Fake & Faux

Fake (pronounced feyk)

(1) To prepare or make something specious, deceptive, or fraudulent.

(2) To conceal the defects of or make appear more attractive, interesting, valuable etc, usually in an attempt to deceive.

(3) To pretend; simulate; emulate.

(4) To accomplish by trial and error or by improvising:

(5) To trick or deceive.

(6) In jazz music, to improvise (non pejorative).

(7) To play music without reading from a score (usually non pejorative).

(8) Anything made to appear otherwise than it actually is; counterfeit.

(9) A person who fakes; faker.

(10) To lay (a rope) in a coil or series of long loops so as to allow to run freely without fouling or kinking (often followed by down).

(11) Any complete turn of a rope that has been faked down; any of the various ways in which a rope may be faked down.

(12) In German, a male given name.

1350–1400: From the Middle English faken (to coil a rope) of unknown origin.  The nautical adoption fake (one of the windings of a cable or hawser in a coil) was from the Swedish veck (a fold) and probably entered English from exchanges between English and Scandinavian sailors.  The more familiar modern meaning is documented from 1775 as an adjective meaning “to counterfeit”.  It’s attested from 1812 as vagrants' slang meaning “to do for, rob or kill someone” but was also, in an echo of the earlier form, used to mean “shape something”.  It’s thought to have been either (1) a variant of the obsolete feak & feague (to beat), akin to Dutch veeg (a slap) & vegen (to sweep, wipe) or (2), a part of the Lingua Franca via Polari from the Italian facciare (to make or do).

It’s documented from 1851 as a noun (a swindle) and from 1888 was applied to a person (a swindler), but most etymologists assume the oral use was older.  The most likely source is thought to have been feague (to spruce up by artificial means), from the German fegen (polish, sweep) which, in colloquial use was used to mean "to clear out, to plunder".  In English, much of the early slang of thieves is from German or Dutch sources, dating from that great linguistic melting pot, the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) and until the nineteenth century, was largely un-documented although the fragmentary evidence available does suggest use was constantly shifting.

Fake news (journalism deliberately misleading), although popularized in the 2016 US presidential campaign (and subsequently applied quite incorrectly), was actually first attested in 1894 although, as a device, fake news is probably about as old as news itself.  Faker as an agent noun from faker the verb is from 1846 and the noun fakement (forgery) is from 1811.  To “fake (someone) out” is a description of applied gamesmanship in sport and noted from 1941.  To jazz musicians, “to fake” was merely oral slang for improvising and the “fake book” is attested from 1951.  Interestingly, the adjective "jivey" was sometimes used as a pejorative (phony, fake) unlike "jive" which, in a musical context, was always purely descriptive.

Fake is a noun & verb, faker & fakery are nouns and the verbs (used with object) are faked, faking; the noun plural is fakes.  Synonyms include ersatz, fake, false, imitation, imitative, unreal, counterfeit, fabricated, factitious, spurious, substitute, affected, contrived, feigned, insincere, plastic, synthetic, unnatural, bogus, affected, forged, fraudulent, mock, phony, spurious, deception, forgery, hoax, scam, sham, trick, put on, assumed, fraud, impostor, quack, charlatan, deceiver, substitute, contrived, feigned, insincere, plastic, unnatural

Faux (pronounced foh)

Artificial or imitation.

1676: from the twelfth century French faux (feminine singular fausse, masculine plural faux, feminine plural fausses), from the Old French fals, from the Latin falsus (false), perfect passive participle from fallō (deceive, trick; mistake).  The origin of fallō is uncertain.  It’s thought either from the Proto-Italic falsō, from the primitive Indo-European (s)whzel (to stumble) or from the primitive Indo-European ǵhwel- (to lie, deceive) but etymologists note structural problems with the latter.  A doublet of false.

The word fake almost always carries negative connotations, the idea of something that is not real, an imitation designed to trick someone into thinking it is real or original.  A fake might be a forgery or copy which is (certainly with many digital fakes) indistinguishable from whatever is the real or original thing it imitates, indeed it might even be an improvement but it remains fake.

Lindsay Lohan in faux fur, amfAR gala, New York City, 2013.

Faux has since the 1980s been used in English (with French pronunciation) to describe anything which is imitative without attempting to deceive.  Prior to this, the only frequent use in English was the faux pas (breach of good manners, any act that compromises one's reputation (literally "false step")), noted since the 1670s.  Faux tends not to convey the negative association of fake because it so blatantly an alternative rather than an attempt to deceive, indeed, it can have positive connotations, such as when it’s fur.  Faux fur is now respectable and, among some circles, there’s long been a micro-industry devoted to turning into social pariahs anyone wearing the real thing.  Sometimes, supporters of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) use direct action, the flinging of red paint onto the offending coast or stole a favorite.

Pamela Anderson, mostly real.

People do however seem unforgiving of fake boobs which, even if advertised as fake (which really should make them faux), seem forever doomed to be called fake.  The preferred form seem to be "fake tits". 

Faux also blends well; there are fauxmosexuals & fauxtatoes.  Donald Trump dubbed Elizabeth Warren (b 1949; United States senator (Democrat) for Massachusetts since 2013) Pocahontas because of her claim to Native American ancestry which proved dubious but allies of her predecessor Scott Brown (b 1959; United States senator (Republican) for Massachusetts 2010–2013), referred to her as Fauxcahontas.  That was actually an incorrect use necessitated by the need of rhyme and word formation; technically she was a Fakecahontas but as a word it doesn’t work as well.  People anyway seemed to get the point: as a Native American, she was fake, bogus, phoney.

Christ with the Woman Taken in Adultery by Han van Meegeren (1889–1947) following Vermeer (1632-1675).

In May 1945, immediately after the liberation from Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, the authorities arrested Dutch national Han van Meegeren (1889–1947) and charged him with collaborating with the enemy, a capital crime.  Evidence had emerged that van Meegeren had during World War II sold Vermeer's Christ with the Woman Taken in Adultery to Hermann Göring (1893–1946; prominent Nazi 1922-1945, Reichsmarschall 1940-1945).  His defense was as novel as it was unexpected: He claimed the painting was not a Vermeer but rather a forgery by his own hand, pointing out that as he had traded the fake for over a hundred other Dutch paintings seized earlier by the Reich Marshal and he was thus a national hero rather than a Nazi collaborator.  With a practical demonstration of his skill, added to his admission of having forged five other fake "Vermeers" during the 1930s, as well as two "Pieter de Hoochs" all of which had shown up on European art markets since 1937, he convinced the court and was acquitted but was then, as he expected, charged with forgery for which he received a one year sentence, half the maximum available to the court.  He died in prison of heart failure, brought on by years of drug and alcohol abuse. 

His skills with brush and paint aside, Van Meegeren was able successfully to pass off his 1930s fakes as those of the seventeenth century painter of the Dutch baroque, Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675), because of the four years he spent meticulously testing the techniques by which as a new painting could be made to look centuries old.  The breakthrough was getting the oil-based paints thoroughly to harden, a process which naturally occurs over fifty-odd years.  His solution was to mix the pigments with the synthetic resin Bakelite, instead of oil.  For his canvas, he used a genuine but worthless seventeenth-century painting and removed as much of the picture as possible, scrubbing carefully with pumice and water, taking the utmost care not to lose the network of cracks, the existence of which would play a role in convincing many expert appraisers they were authentic Vermeers.  Once dry, he baked the canvas and rubbed a carefully concocted mix of ink and dust into the edges of the cracks, emulating the dirt which would, over centuries, accumulate.

Guilty as sin: A slimmed-down Hermann Göring in the dock, Nuremberg, 1946.

Modern x-ray techniques and chemical analysis mean such tricks can no longer succeed but, at the time, so convincing were his fakes that no doubts were expressed and the dubious Christ with the Woman Taken in Adultery became Göring's most prized acquisition, quite something given the literally thousands of pieces of art he looted from Europe.  One of the Allied officers who interrogated Göring in Nuremberg prison prior to his trial (1945-1946) recorded that the expression on his face when told "his Vermeer" was a fake suggested that "...for the first time Göring realized there really was evil in this world".  For his crimes, Göring was sentenced to be hanged, a fate he probably believed the forger should have shared.

2013 Mercedes-AMG G 63 6×6.

Aimed at the Middle East market and manufactured between 2013-2015, a run of one-hundred units was planned for the Mercedes-AMG G 63 6×6 and it was advertised on that basis, exclusivity part of the attraction.  Such was the demand that dealers prevailed on behalf of a few influential customers so some additional units were built but not many and within months, used models were selling for well above the US$550,000 (€379,000) list price.  That encouraged imitations and probably not since the DEMAG Sd.Kfz half-tracks of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's (1891–1944) Africa Corps ranged across Cyrenaica in 1941-1942 has there been a vehicle so suited to the open desert. 

2014 Brabus B63S.

The tuning house Brabus, noted for catering to the small but lucrative market of those who like the AMG cars but think they need more power, released the B63S, its 700 horsepower quite a chunk above the 536 offered by AMG.  Something imitative certainly but nobody calls the B63S a faux or a fake.  Being in some sense a manufacturer lends validity so what Brabus does can be imitative but what ends up as their part-number is not an imitation, let alone a fake.  Real, faux or fake, Greta Thunberg (b 2003) will not be impressed.

2017 Mercedes-AMG G63 6×6 Conversion.

This was said to have been a “conversion” of a 2017 G63 by G Wagon Car Technology GmbH (Austria).  Very well done and said to have been completed with mostly factory part-numbers, most would regard it as a clone, replica or recreation.  Curiously (though perhaps predictably), whether a Mercedes-Benz, Chevrolet, Ford or Ram, the three-axle pickups, although ideal suited to certain tasks in certain non-urban environments, seem usually resident in cities where their sheer size renders them difficult to use.  They have an appeal to those who value the image they believe is projected and in a sense that's a sort of functionality.  In the post-MAGA US, such machines have become personal and political statements.

1938 Mercedes-Benz G4 (W31).

The G63 6x6 may anyway have had its own hint of the imitative.  Although Mercedes-Benz prefers not too much to dwell on the details of its activities between 1933-1945, one of the remarkable vehicles it built during the era was the G4 (W31).  The factory developed three-axle cross-country vehicles for military use during the 1920s but after testing a number of the prototype G1s, the army declined to place an order, finding them too big, too expensive and too heavy for their intended purpose.  Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) however, as drawn to big, impressive machines as he was to huge, representational architecture, ordered them adopted as parade vehicles and the army soon acquired a fleet of the updated G4, used eventually not only on ceremonial occasions but also as staff and command vehicles, two even specially configured, one as a baggage car and the other a mobile communications centre, packed with radio-telephony.

Eventually, between 1934-1939, 57 were built, originally exclusively for the OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Armed Forces High Command)) and OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres (Army High Command)) but one was gift from Hitler to Generalissimo Franco (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975).  The Spanish G4, one of few which still exists, was restored and remains in the royal garage in Madrid.  According to factory records, all were built with 5.0, 5.3 & 5.4 litre straight-eight engines but there is an unverified report of interview with Hitler’s long-time chauffeur, Erich Kempka (1910-1975), suggesting one for the Führer’s exclusive use was built with the 7.7 litre straight-eight used in the 770K Grosser (W07 (1930–1938) & W150 (1938–1943)).  Some of the 770s were supercharged so, if true, it's a tantalizing prospect but the story is widely thought apocryphal, no evidence of such a one-off ever having been sighted.

There are however fake cars and they're considered bogus if represented as a factory original (a modified version of something else).  Even if an exact copy of what the factory did, that’s fake yet exactly the same machine modified in the same way is instead a “clone” a “recreation” or a “replica” if represented as such.  Clone, recreation & replica do imply a exact copy but some leeway does seem to be granted given mechanical exactitude is sometimes simply not possible.  A vehicle which is substantially a replica of something but includes modifications to improve safety, performance or some other aspect of the dynamics is usually styled a “tribute” or restomod (a portmanteau word, the construct being resto(red) + mod(ified)).  The improvements can be transformative and, in certain cases, increase value but in others, might actually detract.  Whether a clone, a replica or a tribute, if what’s being referenced is something rare and desirable, the difference in value can be a factor of more than fifty times.  Originality can trump all.

1962 Ferrari 250 GTO recreation by Tempero of New Zealand.

As an extreme example there is the Ferrari 250 GTO, of which it’s usually accepted 36 were built although there were actually 41 (2 x (1961) prototypes; 32 x (1962–63) Series I 250 GTO; 3 x (1962–1963) “330 GTO”; 1 x (1963) 250 GTO with LM Berlinetta-style body & 3 x (1964) Series II 250 GTO).  The GTOs in the hands of collectors command extraordinary prices, chassis 4153GT in June 2018 realizing US$70 million in a private sale whereas an immaculately crafted replica of a 1962 version by Tempero (New Zealand) was listed for sale at US$1.3 million (no NFT required).  The Tempero cars are acknowledged to be better built than any original GTO although that is damning with faint praise, those who restore pre-modern Ferraris wryly noting that while the drive-trains were built with exquisite care, the assembly of the coachwork could be shoddy indeed.  Indeed, when the head of one restoration company was asked if a vintage Ferrari exactly could be replicated the answer was it was doubtful: "...because none of our staff can weld that badly.",   Even less exalted machinery, though actually more rare still, like the 1971 Plymouth Hemi Cuda convertible (only 12 of which were built) also illustrate the difference for there are now considerably more clones / replicas / recreations etc than ever there were originals and the price difference is typically a factor of ten or more.

Ferrari GTO production numbers 1961-1964.

Astroturf

Astroturf (pronounced as-truh-turf)

(1) A trademarked (as AstroTurf) brand of carpet-like covering made of vinyl and nylon to resemble turf, used for athletic fields, decks, patios and such (initial capital).

(2) The widely used generic term for artificial grass (no initial capital).

(3) To fake the appearance of popular support for something, such as a cause or product, the use based on the idea of faking “grassroots support” from the public the way AstroTurf is a “fake grass” (although some insist it’s really “faux grass” because usually there’s no attempt to claim the artificial product is natural).

1966: The construct was astro- + turf, the product name an allusion to the Astrodome, the baseball stadium in Houston, Texas, where first the product was laid at scale.  The astro- prefix was from the Ancient Greek ἄστρον (ástron) (celestial body), from ἀστήρ (astḗr) (star).  It was used by the astronomers of Antiquity to refer to celestial bodies which they classified as (1) fixed stars & (2) wandering stars (planets) as well as of space generally.  Turf (in the sense of a layer of earth covered with grass was from the Middle English turf & torf, from the Old English turf (turf, sod, soil, piece of grass covered earth, greensward), from the Proto-West Germanic turb, from the Proto-Germanic turbz (turf, lawn), from the primitive Indo-European derbh (tuft, grass).  It was cognate with the Dutch turf (turf), the Middle Low German torf (peat, turf) (from which German gained Torf and German Low German Torf), the Swedish torv (turf), the Norwegian torv (turf), the Icelandic torf (turf), the Russian трава (trava) (grass) and the Sanskrit दर्भ (darbhá) (a kind of grass) & दूर्वा (dū́rvā) (bent grass).  Astroturf & astroturfing are nouns & verbs, astroturfer is a noun and astroturfed is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is astroturfs.  AstroTurf is a registered trademark.

AstroTurf being laid in preparation for the first baseball game to be played in Veterans Stadium, Philadelphia, 1971.  The AstroTurf was in 2001 replaced with NexTurf and the stadium was demolished in 2006.

The use of “Astrodome” as the name for the baseball stadium in Houston, Texas, was an allusion to city's association with the US space program, a link not wholly unrelated to Texan Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969), while vice-president, being appointed by John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) to assume nominal responsibility for the program; Houston became home to NASA's (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Manned Spacecraft Center (now the Johnson Space Center).  Built in the early 1960s, the Astrodome was the world’s first multi-purpose, domed sports and even before the new name was unveiled, Houston was already widely known as “Space City” and when the structure was completed in 1965, some had assume it would be called the “Space City Stadium” but most seemed to agree Astrodome was a better choice and the city’s baseball team was the same year renamed the Houston Astros.  Dating from the early sixteenth century, dome was from the Middle French domme & dome (a town-house; a dome, a cupola) (which persists in modern French as dôme), from the Provençal doma, from the Italian duomo (cathedral), from the Medieval Latin domus (ecclesiae; literally “house (of the church)”), a calque of the Ancient Greek οἶκος τῆς ἐκκλησίας (oîkos tês ekklēsías).

Cats are not fooled by AstroTurf but are pragmatic.

AstroTurf is a trademarked brand name for a type of artificial surface which emulates the appearance of grass and to various degrees, also the “feel and behavior”.  When referring to the commercial product, the two upper-case characters should be used but (like Hoover & hoover, Xerox & xerox etc) the word has come frequently to be used as a generic term for any artificial turf and in these instances no initial capital should be used and style guides anyway recommend that to avoid confusion, a term such as “artificial turf” is preferred.  When used of the practice of faking the appearance of popular support for something, no initial capital should appear.  Because Astroturf is “fake grass”, when used in slang, the inference is always negative, especially in relation to politics and unethical marketing.  AstroTurf has changed much in the sixty-odd years of its existence with the green color about the only constant, advances in chemistry and computing meaning the surface now is more durable, cheaper to produce and more “grass-like” in its behaviour.  When first patented in 1965 it was sold as “ChemGrass” which, in retrospect, sounds like a bad choice but in the mid-1960s, as a word-forming element. “chem-” didn’t carry quite the negative connotations which later became so associated.  It was rebranded as AstroTurf in 1966 to tie in with opening of the Houston Astrodome stadium.

The use of “astroturf” as a slang term meaning “to fake the appearance of popular support for something, such as a cause or product” emerged in the last days of the 1990s although the origin of the use of the word in this context has been traced to 1985 when then Senator (Democratic, Texas) Lloyd Bentsen (1921–2006; US Secretary of the Treasury 1993-1994) used the word to distinguish between “real mail from real people” and the “mountain of cards and letters” sent to his office in a campaign organized by the insurance industry: “…a fellow from Texas can tell the difference between grass roots and AstroTurf... this is generated mail.”  Lloyd Bentsen is remembered also for the most memorable retort (which may have been rehearsed) line from the 1988 presidential election in which he was the Democratic Party’s nominee for vice president.  In a debate with the Republican’s Dan Quayle (b 1947; vice president of the United States 1989-1993), he responded to Mr Quayle comparing himself to John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) by saying: “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy.  I knew Jack Kennedy.  Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine.  Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.”  The other coincidental link between the two candidates was that in the 1970 mid-term congressional elections. Bentsen defeated George HW Bush (George XLI, 1924-2018; US president 1989-1993) for a Texas senate seat and it was Dan Quayle Bush choose as a running mate in his successful 1988 presidential campaign.

One of the internet’s more inexplicable juxtapositions; even the poster admitted there was nothing to link Lindsay Lohan with Coca-Cola drink AstroTurf cozies.

The senator’s reference to the “mountain of cards and letters” as early as 1985 is an indication the technique predates the internet and historians have identified examples from Antiquity which suggest the practice is likely as old as politics itself but what the internet did was offer the possibility of scaling campaigns to a global scale at a lower (sometimes marginal or even zero) unit cost.  When done, it called astroturfing those coordinating such things are astroturfer.  Astroturfers are, like scammers in this calling, engaged in a constant arms race against those who detect and expose the tactic and the dramatic rise in the use of AI bots (artificial intelligence (ro)bots) has made the detection process simultaneously both easier (because at this stage it’s still a relatively simple matter for one algorithm to detect another and more challenging because of the extraordinary rise in volume.  It’s not clear how many social media accounts are fake (run by people or bots generally receiving a payment for each post not deleted by the gatekeepers) and certainly it’s not something the platforms seem anxious to discuss although they will sometimes disclose how many have been deleted if some form of astroturfing has been especially blatant or egregious.  More subtle are the “shadow organizations” set up by the usual suspects (fossil fuel companies, extractive miners, big polluters, political parties etc) which can even have bricks & mortar offices and paid staff.  The purpose of these outfits is to engage in controversial debates and attempt to both “nudge” things in the direction sought by those providing the funding and create the impression certain views enjoy wider support than may be the reality.

1996 Daihatsu Midget with custom AstroTurf carpets.

The Daihatsu Midget began life as a single-seater, three wheel mini-truck (1957-1972) powered by a 250cm³ (15 cubic inch) single cylinder, two-stroke engine although some were built also with a 305 cm³ (19 cubic inch) unit which may in the vernacular be thought of as the “big block”.  Produced under licence in several nations in the Far East, it’s still produced in Thailand where its compact dimensions, remarkable load capacity and economy of operation make it uniquely suited to confined urban environments.  Daihatsu revived the Midget name for a four-wheel version which was produced between 1996-2001, manufactured under the “Kei Car” (a clipping of kei-jidōsha (軽自動車 (light automobile)) rules which limit mass, external dimensions and restrict displacement to 660 cm³ (40 cubic inches).  In a sign of the times, these diminutive Midgets (surely an irresistible tautology in the Kei Car business) were available with options like four-wheel drive and air conditioning.

Malachite

Malachite (pronounced mal-uh-kahyt)

(1) In mineralogy, a bright-green monoclinic mineral, occurring as a mass of crystals (an aggregate).  It manifests typically with a smooth or botryoidal (grape-shaped) surface and, after cutting & polishing, is used in ornamental articles and jewelry.  It’s often concentrically banded in different shades of green, the contrast meaning that sometimes lends the substance the appearance of being a variegated green & black.  Malachite is found usually in veins in proximity to the mineral azurite in copper deposits.  The composition is hydrated copper carbonate; the chemical formula is Cu₂CO₃(OH)₂ and the crystal structure is monoclinic.

(2) A ceramic ware made in imitation of this (in jewelry use, “malachite” is used often as a modifier).

(3) In mineralogy, as pseudomalachite, a mineral containing copper, hydrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus.

(4) In mineralogy, as azurite-malachite, a naturally-occurring mixture of azurite and malachite

(5) In organic chemistry, as malachite green, a toxic chemical used as a dye, as a treatment for infections in fish (when diluted) and as a bacteriological stain.

(6) Of a colour spectrum, ranging from olive-taupe to a mild to deeply-rich (at times tending to the translucent) green, resembling instances in the range in which the mineral is found.  In commercial use, the interpretation is sometimes loose and some hues are also listed as “malachite green”).

1350-1400: From the Middle French malachite, from the Old French, from the Latin molochītēs, from the Ancient Greek malachitis (lithos) (mallow (stone)) & molochîtis (derivative of molóchē, a variant of maláchē), from μολόχη (molókhē) (mallow; leaf of the mallow plant).  It replaced the Middle English melochites, from the Middle French melochite, from the Latin molochītis.  Malachite is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is malachites.

A pair of Malachite & Onyx inlay cufflinks in 925 Sterling Silver (ie 92.5% pure silver & 7.5% other metals), Mexico, circa 1970.

Although in wide use as a gemstone, technically malachite is copper ore and thus a “secondary mineral” of copper, the stone forming when copper minerals interact with different chemicals (carbonated water, limestone et al.  For this reason, geologists engaged in mineral exploration use malachite as a “marker” (a guide to the likelihood of the nearby presence of copper deposits in commercial quantities).  It’s rare for malachite to develop in isolation and it’s often found in aggregate with azurite, a mineral of similar composition & properties.  Visually, malachite & azurite are similar in their patterning and distinguished by color; azurite a deep blue, malachite a deep green.  Because the slight chemical difference between the two makes azurite less stable, malachite does sometimes replace it, resulting in a “pseudomorph”.  Although there is a range, unlike some minerals, malachite is always green and the lustrous, smooth surface with the varied patterning when cut & polished has for millennia made it a popular platform for carving, the products including al work, jewelry and decorative pieces.  For sculptors, the properties of malachite make it an easy and compliant material with which to work and it’s valued by jewelers for its color-retention properties, the stone (like many gemstones) unaffected by even prolonged exposure to harsh sunlight.  Despite the modern association of green with the emerald, the relationship between mankind & malachite is much more ancient. evidence of malachite mining dating from as early as 4000 BC found near the Isthmus of Suez and the Sinai whereas there’s nothing to suggest the emerald would be discovered until Biblical times, some two millennia later.

Lindsay Lohan in malachite green, this piece including both the darker and lighter ends of the spectrum.

The Malachite is relatively soft meant it was easy to grind into a powder even with pre-modern equipment; it was thus used to create what is thought to be the world’s oldest green pigment (described often as chrysocolla or copper green).  In Antiquity, the dye was so adaptable it was used in paint, for clothing and Egyptians (men & women) even found it was the ideal eye makeup.  Use persisted until oil-based preparations became available in quantity and these were much cheaper because of the labor-intensive grinding processes and the increasing price of malachite which was in greater demand for other purposes.  This had the side-effect of creating a secondary market for malachite jewelry and other small trinkets because the fragments and wastage from the carving industry (once absorbed by the grinders for the dye market) became available.  The use in makeup wasn’t without danger because, as a copper derivate, raw malachite is toxic; like many minerals, the human body needs a small amount of copper to survive but in high doses it is a poison’ in sufficient quantities, it can be fatal.  Among miners and process workers working with the ore, long-term exposure did cause severe adverse effects (from copper poisoning) so it shouldn’t be ingested or the dust inhaled.  Once polished, the material is harmless but toxicology specialists do caution it remains dangerous if ingested and any liquid with which it comes in contact should not be drunk.  Despite the dangers, the mineral has long been associated with protective properties, a belief not restricted to Antiquity or the medieval period; because the Enlightenment seems to have passed by New Agers and others, malachite pendants and other body-worn forms are still advertised with a variety of improbable claims of efficacy.

The Malachite Room of the Winter Palace, St Petersburg, Russia was, during the winter of 1838-1839, designed as a formal reception room (a sort of salon) for the Tsar & Tsarina by the artist Alexander Briullov (1798–1877), replacing the unfortunate Jasper Room, destroyed in the fire of 1837.  It’s not the only use of the stone in the palace but it’s in the Malachite Room where a “green theme” is displayed most dramatically, the columns and fireplace now Instagram favorites, as is the large large urn, all sharing space with furniture from the workshops of Peter Gambs (1802-1871), those pieces having been rescued from the 1837 fire.  Between June-October 1971 it was in the Malachite Room that the Provisional Government conducted its business until the representatives were arrested by Bolsheviks while at dinner in the adjoining dining room.  The putsch was denounced by the Mensheviks who the Bolsheviks finally would suppress in 1921.

Polished malachite pieces from the Congo, offered on the Fossilera website.

Where there is demand for something real, a supply of a imitation version will usually emerge and the modern convention is for items erroneously claiming to be the real thing are tagged “fake malachite” while those advertised only as emulation are called “faux malachite”.  Although not infallible, the test is that most fake malachite stones are lighter than the real thing because, despite being graded as “relatively soft” by sculptors, the stone is of high in density and deceptively heavy.  The patterning of natural malachite is infinitely varied while the synthetic product tends to some repetition and is usually somewhat brighter.  The density of malachite also lends the stone particular thermal properties; it’s inherently cold to the touch, something which endures even when a heat source is applied.  Fake malachite usually is manufactured using glass or an acrylic, both of which more rapidly absorb heat from the hand.

Lindsay Lohan with Rolex Datejust in stainless steel with silver face (left) and the Rolex's discontinued "malachite face" (centre & right).  Well known for its blue watch faces, during the more exuberant years of the 1970s & 1980s the company “splashed out” a bit and offered a malachite face.  The Datejust is now available with a choice of nine faces but the Green one is now a more restrained hue the company calls “mint green”.

Ersatz

Ersatz (pronounced er-zahts or er-sahts)

(1) Serving as a substitute; synthetic; artificial (adjective).

(2) An artificial substance or article used to replace something natural or genuine; a substitute (noun).

1875: From the German ersatz (units of the army reserve (literally "compensation, replacement, substitute"), a back-formation from ersetzen (to replace; substitute good) from the Old High German irsezzen, the construct being ir- (an unaccented variant of ur; in German, the prefix signifying a notion of getting something (either by conscious effort or (rarely) producing the effect of coming to have it unintentionally) by specific means) + setzen, from the Middle High German setzen, from the Old High German sezzen, from the Proto-Germanic satjaną, from the primitive Indo-European sodéyeti; from the primitive Indo-European root sed- (to sit); it was cognate with the Hunsrik setze, the English set and the Dutch zetten.  Historically an adjective, use of ersatz as a noun was first noted in 1892.

Technically, although ersatz has many synonyms (synthetic, phony, imitation, fake, sham, substitute, counterfeit, bogus, manufactured, pretended, simulated, spurious, copied, false et al), because of its association with inferior quality goods (such as chocolate and, most famously, the notoriously unpleasant ersatz coffee, made typically from acorns), produced in Germany during the world wars to compensate for the shortage of genuine products, Ersatz tends to be used in that context while the preferred terms in modern English use are fake & faux, the latter with the particular sense of something imitative yet deliberately not deceptively so.  Indeed, faux can have positive connotations (faux fur, leather etc) and, among vegans, such things may be obligatory. 

Originally, the German military jargon was Ersatz Corps which described reserve, substitute or replacement troops, the word later adopted by the Kaiserliche Marine (the Imperial Navy) as part of the secrecy protocol which didn’t reveal the names of vessels until launch (and, in war-time, even during sea-trials), ships thus appearing in the naval lists with names like "Ersatz Yorck class".  During the two world wars, it was most famously applied to over ten-thousand substitute products, both industrial and consumer goods, created because of shortages.  The word entered Russian and English and came to describe any product thought not as good as the original.

Lindsay Lohan v Take-Two Interactive Software Inc et al, New York Court of Appeals (No 24, pp1-11, 29 March 2018)

In a case which took an unremarkable four years from filing to reach New York’s highest appellate court, Lindsay Lohan’s suit against the makers of video game Grand Theft Auto V was dismissed.  In a unanimous ruling in March 2018, six judges of the New York Court of Appeals rejected her invasion of privacy claim which alleged one of the game’s characters was based on her.  The judges found the "actress/singer" in the game merely resembled a “generic young woman” rather than anyone specific.  Unfortunately the judges seemed unacquainted with the concept of the “basic white girl” which might have made the judgment more of a fun read.

Beware of imitations: The real Lindsay Lohan and the GTA 5 ersatz, a mere "generic young woman".

Agreeing with the 2016 ruling of the New York County Supreme Court which, on appeal, also found for the game’s makers, the judges, as a point of law, accepted the claim a computer game’s character "could be construed a portrait", which "could constitute an invasion of an individual’s privacy" but, on the facts of the case, the likeness was "not sufficiently strong".  The “… artistic renderings are an indistinct, satirical representation of the style, look and persona of a modern, beach-going young woman... that is not recognizable as the plaintiff" Judge Eugene Fahey wrote in his ruling.  Judge Fahey's words recalled those of Potter Stewart (1915–1985; associate justice of the US Supreme Court 1958-1981) when in Jacobellis v Ohio (378 U.S. 184 (1964) he wrote: “I shall not today attempt further to define… and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so.  But I know it when I see it…”  Judge Fahey knew a basic white girl when he saw one; he just couldn't name her.  Lindsay Lohan's lawyers did not seek leave to appeal.

Schematic of Ersatz Yorck's armor deployment.

Ersatz Yorck was one of the project names for a planned build of three battlecruisers ordered in 1916 by the German navy.  After the first keel had been laid down, influenced by the tendency, noted since the launching a decade earlier of the Royal Navy's HMS Dreadnought, towards bigger guns, the design was revised to become was significantly heavier than the Mackensen class which had been the original template.  The name Ersatz Yorck was derived from the ship being the replacement (ie ersatz in the original German sense of the word) for the Roon class armored cruiser SMS Yorck, sunk in home waters in 1914 after striking a (German) mine.  The other two ships in the programme were Ersatz Gneisenau & Ersatz Scarnhorst, both slated as replacements for namesakes lost during the Battle of the Falkland Islands (1914).

The three ships were never completed because it had become apparent augmenting the surface fleet was reinforcing failure and that U-boat (submarine) construction was a better use of available resources.  Thus the partially built Ersatz Yorck, years from completion, was broken up on the slipway and cannibalized to support U-boat production.  However, the navy retained the blueprints and it was these plans which in the 1930s provided the basis for what became the Scarnhorst class battleships although, in the Second World War, the illusion a surface fleet would be a more effective instrument of war at sea than the U-Boats proved again a chimera and one which meant that even in the early days of the conflict, the British never quite lost control of the Atlantic.  Had Germany entered the war with the 300 operational submarines advocated by the navy's U-Boat branch rather than the two-dozen odd available in 1939, the battle in the Atlantic would have have assumed a different character.   

Gray

Gray (pronounced grey)

(1) Of a spread of colors between white and black; having a neutral hue; any achromatic color; any color with zero chroma, intermediate between white and black.

(2) Something in or of this color, applied particularly to horses (and sometimes of a horse that appears white but is not an albino).

(3) Conveying a sense of the dark, dismal, or gloomy.

(4) Conveying a sense of the dull, dreary, or monotonous.

(5) In informal use, of older people; pertaining to old age (related to having gray hair; being gray-headed), sometimes expressed as graybeard.

(6) In demography (originally slang but now often used formally), of the aging of a whole population or those in a certain sector or geographic region (such as “the graying of the Freemasons”).

(7) In economics, as “gray dollar” (the purchasing power of older consumers), “gray collar” (the workforce participation of older workers) & “gray market” (a (usually) lawful but unofficial state where goods are produced or imported outside of the usual channels (ie between the (white) market and the “black market”).

(8) As “gray matter” an informal reference to (1) the physical brain, (2) levels of intelligence or (3) thought processes.

(9) Something indeterminate and intermediate in character, often as “gray area” (ie neither black or white; neither one thing or another; a state of uncertainty).

(10) In certain industrial production, an unbleached and un-dyed condition.

(11) In metallurgy and industrial production, the color of freshly broken cast iron.

(12) Documented since 1863 (the oral use presumably earlier), a member of the Confederate (southern) army in the American Civil War or the army itself (based on the standard uniform color, compared with the Union (northern) forces which wore blue, the idea used also in the description of the World War II (1939-1945) German army (Heer) as the Feldgrau (field gray), a later variation in the GDR (the German Democratic Republic, the Old East Germany) being Steingrau (stone-grey) for the National People's Army,

(13) In physics, the standard unit of absorbed dose of radiation (such as x-rays) in the International System of Units (SI), equal to the amount of ionizing radiation absorbed when the energy imparted to matter is 1 J/kg (one joule per kilogram) and a gray is equivalent to 100 rads.  The unit was first used in 1975 and was created in honor of English radiobiologist Louis Harold Gray (1905–1965).  The standard abbreviation is Gy.

(14) In film-stock photography, to give a soft effect to (a photograph) by covering the negative while printing with a ground-glass plate (now emulated in software in digital photography).

(15) In the (mostly US) discipline of ufology (an umbrella term which encompasses all which evolved from the flying saucer sightings of the 1950s), an extraterrestrial humanoid with grayish skin, bulbous black eyes and an enlarged head with an unchanging, serious expression (who sometimes carries an anal probe).

(16) In gambling, a penny with a tail on both sides, used for cheating in the game of two-up (US).

(17) In wastewater management, as “gray water”, household waste water not suitable for human consumption but able to be re-used for some purposes without purification (such as garden irrigation), and thus contrasted with black water (wastewater from toilets, garbage disposal, and industrial processes which demands treatment prior to reintroduction to the environment).

(18) In computing, as "grayed-out", the practice in graphical user interfaces (GUI) to display a non-available menu option in a shade of gray, the choice reverting to a different color when available for selection. 

(19) To make or become gray.

Pre 900: From the Middle English gray, grei & grai (of a color between white and black; having little or no color or luminosity), from the Old English grǣg & grēg, and the Mercian grei, from the Proto-West Germanic grāu, from the Proto-Germanic grewa & grēwaz, from the primitive Indo-European ǵreh- (to green, to grow) and cognate with the German grau, the Old Norse grār & grár, the Dutch grauw, the Latin rāvus (grey), the Old Church Slavonic зьрѭ (zĭrjǫ) (to see, to glance), the (archaic) Russian зреть (zret) (to watch, to look at) and the Lithuanian žeriù (to shine).  There appear to be no certain connections outside Germanic and the French gris, the Spanish gris, the Italian grigio and the Medieval Latin griseus are all loan-words from Germanic. The adjective form was the first, the noun emerging as a derivative circa 1200 while the verb with the sense of “become gray, wither away” came into use in the 1610s although etymologists note there is a single instance of gray as a verb in a late fourteenth century text, an example of the way in which innovations in English don’t always immediately flourish.  As a color, there’s no direct synonym (although silvery, silver & ash inhabit a kind of gray area) but related words in the figurative sense include drab, dusty, clouded, dappled, heather, iron, lead, neutral, oyster, pearly, powder, shaded, silvered, slate, stone, ashen & dingy.  Gray is a noun, verb & adjective, greyness is a noun, greyed is a verb, grayer, grayish & grayest are adjectives, grayly is an adverb; the noun plural is grays.

Lindsey Lohan in Lavish Alice gray suit.

Gray and grey are different spellings of the same word and the meanings are the same for both (except where based on a proper noun such as a surname so a product like Earl Grey Tea is always spelled thus) although there are conventions of use and historic practices should usually be followed.  Except with brand-names or in the SI unit measuring radiation, the spellings can interchangeably be used without causing confusion although use should always be consistent.  In commercial use, there was in the early twentieth century an attempt to create a functional distinction between gray and grey, the former a mixture of “blue & white”, the latter of “black & white” and there are manufacturers who still use the convention but it hasn’t been widely adopted.  The spelling gray is more common in American English, while grey is sometimes preferred in British English despite Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) and just about every English lexicographer since insisting it should for all purposes be gray.

Lindsay Lohan color image rendered in 8-bit gray scale.

Gray (and grey for those who prefer the spelling) is often used figuratively, either as an allusion to the color or to illustrate some degree of uncertainty (ie that zone between the absolutes of black & white).  In economics, the “gray dollar” expresses the purchasing power of older consumers, the “gray collar” the workforce participation of older workers & “gray market” the (usually) lawful but unofficial state where goods are produced or imported outside of the usual channels (ie between the (white) market and the “black market”).  Then classic gray market is that for cars not officially available in a certain market but imported by third-parties (sometimes with the need to modify them to meet local regulations) and re-sold.  The practice was especially prevalent in the US during its more restrictive times in the 1980s and the gray market for desirable (ie usually more powerful) models from Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and others sold elsewhere in the world saw an industry emerge to meet the need, the processes involved in making gray market vehicles compliant with US regulation known as “federalization”.

Fifty Shades of Grey (2011) was the first erotic novel in a trilogy by EL James (b 1963).  Being English, she spelled the word grey and either for publication in the US or the film adaptation it wasn't changed to gray, the assumption presumably that all would cope.

As an adjective it’s widely used.  In wastewater management, “gray water” is household waste water not suitable for human consumption but able to be re-used for some purposes without purification (such as garden irrigation), and thus contrasted with black water (wastewater from toilets, garbage disposal, and industrial processes which demands treatment prior to reintroduction to the environment).  “White water” is not used in this context because of specific meanings elsewhere, either as “frothy water as in river rapids” or “white water” (and “whitewater”) navy, part of an admiralty hierarchy describing the capabilities of naval forces: (1) a brown water force restricted to rivers and estuaries, (2) a white water force able to operate close to coastlines and (2) a blue water force which can ply the open seas.  In wastewater management, instead of white water, the preferred term is “potable”.

Grayness at the margins: In fashion the distinction between gray, silver & ash varies between manufacturers.

The use with animals is usually literal (gray fox, gray elephant, gray squirrel, gray hare, gray wolf, gray whale etc) but a special use derived from zoology is the “gray mare”, an expression adapted in the 1540s (from “the gray mare is the better horse”) to refer to households in which the husband was dominated by the wife.  The use in this context has long been extinct and was unrelated to the nineteenth century US folk song “The Old Gray Mare”.  In equine classification, a gray horse is a horse with a coat color which appears gray, but is actually a combination of white hairs mixed with hairs of other colors.  Gray horses can be born with a dark coat color that gradually lightens as they age or they can be born with a light-colored coat that darkens over time.  The range of “gray” colorations is not uncommon in horses and such is the variations some are sometimes described as “blue”.

Iowa-class battleship USS Missouri (BB-63, 1944-1992) in battleship gray.

In demography, the use of “gray” as an synecdoche of “aging” (an allusion to gray hair) began as slang but has become so accepted by economists and others it probably should now be thought formal.  It can be used to describe aging of a whole population (the “graying of China”) or those in a certain sector or geographic region (“the graying of the priesthood”).  Still a slang form is “graybeard”, a reference to an older man, one who presumably needs to be bearded if an individual but when applied collectively (“the graybeards”) it’s based on the age of the group rather than any particular hirsuteness.  The phrase “giving me gray hair” is used as a complaint that someone is so troublesome the stress they induce is causing one prematurely to age.  In some cases, stress can literally cause premature aging.  Battleship gray is a (narrow) range of dull, matt shades of gray often used for warships, it being the compromise which worked best as a form of camouflage against the variations in sea color.  Modern paints used of warships still use battleship gray but with special (stealth) treatments to reduce susceptibility to detection by radar or other electronic systems.

Gray hair as a thing: Some now dye their hair gray but as a look it succeeds only in the young and is one of those rare things which succeeds when it's obvious it's fake so the correct term should be "faux gray". In older women, for whom grayness is a thing of the passing of time, the choice is to conceal or celebrate, the latter group growing but still a feminist, anti-ageist niche.  "Blue rinses" seem a thing of the past (there was once the term "blue rinse set" which carried a number of connotations, none positive) but, among the young, blue hair is now not uncommon, usually in variegated form.

In politics an éminence grise (gray eminence) is an influential “backroom operator” who functions as a “power behind the throne”.  The classic éminence grise is someone known to few who influences (in some cases rumored to dictate) the decisions made by someone in a powerful position.  An éminence grise differs from a “king maker” in that the latter is usually much better known and tends to ensure who is appointed to positions of authority rather than being involved in the discharge of their duties.  The first so described as an eminence grise was François Leclerc du Tremblay (1577–1638), an aide to Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642; chief minister (chancellor or prime-minister) to the King of France 1624-1642).  The cardinal wore the customary and conspicuous scarlet while the monk Leclerc was attired in a habit described at the time as gray although evidence suggests it would now be thought beige.  His influence on matters of church & state was understood to be great though he was hardly ever seen.  In Nazi Germany, the idea of the eminence grise was picked up in the 1940s by party members who resentfully noted the undue influence of Martin Bormann (1900–1945) on Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), despite him being nominally only the Führer’s secretary.  He was known as the der braune Schatten (literally “the brown Shadow” but translated in English as “brown eminence”), an allusion to the golden-brown party uniform habitually he wore.  The party uniform also provided cynical citizens with the basis of their description of high-ranking party functionaries as Goldfasan (golden pheasants), a sly reference to them always looking well-fed, regardless of the state of rationing imposed during times of food shortages.