Corona

Corona (pronounced kuh-roh-nuh)

(1) A white or colored circle or set of concentric circles of light seen around a luminous body.

(2) In meteorology, such a circle or set of circles having a small radius and ranging in color from blue inside to red outside, attributable to the diffraction caused by thin clouds, mist, or sometimes dust (distinguished from halo).

(3) In solar astronomy, a faintly luminous envelope outside of the sun's chromosphere, the inner part consisting of highly ionized elements; also called aureola & aureole.

(4) A long, straight, un-tapered cigar, rounded at the closed end.

(5) In botany, a crown-like appendage, especially one on the inner side of a corolla, as in the narcissus.

(6) In anatomy, the upper portion or crown of a part, as of the head.

(7) In architecture, the projecting, slab-like member of a classical cornice supported by the bed molding or by modillions, dentils, etc., and supporting the cymatium.

(8) The tonsure of a monk or other cleric.

(9) In ecclesiastical dress, a gold-colored stripe around the lower edge of a clerical headdress, as of a miter.

(10) A chandelier of wrought metal, having the form of one or more concentric hoops.

(11) In zoology, the head or upper surface of an animal, such as the body of an echinoid or the disc and arms of a crinoid.

(12) As Coronaviruses, a group of viruses which infect mammals and birds.  In humans, they cause usually mild (including 229E, the common cold) respiratory infections but forms such as SARS, MERS the famous COVID-19 can be lethal.

1555–1565: From the Latin corōna (garland, crown) from the Ancient Greek κορώνη (korṓnē or korōnis (crown, any curved object)), akin to korōnís (wreath; curved, beaked) & kórax (crow; raven); related was the Latin curvus (curved).  A doublet of crown, the plural forms are coronas & coronae.

COVID-19 and Coca-Cola

COVID-19 (an abbreviation of coronavirus disease 2019) was the name of the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2.  The name was adopted in February 2020, chosen by the World Health Organization (WHO) in partnership with the Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses; until then, variously it had been called 2019-nCoV, Novel coronavirus or Wuhan coronavirus.  SARS-CoV-2 is related to MERS-CoV (which causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)) and SARS-CoV (which causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)).

The Sun and its corona (left) and a depiction of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (bottom).

The class to which these viruses belong is called corona because, when viewed under an electron microscope, there’s a resemblance to the crown-like corona (the halo or ring of fire) around the Sun, seem when viewed through an appropriate telescope or other device.  The corona around the sun has long been known but viruses have been seen only since the development of the electron microscope because human viruses are very small, typically 100 nanometers (1 metre = 1,000 mm = 1,000,000 micrometres = 1,000,000,000 nanometres).  In the evolutionary timeline of life on earth, it's believed bacteria emerged quite some time before viruses.  Bacteria appear to have been one of the earliest forms of life and, because no evidence of life has yet been detected anywhere else in the universe, they're perhaps among the oldest anywhere.  Single-celled organisms with a relatively simple structure and capable of independent reproduction, bacteria are thought to have appeared some 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago (the Earth dating back 4.5 billion) and the evidence suggests the viruses emerged 2-3 billions years ago.  Unlike bacteria, viruses are not considered living organisms in the traditional sense because they cannot carry out metabolic processes or reproduce on their own; instead, they are genetic material (DNA or RNA) enclosed in a protein coat.

As far as is known, all life forms now extant (and all extinct forms known) are descended ultimately from the one initial instance; life started once which means humans are related to cats, dogs, trees & bananas as well as to bacteria & viruses.  That makes people, bacteria and just about everything else vulnerable to infection by one virus or another, the consequences ranging from nothing to death but the behavior can also be used to advantage and a certain class of virus, the bacteriophage, after a long period of neglect during the antibiotic era, is attracting new interest.

Some viruses can be helpful: A depiction of bacteriophages phaging.

Not all viruses are bad like SARS-CoV-2.  A bacteriophage, known almost always as a phage, is a virus which infects and replicates within bacteria.  Phages are composites of proteins that surround a DNA or RNA genome and may encode any number of genes from a handful to many hundreds.  Phages replicate within the bacterium following the injection of their genome into the target cytoplasm.  Phages exist naturally in the environment and are among the most common and diverse entities on earth.  Serious research began in several parts of Europe during the late nineteenth century and have been used for almost a century as anti-bacterial agents the former USSR and Central Europe.  In the West, phage therapy (using specific viruses to fight difficult bacterial infections) has been of interest for some time, attention heightened as the problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (superbugs in the popular imagination) began to grow in severity (the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) attributes one death every 15 minutes in the US to superbugs).  Since the discovery of penicillin, antibiotics have been used as a reliable cure for those suffering from once lethal bacterial infections but, over decades, a handful (compared with the trillions and trillions killed) of bacteria have proved resistant to antibiotics and as these survivors multiply, new infections emerge.  Historically this had prompted the development of revised or new antibiotics but the biological arms race has reached the point where some infections caused by called antibiotic resistant bacteria cannot be treated and for many other serious infections, the number of potent “last resort” antibiotics is dwindling.

Hence the interest in phages, a type of “friendly virus” which can be weaponized to fight even the most virulent and persistent bacterial infections.  Phages work as well as they do because viruses like the tiresome SARS-Cov-2 that makes humans sick, phages can infect only bacteria and are selective about which they target, a vital aspect of their role in medicine because human survival depends on the billions of bacteria in our bodies.  These phages are far from rare, existing in the natural environment almost everywhere on the planet and scientists conducting research find dirty waterways or damp, aerated, warm, decaying soil (both areas where high bacterial growth might be expected) are good places to collect samples.  The advantages phages offer are well known but there are also drawbacks and indeed some of the features of phages manifest as both.  For example, the great specificity of phages helpful in that they can be administered safely with the knowledge that no other organisms will be harmed but this can be a practical disadvantage in clinical medicine when it’s not known exactly which bacteria need to be targeted, which is why broad-spectrum antibiotics proved so effective at scale.  Being wholly natural, the shelf-life of phages is highly variable and there’s little experience in their administration beyond some communities in Eastern Europe where they’ve been part of medical practice for over a century.  Additionally, bacteria can develop resistance even to phages and one practical impediment to deployment not well recognized until recent years is that compared to chemical molecules, phages are quite big and there are sites in the human body which will be inaccessible.

Electron micrograph of a Coronaviruses in colorized and in grey-scale.

The images captured from electron microscopes are always in black-and-white but are often artificially colored in the post-production process for better visualization and to assist with analysis.  Because of the resolution limit of the optical microscope, even at the highest magnification, viruses couldn’t be seen because their size meant they lay beyond the spectrum of visible light, the range of resolution being limited by the wavelength of the visible light that illuminates the specimen.  It was the resolution of the electron microscope, developed in the early 1930s, and able to offer an illumination with a wavelength much smaller than visible light which first made viruses visible.  An electron has the properties both of a particle and a wave so an electron’s wavelength is determined by its energy (or speed).  If an electron is accelerated to a speed of a million meters per second (circa 2.2 million mph (3.5 million km/h)) the physical wavelength is around one-tenth of a nanometer or about the size of an atom.  This permits an electron microscope to probe the structure of atoms in a crystal and thus see viruses.

Lindsay Lohan taking a 330ml lunch.

In February 2021, at a time when the official number of people with COVID-19 was around 107 million, mathematicians calculated all the COVID-19 causing SARS-COV-2 virus then circulating the planet easily would fit in a single (330ml) Coca-Cola can.  Using a model based on the viral load per currently infected victim (which varies during the duration of the infection), it was estimated there were at the time around two-hundred quadrillion (200 million billion or 2x10¹⁷). SARS-CoV-2 virus particles in the world.  Using that number, knowing the size of the virus, it was possible to calculate the total volume and even after accounting for the distinctive projecting spike proteins meaning the spherical particles will leave gaps when stacked together, the total is still less than the internal volume of the 330 millilitre can.

Two-hundred quadrillion is a really big number, there are said to be about that many grains of sand on the planet, but Sars-CoV-2 particles are really small, around a hundred nanometres (one nanometre is a billionth of a meter) so the radius of Sars-CoV-2 is roughly a thousand times thinner than a human hair.  The mathematicians multiplied the numbers, worked out the wastage of space caused by the troublesome spikes accounted for about a quarter of the total volume and concluded that in February 2021, the volume of SARS-CoV-2 in the world was 160 millilitres.  By mid-2021, cases had almost doubled so by then, either the can would be full or, given the margin of error associated with such calculations, a second can might be required.  The caveat to all this is that the math is based on the official number of infected people and nobody knows what the real is although all agree it will be higher but by what factor is guesswork, reliable data just not available to build a model.  Guesses have been proffered ranged from double to twenty times higher.  Depending on which of those is closest, a six-pack or a carton of cans might be filled.

Rare collector’s item: Lindsay Lohan MH Corona Extra tobacco card #480: US$5.00 on eBay.  Unrelated to this card is the specification of the corona cigars, straight-shaped cigars with rounded tops (the end taken to the lips) and defined by length: a corona about 5½ inches (140 mm) long; a petit corona (or corona chica) about 5 inches (125 mm) long, a tres petit corona about 4½ inches (115 mm) long & a half corona about 3¾ (95 mm) inches long.

The Toyota (Corona) 1600GT

1958 Toyota Corona "Van".

It was the Toyota Corona (1957-2001) which not only established the company in the vital US market but lent respectability to the very idea of the “Japanese car”, that term in the early 1960s not the by-word for quality and reliability it would in subsequent decades become.  Noting the success of the small (by US standards) Volkswagen Beetle and other imports, the company shipped a small number of Coronas to the US in the late 1950s but they were unsuitable for the environment (as indeed were a number of the diminutive European models which lacked the ruggedness of the VW) and interest was minimal, the Corona withdrawn from sale in 1960 although unsold models lingered on the lots for another year.

1966 "shovel-nose" Toyota Corona.

It was the third generation Corona, launched in September 1964 in an array of body styles, which was the Toyota passenger car to achieve international success, including in the US.  It was a thoroughly conventional design (ie mechanically a scaled down US sedan) with a body which was modern, inoffensive and practical although some thought the reverse-slanted nose strange.  It came to be nick-named the “shovel-nose” and proved ahead of its time, adopted in 1972 by Lancia for the Beta and in 1976 it appeared on Ford’s Escort RS2000 before variations of the shape eventually became the default for manufacturers seeking to eke out as much aerodynamic efficiency as possible.

The "shovel-nose" caught on: 1972 Lancia Beta (left) & 1976 Ford Escort RS2000 (right).  

The export range appeared in volume but the most desirable models were reserved for the JDM (Japanese domestic market), a long-standing, industry-wide practice which has had the effect of creating a minor export business for those who can satisfy the demand in markets like Australia, New Zealand & North America for the high-performance versions which have something of a cult-following.  The 1967 1600GT (or GT-5 for those with the optional five-speed gearbox) coupé (for this JDM “halo” model the Corona badge wasn’t used) was modest compared with some of the wild machinery which would appear in subsequent decades but by the standards of its time, there was some genuine sophistication.  The body was the standard two-door hardtop but the centrepiece was a double overhead camshaft (DOHC) cylinder head atop the 1600 cm³ four cylinder engine, the head designed by Yamaha which had also developed the one used on the straight-six in the exotic Toyota 2000 GT sports car made famous by the appearance of a custom built roadster version in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice (1967).

1967 Toyota 2000GT roadster.  Two 2000GT coupés were converted into roadsters for You Only Live Twice (one used for filming, the other a "back-up"), the work undertaken by Toyota’s special Toyopet Service Centre in Tsunashima.  The wire wheels were exclusive to the roadsters (15×5 inch magnesium wheels were used on the coupés) and the pair were very much movie props, neither vehicle fitted with side windows or a soft-top.  The "back-up car" is now on display in the Toyota Automobile Museum.

Known internally as the 9R, the 1600GT engine took a traditionally English approach to increasing power: twin carburetors, big valves and a high-compression ratio, the combination yielding a then impressive 110 horsepower at 6200rpm, the latter number something to note given the crankshaft was supported by only three main bearings.  Still, being a Toyota engine, reliability was solid and no history of bottom-end failure emerged; whether the unusual firing order (1243) had anything to do with this seems not to be discussed anywhere.  To cope with the new-found power, the Corona’s suspension was strengthened with re-calibrated springs and dampers along with two torque rods to locate the back axle.  That improved things but the Japanese manufacturers, although matching the Europeans in power, still had some way to go in achieving their dynamics; the 1600 GT was no cut-price Alfa Romeo.  It was though very well equipped, another lesson Toyota and other Japanese factories would (painfully) teach the West.  Always a low volume model, production of 1600 GTs totalled 2222, the last built late in 1968.

1967 Toyota 1600GT.  They were available also in red and white.

1974 Toyota Corona advertising.

The 1600GT's cult following notwithstanding, it really wasn't representative of the Coronas which went around the world and for decades provided owners and fleets with reliable, if uninspiring transport (very much the Camry of their time).  That made them memorable for many who may have enjoyed the charms of British, French or Italian machinery but found the quirks, oil-leaks, fragility or apparently insoluble issues electrical issues (often described as "gremlins") made ownership tiresome.  Toyota were aware of the advantage their approach (which put a premium on basic engineering and quality control over the finer points of handling and high-speed braking) and their advertising for the Corona in the 1970s said explicitly: "When your heart says Europe but your head says Japan".  People increasingly followed their heads and by 1989 Toyota released the Lexus, proving they were as good at building a Mercedes-Benz as they were at building Toyotas.  It took many attempts for Mercedes-Benz to become (almost) as good at building Toyotas.

Bacchanal

Bacchanal pronounced (bah-kuh-nahl, bak-uh-nal, bak-uh-nl (noun) or bak-uh-nl (adjective))

(1) A follower of Bacchus.

(2) A drunken reveler.

(3) An occasion of drunken revelry; orgy; riotous celebration.

(4) Of or pertaining to Bacchus; bacchanalian.

1530-1540: From the Latin Bacchānālis (having to do with Bacchus) & Bacchānālia (feast of Bacchus), plural of Bacchānal (a place devoted to Bacchus), from Bacchus (the god of wine), from the Ancient Greek Βάκχος (Bákkhos).  By extension, the meaning "riotous, drunken roistering or orgy" dates from 1711.  Bacchus, known also as Dionysus (Διόνυσος) (Dionysos) was in Greek Mythology the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness, fertility, theatre and religious ecstasy.  In Antiquity, most attention focused on wine and given consumption was both high and enthusiastic, the worship of Bacchus became firmly established.  A quirk of Bacchus’ place in the pantheon of gods is that, uniquely, he was born of a mortal mother.  The Romans adopted the name bacchanal (a woman given to such things was a bacchante) and named the behavior of those who had taken too much strong drink: bakkheia.  Bacchanal is a noun & adjective, Bacchanalia is a noun; the noun plural is bacchanals.

Bacchus and Ariadne

Bacchus and Ariadne (1717) by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini (1675-1741).

In Greek mythology, Ariadne was the clever, though perhaps naïve, daughter of King Minos of Crete and she aided the hero Theseus in his mission to slay the Minotaur.  To say naïve might be understating things: poor sweet Ariadne was an emo and a bit of a dill.  On the island of Crete, there was a great labyrinth that housed a fearsome beast, the Minotaur, half human, half bull.  King Minos, in retaliation for his son's death at the hands of an Athenian, required the people of Athens every nine years to send seven young men and seven young virgins to be sacrificed to the beast, the alternative the destruction of their city.  One year, Theseus volunteered to be sent to Crete as part of the awful pact, planning to kill the Minotaur and thereby release his people from their plight.  When he stepped ashore in Crete, Ariadne spotted him and at once fell in love, as emos often do; running to Theseus, she offered to help him defeat the monster if he would marry her.  Theseus naturally agreed so Ariadne gave him a sword and a ball of red thread with which to mark his path so he could find his way out of the labyrinth.  The plan worked to the extent that Theseus slayed the Minotaur but certainly had no intention of marrying Ariadne.  While the couple traveled to Athens, during a brief stop on the island of Naxos, he sailed away, abandoning her while she slumbered on the beach.  Ariadne may have been an emo but Theseus was a cad.  Distraught by being deserted by the one she loved, Ariadne was still sobbing on the shore Bacchus appeared with a procession of his followers.  They spoke a few words and within moments had fallen in love, soon to marry.  In some tellings of the myths, after their wedding, Bacchus placed Ariadne's sparkling diadem in the sky as the constellation Corona, thus making her immortal.

A bacchante illustrating the consequences of what the Ancient Romans called bakkheia: Lindsay Lohan in a Cadillac Escalade, resting after dinner, Los Angeles, May 2007.

Coronet

Coronet (pronounced kawr-uh-nit, kawr-uh-net, kor-uh-nit, or kor-un-net)

(1) A small crown.

(2) A crown worn by nobles or peers (as distinct from those worn by sovereigns).

(3) A crown-like ornament for the head, as of gold or jewels.

(4) An ornament, tending to the pedimental in form, situated over a door or window.

(5) The lowest part of the pastern of a horse or other hoofed animal, just above the hoof.

(6) In heraldry, a crown-like support for a crest, used in place of a torse; also called crest coronet.

(7) The margin between the skin of a horse's pastern and the horn of the hoof.

(8) The knob at the base of a deer's antler.

(9) The traditional lowest regular commissioned officer rank in the cavalry (the equivalent of an ensign in the infantry or navy).

(10) Any of several hummingbirds in the genus Boissonneaua.

(11) A species of moth, Craniophora ligustri.

1350–1400: From the Middle English crownet & corounet, from the Middle French couronnette, from the Old French coronete (little crown) a diminutive of corone (crown) from the Latin corona (third-person singular present active subjunctive of corōnō) (crown), from the Ancient Greek κορώνη (korṓnē) (garland, wreath; a type of crown; a type of sea-bird, perhaps shearwater; a crow; anything curved or hooked (like a door handle or the tip of a bow).  Related in form, if not always function are diadem, wreath, crown, chaplet, circle, tiara, headdress, headband & anadem (a headband, particularly a garland of flowers).  Coronet is a noun; the noun plural is coronets.

Lindsay Lohan in coronet: Mean Girls (2004).

Crowns and coronet are both types of headgear worn as symbols of authority but there are technical differences between the two.  The crown is the traditional symbolic headpiece worn by a monarch and (in some cases) certain other members of royal families.  Fabricated usually from precious metals and adorned with jewels, crowns are by convention taller and more ornate than coronets but this is not an absolute rule and the symbolism of a crown as something representing sovereign power and regal authority doesn’t rely on its size.  Despite that, coronets tend to be smaller, less elaborate versions of crowns and they’re worn by members of the nobility who do not hold the rank of monarch and the consort of a monarch.  According to authoritative English sources, the general specification for a coronet dictates a small crown of ornaments  fixed on a metal ring and, as a general principle, a coronet has no arches and unlike a tiara, it wholly encircles the head.  Helpful as that may be, coronets in the wild are obviously rare (although that depends on the circles in which one moves) but are commonly seen as rank symbols in heraldry, emblazing coats of arms.  More opportunistically, they’re a popular symbol used in commerce.

Coronets of the United Kingdom.

In the UK, a country where there are more coronets than most, those worn by members of the House of Lords are of a defined designed according to the notch on the peerage one inhabits but surprisingly, they’re worn usually only for royal coronations (donning them for a lying in state or state funeral not the modern practice) so the 2023 event will be their first appearance en masse since 1953.  Outside of royalty, they were once exclusive to dukes but the right was granted to marquesses in the fifteenth century, to earls in the fifteenth, to viscounts (of which there are surprisingly few) in the sixteenth and barons in the seventeenth.  Coronets may not bear any precious or semi-precious stones.

1959 Dodge Silver Challenger

Chrysler’s Dodge division used the Coronet nameplate in a way typical of Detroit’s mid-century practices.  Between 1949-1959 it was a full-sized Dodge, beginning as a top-of-the-range trim before in 1955 being shifted downwards, seeing out its first iteration as an entry-level model.  One mostly forgotten footnote of the first Coronets is the 1959 range saw Dodge's first use of the Challenger name; in 1959 the Coronet-based Challenger was an early example of a model bundled with a number of usually optional accessories and sold at an attractive discount.  The concept would become popular and the Challenger name would later be twice revived for more illustrious careers as pony cars (and although the first attempt (1969-1974) was a financial disaster, the cars now much sought-after which, in their most desired configurations trade in the collector community well into six figures with the odd sale above US$1 million).

1979 Dodge Challenger (a "badge-engineered" Mitsubishi).

Although the Mopar crew don't much dwell on the matter, between 1978-1983, Dodge also applied the Challenger name to a "captive import" (the then current term describing an overseas-built vehicle sold under the name of domestic manufacturer through its dealer network), a Mitsubishi coupé sold in other markets variously as the Sapporo, Lambda and Scorpion.  Although somewhat porcine (until a mid-life facelift tightened things up), it was popular in many places (Australians especially took to it) but never achieved the same level of success in the US (where Plymouth also sold it as the Sapporo), even though that was where the "personal coupé" had become a very lucrative market segment.   

1969 Dodge Hemi Coronet.  By 1969 the writing was on the wall for engines like the Hemi and just 97 Coronet hardtops and ten convertibles were built.  In 1970, when the last two-door Coronets were made, production had dropped to 13 hardtops and just a brace of convertibles (one manual, one automatic).

The Coronet’s second run was as an intermediate between 1965–1976 and it’s the 1968-1970 models which are best remembered, based on the corporate B-body platform shared with the Plymouth Belvedere and Dodge Charger.  Plymouth gained great success with their take on the low-cost, high-performance intermediate when they released the Road Runner, a machine stripped of just about all but the most essential items except for its high performance engines, including the 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) HEMI V8.  It was a big hit, the sales wildly exceeding projections and it encouraged Dodge to emulate the approach with the Coronet Super Bee although for whatever reason, it didn’t capture the imagination as had the Road Runner and in the three seasons both were available, sold less than a third of its corporate stablemate.

1967 Dodge “Road Runner” advertisement.

Curiously though, Dodge may have missed what proved to be the priceless benefit of using the Road Runner name.  In 1967, Dodge had run advertisements for the Coronet R/T (“Road & Track” although “street & strip” would have been closer to the truth but Chevrolet had for years been using "SS" and S/S might have been thought slavishly imitative although the lawyers would have confirmed it would have been OK) which used the words “Road” & “Runner” although spaced as far apart as perhaps the lawyers advised would be sufficiently distant to avoid threats of litigation.  Plymouth solved that problem by legitimization, paying Warner Brothers US$50,000 for the Road Runner name and the imagery of the Wile E Coyote and Road Runner cartoon depictions, spending a reputed (though unverified) additional US$10,000 for the distinctive "beep, beep" horn sound, the engineering for which seems to have been as as simple as replacing the aluminium strands in the mechanism with copper windings.

Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) admiring the coronet worn by Miss USA Kristen Dalton (b 1986), Miss USA 2009 Pageant, Las Vegas, Nevada.  Although the beauty contest business called them crowns or cornets, most, like that worn by Ms Dalton, technically were tiaras.

Belvedere

Belvedere (pronounced bel-vi-deer or bel-ve-de-re (Italian))

(1) In architecture, a building, or an (often turret-like) feature of a building, designed and situated to look out upon a pleasing scene.

(2) A cigar, shorter and with thinner ends than a corona.

(3) A palace in Vatican City, Rome, now housing an art gallery.

(4) As Fort Belvedere (formerly Shrubs Hill Tower), a country house in Surrey, England, famously the site of the abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936.

(5) A widely used name for localities and structures.

Adopted in English in the sense of a “raised turret or open story atop a house” from the Italian belvedere (literally “a fair (ie beautiful) sight”), the construct being bel(lo) (beautiful), from the Latin bellus (beautiful, fair) + vidēre (to see; a view, sight), from the primitive Indo-European root weid- (to see).  The pronunciation is thought to have been influenced by the French form of the word.  The perhaps opportunistic but enduring noun gazebo is said by some to be a facetious formation, the construct being gaz(e) (from the Middle English gasen; akin to the Swedish dialectal gasa and Gothic usgasjan (to terrify) which English gained in the sense of "to stare intently or earnestly") + -ebo (the Latin first person singular future tense suffix, on the model of belvedere.  That’s an attractive etymology but the Oxford English Dictionary dismisses the theory, saying it’s a corruption of a word from the orient, possibly the Arabic قَصَبَة‎ (qaṣaba) (source of the familiar casbah).  Belvedere is a noun; the noun plural is belvederes.

In architecture, the word "tower" is used loosely but technically a tower should rise from ground-level to its conclusion whereas a turret begins part-way up a building, most commonly at a corner.  Historically a turret was something on a small scale (relative to the building on which it sat) and usually little more than ornamental (although for centuries many were part of the defensive system of a fort or castle, both as an observation and fire-point) while a belvedere's sole purpose should be to offer a commanding view of some pleasant vista.

Belvédère du Rayon Vert, Cerbère, France

Closed in 1983, the art deco Belvédère du Rayon Vert is a former hotel in Cerbère, France, built between 1928 and 1932.  What was known as “ocean liner” style was at the time popular in interior decorating but, taking advantage of the shape of the available land, the architect Léon Baille (1828-1932) extended the nautical idea to the whole building which follows the lines of a ship and borrowing further from the decks of ocean liners, a tennis court sat on the roof.  One of the nation’s protected historic monuments, some of the rooms have been restored as apartments and tours are conducted during the holiday season.

The Plymouth Belvedere

The use of the Belvedere name by the Chrysler’s corporation low-priced (and now defunct) Plymouth brand is illustrative of the practice of the US industry in the mid-late twentieth century to create a prestige model which gradually would be moved down the hierarchy as other names were introduced at the top of the range.  The Belvedere nameplate also shifted between market segments, moving from the full-sized to the intermediate platform as Detroit’s offerings began to proliferate as the public (sometimes an economic impreative) began to prefer smaller cars.

1951 Cranbrook (left), 1951 Cranbrook Belvedere (centre) and 1956 Belvedere (right).

Plymouth introduced the Belvedere name in 1951 for the new, two-door hardtop version of Cranbrook line, Plymouth’s first model with the style which would for a quarter-century be a signature of Detroit’s more expensive cars.  In 1954, the name ceased to be an option and the Belvedere supplanted the as Cranbrook as the top-of-the-range model, offered now in all available body-styles (sedans, hardtops, station wagons, and convertibles) in a mix of two and four-door configurations.  The 1951 line looks frumpy now and even then was considered bulbous compared with the more modernist lines coming from the Ford and General Motors (GM) design studios but Chrysler at the time was run by a chief executive who dictated their products had to be able to driven “by a man wearing his hat”.  That view was abandoned for the 1955 models and the refinements which followed the next year were emblematic of the longer-lower-wider dictum which would for a generation dominate the industry.

1957 (left), 1960 (centre) and 1961 (right) Belvederes.

The 1957-1960 Belvederes are among the best remembered from Detroit’s crazy macropterous years, and are related to the final iteration on the 1961 Imperial which featured the tallest fins of the era although it’s the extravagance of the 1959 Cadillac which is most famous.  The 1957 Plymouths, released with the advertising slogan “Suddenly it’s 1960” created a sensation but unfortunately, although immediately popular, the quality control was patchy (like some of the paintwork) and Chrysler's reputation would for years suffer.  The styling lasted until 1961 by which time the craze was over and the big fins looked dated but the replacement was truly bizarre.  Sales suffered but so low is the survival rate of the 1961 Belvederes their very scalloped weirdness has made them a collectable.

1962 (left), 1963 (centre) and 1964 (right) Plymouth Belvederes.

Acting on misunderstood rumors (which some insist was industrial espionage) about what the competition was doing with their full-sized lines, Plymouth "downsized" the Belvedere for 1962, something which in little more than a decade would make sense but it was out of tune with the early 1960s.  That was a shame because the engineering of the cars was solid and many of those who did buy the things expressed satisfaction with the reduced exterior dimensions, noting there was little loss in interior space and those who definitely found an advantage in the lower weight and more agile handling were drivers using Belvederes in competition, the cars successful on both circuits and drag strips.  The styling however was again unfortunate and was soon toned-down; it didn’t become quite as bland as the 1964 Chevrolet (a reaction to the excesses of their 1959-1960 “bat-wings”) which was described as “looking a little like every car ever built” but it was certainly inoffensive.

1966 Belvedere (left), 1969 Hemi Roadrunner (centre-left), 1970 Superbird (centre-right) and 1970 Superbird in NASCAR trim (right)

With the restoration of a full-sized model to the range in 1965, the Belvedere was maintained in the increasingly important intermediate sector (similar in to dimensions to what the full-size cars had been before they became bloated in the mid-late 1950s).  A new trim package called the Satellite was added (a la what the original Belvedere had in 1951 been to the Cranbrook) and, responding to the increased demand for muscle cars, the high-performance GTX was created.  The line was restyled in 1968 using an interpretation of the then popular “coke-bottle” look and it was on this platform that the Roadrunner was built.  The Roadrunner essentially combined a stripped-down, basic Belvedere with the high performance engines and, stripped of any luxury fittings, it was cheaper as well as lighter.  Able to be configured to outperform even the GTX and offered at a price which on any cost/performance analysis was a bargain, it was an immediate hit and the line soon proliferated, Roadrunner convertibles and additional engines soon offered.  The Belvedere's final fling was also its apotheosis, the be-winged Roadrunner Superbird, offered only in the 1970 model-year as a homologation exercise to qualify the aerodynamic improvements for use in competition.  That year however marked the swansong of the Belvedere name, Satellite preferred as it was more in accord with the space age.

Miss Belvedere as now displayed (left), being lowered into her capsule in 1957 (centre) and as exhumed in 2007 (right).

The 1957 Belvedere was used in one of the larger and more unusual time-capsules.  Named Miss Belvedere as part of the city of Tulsa's “Tulsarama” Golden Jubilee Week festivities celebrating Oklahoma's fiftieth year of statehood, the car was on 15 June 1957 sealed in an underground vault to be opened a half-century later.  Intended as a prize to whomever came closest to guessing Tulsa's population in 2007, cognizant of the fears of nuclear war prevalent at the time, the enclosure was built to withstand hydrogen bombs being detonated in the vicinity.  Unfortunately, less attention was given to making things watertight and, when opened in 2007, the Miss Belvedere was found to have spent much of her fifty years wholly or partially submerged, the result a muddy and rusty mess.  Some attempts were made to clean the worst of the damage in the hope a restoration might be possible but ultimately it was determined it was beyond salvation and she's now displayed as a dilapidated relic of a troubled yet optimistic age.

Camelot Inn & Suites: In 1977 (while Ramada Camelot Inn) and circa 2022 (right).  While externally (and perhaps internally based on the period-themed furnishings shown on the website) little changed apart from the color-scheme (curiously, it now looks "more 1970s" than it did in the era), windows have been added to the belvedere and while that may have been done for any number of reasons, fire regulations may have required the change. 

As early as the 1970s, south of the Mason-Dixon Line, belvederes and other architectural features recalling medieval castles became popular not only on what would come to be called McMansions but also on commercial buildings and the Camelot Inn in Amarillo, Texas was one of three (the others in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Little Rock, Arkansas), which were part of a “small chain”.  The term “small chain” was never really defined but generally applied to groups of hotels or motels (not necessarily with a common ownership” which operated over more several states under a shared identity.  In this they were different from the national or international “big chains” such as Four Seasons (1961) or Holiday Inn (1952).  The small chain model inherently was fragile and fell from favour as booking systems became increasingly inter-linked and management of almost all the properties came to be absorbed by the national operations, Ramada and Travelodge especially active in the regional areas.  Ramada in 1974 purchased Camelot Inn in Amarillo and re-branded it Ramada Camelot Inn (existing names often retained as an element during those days.  That arrangement lasted until 1981 when Best Western assumed control and the property, still with the distinctive belvederes, trades to this day as Camelot Inn & Suites.

McMansions in their natural habitat.

Rightly or wrongly, many object to McMansions (the large, over-styled, essentially mass-produced houses built for the upper middle-class anxious to flaunt their wealth).  There is often an objection to conspicuous consumption and an extravagant use of resources but students of architecture focus on the confused mix of motifs which so often litter the structures with as many architectural clichés from palaces or castles as can be crammed into the space with little regard for scale or any sense of integrity.  On McMansions, it’s not unusual to see a mix of Corinthian columns, towers, turrets, belvederes, French doors, Gothic arches, flag-poles, stained glass, transom windows, balconies and porticos.  Much of the criticism probably is an expression of resentment that people with poor taste are able to afford such things but as a general principle, in architecture an emphasis on proportion and restrained elegance will tend to be more admired.

Fort Belvedere (formerly Shrubs Hill Tower), a country house in Windsor, Surrey, famously the site of the abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936 (left) and Belvedere Palace, Vienna (right).

Lindsay Lohan attending V Magazine, Marc Jacobs & Belvedere Vodka event, Hiro Ballroom, New York City, September 2009.

Interrobang

Interrobang (pronounced in-ter-uh-bang)

A punctuation mark (‽) which merges the question mark (?) and the exclamation mark (!) to indicate a query made as an interjection.

1962: A blended word and an invention of US English, the construct being the Latin Latin interro(gātiō) (examination, inquiry, interrogation, questioning) + bang (in this context typesetters’ slang for the exclamation mark (exclamation point in US use), the glyph a ligature of these two marks (the unicode is U+203d).  The even more rare alternative spelling is interabang.  The companion term is gnaborretni (interrotbang reversed, the plural being gnaborretnis) which uses the a symbol (⸘) (an inverted interrobang) to replace the ¡¿ used in Spanish, Galician, and Leonese, just as in English the interrobang can replace !? or ?! (the unicode is U+2E18).  Interrobang is a noun, the noun plural interrobangs.  All other forms are non-standard but interrobanged, interrobanger & interrobanging will presumably be deployed as circumstances seem to dictate and UrbanDictionary users noted the possibilities with predictable suggestions.

Variations on the theme.

Now sixty years old, interrobang was coined in 1962 by US American advertising executive Martin K Speckter (1915–1988) who suggested it in an article written for the printing trade journal TYPEtalks.  As a commodity, the interrobang was an example of a slightly better mousetrap which required more effort to use and achieved exactly the same thing, thus the lack of market penetration.  A few publications did adopt it but adoption was never widespread and it was clear it was less understood than the common “!?”, “????” etc although it did find a niche in chess where an interrobang is a legal move of questionable merit.

The interrobang is used to convey in pure text those layers of meanings provided by non-verbal clues such as facial expressions or tonal variations. 

Most punctuation marks are ancient but the interrobang is novel in being relatively new.  Mr Speckter’s idea was that what was needed in pure text advertisements was a symbol which could convey the feeling implicit in a surprised rhetorical question (the classic example of which is probably (really‽).  In TV or print advertising using images this was transmitted using facial expressions or vocal intonations but in pure text, this wasn’t always immediately clear.  For centuries, people had been using work-arounds like “?!”, “!?” or “????” but what he wanted was something more elegant.  His interrobang was certainly that and some academics acknowledged its utility but adoption was patchy because it was never integrated into the standard character-set of the typewriter keyboards of the era.  There were a few supporting gestures, most notably in 1967 when ATF (American Type Founders) included it in Richard Isbell’s (1924-2009) Americana typeface (the company’s last type cut in metal) and the next year it was available on some Remington typewriters, followed some years later by Smith-Corona typewriters but generally the industry ignored the innovation.  Crucially, IBM declined to add the interrobang to the golfballs used on their then dominant Selectric range of typewriters or their then embryonic word-processing programs.

Interestingly, nor was it included when a digital version of the Americana typeface was released and nor did it make it to the standard keyboards which IBM, Apple and others began to offer from the late 1970s although for nerds who did their own keyboard mappings, such things were sometimes possible.  Adoption has been limited and will remain so until included on standard physical keyboards (which seems unlikely) and there’s no evident demand for the symbol to be added to virtual implementations.  That said, it is in a number of fonts including Amplitude Wide Bold, Fritz Robusto, Constantia and Fontesque Sans so it’s there to be used although, as any form of communication relies on both parties sharing the same understanding of what a symbol denotes, it’s useful only of the recipient knows what it means.

There are interrobang emojis which makes perfect sense but using the glyph is possible on most platforms if not effortless.  In Microsoft Office for example, using the TrueType font Wingdings 2 it’s invoked by pressing the key marked with a tilde.  That’s not too bad but under iOS you have to edit the keyboard so you really (really‽) have to want to make the point:

(1) Copy an interrobang symbol of choice

(2) Launch the Settings app and choose General

(3) Tap Keyboard

(4) Select Keyboard

(5) Tap Text Replacement

(6) Tap the + symbol in the upper right corner

(7) Paste the interrobang symbol in the phrase field

(8) Type ?! in shortcut field

(9) Tap Save