be had with either a manual or automatic transmission (it would prove to be the last C3 Corvette offered with a manual).  Glumly though that drive-train might have been viewed by some who remembered the tyre-smoking machines of a decade-odd earlier, it would have pleased buyers in California because in 1980 their Corvettes received only the 305 cubic inch (5.0 litre) V8 found often in pick-up trucks, station wagons and other utilitarian devices; to them the L81 was an improvement and one which seemed to deliver more than the nominal 10 HP gain would have suggested.  The L81’s 190 HP certainly wouldn’t impress those in the market for John Deere’s 9900 Self-Propelled Forage Harvester, powered by a 1465 cubic inch (24 litre) Liebherr V12, rated at 956 HP (713 kW), the machine available only in the corporate two-tone yellow & green.  Like Corvettes (which have tended to be quite good at their intended purpose and pretty bad at just about everything else), harvesters are specific purpose machines; one which is a model of efficiency at gathering one crop will be hopelessly inept with another and in that they differ from the human workforce which is more adaptable.  However, where there is some similarity in the plants, it can be possible for the one basic machine to be multi-purpose, the role changed by swapping the attachable device which does the actual picking or gathering.

1955 Studebaker Speedster (of the 2,215 Speedsters, a solid 763 were finished in the eye-catching combination of Hialeah Green & Sun Valley Yellow, left) and some ingredients for chef Jennifer Segal's (b 1974) succotash in cast iron skillet while in the throes of preparation (right).  Ms Segal’s succotash may be the finest in the world.

Lest anyone think a green and yellow Corvette is just a uniquely 1980s lapse of taste, in previous decades, in fashion and on the highways, things were often more colourful than the impression left by so much of the monochrome and sepia prevalent in the photographic record until later in the twentieth century.  With roots in a family business which in the late eighteenth century began building horse-drawn wagons, following a near-bankruptcy during the Great Depression (the corporation saved by the financial skills of Lehman Brothers (1850-2008), Studebaker emerged from World War II (1939-1945) in good financial shape and was the first US auto-maker to release a genuinely new range of post-war models, the style of which would remain influential for a decade.  Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, the company’s next twenty years were troubled and by the mid-1960s were out of the car business, something which at the time surprised few, the only curiosity being it “…took an unconscionable time a-dying”.

1955 Studebaker Speedster: The shade of the quilted leather was listed as Congo Ivory (although collectors seem to refer “pineapple yellow”) and the diamond motif was the theme for most of the interior fitting including the engine-turned aluminium facia panel which housed what by far the US industry’s most functional (if not most imaginative) gauge cluster.

There were though in those final years a few memorable flourishes, one of which was the 1955 Speedster, produced for just one season as a flagship.  It was a blinged-up version of the President State hardtop coupe, part of a range which at the time was praised for its Italianesque lines and had it be able to be sold at a more competitive price, it may have survived to remain longer in the catalogue.  In 1955, all Studebaker’s passenger vehicles benefited from a lavish (even by Detroit’s mid-1950s standards) application of chrome and the Speedster’s front bumper is strikingly similar in shape to the “rubber bumper” added in 1974 to the MGB (1962-1980) as a quick and dirty solution to meet US front-impact regulations; it’s doubtful British Leyland’s stylists were influenced by the sight of the Speedster.

1979 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith II in Champagne & Highland Green over color-coordinated leather.

Such was the American fondness for the “John Deere vibe” that at least one American buyer ordered a Rolls-Royce in the yellow-green combo (Champagne & Highland Green on the R-R color chart).  Re-using the name from the saloon (1946-1958) which was the first post-war Rolls-Royce (and the last of its six-cylinder cars), the Silver Wraith II (1976-1980) was a long-wheelbase (LWB) version of the Silver Shadow (1965-1980), the company’s first car to abandon the traditional chassis and use a unitary body.  Introduced in 1976 as a companion of the revised Silver Shadow II, the “LWB Silver Shadow” concept was not new because the factory had since 1967 built such things, the model added to the general production schedule in 1969.  The additional 4 inches (100 mm) in length was allocated wholly to the rear compartment so the legroom was greater although if the optional divider was fitted this was sacrificed to the structure and the space was the same as a Silver Shadow.  Rolls-Royce had before re-named what was essentially an existing model, the Corniche (1971-1995) a re-branding of the two-door (saloon (coupé) & DHC (drophead coupé, the factory later joining the rest of the planet and naming the convertibles)) versions of the Sliver Shadow which were between 1965-1971 built by MPW (Mulliner Park Ward) (the count: 571 Rolls-Royce saloons & 506 convertibles and 98 Bentley saloons & 41 convertibles).  The Everflex (an expensive, heavy-duty vinyl) covering on the Silver Wraith II’s roof was an aesthetic choice (the vinyl roof inexplicably popular in the era) and not a way of disguising seams in the metal.  Unlike some coach-builders which extended sedans to become limousines and hid the welds with vinyl, Rolls-Royce did things to a higher standard.

If offered for sale in the US, this particular Silver Wraith II might appeal to supporters of sporting teams which use the green-yellow combo for the players' kit.  That includes the Green Bay Packers, a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin, which compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference's (NFC) North division.  Established in 1919, the Packers are the NFL's third-oldest franchise and are unusual to the point of uniqueness in being the only non-profit, community-owned major league professional sports team based in the US, holding the record for the most wins in NFL history.  There is also the Oregon Ducks, the University of Oregon's college football team, which competes at National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I level in the Football Bowl Sub-division (FBS) and is a member of the Big Ten Conference (B1G).  Unfortunately, the team is no longer known as the Webfoots, the Ducks moniker adopted in the mid-1960s.  The green & yellow of the Ducks has some prominence in the sportswear market because of a close association with Oregon-based manufacturer Nike.   

Joey Chestnut (b 1983) (left) and Miki Sudo (b 1986) (right) the reigning men's and women's world champions in hot dog eating.  The contest is conducted annually on 4 July, US Independence Day.

In July 2022, Mr Chestnut retained and Ms Sudo regained their titles as world champions in hot dog eating.  Mr Chestnut consumed 15 more than the runner-up so the victory was decisive although his total of 63 was short of his personal best (PB) of 76, set in 2021.  It’s his fifteenth title and he has now won all but one of the last sixteen.  Ms Sudo won her eighth championship, swallowing forty hot dogs (including the bun) in the requisite ten minutes, meaning she has now prevailed in eight of the last nine contests (in 2021 she was unable to defend her title, being with child and therefore thinking it best to avoid too many hot dogs).  That there are hot dog eating champions brings delight to some and despair to others. 

Otto von Bismarck (1815-1989; chancellor of the German Empire 1871-1890) famously observed that people "shouldn't see how laws or sausages are made".  The processes (now effectively institutionalized) which produce legislation are now more disturbing even than in the iron chancellor's gut-wrenching times but sausage production has (generally) become more hygienic.

BMW's venture into the "hotdog look", the K1.

Between 1988–1993, BMW produced almost 7,000 K1s.  It was a modest volume and lifespan but the appearance and specification were quite a departure for the company which for sixty-odd years had built its reputation with air-cooled flat twins, packaged in designs which while functionally efficient offered few concessions to fashion.  That began to change in 1973 when the R90S appeared with a small bikini fairing in the style then favored by the “café racer” set but the rest of the machine remained in the sober Teutonic tradition, finished in a conservative silver (a more exuberant “Daytona Orange” would later be offered).  The fairings grew in size in subsequent models but never before the K1 did the factory produce anything so enveloping as was first seen at the 1988 Cologne Show, the effect heighted by the bold graphics and the choice of color schemes being blue & yellow or a hotdog-like red & yellow.  Inevitably, the latter's eye-catching combo picked up the nickname Ketchup und Senf (Ketchup and Mustard) but on BMW’s color chart they were listed as Marakeschrot (Marrakesh Red, code 222) and Ginstergelb (Broom Yellow, code 230).  The “broom” referenced is the shrub plant (related and visually similar to gorse) with distinctive, bright yellow flowers, not the device used for sweeping.  The look attracted almost as much comment as the mechanical specification which used an in-line four cylinder, 987 cm³ (60 cubic inch) liquid-cooled engine, mounted in an unusual longitudinal arrangement with the crankshaft to the right, something which delivered a low centre of gravity and contributed to the drag coefficient (CD) of .34 (with rider prone).

The original alternative to the hotdog, in blue & yellow, restrained by comparison.

The engineering was innovative and the K1 garnered many awards but after some initial enthusiasm sales waned and in 1991 the color scheme was not so much toned-down as re-toned, a more Germanic look (black metallic with silver wheels) offered which was less distinctive but also less controversial.  That solved one aesthetic challenge but others were more fundamental, the thing too big and heavy to be a “sports bike” in the accepted sense and all that fibreglass meant it could get very hot for both components and rider, a problem the factory, with some improvised engineering, ameliorated but never wholly solved.  What couldn’t be fixed was the lack of power, BMW at the time committed to the voluntary 100 HP (75 kW) limit for motorcycles sold in Germany and while the industry leading aerodynamics made the machine a creditable high-speed cruiser, as a “super-bike” in the manner of the Japanese and Italian machines, it simply wasn’t competitive; fifty years on, at least on two wheels, power dynamics within the Axis had shifted south and east.