Sable (pronounced sey-buhl)
(1) An Old World, small, carnivorous, weasel-like mammal,
Mustela zibellina, of cold regions in Eurasia and the North Pacific Islands,
valued for its fur which exists in shades of brown. They are solitary & arboreal, with a diet
largely of eat small animals and eggs.
(2) A marten, especially the Mustela americana & Martes
zibellina.
(3) The fur of the sable.
(4) A garment made from sable (as descriptor or modifier)
(5) An artist's brush made from the fur of the sable.
(6) A type of French biscuit of a sandy texture and made
with butter, sugar, eggs & flour.
(7) The stage name of Rena Marlette-Lesnar (née Greek,
formerly Mero; b 1968), a US model & actress, best known for her career (1996-1999
& 2003-2004) as a professional wrestler.
(8) The color black, especially when in heraldic use.
(9) The color of sable fur (a range from yellowish-brown to
dark brown).
(10) A locality name in North America including (1) a
cape at the southern Florida (the southern-most point of the continental US and
(2) the southernmost point of Nova Scotia, Canada.
(11) In the plural (as sables), black garments worn in mourning.
(12) In literary use, dark-skinned; black (archaic when
used of people but used still in other contexts).
(13) In figurative use, a “black” or “dark” mood;
gloominess (now rare).
1275–1325: From the Middle English sable, saibel, sabil & sabille
(a sable, pelt of a sable; (the color) black), from the Old French sable, martre sable & saibile (a sable, sable fur), from the Medieval
Latin sabelum & sabellum (sable fur), from the Middle
Low German sabel (the Middle Dutch was
sabel and the late Old High German was
zobel), from a Slavic or Baltic
source and related to the Russian со́боль (sóbol), the Polish soból, the Czech sobol, the
Lithuanian sàbalas and the Middle Persian smwl (samōr). Sable is a noun &
adjective; the noun plural is sables or sable.
The modern funeral: @edgylittlepieces take on the
sable. Their funeral dress included a
mode in which it could be “tightened up to make it super modest for the funeral”,
later to be “loosened
back down for the after-party.”
The promotional clip attracted many comments, some of which indicated
scepticism about whether funerals had “after-parties” but the wake is a long-established tradition. Wake (in this context) was
from the Middle English wake, from
the Old English wacu (watch), from
the Proto-Germanic wakō and wakes
could be held before or after the funeral service, depending on local
custom. In James Joyce's (1882–1941) Finnegans Wake (1939), Tim Finnegan's
wake occurs before the funeral service so the young lady would have “loosened”
first before “tightening”
into “super modest” mode for the
ceremony. “Modest” is of course a relative
term and it's literature's loss Joyce never had the chance to write about this sable although how he'd have interpolated it into the narrative of Finnegans Wake is anyone's guess but fragments
from the text such as “…woven of sighed sins and spun of the dulls of death…”
and “…twisted and twined and turned among the crisscross, kisscross crooks and
connivers, the curtaincloth of a crater let down, a sailor’s shroud of
turfmantle round the pulpit...” lend a hint.
In Western culture black is of course the color of mourning so funeral garments came to be known as “sables” but the curious use of sable to mean “black” (in heraldry,
for other purposes and in figurative use) when all known sables (as in the weasel-like mammal) have been
shades of brown (albeit some a quite dark hue) attracted various theories
including (1) the pelt of another animal with black fur might have been assumed
to be a sable, (2) there may in some places at some time have been a practice
of dying sable pelts black or (3) the origin of the word (as a color) may be
from an unknown source. It was used as
an adjective from the late fourteenth century and in the same era came to be
used as a term emblematic of mourning or grief, soon used collectively of black
“mourning garments”. In the late
eighteenth century it was used of Africans and their descendants (ie “black”)
although etymologists seem divided whether this was originally a “polite” form
or one of “mock dignity”.
AdVintage's color chart (left) and a Crusader Fedora hat
in True-Sable with 38mm wide, black-brown grosgrain ribbon, handcrafted from
Portuguese felt (right).
The phrase “every
cloud has a silver lining” was in general use by the early nineteenth
century and is used to mean even situations which seem bad will have some positive aspect and thus a potential to improve. That’s obviously not true and many are
probably more persuaded by the derivative companion phrase coined by some
unknown realist: “Every silver lining has
a cloud” (ie every good situation has the potential to turn bad and likely
will). “Every cloud has a silver lining” dates from the seventeenth century
and it entered popular use after the publication of John Milton’s (1608–1674) masque
Comus (1634) in which the poet
summoned the imagery of a dark & threatening cloud flowing at the edges
with the moon’s reflected light of the moon, symbolizing hope in adversity:
I see ye visibly, and now
believe
That he, the Supreme Good,
to whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers
of vengeance,
Would send a glistering
guardian, if need were
To keep my life and honor
unassailed.
Was I deceived, or did a
sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining
on the night?
I did not err; there does a
sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining
on the night,
And casts a gleam over this
tufted grove.
Who wore
the sable-trimmed coat better? The Luffwaffe's General Paul Conrath
(1896–1979, left) with Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945,
Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945, centre), Soviet
Union, 1942 and Lindsay Lohan at New York Fashion Week, September
2024. Given modern sensibilities, Ms Lohan's “sable” presumably was faux fur and appeared to be the coat's collar rather than a stole but the ensemble was anyway much admired. Count Galeazzo Ciano
(1903–1944; Italian foreign minister 1936-1944 wasn’t an impartial observer of
anything German but he had a diarist’s eye and left a vivid description of the
impression the Reichsmarschall made during his visit to Rome in
1942: “At the station, he wore a great sable coat, something between
what motorists wore in 1906 and what a high grade prostitute wears to the
opera.” Ciano was the son-in-law of Benito Mussolini
(1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943) who later
ordered his execution, a power doubtlessly envied by many fathers-in-law.
1996 Mercury Sable.
The styling of the third generation Sable (and the Ford Taurus) was upon
its release controversial and, unlike some other designs thought “ahead of their
time”, few have warmed to it. To many,
when new, it looked like something which had been in an accident and was
waiting to be repaired.
Over five generations (1986–1991; 1992–1995; 1996–1999; 2000–2005
& 2008–2009), the Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo) produced the Mercury Sable, a
companion (and substantially “badge-engineered”) version of the Ford Taurus
(discontinued in the US in 2016 but still available in certain overseas
markets). Dreary and boring the FWD
(front wheel drive) Taurus & Sable may have been but they were
well-developed and appropriate to the needs of the market so proved a great success. The Mercury brand had been introduced in 1939
to enable the corporation better to service the “medium-priced” market, its
approach until then constrained by the large gap (in pricing & perception)
between Fords and Lincolns; at the time, General Motors’ (GM) “mid-range”
offerings (ie LaSalle, Buick, Oldsmobile & Pontiac (which sat between Chevrolet & Cadillac)) collectively held
almost a quarter of the US market. Given
the structure of the industry (limited product ranges per brand) at the time it
was a logical approach and one which immediately was successful although almost
simultaneously, Ford added the up-market “Ford De Luxe” while Lincoln
introduced the “Lincoln Zephyr” at a price around a third what was charged for
the traditional Lincoln range. It was a
harbinger of what was to come in later decades when product differentiation
became difficult to maintain as Ford increasingly impinged on Mercury’s nominal
territory. After years of decline, Ford
took the opportunity offered by the GFC (Global Financial Crisis, 2008-2011) and in 2010 closed-down
the Mercury brand.
Midler v. Ford Motor Co., 849 F.2d 460 (Ninth Circuit Federal
Courts of Appeal, 1988)
Apart from the odd highlight like the early Cougars
(1967-1970), Mercury is now little remembered and the Sable definitely forgotten
but it does live on as a footnote in legal history which, since the rise of AI
(Artificial Intelligence), has been revisited because of the advertising
campaign which accompanied the Sable’s launch in 1996. The case in which the Sable featured dates from 1988 and was about the protectibility (at
law) of the voice of a public figure (however defined) and the right of an
individual to prevent commercial exploitation of their “unique and distinctive
sound” without consent. FoMoCo and its advertising
agency (Young & Rubicam Inc (Y&R)) in 1985 aired a series of 30 &
60 second television commercials (in what the agency called “The Yuppie
Campaign”, the rationale of which was to evoke in the minds of the target
market (30 something urban professionals in a certain income bracket) memories
of their hopefully happy days at university some fifteen years earlier. To achieve the effect, a number of popular
songs of the 1970s were used for the commercials and in some cases the original
artists licenced the material but ten declined to be involved so Y&R hired “sound-alikes”
who re-recorded the material. One who
rejected Y&R’s offer was the singer Bette Midler (b 1945).
Sable (the stage name of Rena Marlette-Lesnar (née Greek,
formerly Mero; b 1968)); promotional photograph issued by WWE (World Wrestling
Entertainment) to which she was
contracted.
Y&R had from the copyright holder secured a licence to use
the song, Do You Want to Dance which
Ms Midler had interpreted on her debut album The Divine Miss M (1972) and neither her name nor an image of her
appeared in the commercial. Y&R’s
use of the song was under the terms of settled law; the case hung on whether Ms
Midler had the right to protect her voice from commercial exploitation by means
of imitation. At trial, the district court
described the defendants' conduct as that “...of the average thief...” (“If we can't
buy it, we'll take it”) but held there was no precedent establishing a legal
principle preventing imitation of Midler's voice and thus gave summary judgment
for the defendants. Ms Midler appealed.
Years before, a federal court had held the First
Amendment (free speech) to the US constitution operated with a wide latitude in
protecting reproduction of likenesses or sounds, finding the “use of a
person's identity” was central; if the purpose was found to be “informative or
cultural”, then the use was immune from challenge but if it “serves no such
function but merely exploits the individual portrayed, immunity will not be
granted.” Moreover, federal copyright
law overlays such matters and the “...mere imitation of a recorded performance
would not constitute a copyright infringement even where one performer
deliberately sets out to simulate another's performance as exactly as possible.” So Ms Midler’s claim was novel in that it was
unrelated to the copyrighted material (the song), thus excluding consideration
of federal copyright law. At the time,
it was understood a “voice is not copyrightable” and what she was seeking to
protect was something more inherently personal than any work of authorship. There had been vaguely similar cases but they had been about “unfair competition” in which people like voice-over artists were able
to gain protection from others emulating in this commercial area a voice, the characteristics
of which the plaintiffs claimed to have “invented” or “defined” (the courts
never differentiated).
On appeal, the court reversed the original judgment,
holding that it was not necessary to “…go so far as to hold that every imitation of a voice to
advertise merchandise is actionable. We
hold only that when a distinctive voice of a professional singer is widely
known and is deliberately imitated in order to sell a product, the sellers have
appropriated what is not theirs and have committed a tort in California. Midler has made a showing, sufficient to
defeat summary judgment, that the defendants here for their own profit in
selling their product did appropriate part of her identity.” What this established was an individual's
voice can be as integral to their identity as their image or name and that is
reflected in recent findings about AI-generated voices that mimic specific
individuals; they too can infringe on similar rights if used without consent,
particularly for commercial or deceptive purposes. The “AI generated voice” cases will for some
time continue to appear in many jurisdictions and it’s not impossible some
existing (and long-standing) contracts might be declared void for unconscionability
on the grounds terms which once “signed away in perpetuity” rights to use a
voice will no longer enforced because the technological possibilities now
available could not have been envisaged.
