Envelope

Envelope (pronounced on-vuh-lohp or en-vee-lope (non-U))

(1) A flat paper container, usually having a gummed flap or other means of closure and used to enclose small, flat items (especially letters) for mailing. 

(2) Something that envelops; a wrapper, integument, or surrounding cover.

(3) In biology, a surrounding or enclosing structure, as a corolla or an outer membrane.

(4) In geometry, a mathematical curve, surface, or higher-dimensional object that is the tangent to a given family of lines, curves, surfaces, or higher-dimensional objects.

(5) In the radio transmissions of a modulated carrier wave, a curve connecting the peaks of a graph of the instantaneous value of the electric or magnetic component of the carrier wave as a function of time.

(6) The fabric structure enclosing the gasbag of an aerostat or the gasbag itself.

(7) As an idiom, in pushing the envelope, to stretch established limits, as in technological advance or social innovation.

(8) In music, the shape of a sound which may be controlled by a synthesizer or sampler.

(9) In computing, the information used for routing a message that is transmitted with the message but not part of its contents, the best known example of which is the blind carbon-copy (bcc) in eMail.

(10) In astronomy, the nebulous covering of the head or nucleus of a comet; a coma.

(11) In civil engineering, an earthwork in the form of a single parapet or a small rampart, sometimes raised in the ditch and sometimes beyond it.

(12) In engineering and design, the set of limitations within which a technological system can perform safely and effectively.

(13) In aviation (of dirigibles), a bag containing the lifting gas of a balloon or airship; fabric that encloses the gas-bags of an airship.

(14) In electronics, a curve that bounds another curve or set of curves, as the modulation envelope of an amplitude-modulated carrier wave in electronics.

(15) In computing, the information used for routing a message that is transmitted with the message but not part of its contents.

(6) In music, the shape of a sound, which may be controlled by a synthesizer or sampler. 

1705: From the Middle French and Old French envoluper, the construct being en- (from the Old French en-, from the Latin in-, a prefixation of in (in, into)) +‎ voluper (to wrap, wrap up).  In Italian, the derivation was viluppare, from the Old Italian alternate goluppare (to wrap) from the Vulgar Latin vlopp (to rap).  The Proto-Germanic wrappaną and wlappaną (to wrap, roll up, turn, wind) came from the primitive werb (to turn, bend), akin to the Middle English wlappen (to wrap, fold) and ultimately the Modern English lap (to wrap, involve, fold).  The modern wrap is derived from the Middle English wrappen (to wrap), the dialectal Danish vravle (to wind, twist), the Middle Low German wrempen (to wrinkle, distort) and the Old English wearp (warp).  The French enveloppe, is a derivative back-formation of envelopper (to envelop).  Envelope is a noun; the noun plural is envelopes.

Pushing the envelope

The phrase pushing the envelope is from the lingo of test pilots, whose job is among the most dangerous of their profession.  It entered general usage following the publication of the late Tom Wolfe’s (1930-2018) book about test pilots and the early US space program, The Right Stuff (1979).  The envelope in the phrase is a mathematical construct, what is called the "flight envelope" of a given aircraft: combinations of speed, altitude, range and stress that are considered the limits of an airframe’s capabilities and so-named because usually it's graphically represented in the shape of the familiar DL envelope.  Within the envelope formed by these parameters, the airframe is structurally sound; beyond those limits, perhaps not and that’s what test pilots do, verify the safety of the aircraft within those limits and pinpoint possible points of failure if the envelope is pushed too far.  Although big, fast computers now make the parameters of the envelope more predictable and the job of the test pilot less dangerous, structural failures during test flights continue to happen.

Lockheed F-104 Starfighter.

Few airframes have operated within such a tight envelope as the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, introduced into service in 1956 as a single-engine, supersonic interceptor, built for the United States Air Force (USAF) but used by many nations.  Best thought of as the manned missile by which it was referred to by many, it had a radical wing design, a very small, straight, mid-mounted trapezoidal.   After the German research undertaken during World War II (1939-1945) became available, most jet fighters had used either swept or delta-wings, a compromise between speed, lift, maneuverability and internal space for fuel and equipment.  Lockheed sophisticated wind-tunnels and primitive computers however determined the optimal shape for high-speed supersonic flight was small, straight and trapezoidal.  An extraordinary achievement of manufacture as well as design, the wing was so thin and sharp it was a cut-hazard for ground crews and protective guards were fitted during maintenance.

The F-104 was the first combat aircraft capable of sustained Mach 2 flight, its speed and climb performance impressive even by today’s standards.  However, there was a price to be paid, take-off, stall and landing speeds were high as was the turn radius, combat pilots referring to low-speed turns as “banking with intent to turn".

The flight envelope, note the DL envelope shape.

The safety record was infamously bad.  Of the 916 delivered to the West-German (FRG) Air Force, 262 crashed, gaining it the nickname witwenmacher (widow maker, shared with the Porsche 911 Turbo (930, 1975-1989)) and some of those grieving widows sued Lockheed, receiving judgment in their favor.  In USAF service, the write-off rate was 30.63 accidents per 100,000 flight hours.  By comparison, the rate for the Convair F-102 Dagger was 14.2 and for the North American F-100 Sabre, 16.25.  The F-104's two nicknames, "manned missile" and "widow maker" may be thought of as cause and effect.

Personalised Lindsay Lohan Celebrity Birthday Card on premium quality satin cardstock @ Stg£3.95 (including envelope).

Zarf

Zarf (pronounced zahrf)

In the Levant, a holder with a handle, rendered traditionally in ornamental metal and used to hold a coffee cup without a handle.

1836: Adopted in English from the Ottoman Turkish ظرف‎ (zarf), from the Arabic ظَرْف‎ (ẓarf) (container, sheath).  An alternative spelling is zurf and in the Balkans: zȁlf & zȁf (Serbo-Croatian); zȁrf (за̏рф in Cyrillic).  Zarf is a noun; the noun plural is zarfs.

Ottoman era solid silver zarf (with a depiction of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (formerly Constantinople), Turkey (now the Republic of Türkiye), circa 1890.

Zarf was a specialized adoption in Ottoman Turkish of the Arabic zarf which means “container”.  In Arabic, a zarf is also an envelope and the word is sometimes appended to various Arabic, English and international forms as required.  A Zarf-DL is the familiar DL envelope, a zarf değiştirmeyi is a change envelope and, specific to printers, a zarf yazıcı is an envelope feeder & zarf dönüş an envelope return.

Lindsay Lohan out getting the morning coffee fix.

The modern plastic zarf.  Modern zarfs are designed to accommodate most disposable coffee cups, made usually in a small-medium-large range which is not quite internationally standardized but with variations small enough not to matter.

Better to minimize the risk of an almost inevitable spillage and seldom seen without a most capacious handbag in which one might be carried, noted coffee fiend Lindsay Lohan really should invest in a modern, portable zarf although, how long single-use, disposable coffee cups will be permitted isn’t known.  Weather forecaster Greta Thunberg (b 2003) would probably suggest we should all carry our own cup but history suggests governments are unlikely to rely on environmental consciousness to induce behavioral change and consumers may soon be charged to use disposable coffee cups and wooden utensils.  The experiment with forcing supermarkets to charge for plastic bags proved yet again what increasing the cost of cigarettes had repeatedly demonstrated: that nothing changes behavior quite as well or as quickly as making the target more expensive.  Remarkably, since the UK government introduced their levy on plastic bags, consumption has dropped by over ninety percent, a good outcome which pleased the supermarkets too.  It meant a small but not insignificant cost of operating was shifted from retailer to consumer and the introduction of a relatively low-volume but highly profitable a new profit centre: plastic bags.  In Australia, the dominant duopoly, Coles and Woolworths, which once had to give away a combined 5.7 billion bags annually year at .3 cents per bag, costing them Aus$171 million, now sell 1.2 billion of the heavier bags, yielding an annual profit estimated to be about Aus$70 million; a turn round of Aus$240 million so a nice little earner and some handy green-washing to boot.

Bulla

Bulla (pronounced bool-uh or buhl-uh)

(1) A seal attached to an official document; in the Holy See, a leaden seal affixed to certain edicts issued by the papal chancellery (a papal bull), having a representation of the saints Peter and Paul on one side and the name of the reigning pope on the other.

(2) In archaeology, a clay envelope or hollow ball, typically with seal impressions or writing on its outside indicating its contents.

(3) In Ancient Rome, type of ornament worn, especially an amulet worn around the neck (as a pendant (or boss), usually by children of “the better classes” (mostly boys) as a protective charm).

(4) In medicine, a large vesicle; alternative name for blister.

(5) In pathology, the tympanic part of a temporal bone (having a bubble-like appearance); any of several hollow structures as features of bones.

(6) In zoology, a blister-like or bubble-like prominence of a bone, as that of the tympanic bone in the skull of certain mammals.

(7) In archaeology, a clay envelope or hollow ball, typically with seal impressions or writing on its outside indicating its contents.

(8) In archaeology and linguistics, a clay envelope, hollow ball or token used in ancient Mesopotamian record-keeping; the link being the rounded, bubble-like form of the objects.

(9) A rich Jamaican cake made with molasses and spiced with ginger and nutmeg.

(10) In surgical use, as bullectomy (a procedure in which small portions of the lung (known as bulla, large areas (>10 mm diameter) in the lung filled with oxygen-depleted air) and bullostomy (the making of a hole through a bulla).

Circa 1845: From the Latin bulla (round swelling, stud, boss, knob (literally “bubble”)), either from the Latin Latin bullire (to boil), or from the Gaulish, from the primitive Indo-European bew- or beu- (a swelling) or bhel- (to blow, inflate, swell) which may have formed a large group of words meaning “much, great, many” (and also words associated with swelling, bumps, blisters and such and the source also of the Lithuanian bulė "buttocks and the Middle Dutch puyl (bag); etymologists remain divided over any link with the Latin bucca (cheek).  In medieval times, it referred to the seal (or stamp) attached to official documents because of its rounded, blister-like shape, familiar from many uses.  The speculative link with the Latin bullire (to boil) was an allusion to the need for heat to be applied to melt or partially melt the material (gold, lead, wax etc) used in the making of seals (once thus softened, the impression was applied).  Historically, while wax seals wear the most common, official imperial seals were gold and papal seals of lead (although some were gold).  The use to describe certain documents issued by the papal chancellery is an adoption of Medieval Latin.  Although it was never an absolute rule (the seal with a representation of the saints Peter and Paul on one side and the name of the reigning pope on the other has appeared variously), its existence usually indicates a papal document is a bulla, a specific type of papal document distinguished by its formality, purpose, and its authentication.  Bulla is a noun; the noun plural is bullas (the Latin bullae used of the papal documents).

Seal of the appropriation of Ospringe Hospital (Headcorn Kent) by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Boniface of Savoy, in accord with a papal bull of 31 March 1267, to, Headcorn Kent. 1267.

Bulls begin with the phrase Episcopus Servus Servorum Dei (The Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God) and are written in a formal style.  The significance of a document being a bull is that technically it is a decree with enduring legal & doctrinal authority including ex cathedra pronouncements or administrative acts (which can be as procedural as creating religious orders or dioceses).  In this they differ from (1) encyclicals which are letters intended for broader purposes, addressed to bishops, clergy, and the faithful, often dealing with theological or social issues, (2) Apostolic Constitutions which usually deal with issues of governance, the promulgation of liturgical texts or matters pursuant to earlier bullae and (3) Motu Proprio (literally “on his own initiative”) which are edicts issued personally by the pope and these can be used for just about any purpose although they’re most associated with rulings which provide an “instant solution” to a troublesome or controversial matter on which it’s not been possible to find consensus; the Moto Proprio may thus be compared to a "royal decree".  Papal bulls were more common in the medieval and early modern periods when formal seals were the primary means of authentication but today they are rare, most communication from the Vatican in the form of apostolic letters or exhortations, not all with origins in the papal chancellery.

The last papal resignation but one

Red Bull Chuck Wagon Restaurant (No Bum Bull Served Here), Winnemucca, Nevada, USA, circa 1967.

Even when absolute monarchies were more common, kings usually took care to placate at least elite opinion and today, although the constitutional arrangements in Saudi Arabia, Brunei, Oman and Eswatini (the old Swaziland) remain, on paper, absolute monarchies, even there things are not done quite as once they were.  The Holy See remains an absolute monarchy and is now the only theocracy so structured although doubtlessly many popes have lamented their authority seems to exist more in the minds of canon lawyers than among the curia or his flock, something exacerbated now malcontents can no longer be burned at the stake (as far as is known) and Francis (b 1936; pope since 2013) may recall the words of a world-weary Benedict XIV (1675–1758; pope 1740-1758): “The pope commands, his cardinals do not obey, and the people do what they wish.”

Papal Bull issued by Urban VIII (1568–1644; pope 1623-1644).  By the mid-fifteenth century, papal bulls had ceased to be used for general public communications and were restricted to the more formal or solemn matters.  The papal lead seals (the spellings bulla & bolla both used) were attached to the vellum document by cords made of hemp or silk, looped through slits.

But popes still have great powers not subject to checks & balances or constitutional review, the best known of which is “papal infallibility”.  The Roman Catholic Church’s dogma of papal infallibility holds that a pope’s rulings on matters of faith and doctrine are infallibility correct and cannot be questioned and when making such statements, a pope is said to be speaking ex cathedra (literally “from the chair” (of the Apostle St Peter, the first pope)).  Although ex cathedra pronouncements had been issued since medieval times, as a point of canon law, the doctrine was codified first at the First Ecumenical Council of the Vatican (Vatican I; 1869–1870) in the document Pastor aeternus (shepherd forever).  Since Vatican I, the only ex cathedra decree has been Munificentissimus Deus (The most bountiful God), issued by Pius XII (1876–1958; pope 1939-1958) in 1950, in which was declared the dogma of the Assumption; that the Virgin Mary "having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory".  Pius XII never made explicit whether the assumption preceded or followed earthly death, a point no pope has since discussed although it would seem of some theological significance.  Prior to the solemn definition of 1870, there had been decrees issued ex cathedra.  In Ineffabilis Deus (Ineffable God (1854)), Pius IX (1792–1878; pope 1846-1878) defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, an important point because of the theological necessity of Christ being born free of sin, a notion built upon by later theologians as the perpetual virginity of Mary.  It asserts that Mary "always a virgin, before, during and after the birth of Jesus Christ", explaining the biblical references to brothers of Jesus either as children of Joseph from a previous marriage, cousins of Jesus, or just folk closely associated with the Holy Family.

Lindsay Lohan, posing with a can of Red Bull, photographed by Brian Adams (b 1959) for Harper’s Bazaar magazine, 2007.

Technically, papal infallibility may have been invoked only the once since codification but since the early post-war years, pontiffs have found ways to achieve the same effect, John Paul II (1920–2005; pope 1978-2005) & Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022) both adept at using what was in effect a personal decree a power available to one who sits at the apex of what is in constitutional terms an absolute theocracy.  Critics have called this phenomenon "creeping infallibility" and its intellectual underpinnings own much to the tireless efforts of Benedict XVI while he was head of the Inquisition (by then called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and now renamed the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF)) during the late twentieth century (the Holy See probably doesn't care but DDF is also the acronym, inter alia, for “drug & disease free” and (in gaming) “Doom definition file” and there's also the DDF Network which is an aggregator of pornography content).  So while not since 1950 formally invoked, popes have not been reluctant to “play the de facto infallibility card”, possibly thinking of the (probably apocryphal) remark attributed to John XXIII (1881-1963; pope 1958-1963): “When one is infallible, one has to be careful what one says.”

Bulla issued 17 July 1492 by Innocent VIII (1432–1492; pope 1484-1492) granting St Duthac’s Church (Tain) official permission to become a Collegiate Church.

But for a pope’s own purposes, a bulla can prove invaluable.  Pietro Angellerio (1215-1296) was for five months between July and December 1294 installed as Pope Celestine V.  Prior to his elevation, Celestine had for decades been a monk and hermit, living a anchorite existence in remote caves and subsisting on little more that wild vegetables, fruits, honey and the occasional locust, his unworldly background meaning he emerged as the ultimate compromise candidate, declared pope after a two-year deadlock in the church’s last non-conclave papal election.  The cardinals had been squabbling for all those two years which so upset the hermit in his cave that he wrote them a letter warning divine retribution would be visited upon them if they didn't soon elect a pope.  Realizing he was entirely un-political, without enemies and likely pliable, the cardinals promptly elected him by acclamation.

Lindsay Lohan mixing a Red Bull & mandarin juice while attending an event with former special friend Samantha Ronson (b 1977), Mandarin Oriental Hotel, London, February 2012.

Shocked, the hermit declined the appointment, only to have his own arguments turned on him, the cardinals insisting if he refused the office he would be defying God himself; trapped, he was crowned at Santa Maria di Collemaggio in Aquila, taking the name Celestine V.  The anchorite, lost in the world of power politics and low skulduggery was utterly unsuited to the role and within weeks expressed the wish to abdicate and return to his solitary cave in the Abruzzi Mountains.  The cardinals told him it wasn’t possible and only God could release him from the office (will all that implies) but they couldn’t stop him consulting the lawyers who drafted for him two bulls, the first codifying the regulations concerning a pope’s abdication and the second a sort of “enabling act”.  The second bull (Quia in futurum (for in the future)) restored the constitution (Ubi periculum (Where there lies danger)), and re-established the papal conclave (the constitution had been suspended by Adrian V (circa 1216-1276; pope 1276)).  The bulls having put in place the required mechanisms, while at Naples, Celestine V abdicated.

Brutum Fulmen issued by Pius V (1504–1572; pope 1566-1572), concerning the Damnation, Excommunication and Deposition of Elizabeth I (1533–1603; Queen of England & Ireland 1558-1603) by Thomas Barlow (circa 1608- 1691; Lord Bishop of Lincoln (1675–1691).

That done, he resigned, intending to return to his cave but his successor, Boniface VIII (circa 1231-1303; pope 1294-1303) had no wish to have such a puritanical loose cannon at large (he feared some dissidents might proclaim him antipope) and imprisoned him (in an agreeable circumstances) in the castle where ultimately he would die.   His resignation from the office was the last until Benedict XVI who in 2013 did rather better, retiring to a sort of papal granny flat in the Vatican where he lived (uniquely) as pope emeritus.  Celestine was canonized on 5 May 1313 by Clement V (circa 1265-1314; pope 1305-1314) and no subsequent pontiff has taken the name Celestine.

Ratio

Ratio (pronounced rey-shoh (U) or rey-shee-oh (non-U))

(1) The relation between two similar magnitudes with respect to the number of times the first contains the second.

(2) The proportional relation; rate.

(3) In finance, the relative value of gold and silver in a bimetallic currency system.

(4) In mathematics, a quotient of two numbers or quantities.

(5) In western legal systems, the slang for ratio decidendi, the substantive part(s) of the judgment.

(6) In the metrics of the internet, the number of comments to a post or other expression on social media relative to the number of likes (a high ratio assumed to suggests disagreement with the contents of the original post).

1630–1640: From the Latin ratiō (a doublet of ration and reason) (a reckoning, account, numbering, derivation, calculation) from the base of rērī (to judge, think).  The original meaning in English, dating from the 1630s (reason, rationale, calculation, reckoning, numbering, calculation, judgment) mirrored the Latin practice while the mathematical sense "relationship between two numbers" is attested from the 1650s.  The use in theological texts in the sense of "reason, rationale" was a tribute to the original meaning in Latin (a reckoning, account, numbering, derivation, calculation), hence also the idea of "a business affair; course, conduct, procedure".  From this also emerged (in a transferred sense and applying to mental action), the meaning "reason, reasoning, judgment, understanding, that faculty of the mind which forms the basis of computation and calculation" (the ultimate origin of this being rat-, the past-participle stem of reri (to reckon, calculate (and also "to think, judge, believe), from the primitive Indo-European root re- (to think, reason, count).  The Latin ratio often was used to represent or translate the Greek logos (computation, account, esteem, reason) in works of philosophy, though the range of senses in the two do not wholly overlap because ratio lacks the essential "speech, word, statement" meaning which exists in the logos.  The familiar modern meaning "corresponding relationship between things not precisely measurable" had become common by the early nineteenth century.

Ratio Decidendi and Obiter Dictum

The ratio decidendi is a phrase in legal Latin meaning "reason (or rationale) for the decision” and the professional oral & verbal shorthand is ratio.  It’s the ratio decidendi which justifies the judgment and expresses the legal principle(s) which determine the outcome.  The ratio decidendi either creates or is consistent with legal precedent and in the common law’s hierarchical system, lower courts are required to follow precedents established by higher courts.

Obiter dictum the complimentary legal Latin phrase meaning "by the way" and the legal slag is variously dicta or (more commonly) obiter.  The obiter is the collective term for other substantive material in the judgment but not part of the reasoning for the decision, the remarks or observations made by a judge that do not form a necessary part of the decision.  There exists an informal test called the Wambaugh Inversion to determine whether a judicial statement is ratio or obiter.  This involves asking whether the decision would have been different, had the statement been omitted.  If so, the statement is crucial and is ratio; if not, it is obiter.  The rarely used plural for ratio is rationes decidendi whereas, because of the rules of Latin, obiter is used almost always in the plural as obiter dicta.  The difference between the ratio and the dicta is a most useful distinction but would be more helpful if judges could be prevailed upon to make if clear which is which; even bullet-point summaries would be handy.  One suspects many judges think themselves fine stylists of the language, a view not always shared by their captive audience.

B2BR: The bitemporal to bizygomatic ratio

Lindsay Lohan's bitemporal to bizygomatic ratio (B2BR), calculated by pinkmirror.com.  Her admirable B2BR ratio of 1.07 contributed to her overall beauty score of 8.5 (out of 10), putting her in the "beautiful" category.  The above image is rendered in the 1:2 aspect ratio of the DL envelope, favored by architects because the result is thought pleasing to the eye.  

Architects and engineers use all sorts of ratios in their calculations, some to improve aesthetic appeal and some to optimize specific strength.  In internal combustion engines, ratios are commonly used (compression ratio, connecting rod-to-stroke ratio et al) and in building design, the "DL envelope ratio" (1:2) references the standard DL envelope (110 x 220 mm; 4⅓ x 8⅔") which, when applied in architecture, is considered to produce a shape pleasing to the eye, apparently because it closely corresponds with the natural field of human vision.  In the beauty business there are also ratios, used predictably to compartmentalize various aspects of women's appearance so their degree of attractiveness can be reduced to a number.  The site pinkmirror.com helpfully provides an interactive analysis page, one component of which is the bitemporal to bizygomatic ratio (B2BR), a measure used in facial anthropometry (the study of facial measurements and proportions) and cosmetic and restorative surgery.  The B2BR compares the distance between the two temporal bones (bitemporal distance) with the distance between the two zygomatic bones (bizygomatic distance) in the face.  Notionally, the B2BR is set at 1:1 (a baseline for calculation purposes rather than an ideal) and if bitemporal distance is greater than that of the bizygomatic, the ratio will be greater than 1, indicating a relatively narrow midface whereas if the bizygomatic distance is greater, the ratio will be less than 1, indicating a relatively wide midface.  In medicine the B2BR is used as an indicative diagnostic tool which can be helpful in assessing certain genetic conditions that affect facial structure and in cosmetic & restorative surgery its used as one of the measures of facial proportions when planning treatments.  Some advanced systems in cosmetic facial surgery no use CAD (computer assisted design) software and 3D printing (essentially "prototyping" the "new" face) and the B2BR is one of the critical metrics used in both.

Comet

Comet (pronounced kom-it)

(1) In astronomy, a celestial body moving about the sun, usually in a highly eccentric orbit, most thought to consist of a solid frozen nucleus, part of which vaporizes on approaching the heat from Sun (or other star) to form a gaseous, luminous coma (the envelope of dust and gas, the most dramatic part of which is the long, luminous tail which streams away from the sun (under the influence of solar winds).

(2) In astronomy, a celestial phenomenon with the appearance of such a body.

(3) Any of several species of hummingbird found in the Andes.

(4) In slang, as “vomit comet”, a reduced-gravity aircraft which, by flying in a parabolic flight path, briefly emulates a close to weightless environment.  Used to train astronauts or conduct research, the slang derived from the nausea some experience.

(5) In figurative use (often applied retrospectively and with a modifier such as “blazing comet”), someone (or, less commonly, something) who appears suddenly in the public eye, makes a significant impact and then quickly fades from view, their fleeting moment of brilliance a brief but spectacular event.

1150–1200: From the Middle English comete, partly from the Old English comēta and partly from the Anglo-French & Old French comete (which in Modern French persists as comète), all from the Latin comētēs & comēta, from the Ancient Greek κομήτης (komḗtēs) (wearing long hair; ling-haired), the construct being komē-, a variant stem of komân (to let one's hair grow), from κόμη (kómē) (hair) + -tēs (the agent suffix).  The Greek was a shortened form of ἀστὴρ κομήτης (astēr komētēs (longhaired star)), a reference to a comet’s streaming tail.  The descendants in other languages include the Malay komet, the Urdu کومٹ (komeṭ) and the Welsh comed.  Comet, cometlessness, cometography, cometographer, cometology & cometarium are nouns, cometless, cometic, cometical, cometocentric, cometary, cometographical & cometlike (also as comet-like) are adjectives, cometesimal is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is comets.

Comets orbit the Sun along an elongated path and when not near the heat, the body consists solely of its nucleus, thought to be almost always a solid core of frozen water, frozen gases, and dust.  When near the sun, the nucleus heats, eventually to boil and thus release the gaseous and luminous coma (the envelope of dust and gas), the most dramatic part of which is the long, luminous tail which streams away from the sun (under the influence of solar winds).  The path of a comet can be in the shape of an ellipse or a hyperbola; if a hyperbolic path, it enters the solar system once and then leaves forever while if it follows an ellipse, it remains in orbit around the sun.  Astronomer divide comets into (1) “short period” (those with orbital periods of less than 200 years and coming from the Kuiper belt) and (2) “long-period” (those with an orbital period greater than 200 years and coming from the Oort cloud).

Before the development of modern techniques, comets were visible only when near the sun so their appearance was sudden and, until early astronomers were able to calculate the paths of those which re-appeared, unexpected.  Superstition stepped in where science didn’t exist and comets were in many cultures regarded as omens or harbingers of doom, famine, ruin, pestilence and the overthrow of kingdoms or empires.  It was the English astronomer, mathematician and physicist Edmond Halley (1656–1742; Astronomer Royal 1720-1742) who in 1682 published the calculations which proved many comets were periodic and thus their appearance could be predicted.  Halley's Comet, named in his honor, remains the only known short-period comet consistently visible from Earth with the naked eye and remains the world’s most famous; it last appeared in 1986 and will next visit our skies in 2061.

Comet wine: Non-vintage Alois Lageder Natsch4 Vigneti Delle Dolomiti.

Halley’s findings put an end to (most) of the superstition surrounding comets but commerce still took advantage of their presence.  A comet with a famously vivid tail appeared in 1811 and in that year, Europe enjoyed a remarkably pleasant autumn (fall) which was most conducive to agriculture and became associated with the abundant and superior yield of the continental vineyards.  For that reason, the vintage was called the “comet wine” and the term became a feature in marketing the product which emerged from any year in which notable comets were seen, a superior quality alleged (and thus a premium price).  Wine buffs say any relationship between the quality of a vintage and the travel of celestial bodies is entirely coincidental.

Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath (2021) by Dr Heather Clark (b 1974).

One of things about the feminist cult which is now the construct of Sylvia Path (1932-1963) is that her mistreatment at the hands of her husband Ted Hughes (1930–1998; Poet Laureate 1984-2008) tends to obscure her work which many quite familiar with the story of her brief life will barely have read and that’s perhaps predictable, certainly for those for whom the lure of tales of tragic woman and brutish men is a siren.  As human tragedies go, her story is compelling: A precocious talent, the death of the father to whom she was devoted when only eight, the suicide attempt while a student and the burning ambition to write and be published.  Almost as soon as she met Ted Hughes she knew he was “my black marauder” and their affair was one of intense physicality as well as a devotion to their art, something which might have endured during their marriage (which produced two children) had Hughes not proved so unfaithful and neglectful.  In 1963, as an abandoned solo mother in a freezing flat during what entered history as London’s coldest winter of the century, she took her own life while her two babies slept nearby, becoming a symbol onto which people would map whatever most suited their purposes: the troubled genius, the visionary writer, a feminist pioneer and, overwhelmingly, a martyr, a victim of a man.  To his dying day, feminists would stalk literary events just to tell Hughes he had “Sylvia’s blood on his hands”.

So the story is well known and in the years since her death there have been a number of biographies, critical studies, collections of letters, academic conferences; given that, it’s seemed by the 2020s unlikely there was much more to say about one whose adult life spanned not even two decades.  For that reason the 1000-odd densely printed pages of Dr Heather Clark’s Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath was a revelation because, as the author pointed out, her life “has been subsumed by her afterlife” and what was needed was a volume which focused on what she wrote and why that output means she should be set free from the “cultural baggage of the past 50 years” and shown as “one of the most important American writers of the twentieth century.”

Sylvia Plath in Paris, 1956.

Red Comet is thus far this century’s outstanding biography and a feminist perspective is not required to recognize that when reading her last poems (written in obvious rage but sustaining a controlled tension few have matched) that she was a profoundly disturbed woman.  Most clinicians who have commented seem now to agree her depression of long-standing had descended to something psychotic by the time of her suicide, a progression she seems to have acknowledged, writing to one correspondent that she was composing poetry “on the edge of madness”.  This is though a biography written by a professional literary critic so it does not construct Plath as tale of tragedy and victimhood as one might if telling the story of some troubled celebrity.  Instead, the life is allowed to unfold in a way which shows how it underpins her development as a writer, the events and other glimpses of the person interpolated into the progress of a text through drafts and revisions, each word polished as the poet progresses to what gets sent to the publisher.  Red Comet is not a book for those interested in how much blame Ted Hughes should bear for his wife killing herself and in that matter it’s unlikely to change many opinions but as a study of the art of Sylvia Plath, it’s outstanding.  Unlike many figurative uses of "comet", Plath continues to blaze her trail. 

Pre-production de Havilland Comet (DH 106) with the original, square windows, England, 1949 (left) and Comet 4 (Registration G-APDN) in BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation (1939-1974 which in 1974 was merged with BEA (British European Airways) and others to later become BA (British Airways)) livery, Tokyo (Haneda International (HND / RJTT)), Japan October 1960.

The term hoodoo is often attached to objects thought jinxed.  When the de Havilland Comet (DH 106; the first commercial jet airliner), within a year of its first flight in 1949, began to suffer a number of catastrophic in-flight accidents, newspapers wrote of the “Comet hoodoo”, something encouraged because, in the pre “black-box” era, analysis of aviation incidents was a less exact science than now and for some time the crashes appeared inexplicable.  It was only when extensive testing revealed the reason for the structural failures could be traced to stresses in the airframe induced aspects of the design that the hoodoo was understood to be the operation of physics.  Other manufacturers noted the findings and changed their designs, Boeing's engineers acknowledging the debt they owed to de Havilland because it was the investigation of the Comet's early problems which produced the solutions which helped the Boeing 707 (1957) and its many successors to be the successful workhorses they became.  As a footnote, by the time the Comet 4 was released in 1958 the problems had been solved but commercially, the project was doomed and reputational damage done.  Between 1949-1964, barely more than 100 were sold although many did provide reliable service until 1981 and the airframe proved adaptable, dozens of military variants produced, the most notable being the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod, a maritime patrol version which was in service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) until 2011.

It’s because of the lessons learned from the Comet hoodoo that the apertures of airliner windows have rounded edges, the traditional four-cornered openings creating four weak spots prone to failure under stress.  In the early 1950s there was much optimism about the Comet and had it been successful, it could have given the UK’s commercial aviation industry a lead in a sector which rapidly would expand in the post war years.  One who didn’t express much faith in his country’s capacity to succeed in the field was the politician Duff Cooper (1890–1954) who, shortly before taking up his appointment as the UK’s ambassador to France, was flying on an Avro York (a transport and civil adaptation of the Lancaster heavy bomber) and he noted in his diary: “I think the designer of the York has discovered the shape of an armchair in which it is quite impossible to be comfortable, if this is typical of the civil transport plane in which were are to compete against the US, we are already beaten.”  As Lindsay Lohan’s smiles indicate, as least on private jets, the seats are now comfortable.

Not quite an Edsel, not yet a Mercury: The 1960 Comet; it was an era of imaginative (other use different adjectives) styling (and at this time they were still "stylists" and not "designers").

The Mercury Comet, built in four generations between 1960-1969 and another between 1971-1977, had a most unusual beginning.  The Ford Motor Company (“FoMoCo”, Mercury’s parent corporation) had in the mid 1950s studied the five-tier (Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, Cadillac) branding used by General Motors (GM) and decided it too would create a five divisional structure (which by 1955 Chrysler had also matched).  The GM model dated from the 1920s and was called the “ladder” (GM at times had as many as nine rungs) and the idea was each step on the later would take a buyer into a higher price (and at least theoretically more profitable) range of models.  There was a time when this approach made sense but even in the 1950s when Ford embarked on their restructure it was beginning to fragment, the implications of which would become apparent over the decades.  Thus Ford ended up (briefly) with five divisions: Ford, Mercury, Edsel, Lincoln and Continental.  That didn’t last long and Continental was the first to go, followed soon by the still infamous Edsel and the corporation even flirted with the idea of shuttering Lincoln.

1963 Mercury Comet S-22 Convertible.

The original plan had been for the Comet to be the “small Edsel” but by the time the release date drew close, the decision had been taken to terminate the Edsel brand so the Q&D (quick & dirty) solution was to sell the car through the Lincoln-Mercury dealer network, an expedient which lasted for the 1960 & 1961 model years before the Comet was integrated into the Mercury range and badged appropriately.  The early Comets were built on the Falcon platform (“compact” in contemporary US terms) but when the 1966 range was released, the cars became “intermediates” (ie the size between the “compact” and “full-size” platforms).  The Comet name was withdrawn from use after 1969 but was in 1971 revived for Mercury’s companion to the Maverick, Ford’s replacement for the compact Falcon which slotted above the Pinto which was smaller, requiring the industry to coin the class-designation “sub compact”.  Cheap to produce and essentially a “consumer disposable”, the Maverick and Comet proved so popular they continued in production for a season even after their nominal replacements were in showrooms.

1967 Mercury Comet Cyclone "R Code", one of 60 built that year with the 427 cubic inch (7.0 litre) FE side-oiler V8 and one of the 19 with a four-speed manual transmission.

The Mercury Comet has never attracted great interest from collectors because few were built with the more robust or exotic drive-trains found more frequently in both the competition from GM & Chrysler and the companion versions from Ford.  The mid-range performance package for the general market was the Comet Cyclone, introduced in 1964 to replace the Comet’s earlier S-22 option; neither were big sellers but they were not expensive to produce and remained profitable parts of the Mercury range.  In 1968, during the peak of the muscle car era, Mercury sought to promote the line, dropping the Comet name and promoting the machines as the “Cyclone”, now with quite potent engines although the emphasis clearly was drag racing rather than turning corners; the high performance package was now called the “Cyclone Spoiler”.  For the NASCAR circuits however, there was in 1969 the Cyclone Spoiler II, one of the so-called “aero cars”, the better known of which were the much more spectacular, be-winged Dodge Daytona (1969) and Plymouth Superbird (1970).  Chrysler’s cars looked radical to achieve what they did but the modifications which created the Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II and Ford Torino Talladega were so subtle as to be barely noticeable, the most effective being the increased slope on the lengthened nose, the flush grill and some changes which had the effect of lowering both the centre of gravity and the body.  The Ford and Mercury might have been a less spectacular sight than the Dodge or Plymouth but on the tracks the seeming slight tweaks did the job and both were among the fastest and most successful of their brief era.

1969 Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II (slab-sided but slippery, left), 1970 Mercury Cyclone Spoiler (sleek but less aerodynamic than its predecessor, centre) and the aborted 1970 Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II (handicapped out of contention by NASCAR, right).   

In 1970, just how aerodynamic was the 1969 Cyclone Spoiler was proved when the racing teams tried the new model which, although it looked sleek, was not as aerodynamically efficient and noticeably slower.  That might seem something of an own goal but Ford were blindsided by NASCAR’s decision to render the low-volume “aero cars” uncompetitive by restricting them to the use of 305 cubic inch (5.0 litre) engines while the conventional bodies were permitted to use the full 430 (7.0).  Thus the aerodynamic modifications planned for the 1970 Torino and Cyclone never entered production.  Of the two prototype Cyclone Spoiler IIs built, one survives revealing a nose which was in its own way as radical as those earlier seen on the Plymouth and Dodge.  In the collector market, the aero cars are much sought but the Cyclones are the least valued which may seem strange because they were on the circuits among the most successful of the era.  Market analysts attribute this to (1) the Cyclone Spoiler II (and Torino Talladega) being visually much less eye-catching than the wild-looking pair from Chrysler and (2) the Cyclone Spoiler II being sold only with a modest 351 cubic inch (5.8 litre) engine whereas the Fords ran 428s (7.0) and the Chryslers 440 (7.2) & 426 (6.9) units, the latter a version of the engine actually used in the race cars.

The highly qualified Kate Upton (b 1992) was in 2014 featured in a Sports Illustrated session filmed in a "vomit comet" (a modified Boeing 727 with a padded interior).