Exoskeleton & Endoskeleton

Exoskeleton (pronounced ek-soh-skel-i-tn)

(1) In zoology, an external covering or integument, any hardened external structure, as the shells of crustaceans or the scales and plates of fishes and reptiles, especially when it is of the nature of bone.

(2) All hard parts, such as hair, teeth, and nails which develop from the ectoderm or mesoderm in vertebrates (generally used only in technical literature).

1841: The construct was exo- + skeleton.  The prefix endo- was used as a word-forming element meaning "inside, within, internal.  It was from the Ancient Greek ἔνδον (éndon) (within; inner; internal) from the primitive Indo-European en-do- (an extended form of the root en (in)).

Skeleton was from the New Latin skeleton (bones, bony framework of the body), from the Ancient Greek skeleton soma (dried-up body, mummy, skeleton), from the neuter of σκελετός (skeletós) (dried up, withered, dried body (and as a noun: parched; mummy), from σκέλλω (skéllō & skellein) (dry, dry up, make dry, parch), from the primitive Indo-European (s)kelha- (to parch, wither); related was the Ancient Greek σκληρός (sklirós) (hard).

Skelton was an early variant form.  The noun use of Greek skeletos passed into Late Latin as (sceletus), hence the French squelette and the rare English skelet (1560s), the Spanish esqueleto & the Italian scheletro.  The meaning "bare outline" is first recorded circa 1600; hence the term skeleton crew from 1778 used to describe minimal staffing, the skeleton key a similar allusion to some of a structure being removed.  The phrase skeleton in the closet (source of secret shame to a person, family or institution) is from 1812 and thought an adoption from the imagery in Bluebeard fable (1697) by Charles Perrault (1628-1703). Exoskeleton was a creation in 1841 by English paleontologist Sir Richard Owen (1804–1892).

Endoskeleton (pronounced en-doh-skel-i-tn)

(1) In zoology, the internal skeleton or framework of the body of an animal (generally the bony or cartilaginous skeleton of vertebrates).  Certain invertebrates, such as sponges and echinoderms, also have endoskeletons.

(2) For most (non-technical) purposes, a synonym for skeleton.

1838: The construct was endo- + skeleton  The prefix exo- was used as a word forming element in words of Greek origin meaning "outer, outside, outer part" and was used from the mid-nineteenth century.  It’s from the Ancient Greek ἔξω (éxō) (outer; external).and was related to ex (out of).

Endoskeleton is used almost exclusively in the biological sciences.  For most general purposes, it’s synonymous with skeleton which is the default assumption of use because it’s familiar from humans and most familiar animals.  Exoskeleton has become more widely used in recent years because of the interest in fields such as engineering, robotics and medicine in using external structures, often to augment or replace human functions.

Trilobites

Trilobite (pronounced try-low-byte) translates literally as “three lobes".  Often casually referred to as bugs or sea-bugs, in taxonomy, all trilobites actually belong in the class of trilobite in the phylum arthropod and within the class are ten orders.  It’s not known how many species of trilobites existed but almost 21,000 have thus far been identified in the fossil record, their numbers and variety leading them to be regarded as one of history’s more successful animals.  They inhabited all the seas and oceans and endured some three-hundred million years, surviving several mass-extinction events.  Their long duration, their structure and living habits meant they became a common and frequently discovered fossil, noted since antiquity although the first attempt scientifically to classify one seems to have been by Wan Shizen of China who, in 1689 described trylobite pygidia (tails) as batstones.  The first known scientific drawing was by Welsh botanist, the Reverend Edward Lhuyd (1660-1709) whose sketch of a trilobite was published in "The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.  The drawing, now classified as being a Ogygiocarella debuchii, was then (not unreasonably), called the "flatfish".

Truly ancient, trilobites pre-date the Cambrian explosion and went extinct only towards the end of the Permian extinction event which ended the Paleozoic age.  However, the earlier events took their toll, a few orders vanishing after the Ordovician extinction event while the Devonian event removed all but one order, that last survivor dying out in the Great Permian Extinction.  Why such a successful and prolific creature could not endure these extinctions remains a debate.

All share the same basic structure, having three lobes: a left pleural, a middle axial and a right pleural lobe, their bodies divided into a cephalon (dead), thorax (middle), and pygydium (tail).  Trilobites had a thick, protective exoskeleton which formed a hard calcite shell, something like that of the modern crab and is the reason for their frequency in the fossil record, the exoskeletons usually the only part to survive although, in the rare cases where certain surrounding conditions exist, traces of soft tissue such as antennae can survive fossilization.  As a trilobite grew, it molted its exoskeleton, and many of the fossils which exist are molted frames rather than dead creatures.

Endoskeleton cars

The Birdcage: The Maserati Tipo 60/61 (chassis #2549).

Endoskeleton cars are far from uncommon but some make the concept more obvious than others.  The Maserati Tipo 60/61 (1959-1961) gained the nickname “Birdcage” (by which it’s almost always known) because observers were much taken with the delicacy of the construction.  By the late 1950s, space-frames had become familiar to race-car builders but they were usually robust-looking arrangements whereas Maserati had rendered an intricate latticework of some 200 chromoly steel tubes welded often in triangulated form in the points of highest stress, the designing providing both lightness and rigidity.

Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR (W196S, upper) & 300 SL (W198, lower).

One of the reasons the Maserati’s skeleton looked so delicate was that the space-frame had become associated with Teutonic-flavored construction like that used by Mercedes-Benz for its 300 SL & 300 SLR.  Both shared the same method of construction but despite the names and the the visual similarity between the two, there were few common components beyond the nuts, bolts & screws.  The 300 SL was a road car while the SLR was a lengthened version of the W196R Formula One Grand Prix car with a sexy body and an enlarged (though somewhat detuned) straight-eight engine.

Exoskeleton cars

MVE Exocet (left) & Exomotive’s Exocet Sport V8 (right).

Exoskeleton vehicles are numerous on farms, mine-sites and such but rarely seen on public roads.  They do though have a niche for those who want something which sacrifices just about everything (aerodynamics, weather protection, doors etc) for the nimbleness only extreme light-weight can deliver.  An example is the MVE Exocet, released for public sale in 2010.  It’s an inventive approach to the kit-car concept and takes the classic front-engined, rear-wheel drive approach, based on Mazda’s Miata (the MX-5, introduced in 1989 and a kind of clone of the Lotus Elan of the 1960s but without the problems), the advantage with the Japanese platform being its unusual sub-frame which permits the removal of the body, leaving the engine, drive-train and suspension as a rolling assembly to be transplanted to the Exocet chassis.

The nicely defined shoulder blade and ribcage definition of Lindsay Lohan's endoskeleton.

Because of the light weight, even when using sensible four-cylinder engines the Exocet delivers high-performance but the Americans in particular can’t resist the idea that just about any car can be improved by the installation of a V8 and quite outlandish power to weight ratios are possible.  An indicative example of Exomotive’s Exocet Sport used a 525hp (LS3) version of one of the later evolutions of the small-block Chevrolet V8 which, fully fueled, weighed in at 1690 lb (767 kg), somewhat less than a 2023 Formula One car.  Because it possible to buy, off the shelf (as a “crate” engine), V8 engines with about the same power as a F1 power-plant generates, although there was be something a weight penalty, the potential does exist to build a two-seater roadster with a similar power-to-weight ratio and there are jurisdictions which even allow such a thing to be registered for use on public roads.  Opinions would differ on whether such a build is a good idea but the little machines, if the V8 was tuned more for low and mid-range torque rather than ultimate power, would seem to have great potential in competitions such as short-course events and hill-climbs although the dubious aerodynamics would render it less suited to high-speed tracks.

Underwire

Underwire (pronounced uhn-der-wahyuhr)

(1) A (usually almost semi-circular) metal, plastic or composite “wire” sewn into the underside of each cup of a brassiere, used both as a structural member and shaping device.

(1) A brassiere (or related component in a swimsuit or some other garment) with such wires.

A portmanteau word, the construct being under + wire.  Under is from the Middle English under, from the Old English under, from the  Proto-Germanic under (source also of the Old Frisian under, the German unter, the Old High German untar, the Dutch onder, the Old Norse undir, the Gothic undar and the Danish & Norwegian under), from a blend of the primitive Indo-European n̥dhér (under) and n̥tér (inside).  It was akin to the Old High German untar (under), the Sanskrit अन्तर् (antar) (within) and the Latin infrā (below, beneath) & inter (between, among), influencing also the Sanskrit adhah (below), the Avestan athara- (lower) and the Latin infernus (lower).  The Old English under was a preposition in the sense of "beneath, among, before, in the presence of, in subjection to, under the rule of, by means of and also an adverb in the sense of "beneath, below, underneath," expressing position with reference to that which is above, usage gained from the Proto-Germanic under-.

Under proved as productive a prefix in Old English as had in German and Scandinavian languages, often forming words modeled on Latin ones using “sub-“ and the notion of "inferior in rank, position etc" existed in the Old English and persists in the language of the titles in the UK’s civil service to this day (eg under-secretary).  The idea of it being used as descriptor of standards (less than in age, price, value etc” emerged in the late fourteenth century whereas, as an adjective meaning “lower in position; lower in rank or degree” was known as early as the 1200s.  Mysteriously, the use in Old English as a preposition meaning "between, among," as in “under these circumstances” may be a wholly separate root (eg understand).  The phrase “under the weather (indisposed; unwell) is from 1810.  Under the table was used from 1913 in the sense of "very drunk" and it wasn’t until the 1940s (possibly influenced by the onset of rationing and the consequence emergence of black markets) it came to enjoy the sense of something "illegal" (although the long-extinct “under-board: (dishonest) is attested from circa 1600.  To keep something under the hat (secret) is from 1885 and use seems not to have been affected by the post 1945 decline in hat-wearing; to have something under (one's) nose (in plain sight) is from 1540s; to speak under (one's) breath (in a low voice) dates from 1832.

Wire is from the Middle English wir & wyr (metal drawn out into a fine thread), from the Old English wīr (wire, metal thread, wire-ornament), from the Proto-Germanic wira- & wīraz (wire), from the primitive Indo-European wehiros (a twist, thread, cord, wire), from wei & wehiy- (to turn, twist, weave, plait).  The Proto-Germanic wira- & wīraz were the source also of the Old Norse viravirka (filigree work=), the Swedish vira (to twist) and the Old High German wiara (fine gold work).  A wire as marking the finish line of a racecourse is attested from 1883; hence the figurative down to the wire.  Wire-puller in the political sense dates from 1839, an invention of American English (though used first to describe matters in the UK’s House of Commons), based on the image of pulling the wires that work a puppet; the phrase “pulling the strings” replaced “pulling the wires” late in the nineteenth century.

Casting a practiced eye: Lindsay Lohan assessing the underwires.

In the technical sense familiar to a structural engineer, the bra’s underwire is a specific instance of the earlier verb (1520s) “undergird”, the construct being under + gird.  Gird (to bind with a flexible rope or cord; to encircle with, or as if with a belt) was from the Middle English girden, gerden & gürden, from the Old English gyrdan (to put a belt around, to put a girdle around), from the Proto-Germanic gurdijaną (to gird), from the primitive Indo-European gherdh.  It was cognate with the West Frisian gurdzje & girdzje, the Dutch gorden, the German gürten, the Swedish gjorda, the Icelandic gyrða and the Albanian ngërthej (to tie together by weaving, to bind).  The related forms were undergirded & undergirding.

As a familiar mass-manufactured commodity item, the bra is a relatively new innovation although many of the various functionalities afforded to the wearer are noted in illustrations and surviving garments worn since antiquity, interest in the physics of gravity long pre-dating Newtonian mechanics.  The most obvious immediate ancestor, the corset, began to be widely worn by the late 1400s, the shaping and structure of many underpinned by struts made either of metal or, more commonly, animal bone, a method of construction which, in simplified form, would later return as the underwire.  The first patent issued for a recognizably modern bra was issued in New York in 1893 for a “breast supporter” and it included all the features familiar in the mass-produced modern product: separated cups atop a metal support system, located with a combination of shoulder straps and a back-band fastened by hook and eye closures.  On the basis of the documents supplied with the patent application, the design objective was for something not only functional and practical but, unlike the often intimidating corsets then in use, also comfortable.

It was an immediate success although, lacking the capacity to manufacture at scale and unwilling to become involved in the capital raising which that would have demanded, the inventor sold her patent to the Warner Brothers Corset Company for US$1500 (at a time when a new Ford car cost around US$400).  Warner Brothers Corset Company (later Warnaco Group, in 2012 acquired by Phillips-Van Heusen Corporation (PVH), which over the life of the patent is estimated to have booked profits of almost US$40 million from its bra sales, got a bargain.  English borrowed the word brassiere from the French brassière although in the original it was a chemise (a kind of undershirt) but in the US, brassiere was used from 1893 when the first bras were advertised and from there, use spread.  The three syllables were just too much to survive the onslaught of modernity and the truncated “bra” soon prevailed, being the standard form throughout the English-speaking world by the early 1930s.  Curiously, in French, a bra is a soutien-gorge which translates literally and rather un-romantically as "throat-supporter".

The booming popularity of the bra in the 1920s and 1930s encouraged innovation and not a few gimmicks and it was in this era that manufacturers first began to develop systems of cup sizes although there was there no standardization of dimensions and, technically, that’s still the case with remarkable variations between manufacturers; it’s an industry crying out for an ISO.  It was in 1931 a patent was issued for what was described as a bra with a pair of integrated “open-ended wire loops”, semi-circular pieces of metal enclosed in protective fabric which partially encircled each breast, sitting against the chest-wall at the bottom of the breasts.  This is the origin of the modern underwire and during the 1930s, while designers would develop more elaborate versions, the concept didn’t change and as late as 1940, the underwire bra remained something of niche product being, at this stage of development, both more expensive and often less comfortable.  Wartime necessity also imposed an evolutionary delay, the use of metal during wartime being limited to essential production and carefully rationed.  Bras by then probably had become essential but apparently not underwired bras.

Hughes H-4 Hercules (Spruce Goose) on its only test flight, 2 November 1947, Long Beach, Los Angeles Harbor.  It flew for abou1 1 mile (1.6 km) and achieved a maximum speed of 135 mph (217 km/h).

Howard Hughes (1905—1976), the industrialist knew about the wartime limits on the use of metals because the War Production Board had insisted his H-4 Hercules, a huge, eight-engined flying boat designed to transport 750 troops across the Atlantic, be built using “non-strategic materials" which precluded the industry’s preferred aluminum, Hughes using birch wood almost exclusively.  The H-4, which wasn’t completed until after the end of hostilities flew, briefly, only once and was nicknamed the Spruce Goose, which obviously was arboreally inaccurate but thinking of something as funny and rhyming with “birch” wasn’t easy.  So, in 1942 Hughes knew he’d never get approval for enough metal for his big flying boat, but in 1941, before the entry of the US into the war, more than enough metal was available to create a specialized part to be used in another of his ventures: film director.

Jane Russell, promotional picture for The Outlaw (1941).

In 1941, while filming The Outlaw, Hughes wasn’t satisfied with what sympathetic lighting, camera angles and provocative posing could make of Jane Russell's (1921—2011) bust.  A skilled engineer, he quickly designed and had fabricated a kind of cantilevered underwire bra to lend the emphasis he though her figure deserved.  What Hughes did was add curved steel rods which functioned as actual structural members, sewn into the bra under each cup and connected to the shoulder straps, an arrangement which simultaneously pushed upwards the breasts and allowed the shoulder straps to be re-positioned, exposing to the camera much more skin.  In engineering terms, it was a device which achieved a fixture with no visible means of support.  Hughes was delighted with the result and completed filming though it wasn’t until much later Ms Russell revealed the cantilevered device was so uncomfortable she wore it for only a few minutes, reverting to her own bra which, to please Hughes, she modified with those trusty standbys, padding and a judicious tightening of the straps.  The result was much the same and Ms Russell waspishly added that the engineering prowess which had served Hughes well in aviation didn’t translate well to designing comfortable underwear.  The Outlaw was completed in February 1941 but, because of the focus on Ms Russell's breasts, faced opposition in obtaining the required certificate of release from the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (the MPPDA which administered the Hays Code) which was demanding cuts to thirty seconds odd of offending footage.  Hughes reluctantly complied and there was a brief showing in 1943 but the film’s distributer, unwilling to be dragged into any controversy, withdrew from the project and it wasn’t until 1946 there was finally a general release on cinema screens.  Given the pent-up demand, it was a commercial success but the critics were at the time unimpressed and it only later gained a cult following, at least partly on the basis of the gay undertone in the plot-line.

Lindsay Lohan in underwire bra, 2012.

Underwires essentially fulfill part of the function of an exoskeleton in that, being designed to fit snugly against the ribcage, they provide a basic mechanism of location which means the back-strap, cups and shoulder-straps can provide the shape and support without having to compensate for excessive movement or changes in weight distribution.  The mathematics of structural engineering is really that of making push equal pull and what a well-designed (and properly fitted) underwire does is minimize the risk of movement in an unwanted direction (down) so the least energy is required to maintain the desired movement (up).  There are other ways of achieving this but such constructions typically are much bulkier and use often stiff, unaccommodating fabrics and thick straps.  The underwire is a simple technology which, in the abstract really can’t be improved upon although there are problems.  Washing machine service technicians note the frequency with which errant underwires end up in the mechanism and, being metal, damage can result.  For this reason, most bra manufacturers recommend they be placed in a sealed bag for washing.  Detachment can also happen while in use, a protruding underwire sometimes passing through the material in which its supposed to remain enclosed, giving the wearer a painful jab in a soft, fleshy spot.  Although the tips are usually plastic coated, repeated jabbing is still uncomfortable.  Being traditionally made of metal (usually stainless steel) brings it's own issues, most obviously with metal detectors but for frequent flyers, bras with plastic underwires (and hooks & clasps) are available off the shelf and plastic underwires are even sold as stand-alone part-numbers to modify existing models or for use by the small but devoted class of users who make their own.

Vermiform

Vermiform (pronounced vur-muh-fawrm)

Resembling or having the long, thin, cylindrical shape of a worm; long and slender.

1720-1730: From the Medieval Latin vermiformis, the construct being vermis (worm) + forma (form).  Vermis was from the primitive Indo-European wr̥mis and cognates included the Ancient Greek ῥόμος (rhómos) and the Old English wyrm (worm (which evolved into the Modern English worm)).  Form was from -fōrmis (having the form of), from fōrma (a form, contour, figure, shape, appearance, looks).  The root of the Latin vermis was the primitive Indo-European wer- (to turn, bend), an element most productive, contributing to: adverse; anniversary; avert; awry; controversy; converge; converse (as the adjectival sense of "exact opposite”); convert; diverge; divert; evert; extroversion; extrovert; gaiter; introrse; introvert; invert; inward; malversation; obverse; peevish; pervert; prose; raphe; reverberate; revert; rhabdomancy; rhapsody; rhombus; ribald; sinistrorse; stalwart; subvert; tergiversate; transverse; universe; verbena; verge (as the verb meaning "tend, incline"); vermeil; vermicelli; vermicular; vermiform; vermin; versatile; verse (in the sense of the noun "poetry") version; verst; versus; vertebra; vertex; vertigo; vervain; vortex; -ward; warp; weird; worm; worry; worth (in the adjectival sense of "significant, valuable, of value") worth (as the verb "to come to be"); wrangle; wrap; wrath; wreath; wrench; wrest; wrestle; wriggle; wring; wrinkle; wrist; writhe; wrong; wroth & wry.  Vermiform is an adjective.

Commonly used in medicine to describe the appendix, Modern French also gained the word from Latin as the adjective vermiforme (plural vermiformes), the spelling of the medical use apéndice vermiforme (plural apéndices vermiformes).  The only known derived form in English is the adjective subvermiform, used apparently exclusively in the disciplines of zoology, including entomology.  The meaning was defined in a dictionary from 1898 as “shaped somewhat like a worm” which is surprisingly imprecise for the language of science but that vagueness appears adequate for the purposes to which it’s put.  For whatever reason, vermiform was a word much favored by the US humorist HL Mencken (1880-1956).

The female Eumillipes persephone: 1,306 legs & 330 segments.  

Because the scientific literature has for some time been dominated by COVID-19 and all that flowed the brief, sudden prominence of two vermiform creatures, one ancient, the other more recent, was an amusing distraction.  The younger animal was a new species of millipede which boasted not only more legs than any other creature on the planet but was the first of its kind to live up to its name.    

Since circa 1600, the term millipede has been applied to any of the many elongated arthropods, of the class Diplopoda (a taxonomic subphylum within the phylum Arthropoda (the centipedes, millipedes and similar creepy-crawlies) with cylindrical bodies that have two pairs of legs for each one of their many body segments and, although milliped was long regarded as the correct spelling by scientists who work with myriapods, millipede is by far the most common form in general use (although there’s the odd specialist who insists on millepede).  Millipede was from the Latin millipeda (wood louse), the construct being mille (thousand) + pes (genitive pedis) (foot), from the primitive Indo-European root ped (foot) (probably a loan-translation of Greek khiliopous).  When named, it wasn’t intended as a mathematically precise definition, only to suggest the things had lots of legs though, certainly many fewer than a thousand.  The creature has always possessed a certain comical charm because, despite having usually twice the number of legs as centipedes, the millipede is entirely harmless whereas there are centipedes which can be quite nasty.  For centuries millipede was thought a bit of a misnomer, with no example ever observed with more than 750 legs and that deep-soil dweller was an outlier, most having fewer with a count in two figures quite common.  The new species also lives in the depths: Eumilipes persephone (Persephone, the daughter of Zeus who was taken by Hades to the underworld), a female was found to be sprouting 1,306 legs.  Pale and eyeless, it’s vermiform in the extreme, the body-length almost a hundred times its width and instead of vision, it used a large antennae to navigate through darkness to feed on fungi.

The sheer length of the thing does suggest a long lifespan by the standards of the species, most of which tend not to survive much beyond two years.  The persephone however, based on a count of the body segments which grow predictably in the manner of tree rings, seems likely to live perhaps as long as a decade.  One factor which accounts for the longevity is the absence of predators, the persephone’s natural environment banded iron formations and volcanic rock some 200 feet (60 m) beneath the surface of a remote part of Western Australia.  Entomologists didn’t actually venture that deep to explore, instead using the simple but effective method of lowering buckets of tempting vegetation down shafts drilled by geologists exploring for minerals, returning later to collect whatever creatures had been tempted to explore.

Artist’s impression of an Arthropleura: half a metre wide and perhaps nearly three metres in length, the latter dimension similar to a small car.  

Days after the announcement from the Western Australian desert, livescience.com also announced researchers in the UK found the fossilized exoskeleton of an Arthropleura, the largest arthropod yet known to have lived.  The length of a modern car, the giant millipede-like creatures appear to have done most of their their creeping and crawling during the Carboniferous Period, between 359 million and 299 million years ago.

Although the Arthropleura have long been known from the fossil record, there’d not before been any suggestion they ever grew quite so large and the find was quite serendipitous, discovered on a beach in a block of sandstone which had recently fallen and cracked apart.  The exoskeleton fragment is 30 inches (750 mm) long and 22 inches (550 mm) wide which means the giant millipede would have been around 102 inches (2600 mm) long and weighed around 110 lbs (50 kg)m making it the biggest land animals of the Carboniferous era.  Despite its bulk however, the physics of movement and the need to support its own weight mean the leg count is nowhere near as impressive as its young relation what is now on the other side of the world (what are now the Australian and European land masses were closer together during the Carboniferous) and it’s still not clear if Arthropleura had two legs per segment or every two segments but either way it adds up to much fewer than a hundred.

Ultimately, Arthropleura was a victim of changing conditions.  In its time, it would have been living in a benign equatorial environment but, over millions of years, the equator can shift because of the phenomenon of TPW (true polar wander) in which the outer layer of Earth shifts around the core, tilting the crust relative to the planet’s axis.  This last happened some eighty-four million years ago.  So, the conditions which for so long had been ideal changed and changed suddenly and Arthropleura was unable to adapt, going extinct after having flourished for nearly fifty-million years.  The reasons for their demise are those seen repeatedly in the fossil record: In an abruptly changed environment, there was suddenly more competition for fewer resources and the Arthropleura lost out to animals which were stronger, more efficient and better able to adapt.

The human appendix.

Thousands of years after first being described, the human appendix, a the small blind-ended vermiform structure at the junction of the large and the small bowel remains something of a mystery.  For centuries the medical orthodoxy was it vestigial, a evolutionary dead-end and a mere quirk of human development but the current thinking is it exists as a kind of “safe-house” for the good bacteria resident in the bowel, enabling them to repopulate as required.  However, being blind-ended, although intestinal contents easily can enter, in certain circumstances it can operate as a kind of one-way, non-return valve, making exit impossible which results in inflammation.  This is the medical condition appendicitis and in acute cases, the appendix must surgically be removed.  That's usually fine if undertaken in good time because it's a simple, commonly performed procedure but unfortunately, in a small number of cases, a residual "stump" of the structure may escape the knife and in this inflammation may re-occur, something surgeons resentfully label “stumpitis”.  Apparently the most useless part of the human anatomy, there is noting in the medical literature to suggest anyone has noticed any aspect of their life being changed by not having an appendix.

Bustle

Bustle (pronounced buhs-uhl)

(1) To move or act with a great show of energy (often followed by about).

(2) To abound or teem with something; display an abundance of something (often used as “bustling with” or bustled with”).

(3) Thriving or energetic or noisy activity; stir; ferment.

(4) In dressmaking, the fullness around or below the waist of a dress, as added by a peplum, bows, ruffles, etc.

(5) In nineteenth century dressmaking, (1) a pad, cushion, worn under the back of a woman's skirt to expand, support, and display the full cut and drape of a dress; (2) a metal or whalebone framework worn by women, typically only protruding from the rear as opposed to the earlier more circular hoops.

(6) In the design of electronic office equipment, a cover to protect and hide the back panel of a computer or other office machine.

(7) In automotive design, latterly as “bustle-back”. a mid-twentieth century coachwork motif which integrated into the rear of the bodywork the previously separately-mounted trunks used to store luggage;  In the UK, the style was used in a tiny number of limousines until 1992 and in the US, there was an unfortunate revival in the 1970s.

(8) In the design of armored vehicles, an additional, external storage space added to the rear of a vehicle (on a tank, at the rear of the turret).

(9) In sailboat design, as bustle stern, a reference to a stern with a blister at the waterline designed to prevent the stern from "squatting" when getting underway.

1570s: The verb was from the Middle English bustlen, bustelen & bostlen (to hurry aimlessly along; bustling, noisy or excited activity) perhaps a frequentative of Middle English bresten (to rush, break), from Old English bersten (rushing about) of uncertain origin but perhaps (1) from the Old Norse busla & bustla (to splash about), (2) from the dialectal word busk from Old Norse būask (to prepare; to make oneself ready), (3), from the obsolete word buskle (energetically to prepare something) or (4), from the verb busk via the sixteenth century frequentative form buskle.  John Milton (1608–1674) in the 1630s used bustle to suggest "activity, stir, fuss, commotion.  In modern English use, the word is often heard in the phrase “hustle & bustle”.  Related forms include the noun bustler, the verbs bustled & bustling, the adjectival form of bustling not noted until 1819.

Profile of the bustle dress: 1885 American example rendered in silk with rhinestones in a metal frame.

The origin of the use of bustle as a noun referring to "padding in the upper back part of a skirt" is of uncertain origin but may be connected with the German Buschel (bunch, pad) or (more speculatively) may be a special adaptation of the verb, a tribute to the "rustling” the fabric of the dresses made while in motion.  Apparently first used in 1788, the bustle was a specifically-shaped frame, stuffed with cotton, feathers etc, worn by women to kill two birds with one stone: affording a greater rotundity to the hips and emphasizing the narrowness of the of the waist-line.  It had the added practical attraction of causing the folds of the skirt to hang more gracefully and prevent the fabric from interfering with the feet when walking.

Fashions change: the bustle in the late nineteenth century.

Bustle dresses obviously pre-dated modern synthetic fabrics which can be engineered to assume and retain a defined shape so were created by using an internal frame, an exoskeleton assembled usually from metal, cane or bone using essentially the same technique as coachbuilders in the twentieth century, the space frame providing support and describing the arc of the desired curves.  The earliest of the breed were less exaggerated that what was to follow, used more to allow the fabric to fan-out and create a train and it was later, in the mid-nineteenth century, that the loops and hoops grew in number and size to allow the multi-gathered layers now most associated with the style.  It was about this time that trains began to retreat and the shape of the bustle adopted the more pronounced humped shape on the back of the skirt immediately below the waist, the voluminous material tending now to fall straight to the floor in a cut designers at the time called the “waterfall effect”.  A wonderfully elegant style in which a lady could waft around a ballroom, taking a seat could be difficult, trips to the loo presumably a matter of gymnastics.

As a piece of fashion, the bustle rose and fell in popularity, its most dramatic flourish in the late 1880s when the most extreme of the bustles were built with proportions even more extraordinary than the originals of the late 1700s.  Absurdity having been achieved, the bigger bustles were banished to the of the wedding dress where it remains to this day, used both to better display a clinched waist and sometimes support a train.  The engineering however endured into the twentieth century, structural support still required for what was were now only slightly exaggerated interpretations of the female form but by 1908 it was noted that but for wedding dresses, the bustle was extinct, supplanted by the long corset.  

Portrait of Maria Carolina of Austria (1752-1814), circa 1767, by Martin van Meytens (1695–1770).

In the late 1700s, the bustle was actually quite modest compared with the earlier pannier which seems to have existed only as court dress and then rarely, reserved for the most formal occasions.  Offering the advantage of rendering the skirt as a large, almost flat, square or rectangular shape in the manner of a painting, it permitted a large surface on which elaborate designs or embroidery could be displayed, transforming the wearer into something of a walking (or at least standing) billboard. 

The style began somewhere in Europe in the early 1700s, historians of fashion in several countries laying claim although whether that's as a proud boast or admission of guilt isn’t clear.  The term seems to have been applied retrospectively as a point of differentiation from the bustle, “pannier dresses” not described as such until 1869.  In their most imposing iterations, the panniers could extend the skirt by almost a metre (39 inches) either side so there may be a comeback for what would presumably be a practical garment in the #metoo era.  The word pannier dates from circa 1300, from the Old French panier & paniere (basket), from the Latin pānārium (breadbasket), the construct being pānis (bread) + ārium (place for).  As originally used in French, panniers were the wicker baskets slung either side of a beast of burden, the name still used to describe the side-mounted containers available as accessories for bicycles and motor-bikes.

Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte (A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte) (1884-1886) by Georges Seurat (1859-1891).

Seurat’s most famous painting is an indication of the state of the bustle art in the 1880s but is best remembered as an exemplar of the technique of divisionism (sometimes called chromoluminarism), most associated with Neo-Impressionist painting and defined by the colors being separated into individual dots or daubs, the optical result created in the brain of the viewer.  The eye is an outgrowth of the brain and, having “learned” the nature of color, what the eye sees, the brain intuitively blends and mixes, seeing the painting not as an agglomeration of dots but as an image.  The final processing is not by the painter but the viewer, an early example of a deconstruction of the the reader constructing the text, a direction of thought which would come to intrigue many theorists, some of whom unfortunately pursued the concept a little too long and much too often.

Playboy magazine, May 1976.

In what was presumably intended as a post-modern touch, Playboy magazine superimposed an image of a slightly bustled Nancy Cameron (January 1974 Playmate of the Month) on the painting for their May 1976 cover, the bunny logo hidden among the dots.  It’s not known how many of Playboy's readers were sufficiently taken with divisionism to devote much time to rabbit hunting.

1928 Mercedes-Benz Nürburg 460 K Pullman Limousine (W08).

The origin of the bustle-back style on motor cars was organic, a evolution from the luggage trunks which, borrowing from the practice used with horse-drawn carriages of many types, were attached to the rear, a practical arrangement which afforded easy access and didn’t impinge on passenger space.  Sometimes the trunks were provided by the manufacturer or coachbuilder but often, especially on lower-prices vehicles, were from third-party suppliers and not always specifically designed for the purpose, being made variously from steel, timber or leather and even woven with wicker.

1936 Studebaker Dictator 4-door sedan.

As all-metal bodies gradually replaced the mixture of steel, wood and fabric which had typified construction in the early days of the industry, the function of the once separate trunk was retained but integrated into the coachwork.  Ascetically, some were more successful than others but the trend did coincide with the move towards more sloping rear coachwork, replacing the upright designs which had been a direct inheritance from the horse-drawn stage coaches and this would have an important influence on what came to be known as the bustle-back motif.

1939 Lincoln Zephyr V12 Coupe (left) and 1937 Mercedes-Benz 540K (W29) Special Roadster (originally delivered to King Mohammed Zahir Shah of Afghanistan, right).

The sweep of the fastback line did present an obvious stylistic challenge.  To augment one with the bustled trunk would defeat the purpose but the functional advantages of the added storage had come to be appreciated so the solution was complete integration, the once discernibly separate trunk now wholly encapsulated.  The price to be paid for that was the elongation of the rear body but, in the era of streamlining, the market took well to this latest incarnation of modernism and the style turned into a profitable niche for Detroit, the two-door “business coupe” long a favorite of travelling salesmen who were happy with the sacrifice of the back seat to provide an even more commodious trunk (boot) with which to secure samples of wares.

1953 Ford Zodiac (Mark 1) & 1959 Mercedes-Benz 220 SE (W180).

By the early 1950s, a “three-box” form had evolved and it would become for several generations the standard for the mainstream sedan.  Typified by the Ford Zephyr & Zodiac (1951-1956) and the Mercedes-Benz “pontoons” (W105 / W120 / W121 /W128 / W180) (1951-1962), the style was described as “one loaf of bread atop another”.  Although many couldn’t resist embellishing the simplicity with fins and other unnecessary stuff, the basic outline endured for decades although it did tend to the "longer, lower and wider".

1954 Bentley Mark IV (left), 1963 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III (centre) & 1968 Daimler DS420 (right).

Not all however saw the need to advance beyond the bustle which, by an accident of economics, had come to define the traditional English limousine.  While mass-market vehicles evolved quickly with model cycles as little as 3-4 years, the low-volume and substantially hand-made limousines typically remained in production for sometimes a decade or more, reflecting the time it took to amortize the capital investment.  In the post-war years, Austin, Armstrong Siddeley, Bentley, Daimler, Rolls-Royce & Vanden Plas all persisted although production levels, never high, dwindled increasingly as the bustle-back came to be seen as an antiquated relic and by 1965, even Rolls-Royce had all but abandoned the bustle, only the low-volume Phantom V still maintaining the link to the pre-war style.

The choices in 1968: Vanden Plas Princess 4-litre Limousine (left), NSU Ro80 (centre) & Daimler Majestic Major DR450 (right).

Emblematic of the troubles which beset British industry in the era, the most obviously antique of the English bustle-backs, the Vanden Plas Princess 4-litre Limousine, was still on sale in 1968 by which time that glimpse of the next century, the NSU Ro80, had been in showrooms for over a year.  The Princess, still with a split windscreen, was a (mildly) updated version of the Austin Sheerline, introduced in 1947 when it was a genuinely new design although even then, few would have been surprised had they been told it came from before the war.  The eventual longevity wasn't planned but rather a product of the uncertainty in the future of corporate structure the industry would assume, plans for a successor put on hold, the same fate which befell the only slightly more modern-looking but remarkably rapid Daimler Majestic Major which also enjoyed a stay of execution until 1968.       

However, their new rarity made the bustle-back eventually an attraction, the very exclusivity creating a receptive and surprisingly wide market segment which included undertakers, wedding planners, Lord Mayors and anyone else to whom the sense of lost elegance and whiff of wealth appealed.  Jaguar understood and responded in 1968 with the Daimler DS420 which didn’t encourage any imitators but there was room for one and it enjoyed a long, lucrative life, remaining in production until 1992.  Over five thousand were built.

1966 Mercedes-Benz 600 (W100, left) & 1962 Rolls-Royce Phantom V by Mulliner Park Ward (right).

The traditionalists didn’t however always insist on tradition.  Even before Mercedes-Benz had shown their 600 at the 1963 Frankfurt Motor Show, coachbuilders Mulliner Park Ward had built some of the 832 Rolls-Royce Phantom Vs without the pronounced bustle-back which adorned most.  Nothing of course matched the austerity of line of the 600, the most severe interpretation the “three-box” form ever applied to a limousine and, as an alternative to the bustle-back, MPW offered "de-bustled" variations on the theme until the last of the 374 Phantom VIs was built in 1990. 

1965 Oldsmobile 98 two-door hardtop.

Fins began to shrink from the “three box” US cars in the early 1960s and were gone by mid-decade.  Having to go in some direction, the tails of the full-sized US cars noticeably lengthened, matching the growth at the front.  Aesthetically, the long hoods (bonnets) did have their attraction but were hardly an engineering necessity.  Although the biggest US V8s were wide and heavy, they weren’t, by either historic or even contemporary European standards, especially long yet in some of the full-sized cars of the era, a V16 would have fitted and there were those at Cadillac, recalling the genuine exclusivity the sixteen cylinder engines lent the marquee during the 1930s, who hankered for one and they actually built some V12 prototypes before corporate reality bit.  They contented themselves instead with a gargantuan 500 cubic inch (8.2 litre) V8 although another reality would soon bite that too.

The 1961 Cadillac: The long (left) and slightly less long (right) of it. 

Whether in response to or in anticipation of some owners preferring their Cadillac in a more conveniently sized package, between 1961-1963, a “short-deck” option was made available on certain body styles.  Offered first on the six-window Sedan deVille, an encouraging 3,756 were built so the option was in 1962 offered on the four-window Sixty Two Town Sedan but sales actually dropped to 2600, the decline in interest confirmed the next year when only 1575 of the four-window Park Avenue Sedan deVille were sold.  Using the same 129.5 inch (3289 mm) wheelbase as the regular models but eight inches (200 mm) shorter in overall length (215 vs 223 inches (5461 vs 5664 mm)), space utilization was obviously a little better but the market had spoken.  With fewer than eight-thousand of the short-deck models sold across three seasons while the standard editions shipped in the tens of thousands, the flirtation with (slightly) more efficient packaging was abandoned for 1964; in the course of the following decade, Cadillacs would grow another seven inches (178 mm) and gain over 400 lb (181 kg).

1971 Holden HG Premier (left) & 1968 Holden HK Brougham (right).

In Australia, Holden, General Motors's (GM) local outpost, took the opposite approach, the Brougham (1968-1971) created by extending the tail of the less exalted Premier by 8 inches (200 mm), the strange elongation a hurried and far from successful response to the Ford Fairlane (1967-2007).  The 1967 Fairlane had been crafted by stretching the wheelbase of the Falcon sedan from 111 inches (2819 mm) to 116 (2946 mm) and tarting-up the interior.  Ford had since 1965 been locally assembling the full-sized Galaxies for the executive market but tariffs and the maintenance of the Australian currency peg at US$1.12 meant profitability was marginal, the locally concocted Fairlane, much more lucrative, produced as it was with high local content and a miniscule development cost.  The Fairlane name was chosen because of the success the company had had in selling first the full-sized Fairlanes (nicknamed by locals as the “tank Fairlane”) between 1959-1962 and later the compact version (1962-1965).

1977 Ford LTD Silver Monarch (P6).

The massive success of the 1967 car and its successors prompted Ford to cease local assembly of the Galaxie and revert to importing fully built-up cars for the small segment of the market which wanted the bigger vehicles, including the government executive fleets.  Available with both small and big-block V8s, the Galaxies, now badged as Galaxie-LTDs, would remain available until 1973 when Ford Australia created their own LTD (1973-2007), giving the Falcon’s wheelbase a final stretch to 121 inches (3073 mm) and adding the novelty of a 24 hour analogue clock, lashings of real leather and fake timber along with that status symbol of the 1970s: the padded vinyl roof.

Lindsay Lohan photo-shoot by Tom Munro (b 1964) for Bustle, March 2024.

The “malaise era” bustle-backs (1980-1987) by Cadillac, Imperial and Lincoln.

The US cars of the decade between 1973-1983 (some say it lasted a bit longer) were called “malaise era” cars, named after a thoughtful but perhaps unfortunate speech President Jimmy Carter (b 1924; US president 1977-1981) delivered in July 1979.  The president didn't actually utter the word "malaise" but people listen to what politicians mean as much as what they say and the word came to be associated with his unhappy, single-term administration.  Not yet able substantively much to improve the dynamics of the cars, Detroit thought of a distraction: the bustle-back.  It proved a short-lived fad although one better remembered that some of what had gone before and much of what would follow.

The 1980 Cadillac Seville was first, the advertising copy even trying to justify the appearance by claiming the design offered “more usable trunk space”, something which could neither be proved nor disproved which was good, given it offered 14.47 (.409 m³) cubic feet of space whereas last year’s model had 14.9 (.421 m³).  Still, what one got was “more usable”.  Cadillac were explicit about their plagiarism, the Seville’s lines based not on just any bustle-back but one with the most severe lines, the Hooper-bodied Rolls-Royces of the post-war years.  The critics were divided: some not liking it and some hating it, a spread of opinion seemingly shared by buyers, sales never matching those of its more conventional predecessor although there were other factors in the lukewarm response such as the switch to front wheel drive and some reliability issues with the power-train.  Production of the bustle-back Seville ceased in 1985; sales of its successor were higher.

Chrysler always claimed the design of the 1981 Imperial was locked-in long before their designers had laid eyes on the new Seville but it wasn’t until 1981 it was in the showrooms.  Based on the competent J-body Cordoba platform, it was offered only as a two-door coupé with a fuel-injected 318 cubic inch (5.2 litre) V8 and an automatic transmission.  After 1955, Chrysler had run Imperial as a separate division in an attempt to gain the cachet of Cadillac and Lincoln but, despite early success, the experiment failed and the brand was retired in 1975.  The bustle-back Imperial (1981-1983) ostensibly revived the division and the car was well-equipped, including bits and pieces from Cartier although its best-remembered association with celebrity was the “Frank Sinatra Edition”.  Unexpectedly, a brief foray onto the fastest of the NASCAR ovals proved the bustle-back’s aerodynamic efficiency; it achieved an impressive top-speed despite not using the highest-powered engine.  It wasn’t enough to save the brand which was shut down for the last time in 1983 although Chrysler did continue to use “Imperial” on the odd tarted-up model and surprised everyone in 2006 by presenting an Imperial concept car.  Criticized at the time because it was so obviously influenced by the Rolls-Royce Phantom (the retrospective VII) and a pastiche of many clichés, if one didn't mind that sort of thing, it seemed a quite accomplished execution.  

Ford’s retro-take arrived last in 1982 but the Lincoln lingered longest, not replaced until 1987.  The bustle-back Lincoln actually used the most restrained implementation of the idea but, unable to resist the temptation to add lipstick, the designers applied to the trunk the faux spare tyre bump which had been on so many Continentals since the 1955 Mark II first sought to pay tribute to the 1940 original although this was the first time a Lincoln without a Continental badge had been humped. In common with the experience of the other manufacturers, the car attracted fewer buyers than its predecessor or successor and, while Detroit have pursued some other retro-projects with mixed results, none have attempted another reprise of the bustle-back.

Pre and post butt-lift, the 2001 and 2009 BMW 7 Series.

Nor has anyone else.  Although the 2001 BMW 7 Series (E65) is sometimes labelled a bustle-back (or, in more twenty-first century style, a bustle-butt), it really never was although, having allowed a decent interval to elapse so as not to (further) upset the designer, at the first facelift, it was toned down a little.