Cooper

Cooper (pronounced koo-per or koop-er)

(1) A person who makes or repairs casks, barrels, etc.

(2) A drink of half stout and half porter (obsolete).

1350–1400: From the Middle English couper (craftsman who makes barrels, tubs, and other vessels from wooden staves and metal hoops), which etymologists are convinced would have come from an Old English form but it has proved elusive.  Both the English words are almost certainly related to the Middle Low German kūper, the East Frisian kuperor and Middle Dutch cūper, from the Low German kupe (cask, tub, vat), from the Medieval Latin cūpārius, the construct being cūp(a) (cask or vat) + ārius. (from the The nominative neuter form -arium which, when appended to nouns, formed derivative nouns denoting a “place where things are kept”).

The meaning "craftsman who makes wooden vessels" was originally associated with the word couper, cooper a later construct of coop + er.  Coop is from the Middle English coupe & cupe, from the Old English cȳpe (basket; cask) or possibly the Middle Dutch cûpe (related to the modern Dutch kuip, Saterland Frisian kupe & Middle Low German kûpe), from the Old Saxon kûpa & côpa (cask), related to the Middle Low German kôpe, the Old High German chôfa & chuofa, the Middle High German kuofe, the modern German kufe (feminine form of cask), which most sources trace back to the Classical Latin cūpa & Medieval Latin cōpa (cask) although the OED has cast doubt on this etymology because of the mysterious umlaut in Old English cýpe.  The er agent (noun-formation) suffix is from the Middle English er & ere, from the Old English ere, from the Proto-Germanic ārijaz.  It’s thought a borrowing from the Latin ārius; cognate with the Dutch er and aar, the Low German er, the German er, the Swedish are, the Icelandic ari and the Gothic areis.  Related too are the Ancient Greek ήριος (ḗrios) and Old Church Slavonic арь (arĭ) and although synonymous, actually unrelated is the Old French or & eor (the Anglo-Norman variant is our) which is from the Latin (ā)tor, derived from the primitive Indo-European tōr.

As a surname, the name is attested from the late twelfth century, either from the unattested Old English or a Low German source akin to Middle Dutch cuper , East Frisian kuper, ultimate source the Low German kupe (which became kufe in German), cognate with the Medieval Latin cupa.  A now rare variation is hooper although it remains common as a surname.  Within the profession, a dry cooper makes casks to hold dry goods, a wet cooper those to contain liquids and a white cooper, pails, tubs, and the like for domestic or dairy use.  The surname Cowper is pronounced koo-per or koop-er everywhere except Australia which preserved the fifteenth century spelling but modified the pronunciation to cow-pah.  The Australian federal electorate of Cowper was created in 1900 as one of the original sixty-five divisions and is named after Sir Charles Cowper (1807–1875) who was on five occasions between 1856-1870 the premier of the colony of New South Wales (NSW), Australia.

The Maserati Formula 1 V12, 1956-1957 & 1966-1969

1954 Maserati 250F "short nose".

Remarkably, the three litre Maserati V12 used by Cooper to win Grand Prix races in 1966 & 1967 was an update (developed out of necessity) of a 2.5 litre engine used (once) in 1956.  Maserati’s new straight-six 250F had enjoyed a stunning start to its career, enjoying victories in the first two Grands Prix of the 1954 season but was soon eclipsed by the Lancia D50 and particularly the Mercedes-Benz W196, both with more powerful eight cylinder engines and advanced aerodynamics.

1955 Maserati 250F Streamliner.

Maserati responded and, taking note of the all-enveloping "streamliner" bodywork Mercedes-Benz used on the W196s used on the faster circuits, developed a quasi-enveloping shape, the emphasis wholly on reducing drag (downforce would attract the interest of a later generation).  For the slower tracks, there was also an aerodynamic refinement of the open-wheeler, the “long-nose” which proved such a success it would become the definitive 250F.  The more slippery shapes helped but the problem of the power deficit remained, the advanced Mercedes-Benz engine, built with the benefit of experience gained with the wartime aero engines, used fuel-injection and a desmodromic valve-train which permitted sustained high-speed operation.  Maserati’s engineers devoted time to devise a fuel injection system and borrowed an innovation from the roadsters built for the Indianapolis 500, an off-set installation of the engine in the chassis which permitted the driveshaft to be to run beside rather than beneath the driver, lowering the seat and thus improving both aerodynamics and weight-distribution.

1954 Maserati 250F "long nose".

Two grand prix wins in 1956 suggested progress was being made but, although Mercedes-Benz withdrew from racing after 1955, competition from other constructors was growing so Maserati turned its attention to both chassis and engine.  An all-new multi-tubular space-frame chassis was designed, lighter and stronger than its more conventional predecessor, it retained the double wishbone front and De Dion rear suspension and, perhaps surprisingly, the engineers resisted the more efficient and now well-proven disc brakes, the revised drums instead aided by enhanced cooling.  The new engine was not ready for 1956 so the straight-six was again fielded although the off-set layout was discarded.  The new chassis was called Tipo 2.

Maserati 250F Typo 2, Juan Manuel Fangio (1911–1995), German Grand Prix,  Nürburgring, 1957.

Developed specifically for the Tipo 2 was the V12, its twin camshafts driven by front-mounted gears with the novelty of the Weber carburetors being mounted between the camshafts.  Maintaining a Maserati tradition, a twin spark ignition system was fitted, the 24 spark-plugs fed by two sturdy magnetos, again gear-driven and linked by 24 individual coils.  In many ways the state of 1950s engineering art, the marvelously intricate 2.5 litre V12 produced 320 bhp at what was then a startling 12,000 rpm, an increase of 50 bhp over the 2.5 litre straight six.  With the V12 still being developed, the team started the 1957 season with the 250F Tipo 2 and the straight six.  The faithful six was reliable and proved powerful enough to prevail over the Ferraris and the cars which unexpectedly emerged as the most impressive competition, the British Vanwalls.  The season would be Maserati’s finest, Juan Manuel Fangio winning his fifth world championship (at the age of forty-five) and, had there been a constructors title (not awarded until 1958), Maserati would have taken that trophy too.  The season is remembered also for Fangio’s famous victory in the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, in which he broke the lap record ten times in twenty-two laps, the Tipo 2’s straight six clearly good enough.

1956 Maserati 250F Tipo 2 V12.

The success of the straight-six afforded the engineers a wealth of time thoroughly to develop the V12.  After early tests showed the power delivery, although impressive, was too brutal to deliver the flexibility needed in a racing car, attention was devoted to widening the torque curve.  Three Tipo 2 chassis were built for the V12 engine, one ready in time for the final Grand Prix of the year, the symbolically important home event, the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.  A redesigned gearbox housing again allowed an off-set mounting which, although improving weight distribution, made the body sit so low on the frame, two bulges had to be formed in the bonnet to clear the carburetor intakes.  It looked fast and it was.  However, in scenes reminiscent of the troubles suffered by the ferociously powerful Auto-Unions and Mercedes-Benz of the pre-war years, the 250F, although fast, suffered high tyre-wear, the rear tyres clearly not able long to endure the abrasive demands of 320 bhp.  Still, it had been an encouraging debut, even if a lubrication problem had prematurely ended the venture.

Lindsay Lohan in Mini Cooper, Mauritius, 2016.

Unfortunately, there would not for a decade be another chance to run the V12 in a Grand Prix.  Financially challenged, Maserati retired from international racing at the end of the 1957 season, the remaining 250Fs sold to privateers either with the straight six or as a rolling chassis.  How competitive a fully-developed Tipo 2 V12 might have been in 1958 will never be known but the credentials were there and, against the dominant Ferraris and Vanwalls, it would have been an interesting contest, the 1958 season the end of an era, the last year either the drivers’ or constructors’ championships would be won using front-engined cars.  On paper, the Maserati V12 was the most powerful engine fielded during Formula One’s 2.5 litre era.

Cooper-Maserati T81, Guy Ligier (1930–2015), Belgium Grand Prix, Spa-Francorchamps, 1967.

Although it did see some use in sports-car racing, the V12’s most (briefly) illustrious second life came when, in 1965, a doubling of engine displacement to three litres was announced for the next Formula One season.   This created a scramble for competitive engines and with renewed interest in the moth-balled V12, Maserati dusted-off the cobwebs.  Cooper adopted it and enjoyed early success with the advantage of being the first team running cars with a full three litres, the reliability of the old V12 adding another edge over others still shaking down their initially fragile new engines.

Cooper-Maserati T81b, Pedro Rodríguez (1940–1971),  German Grand Prix, Nürburgring, 1967.

Soon however, Cooper were running a decade-old design against much newer competition and the antiquity began to tell.  Although some updating had been done, early experiments with six and even a remarkable twelve carburettors quickly abandoned for the even by then de rigueur fuel injection, in that decade, several generations of engineering had passed and the V12 was looking pre-historic.  Unable to change anything fundamental, Maserati bolted on what it could, including 18-valve cylinder heads that added weight and complexity, but did little to narrow the widening gap.  Rumors of 24-valve heads and even three spark-plugs per cylinder never came to fruition but the did prompt some wry comments questioning the efficiency of Maserati's combustion chamber design if that many fires needed to be lit.  Maserati withdrew from Formula One during the 1968 season and Cooper soon followed.

Mini

Mini (pronounce min-ee)

(1) A skirt or dress with a hemline well above the knee, popular since the 1960s.

(2) A small car, build by Austin, Morris, associated companies and successor corporations between 1959-2000.  Later reprised by BMW in a retro-interpretation.

(3) As minicomputer, a generalized (historic) descriptor for a multi-node computer system smaller than a mainframe; the colloquial term mini was rendered meaningless by technological change (Briefly, personal computers (PC) were known as micros).

(4) A term for anything of a small, reduced, or miniature size.

Early 1900s: A shorted form of miniature, ultimately from the Latin minium (red lead; vermilion), a development influenced by the similarity to minimum and minus.  In English, miniature was borrowed from the late sixteenth century Italian miniatura (manuscript illumination), from miniare (rubricate; to illuminate), from the Latin miniō (to color red), from minium (red lead).  Although uncertain, the source of minium is thought to be Iberian; the vivid shade of vermilion was used to mark particular words in manuscripts.  Despite the almost universal consensus mini is a creation of twentieth-century, there is a suggested link in the 1890s connected with Yiddish and Hebrew.

As a prefix, mini- is a word-forming element meaning "miniature, minor", again abstracted from miniature, with the sense presumed to have been influenced by minimum.  The vogue for mini- as a prefix in English word creation dates from the early 1960s, the prime influences thought to be (1) the small British car, (2) the dresses & skirts with high-hemlines and (3) developments in the hardware of electronic components which permitted smaller versions of products to be created as low-cost consumer products although there had been earlier use, a minicam (a miniature camera) advertised as early as 1937.  The mini-skirt (skirt with a hem-line well above the knee) dates from 1965 and the first use of mini-series (television series of short duration and on a single theme) was labelled such in 1971 and since then, mini- has been prefixed to just about everything possible.  To Bridget Jones (from Bridget Jones's Diary (1996) a novel by Helen Fielding (b 1958)), a mini-break was a very short holiday; in previous use in lawn tennis it referred to a tiebreak, a point won against the server when ahead.

Jean Shrimpton and the mini-skirt

Jean Shrimpton, Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne, 1965.

The Victorian Racing Club (VRC) had in 1962 added Fashions on the Field to the Melbourne’s Spring Racing Carnival at Flemington and for three years, women showed up with the usual hats and accessories, including gloves and stockings, then de rigueur for ladies of the Melbourne establishment.  Then on the VRC’s Derby Day in 1965, English model Jean Shrimpton (b 1942) wore a white mini, its hem a daring four inches (100 mm) above the knee.  It caused stir.

The moment has since been described as the pivotal moment for the introduction of the mini to an international audience which is probably overstating things but for Melbourne it was certainly quite a moment.  Anthropologists have documented evidence of the mini in a variety of cultures over the last 4000 odd years so, except perhaps in Melbourne, circa 1965, it was nothing new but that didn’t stop the fashion industry having a squabble about who “invented” the mini.  French designer André Courrèges (1923-2016) explicitly claimed the honor, accusing his London rival to the claim, Mary Quant (b 1930) of merely “commercializing it”.  Courrèges had shown minis at shows in both 1964 and 1965 and his sketches date from 1961.  Quant’s designs are even earlier but given the anthropologists’ findings, it seems a sterile argument.

Minimalism: Lindsay Lohan and the possibilities of the mini.

The Mini

1962 Riley Elf.

The British Motor Corporation (BMC) first released their Mini in 1959, the Morris version called the Mini Minor (a link to the larger Minor, a model then in production) while the companion Austin was the Seven, a re-use of the name of a tiny car of the inter-war years.  The Mini name however caught on and the Seven was re-named Mini early in 1962 although the up-market (and, with modifications to the body, slightly more than merely badge-engineered) versions by Riley and Wolseley were never called Mini, instead adopting names either from or hinting at their more independent past: the Elf and Hornet respectively.  The Mini name was in 1969 separated from Austin and Morris, marketed as stand-alone marque until 1980 when the Austin name was again appended, an arrangement which lasted until 1988 when finally it reverted to Mini although some were badged as Rovers for export markets.  The Mini remained in production until 2000, long before then antiquated but still out-lasting the Metro, its intended successor.

1969 Austin Maxi 1500.

The allure of the Mini name obviously impressed BMC.  By 1969, BMC had, along with a few others, been absorbed into the Leyland conglomerate and the first release of the merged entity was in the same linguistic tradition: The Maxi.  A harbinger of what was to come, the Maxi encapsulated all that would go wrong within Leyland during the 1970s; a good idea, full of advanced features, poorly developed, badly built, unattractive and with an inadequate service network.  The design was so clever that to this day the space utilization has rarely been matched and had it been a Renault or a Citroën, the ungainly appearance and underpowered engine might have been forgiven because of the functionality but the poor quality control, lack of refinement and clunky aspects of some of the drivetrain meant success was only ever modest.  Like much of what Leyland did, the Maxi should have been a great success but even car thieves avoided the thing; for much of its life it was reported as the UK's least stolen vehicle.          

1979 Vanden Plas Mini (a possibly "outlaw" project by Leyland's outpost in South Africa).

Curiously, given the fondness of BMC (and subsequently Leyland) for badge-engineering, there was never an MG version of the Mini (although a couple of interpretations were privately built), the competition potential explored by a joint-venture with the Formula One constructors, Cooper, the name still used for some versions of the current BMW Mini.  Nor was there a luxury version finished by coachbuilders Vanden Plas which, with the addition of much timber veneer and leather to vehicles mundane, provided the parent corporations with highly profitable status-symbols with which to delight the middle-class.  There was however a separate development by Leyland's South African operation (Leykor), their Vanden Plas Mini sold briefly between 1978-1979 although the photographic evidence suggests it didn’t match the finish or appointment level of the English-built cars which may account for the short life-span and it's unclear whether the head office approved or even knew of this South African novelty prior to its few months of life.   In the home market, third-party suppliers of veneer and leather such as Radford found a market among those who appreciated the Mini's compact practicality but found its stark functionalism just too austere. 

The Twini

Mini Coopers (1275 S) through the cutting, Mount Panorama, Bathurst, Australia, 1966.

In that year's Gallaher 500, Mini Coopers finished first to ninth.  It was the last occasion on which anything with a naturally-aspirated four-cylinder engine would win the annual endurance classic, an event which has since be won on all but a handful of occasions by V8-powered cars (memorably a V12 Jaguar XJS triumphed in 1985 when Conrod Straight was still at it full length), a statistic distorted somewhat by the rule change in 1995 which stipulated only V8s were allowed to run.    

Although it seemed improbable when the Mini was released in 1959 as a small, utilitarian economy car, the performance potential proved extraordinary; in rallies and on race tracks it was a first-rate competitor for over a decade, remaining popular in many forms of competition to this day.  The joint venture with the Formula One constructor Cooper provided the basis for most of the success but by far the most intriguing possibility for more speed was the model which was never developed beyond the prototype stage: the twin-engined Twini.

Prototype twin-engined Moke while undergoing snow testing, 1962.

It wasn’t actually a novel approach.  BMC, inspired apparently by English racing driver Paul Emery (1916–1993) who in 1961 had built a twin-engined Mini, used the Mini’s underpinnings to create an all-purpose cross-country vehicle, the Moke, equipped with a second engine and coupled controls which, officially, was an “an engineering exercise” but had actually been built to interest the Ministry of Defence in the idea of a cheap, all-wheel drive utility vehicle, so light and compact it could be carried by small transport aircraft and serviced anywhere in the world.  The army did test the Moke and were impressed by its capabilities and the flexibility the design offered but ultimately rejected the concept because the lack of ground-clearance limited the terrain to which it could be deployed.  Based on the low-slung Mini, that was one thing which couldn’t easily be rectified.  Instead, using just a single engine in a front-wheel-drive (FWD) configuration, the Moke was re-purposed as a civilian model, staying in production between 1964-1989 and offered in various markets.  Such is the interest in the design that several companies have resumed production, including in electric form and it remains available today.

Cutaway drawing of Cooper’s Twini.

John Cooper (1923-2000), aware of previous twin-engined racing cars,  had tested the prototype military Moke and immediately understood the potential the layout offered for the Mini (ground clearance not a matter of concern on race tracks) and within six weeks the Cooper factory had constructed a prototype.  To provide the desired characteristics, the rear engine was larger and more powerful, the combination, in a car weighing less than 1600 lb (725 kg), delivering a power-to-weight ratio similar to a contemporary Ferrari Berlinetta and to complete the drive-train, two separate gearboxes with matched ratios were fitted.  Typically Cooper, it was a well thought-out design.  The lines for the brake and clutch hydraulics and those of the main electrical feed to the battery were run along the right-hand reinforcing member below the right-hand door while on the left side were the oil and water leads, the fuel supply line to both engines fed from a central tank.  The electrical harness was ducted through the roof section and there was a central throttle link, control of the rear carburetors being taken from the accelerator, via the front engine linkage, back through the centre of the car.  It sounded intricate but the distances were short and everything worked.

Twini replica.

John Cooper immediately began testing the Twini, evaluating its potential for competition and as was done with race cars in those happy days, that testing was on public roads where it proved to be fast, surprisingly easy to handle and well-balanced.  Unfortunately, de-bugging wasn't complete and during one night session, the rear engine seized which resulting in a rollover, Cooper seriously injured and the car destroyed.  Both BMC and Cooper abandoned the project because the standard Mini-Coopers were proving highly successful and to qualify for any sanctioned competition, at least one hundred Twinis would have to have been built and neither organization could devote the necessary resources for development or production, especially because no research had been done to work out whether a market existed for such a thing, were it sold at a price which guaranteed at least it would break even.

Twini built by Downton Engineering.  Driven by Sir John Whitmore (1937– 2017) &  Paul Frère (1917–2008) in the 1963 Targa Florio, it finished 27th and 5th in class.

The concept however did intrigue others interested in entering events which accepted one-offs with no homologation rules stipulating minimum production volumes.  Downton Engineering built one and contested the 1963 Targa Florio where it proved fast but fragile, plagued by an overheating rear-engine and the bugbear of previous twin-engined racing cars: excessive tire wear.  It finished 27^th (and last) but it did finish, unlike some of the more illustrious thoroughbreds which fell by the wayside.  Interestingly, the Downton engineers choose to use a pair of the 998 cm³ (61 cubic inch) versions of the BMC A-Series engine which was a regular production iteration and thus in the under-square (long stroke) configuration typical of almost all the A-Series.  The long stroke tradition in British engines was a hangover from the time when the road-taxation system was based on the cylinder bore, a method which had simplicity and ease of administration to commend it but little else, generations of British engines distinguished by their dreary, slow-revving characteristics.  The long stroke design did however provide good torque over a wide engine-speed range and on road-course like the Targa Florio, run over a mountainous Sicilian circuit, the ample torque spread would have appealed more to drivers than ultimate top-end power.  For that reason, although examples of the oversquare 1071 cm³ (65 cubic inch) versions were available, it was newly developed and a still uncertain quantity and never considered for installation.  The 1071 was used in the Mini Cooper S only during 1963-1964 (with a companion 970 cm³ (61 cubic inch) version created for use in events with a 1000 cm³ capacity limit) and the pair are a footnote in A-Series history as the only over-square versions released for sale

Twin-engined BMW Mini (Binni?).

In the era, it’s thought around six Twinis were built (and there have been a few since) but the concept proved irresistible and twin-engined versions of the "new" Mini (built since 2000 by BMW) have been made.  It was fitting that idea was replicated because what was striking in 2000 when BMW first displayed their Mini was that its lines were actually closer to some of the original conceptual sketches from the 1950s than was the BMC Mini on its debut.  BMW, like others, of course now routinely add electric motors to fossil-fuel powered cars so in that sense twin (indeed, sometimes multi-) engined cars are now common but to use more than one piston engine remains rare.  Except for the very specialized place which is the drag-strip, the only successful examples have been off-road or commercial vehicles and as John Cooper and a host of others came to understand, while the advantages were there to be had, there were easier, more practical ways in which they could be gained.  Unfortunately, so inherent were the drawbacks that the problems proved insoluble.

Mutual & Common

Mutual (pronounced myoo-choo-uhl)

(1) Possessed, experienced, performed, etc by each of two or more with respect to the other; reciprocal.

(2) Having the same relation each toward the other.

(3) Of or relating to each of two or more; held in common; shared.

(4) In corporate law, having or pertaining to a form of corporate organization in which there are no stockholders, and in which profits, losses, expenses etc, are shared by members in proportion to the business each transacts with the company:

(5) In informal use, an entity thus structured.

1470–1480: From the Middle English mutual (reciprocally given and received (originally of feelings)), from the Old & Middle French mutuel, from the Latin mūtu(us) (mutual, reciprocal (originally “borrowed”)), the construct being mūt(āre) (to change (source of the modern mutate (ie delta, omicron and all that))) + -uus (the adjectival suffix) + the Middle French -el (from the Latin –ālis (the third-declension two-termination suffix (neuter -āle) used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or numerals) and rendered in English as –al.  Root was the primitive Indo-European mei- (to change, go, move).  The alternative spelling mutuall is obsolete.  Derived forms used to describe ownership structures such as quasi-mutual and trans-mutual are created as required.  Mutual & mutualist are nouns & adjectives, mutuality, mutualization, mutualism & mutualness are nouns, mutualize, mutualizing & mutualized are verbs and mutually & mutualistically are adverbs; the noun plural is mutuals.

The term "mutually exclusive" is widely used (sometimes loosely) but has a precise meaning in probability theory & formal logic where it describes multiple events or propositions such that the occurrence of any one dictates the non-occurrence of the other nominated events or propositions.  The noun mutualism is used in fields as diverse as corporate law, economic theory, materials engineering, political science and several disciplines within biology (where variously it interacts with and is distinguished from symbiosis).  The phrase "mutual admiration society" is from 1851 and appears to have been coined by Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) to describe those who habitually were in agreement with each-other and inclined to swap praise.  The "mutual fund", although the structure pre-existed the adjectival use, is from 1950 and these soon came to be known simply as “mutuals”, the word appearing sometimes even in the registered names and the best known of the type were the building societies & benevolent (or friendly) societies, the core structural element of what was the ownership being held in common by the members rather than shareholders.  The concept of the mutual structure is of interest in some jurisdictions because of the suggestion the large assets held by chapters of the Freemasons may be so owned and, with the possibility the aging membership may ultimately result in these assets being dissolved and the proceeds distributed.  If, under local legislation, the structure was found to be mutual, membership might prove unexpectedly remunerative.

The Cold War's "mutually assured destruction" (MAD) is attested from 1963 (although it wasn’t until 1966 it entered general use) and was actually a modification of the Pentagon’s 1962 term “assured destruction” which was a technical expression from US military policy circles to refer to the number of deliverable nuclear warheads in the arsenal necessary to act as a deterrent to attack.  In the public consciousness it was understood but vaguely defined until 1965 when Robert McNamara (1916–2009; US Secretary of Defense 1961-1968) appeared before the House Armed Services Committee and explained the idea was "the minimum threat necessary to assure deterrence: the capability in a retaliatory nuclear attack to exterminate not less than one third the population of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)”.  The “mutual” was added as the number of deployable Soviet warheads reached a critical strategic mass.  The mastery of statistical analysis served McNamara well until the US escalation of the war in Vietnam when the Hanoi regime declined to conform to follow his carefully constructed models of behavior. 

In social media, a mutual is a pair of individuals who follow each other's social media accounts, whether by agreement or organically and there’s something a niche activity is working out the extent to which the behavior happens between bots.  Mutuality (reciprocity, interchange) was from the 1580s.  Mutually (reciprocally, in a manner of giving and receiving), was noted from the 1530s and the phrase mutually exclusive was first recorded in the 1650s.  The specialized mutualism (from the Modern French mutuellisme) dates from 1845, referring to the doctrine of French anarchist-socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865) that individual and collective well-being is attainable only by mutual dependence.  In the biological sciences, it was first used in 1876 to describe "a symbiosis in which two organisms living together mutually and permanently help and support one another" although there are those who differentiate mutualism (a type of co-existence where neither organism is directly affected by the other but the influence they exert on other organisms or the environment is of benefit to the other) from symbiosis (where there’s a co-dependency).

Parimutuel betting is from the French invention pari mutuel (mutual betting), the construct being pari (wager, from parier (to bet) from the Latin pariare (to settle a debt (literally “to make equal”)) from par, from paris (equal) + mutuel (mutual).  It describes a gambling system where all bets of a particular type are pooled and from this (gross-pool), taxes and the vigorish (from the Yiddish וויגריש‎ (vigrish), from the Russian вы́игрыш (výigryš) (winnings), the commission or “hose-take" are deducted.  The dividends are then calculated by dividing the remainder (net pool) by all winning bets.  In many jurisdictions it’s called the Tote after the totalisator, which calculates and displays bets already made; in Australia and New Zealand it’s the basis of the original agency structure of the Totalisator Agency Board (TAB).

The adoption of mutual as a synonym for "common" is from 1630s and was long condemned as being used “loosely, improperly and not infrequently, often by those who should know better”; “mutual friend" seemed the most common offence.  The view was that “mutual” could apply to only two objects and “common” should be used if three or more were involved.  Opinion has thankfully since softened.  Mutual and common (in the sense of the relation of two or more persons or things to each other) have been used synonymously since the sixteenth century and the use is considered entirely standard.  Objections are one of those attempts to enforce create rules in English which never existed, the only outcome being the choice of use treated as a class-identifier by those who care about such things and either ignored or un-noticed by most.  Tautologous use of mutual however should be avoided: One should say co-operation (not mutual co-operation) between two states.

Common (pronounced kom-uhn)

(1) Belonging equally to, or shared alike by, two or more or all in question (as in common property; common interests et al).

(2) Pertaining or belonging equally to an entire community, nation, or culture; public (as in common language; common history et al).

(3) Joint; united.

(4) Prevailing; Widespread; general; universal (eg common knowledge).

(5) Customary, habitual, everyday.

(6) In some jurisdictions a tract of land owned or used jointly by the residents of a community, usually a central square or park in a city or town (often as “the commons” or “the common”).

(7) In domestic & international law, the right or liberty, in common with other persons, to take profit from the land or waters of another, as by pasturing animals on another's land (common of pasturage ) or fishing in another's waters (common of piscary).  Of interest to economist and ecologists because of the disconnection between the economic gain from the commons and the responsibility for its care and management.

(8) Vulgar, ordinary, cheap, inferior etc (as a derogatory expression of class, often in phrases such as “common as muck” or “common as potatoes”, the back-handed compliment “the common-touch” applied to politicians best at disguising their contempt for the voters (or, as they refer to us: “the ordinary people”).

(9) In some (particularly Germanic) languages, of the gender originating from the coalescence of the masculine and feminine categories of nouns.

(10) In grammar, of or pertaining to common nouns as opposed to proper nouns.

(11) In the vernacular, referring to the name of a kind of plant or animal but its common (ie conversational) rather than scientific name (the idea reflected in the phrase “common or garden”).

(12) Profane; polluted (obsolete).

(13) Given to lewd habits; prostitute (obsolete).

(14) To communicate something; to converse, talk; to have sex; to participate; to board together; to eat at a table in common (all obsolete vernacular forms).

1250–1300: From the Middle English comun (belonging to all, owned or used jointly, general, of a public nature or character), from the Anglo-French commun, from the Old French, commun (Comun was rare in the Gallo-Romance languages, but reinforced as a Carolingian calque of the Proto-West Germanic gamainī (common) in the Old French and commun was the spelling adopted in the Modern French) (common, general, free, open, public), from the Latin commūnis (universal, in common, public, shared by all or many; general, not specific; familiar, not pretentious), thought originally to mean “sharing common duties,” akin to mūnia (duties of an office), mūnus (task, duty, gift), from the unattested base moin-, cognate with mean.  The Latin was from a reconstructed primitive Indo-European compound ḱom-moy-ni-s  (held in common), a compound adjective, the construct being ko- (together) + moi-n- (a suffixed form of the root mei- or mey (to change, go, move (hence literally "shared by all").  The second element of the compound was the source also of the Latin munia (duties, public duties, functions; specific office).  It was possibly reinforced in the Old French by the Germanic form of ḱom-moy-ni-s  (ko-moin-i) and influenced also the German gemein, and the Old English gemne (common, public).  Comun and its variations cam to displace the native Middle English imene & ȝemǣne (common, general, universal (from the Old English ġemǣne (common, universal)), and the later Middle English mene & mǣne (mean, common (also from the Old English ġemǣne)) and the Middle English samen & somen (in common, together (from the Old English samen (together)). A doublet of gmina.  Common is a noun, verb & adjective, commoner is a noun & adjective, commonality is a noun and commonly is an adverb; the noun plural is commons.

Common has been used disparagingly of women and criminals since at least the fourteenth century and snobs have added categories since as required.  The meanings "pertaining equally to or proceeding equally from two or more" & "not distinguished, belonging to the general mass" was from circa 1400 whereas the sense of "usual, not exceptional, of frequent occurrence" & "ordinary, not excellent" dates from the late fourteenth century.  Common prayer was that done in public in unity with other worshipers as contrasted with private prayer, both probably more common then than now.  The Church of England's Book of Common Prayer was first published in 1549 and went through several revisions for reasons both theological and political.  The 1662 edition remains the standard collection of the prayer books used in the Anglican Communion and while many churches now use versions written in more modern English, there remain traditionalists who insist on one of the early editions.

The common room was noted first in the 1660s, a place in the university college to which all members were granted common access.  The late fourteenth century common speech was used to describe both English and (less often) vernacular (which came to be called vulgar) Latin.  From the same time, the common good was an English adoption of the Latin bonum publicum (the common weal).  Common sense is from 1839 and is U whereas, because of the tortured grammar, 1848’s common-sensible is thought non-U.  The idea of common sense had been around since the fourteenth century but with a different meaning to the modern: The idea was of an internal mental power supposed to unite (reduce to a common perception) the impressions conveyed by the five physical senses (sensus communisin the Latin, koine aisthesis in the Ancient Greek). Thus it evolved into "ordinary understanding, without which one is foolish or insane" by the 1530s, formalised as "good sense" by 1726 with common-sense in the modern sense the nineteenth century expression.

The mid-fourteenth century common law was "the customary and unwritten laws of England as embodied in commentaries and old cases", as opposed to statute law.  Over the years, this did sometimes confuse people because in different contexts (common law vs statute law; common law versus equity; common law vs civil law) the connotations were different.  The phrase common-law marriage is attested from a perhaps surprisingly early 1909.  In the English legal system, common pleas was from the thirteenth century, from the Anglo-French communs plets (hearing civil actions by one subject against another as opposed to pleas of the crown).  In corporate law, common stock is attested from 1888.  The late fourteenth century commoner is from the earlier Anglo-French where in addition to conveying the expected sense of "one of the common people” also had the technical meaning “a member of the third estate of the estates-general".  In English it acquired the dual meaning as (1) of non-royal blood and (2), since the mid-fifteenth century “a member of the House of Commons”.  Commonly the adverb is from circa 1300 and commonness the noun from the 1520s though it originally meant only "state or quality of being shared by more than one", the idea of something of "quality of being of ordinary occurrence" not noted until the 1590s.  The adjective uncommon assumed a similar development, in the 1540s meaning "not possessed in common" and by the 1610s meaning "not commonly occurring, unusual; rare".

Last thoughts on a non-rule

The distinction between mutual (reciprocal; between two) and common (among three or more) probably once was, at least to some extent, observed by educated writers, Dr Johnson (1709-1984) in his A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) allowing but one definition: MUTUAL a. Reciprocal; each acting in return or correspondence to the other.

G K Chesterton.

That old curmudgeon G K Chesterton (1874-1936) was certainly convinced.  Writing about Charles Dickens (1812–1870) novel Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865), he claimed the title was the source of the phrase in general speech, snobbily noting of it was the “…old democratic and even uneducated Dickens who is writing here. The very title is illiterate. Any priggish pupil teacher could tell Dickens that there is no such phrase in English as 'our mutual friend'.  Anyone could tell Dickens that 'our mutual friend' means 'our reciprocal friend' and that 'our reciprocal friend' means nothing. If he had only had all the solemn advantages of academic learning (the absence of which in him was lamented by the Quarterly Review), he would have known better. He would have known that the correct phrase for a man known to two people is 'our common friend'."

The phrase in the English novel however pre-dated Dickens, Jane Austen (1775-1817) using it in both Emma (1816) and Persuasion (1818) and long before 1864, Mary Shelley (1797–1851), Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832), William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863), Herman Melville (1819–1891), James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) and Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–1865) all had “mutual friend” in their text.  Dickens, with the prominence afforded by the title and serialized in the press, doubtless popularized it and, as Chesterton well knew, literature anyway isn’t necessarily written in "common speech".  Whoever opened the floodgates, after 1864, mutual friends continued to flow, George Orwell (1903-1950), Joseph Conrad (1857–1924), Jerome K Jerome (1859–1927), Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), Mark Twain (1835-1910), Anthony Trollope (1815-1882), Henry James (1843–1916), Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894), Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) & Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) all content with "mutual friend" so those condemned by Chesterton are in good company.  The old snob probably did ponder if calling someone a “common friend” might create a misunderstanding but then, good with words, he’d probably avoid that by suggesting they were “rather common” or “a bit common" if that was what he wanted to convey, which not infrequently he often did.

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

Auburn

Auburn (pronounced aw-bern)

(1) A reddish-brown or golden-brown color.

(2) Of something colored auburn (most often used to describe hair).

(3) A widely used locality name.

(4) As the Auburn system (also known as the New York system and Congregate system), a notably severe penal method created in the early nineteenth century and implemented in Auburn Prison, Auburn, New York.

1400–1450: From the late Middle English abron, abrune aborne & abourne (light brown, yellowish brown), a sixteenth century alteration (because of a conflation with the later spelling auburne with the Middle English broune & brun (brown) which also changed the spelling) of the earlier auborne (yellowish-white, flaxen) from the Middle French & Old French auborne & alborne (blond, flaxen, off-white) from the Medieval alburnus (fair-haired, literally “like white or whitish”) and related to alburnum (the soft, newer wood in the trunk of a tree found between the bark and the hardened heartwood, often paler in color than the heartwood) from alba & albus (white).  Since the meaning shifted from blonde to hues of red, auburn has tended to be used exclusively of women’s hair.  The noun use dates from 1852.  Auburn is often associated with the Venetian painter Tiziano Vecellio (circa 1490-1576; known usually in English as Titian), especially the works of his early career when the colors tended to be more vivid but the modern practice is to apply auburn to darker shades although there’s much imprecision in commercial applications such as hair dyes and what some call some sort of auburn, others might list as some variation of burgundy, brown, chestnut, copper, hazel, henna, russet, rust or titian.

The term “medieval scholar” is not of course oxymoronic though the language is replete with errors of translation and misunderstandings replicated and re-enforced over a thousand-odd years.  However, as English began to assume its recognizably modern form, nor were errors unknown and it does seem strange such a well-documented Latin word as alburnus (fair-haired, literally “like white or whitish”) which had evolved in Middle English as auburne could be conflated with the Middle English broune & brun (brown), leading eventually to the modern auburn having morphed from blonde to a range of reddish browns.  Some etymologists however suggests it was deliberate, the late fifteenth century blond being preferred while auburne was re-purposed to where it could be more useful in the color-chart.  The modern blond & blonde were 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 & albus (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.

Paintings by Titian (left to right), Portrait of a Lady (circa 1511), National Gallery, London, Flora (1515), Uffizi Gallery, Florence, St Margaret and the Dragon (circa 1559) Museo del Prado, Madrid & Portrait of a Lady in White (circa 1561), Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden.

Even the understanding of auburn as “reddish brown” or “golden brown” has changed over the years.  The Venetian painter Tiziano Vecellio (circa 1490-1576 and known in English usually as Titian) lent the name “titian auburn” to the tint of reddish-brown hair which appeared so often in his work.  As so often happens in art, his output darkened as he aged so the term “titian auburn” as a literal descriptor of a particular tincture needs to be understood as a spectrum.  While his fondness for redheads seems not to have diminished with age, the vivid hues which characterized the flowing locks he favored in his youth were later sometimes rendered in more subdued tones.

Lindsay Lohan illustrates the shift from the Latin alburnus to the modern English Auburn.

(1) Alburnus as a Roman would have understood the description; now called blond or blonde depending on context.

(2) The classical understanding of “titian auburn”, a light and vivid shade reddish-brown.

(3) A more cooper-tinged hue, representative of what the hair-dye industry would call something like “light auburn”.

(4) This is a dark alburn; any darker and depending on the tint, it would be described either as burgundy or chestnut.

The Auburn Speedster

1935 Auburn 851 SC Speedster.

Under a variety of corporate structures, the Auburn company produced cars in the US between 1900-1937 and is remembered now for the Speedster 851 & 852, one of the most romantic designs of the mid-1930s.  Although Auburn, along with its corporate stablemates Cord and Duesenberg, succumbed to the affects of the Great Depression, the company’s financial problems long-predated the 1929 Wall Street crash, the conglomerate of the three manufacturers assembled in 1925 as a restructuring.  After this, in the growing economy of the 1920s Auburn began again to prosper and it was in 1925 the company introduced the model which would be the basis of the later 851 & 852.  Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg (A-C-D) actually enjoyed a logical structure in that the brand-names existed at different price points but it lacked any presence in the low-cost mass-market, relying instead on lower volume vehicles which relied on their style, engineering and value for money for their appeal.  Had the depression not happened, the strategy might have worked but, given the austerity of the 1930s, what’s remarkable is that A-C-D endured until 1937.             

1932 Auburn 12-160.  The color is said to be a 1932 factory option and is similar to the apple green with which Duesenberg painted their 6.9 litre (420 cubic inch) straight-eights.

Although now celebrated for their stylish lines, A-C-D’s cars were at the time also noted for innovation and the quality of their engineering.  Cord’s front-wheel-drive proved a cul-de-sac to which US manufacturers wouldn’t for decades return but other aspects of their designs were influential although A-C-D’s trademark quixotic offerings sometimes suggested a sense of disconnection from economic reality; in 1932, in the depth of the depression, Auburn announced a model powered by a 391 cubic inch (6.5 litre) V12, a perhaps questionable approach in an environment which had seen demand collapse for the twelve and sixteen cylinder Lincolns, Packard and Cadillacs.  Elegant and powerful, in less troubled times it would likely have succeeded but was wholly unsuited to the world into which it was released despite being priced from an extraordinary US$1,105; while that was 40% more than even the most expensive Ford V8, it was a fraction the cost of the more comparable Packard or Lincoln V12.

1936 Auburn 852 SC Speedster.

The Boattail Speedster was less ambitious but had already carved its niche.  It was designed in 1928 to create the signature product that encapsulated what A-C-D wished the Auburn marque to represent: fast, sleek, stylish and a value for money no other could match; had the company anticipated the slogan “grace, space & pace” it would have been well understood for what is now called a mission statement was exactly what made Jaguar such a success in the post-war years.  Using Lycoming's smooth, powerful and reliable straight-eight cylinder engine, sleek Speedster delivered the performance the lines promised, a genuine 100 mph (160 km/h) roadster which set speed records when taken to Daytona Beach.  The Speedster’s classic iteration was the 851 (the subsequent 852 all but identical), introduced in 1934, the design clearly a homage to the much-admired (if infrequently purchased) Duesenberg Weymann Speedster though where the Duesenberg was long and elegant, the Auburn was squat and sporty and for those who wanted something more charismatic still, the 280 cubic inch (4.6 litre) straight-eight could be ordered with a Schwitzer-Cummins centrifugal supercharger.  The market responded to the speed and the art deco style but the investment had been considerable, something the under-capitalized A-C-D undertook only because the improving economy provided some confidence sales would be sufficient to ensure profitability.  Had the recovery been sustained, A-C-D may have survived, unemployment in 1937 still high but significantly lower in the demographic which was their target market.  As in was, in mid-1937, the US economy suffered a sudden, sharp, recession which would last over a year, the effects lingering until late 1940 when the combined effected of increased armaments production and a presidential election had a simulative effect.  A-C-D, its finances in a perilous state since the Wall Street Crash, couldn’t survive and the companies all entered bankruptcy, Auburn succumbing in 1937.

A-C-D’s fate provides a cautionary tale which for decades was often ignored by those unable to resist the siren call to make beautiful, fast cars bearing their name.  Unless volumes were sufficient (thereby diluting the lure of exclusivity which tended to be much of the attraction) or else subsidized by the profits of some mass-market offering, enduring success was rare and few of those which did initially flourish were capitalized to the extent necessary to survive the inevitable downturns which disproportionally affects those depending on the more self-indulgent sectors sustained by discretionary expenditure.