MRDA

MRDA (pronounced emm-ahr-dee-ey)

The abbreviation of “Mandy Rice-Davies Applies”, an aphorism used in law and politics to refer to any denial which is transparently self-interested.

1963: An allusion to the statement “Well he would, wouldn't he?”, said by Welsh model Mandy Rice-Davies (1944-2004) during cross-examination in a trial at the Old Bailey (the central criminal court for England & Wales) associated with the Profumo affair.

Lord Astor, Mandy Rice-Davies and the Profumo Affair

The context of Ms Rice-Davies’s answer was the question: “Are you aware that Lord Astor denies any impropriety in his relationship with you?” and the answer “Well he would, wouldn't he?” elicited from those in the court “some amusement”.  MDRA (Mandy Rice-Davies Applies) thus became in law and politics an aphorism used as “verbal shorthand” to refer to any denial which is transparently self-interested although it doesn’t of necessity imply a denial is untrue.  In general use, the fragment from the trial is often misquoted as “Well he would say that, wouldn't he?” because that better encapsulates the meaning without being misleading.

Mandy Rice-Davis (left) and Christine Keeler (right), London, 1963.

The Profumo affair was one of those fits of morality which from time-to-time would afflict English society in the twentieth century and was a marvellous mix of class, sex, spying & money, all things which make a good scandal especially juicy.  John Profumo (1915-2006) was the UK’s Minister for War (the UK cabinet retained the position until 1964 although it was disestablished in the US in 1947) who, then 46, was found to be conducting an adulterous affair with 19 year old topless model Christine Keeler (1942-2017) at the same time she was also enjoying trysts with a Russian spy, attached to the Soviet embassy with the cover of naval attaché.  Although there are to this day differing interpretations of the scandal, there have never been any doubts this potential Cold-War conduit between a KGB spy and Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for War represented at least a potential conflict of interest.

Dr Evatt (left), comrade Molotov (centre) and Soviet translator Alexei Pavlov, exchanging MRDAs in Russian & English, London, 1942.

MRDAs are common in courtrooms and among politicians but some became legends.  In 1954, Dr HV Evatt (1894–1965; Australian attorney-general & foreign minister 1941-1949, and leader of opposition 1951-1960), in the midst of a particularly febrile period during the Cold War, wrote a letter to comrade Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986; Soviet foreign minister 1939-1949 & 1953-1956) asking if allegations of Soviet espionage in Australia were true.  Comrade Molotov of course wrote back, politely denying the USSR engaged in spying anywhere.  Assured, Evatt read the letter to the parliament and the members sat for a moment stunned until, on both sides, loudly laughing.  It was a MRDA before there were MRDAs.

The Profumo affair is noted also for being at least an influence in the end of the “age of deference” in England and while that’s often probably overstated, the immediate reaction and the aftermath proved it wasn’t only across colonial Africa that a “wind of change” was blowing.  The second Lord Astor (1907–1966) was emblematic of the upper classes of England who once would have expected deference from someone like Ms Rice-Davis, someone “not of the better classes” as his lordship might have put it.  Although what came to be known as the “swinging sixties” didn’t really begin until a couple of years after the Profumo affair when the baby-boomers began to come of age, the generational shift had by then become apparent and it was something surprisingly sudden as the interest of the young switched from pop music to politics.  As recently as the 1959 election campaign, the patrician Harold Macmillan (1894–1986; UK prime-minister 1957-1963) had told the working classes “most of you have never had it so good” and for the last time they would express their gratitude to their betters, delivering the Tories an increased majority, an impressive achievement for "the last of the old Edwardians" who, upon assuming the premiership in 1957 in the wake of the Suez debacle, had told the Queen he doubted his administration would last six weeks.

In the matter of Lehrmann v Network Ten Pty Limited [2024] FCA 369

Mr Justice Lee.

Justice Michael Lee (b 1965) in April 2024 handed down one of the more anticipated judgments of recent years, finding Bruce Lehrmann (b 1995), on the civil law test of the balance of probabilities, had raped Brittany Higgins (b 1993) on the sofa in a ministerial suite in Parliament House while the victim was affected by strong drink.  Apart from the heightened public interest in the verdict, lawyers were watching closely to see if there would be encouragement for those defending themselves in defamation cases, something which had been lent unexpected strength by an earlier judgment; although the matter of rape was central to the facts, Lehrmann v Network Ten was a defamation case.  However, for those who appreciate judicial findings for their use of language, Justice Lee didn’t disappoint and although neither Ms Rice-Davies nor MRDA were mentioned in his text, as he assessed the conduct and evidence of Mr Lehrmann, they may have come to mind.

Janet Albrechtsen in her study.

In his opening remarks, the judge acknowledged the case had become a cause celebre for many and that it was best described as “an omnishambles”, the construct being the Latin omni(s) (all) + shambles, from the Middle English schamels (plural of schamel), from the Old English sċeamol & sċamul (bench, stool), from the Proto-West Germanic skamul & skamil (stool, bench), from the Vulgar Latin scamellum, from the Classical Latin scamillum (little bench, ridge), from scamnum (bench, ridge, breadth of a field).  In English, shambles enjoyed a number of meanings including “a scene of great disorder or ruin”, “a cluttered or disorganized mess”, “a scene of bloodshed, carnage or devastation” or (most evocatively), “a slaughterhouse”.  As one read the judgement one could see why the judge was drawn to the word although, in the quiet of his chambers, “clusterfuck” may have been in his thoughts as he pondered the best euphemism.  Helpfully, one of the Murdoch press’s legal commentators, The Australian’s Janet Albrechtsen (b 1966; by Barry Goldwater out of Ayn Rand) who had been one of the journalists most interested in the case, informed the word nerds omnishambles (1) dated from 2009 when it was coined for the BBC political satire The Thick Of It and (2) had endured well enough to be named the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) 2021 Word of the Year.  The judge's linguistic flourish was a hint of things to come in what was one of the more readable recent judgments.

Noting Mr Lehrmann’s original criminal trial on the rape charge had been aborted (after having already been delayed for reasons related to the defamation matter) because of jury misconduct with a subsequent retrial not pursued because of the prosecution’s concern about the fragile mental state of the complainant, the judge observed “Having escaped the lion’s den, Mr Lehrmann made the mistake of coming back for his hat.”  In other words, Mr Lehrmann who could have walked away with no findings against him, lured by the millions of dollars to be gained, rolled the legal dice and was found to have committed rape.  He is of course not the first to fall victim to suffer self-inflicted legal injury in not dissimilar circumstances; the writers (from different literary traditions) Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) and Jeffrey Archer (b 1940) both were convicted and imprisoned as a consequence of them having initiated libel actions.  Whether Mr Lehrmann will now face a retrial in the matter of rape is in the hands of the Australian Capital Territory’s (ACT) Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).  In such a case, it would be necessary to prove the event happened under the usual test in criminal law: beyond reasonable doubt.  Even if that isn’t pursued by the DPP, his time in courtrooms may not be over because it’s possible he may face action because of his conduct in this trial with the handling of certain documents and another unrelated matter is pending in Queensland.

In considering the evidence offered by Mr Lehrmann, the judge appears to have found some great moments in the history of MRDAs:

Commenting on his claim to having returned (after midnight following Friday evening’s hours of convivial drinking) to his Parliament House office to write papers about the French submarines and related government matters, he observed Mr Lehrmann “…hitherto had demonstrated no outward signs of being a workaholic.”  “To remark that Mr Lehrmann was a poor witness is an exercise in understatement.”

Regarding the claim Mr Lehrmann had made to someone to whom he’d just been introduced that he was “…waiting on a clearance to come through so that he could go and work at Asis.” (the Australian Security Intelligence Service; the external intelligence service al la the UK SIS (MI6) or the US CIA (although without the assassinations… as far as is known)), the judge observed she “…kept her well-founded incredulity to herself.”, such “Walter Mitty-like imaginings” demonstrating he “…had no compunction about departing from the truth if he thought it expedient.”

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December, 2011.

The reading of the judgement was live-streamed and the passage which got the loudest chuckle was in the discussion of Mr Lehrmann’s deciding whether he found Ms Higgins attractive.  In an interview on commercial television broadcast in 2023, he’d denied finding the young lady attractive, despite the existence of comments dating from 2019 indicating the opposite.  Pausing only briefly, Justice Lee delivered this news with an arched eyebrow:  “When confronted by this inconsistency, his attempt to explain it away by suggesting the attraction he felt for Ms Higgins was ‘just like [the attraction] I can find [in] anybody else in this [court]room, irrespective of gender’ was as disconcerting as it was unconvincing.”  The judge ordered to audience to suppress their laughter.

Even regarding submarines as a likely topic over drinks, his honour was sceptical: “With the exception of Mr Lehrmann, no one who gave evidence as to their time at The Dock could recall discussing Australia’s submarine contracts with France at either table. The lack of recollection of any discussion of this topic is intuitively unsurprising.  Declaiming on the topics of who was building submarines and where they were being built was not quite the repartee one would usually expect to hear over a convivial drink on a Friday night between 20 [something]-year-olds out for a good time – even if (with respect) one would not expect the badinage of the Algonquin Round Table.” (an early twentieth century, shifting aggregation of men & women of letters who met over lunch in New York’s Algonquin Hotel, their barbs and thoughts often appearing in their newspaper & magazine columns; they dubbed themselves “The Vicious Circle” and were a sort of Cliveden set without the politics.  Cliveden was a stately home in Buckinghamshire, the country seat of Lord Astor and the scene of many of the events central to the Profumo affair).

The judge was forensic in his deconstruction of Mt Lehrmann’s MRDA he returned to Parliament House after being out drinking with Ms Higgins and others in order to retrieve his keys: “If the reason Mr Lehrmann needed to return to Parliament House was to collect his keys, he could have texted his girlfriend to have her meet him at the door or called her.  Mr Lehrmann asks me to accept the proposition that it was ‘a process to get in’ to his shared flat and that to avoid this complication, he preferred to: (a) go out of his way to go back to work in the early hours; (b) lie to Parliament House security; (c) sign the necessary register; (d) be issued with a pass; (e) go through a metal detector; (f) be escorted by a security guard to his office; (g) obtain his keys from his office; (h) book another Uber; (i) go back through a Parliamentary exit; (j) meet the ride-share car; and then (k) ride home.”

Bruce Lehrmann leaving the court after the verdict was delivered.

In psychiatry, distinction is made between the “habitual” and “compulsive” liar and while this wasn’t something Justice Lee explored, he did in one passage sum up his assessment of the likely relationship to truth in anything Mr Lehrmann might say: “I do not think Mr Lehrmann is a compulsive liar, and some of the untruths he told during his evidence may sometimes have been due to carelessness and confusion, but I am satisfied that in important respects he told deliberate lies. I would not accept anything he said except where it amounted to an admission, accorded with the inherent probabilities, or was corroborated by a contemporaneous document or a witness whose evidence I accept.”

One fun footnote from the case was a non-substantive matter, Ms Lisa Wilkinson (b 1959), the Network 10 journalist at the centre of the defamation claim, objecting to being characterized as a “tabloid journalist”.  It transpired her employment history included stints with Dolly, the Australian Women’s Weekly and commercial television including the Beauty & the Beast show.  Unfortunately, she wasn’t asked to define what she thought “tabloid journalism” meant; perhaps Justice Lee decided he’d heard enough MRDAs that day.

On the basis that, on the balance of probabilities, Mr Lehrmann did rape Ms Higgins, his claim for damages against Network Ten for defamatory material earlier broadcast was dismissed.  The judge found the material indeed had the capacity to defame but because the imputations substantially were true, their defense was sustained.  So, the only millions of dollars now to be discussed concern the legal costs: who is to pay whom, the judge asking the party’s submission be handed to the court by 22 April.  Mr Lehrmann’s legal team has not indicated if they’re contemplating an appeal.

Swish

Swish (pronounced swish)

(1) Something smart or stylish (mostly UK & Commonwealth use and said historically to be most applied to things with shiny surfaces such as leather); sophisticated; fashionable; (figuratively) smooth.

(2) To move with or make a sibilant sound, as a slender rod cutting sharply through the air or as small waves washing on the shore.

(3) To rustle (especially of flowing fabrics, on the model of the sound made by moving silk).

(4) To move or behave in an exaggerated manner (often described as “effeminate” or “mincing”).

(5) To flourish, whisk, etc with a swishing movement or sound.

(6) To bring, take, cut, etc with such a movement or sound.

(7) To flog or whip (now rare).

(8) A movement (and sometimes (though not necessarily) the sound) of liquid flowing inside a container.

(9) In mathematics (as swish function), a mathematical activation function in data analysis.

(10) A stock or rod used for flogging or the stroke of such a device (now rare).

(11) A contemptuous term used to refer to an effeminate gay man (regarded as an offensive slur and now rare).

(12) A form of table tennis (ping-pong) able to be played both by people who are blind or vision impaired and by those who are sighted.

(13) A building material used mainly in West Africa and composed originally of mortar and mud or laterite; of late it has been made with a xix of earth & cement.

(14) In basketball, a successful shot that does not touch the rim or backboard.

(15) In slang (in and outside prisons), an alcoholic drink made (1) by fermenting whatever ingredients are available or (2) adding small quantities of water to “empty” bottles to obtain whatever alcohol content remains.

(16) As an interjection, a hissing or whistling sound, imitative or suggestive of something travelling quickly through the air.

1756: Of imitative origin, an onomatopoeia covering a range of sounds.  The intransitive verb in the sense of “move with a swish or flourish or with a sound like swish” was the first form, the transitive verb, used in the sense of “cause to swish” (hence “flourish, brandish”) in use by 1799.  Etymologists conclude it was almost certainly imitative of the sound made by something brushing against or through something else (the “rustle” of silk the classic example).  The most attractive derived form is probably the adjective swishity (characteristic of swish or swishing).  The swish noun emerged in the 1820s (as in “with a swish”) was expressive of the sound of something moving through the air, a development from the verb.  The use as a slur directed at “a particularly effeminate homosexual” was a creation of 1930s US slang, based presumably the idea of the stereotypical “mincing motion”.  The slang use meaning “to flog or last” (the noun swish later adapted to describe the whip) was in use by at least 1856 and despite citations, there little to suggest the origin was in the Royal Navy, that institution already having a rich lexicon of slang related to flogging.  Although the British Army formerly abolished flogging in 1881, it the navy it was only ever “suspended” although it's said no sentences have been imposed since 1879.  In idiomatic use, the noun swish-swash is now used to describe “a repeated swishing action or sound, going back and forth”.  An obsolete meaning, dating from the 1540s was “a weak, wishy-washy drink” although it’s documented that by the 1580s, a swish-swash was a “violent or swaggering person”.  From the connection to the weak drink came the use of swish to describe “an alcoholic beverage obtained by filling an (empty) cask from a distillery with water to leech out the residual liquor”.  Swish is a noun, verb & adjective, swisher is a noun & adjective, swishing is a noun & verb, swishness & swishiness are nouns, swished is a verb, swishest & swishity are adjectives and swishingly is an adverb; the noun plural is swishes.

Swishy Ping-Pong

Swish is a form of ping-pong which permits people who are blind or vision impaired to compete with the sighted on close to equal terms; the preferred description of Swish is Vision Impaired Table Tennis.  Played at both a recreational and competitive level, the idea is similar to mainstream ping-pong except that rather than the ball having to be hit over the net, it must travel along the table’s surface with the “net” set at a certain height to ensure players with various degrees of sight don’t enjoy an advantage over the blind.  Like “blind cricket”, the ball has a bell inside to make it audible and is roughly the size of a tennis ball, made of plastic with holes in it to amplify the sound.  The bats are rectangular with a handle (something like a cricket bat in miniature) with one of the long edges positioned flat against the table.  Like ping-pong, the game can be played either as singles or doubles with a variety of rules in competition ranging from single games to matches of up to eleven.  Some competitions exist for “mixed” teams (sighted and not) and there are "handicap" events in which the sighed competitors wear masks, rendering them completely blind.

The swishy skirt

Lindsay Lohan in three dresses illustrating the possibilities offered by the swishy skirt: thigh high (mini, left), calf length (midi, centre) and ankle length (maxi, right).

The movement of a swishy skirt tends to exaggerate the perception of the volume of fabric used and this can convey the impression of something intricately constructed and while elaborate underpinnings are possible, most are simply an A-line skirt, made with vertical seams, a waistband and hem, the ensemble typically secured with a zipper.  The design does however offer wide scope, not only in terms of length (swishiness increasing the more the hemline approaches the ankles) but the bulk of fabric used makes the style highly suited to the provision of pockets, a feature designers often avoid including in women’s clothing because if actually used, they can spoil the line.  In a swishy skirt, the pockets can be both larger and located lower (in the “swish zone”), meaning that unless really stuffed with stuff, the very presence of a pocket can often be imperceptible.  Designers however caution that pockets do need to be done with some precision; they need to be sufficiently deep and wide to accommodate the hand with the weight of anything put in the pocket to be borne by the waistband and not the more fragile.  As a general principle the pockets should be folded toward the front of the skirt although, anyone tempted to try the more challenging asymmetric pocket might prefer to make it a feature and reverse the geometry.  However it’s done, what matters is that any weight introduced into a pocket should not distort the silhouette.  A signature trick used in the making of swishy skirts is the “Hong Kong Finished waistband” (KHFW).  The KHFW is achieved by sewing a piece of fabric around the raw edge of another, the advantages being the edge does not then need to be turned under for a finish, the trick in the technique used by dressmakers being the use of bias tape or a seam binding product to wrap the raw edges of the seam allowances before pressing open the seams.  The KHFW is used on a wide variety of garments but it’s often the technique of choice with swishy skirts because it removes a layer from what is the bulkiest part of the construction.

How swishy is done:  The basic A-Line pattern (left) and a swishy skirt with pockets (right).

Tea Tray

Tea Tray (pronounced tee-trey)

(1) A tray used to carry a tea service.

(2) A tray of this type used for related purposes.

(3) The accepted descriptor of certain rear spoilers on some Porsches.

Mid-late 1600s: Trays in one form or another are probably one of mankind’s earliest inventions and the creation of the “tea tray” reflected the popularity of the brewed leaf and the place it assumed in polite society as the rich were able to purchase elaborate “tea services” (cups, saucers, milk jugs, tea pots, strainers et al).  In England and Europe, the “taking of tea” in such circles was sometimes formalized    

The noun tea entered English in the late sixteenth century, from the Dutch thee, from the Amoy (Xiamen) dialect of Hokkien 茶 (written both as “tê” & “t’e”), akin to the Chinese chá, from Old Chinese, thought ultimately from the primitive Sino-Tibetan s-la (leaf, tea).  It was the merchants of the Dutch East India Company (based in what is modern-day Indonesia) who after 1610 brought the leaf (and thus the word “tea”) to England and other parts of Western Europe.  The traders obtained the leaf in Amoy (the Malay teh was shipped along the same trade routes). The doublets chai and cha are from the same root.  Served in Paris by at least 1635, tea was introduced in England by 1644.  The spelling “tea” wasn’t at first the default, the variations including tay, thea, tey & tee and the popular early pronunciation seem to have been to rhyme with obey, the familiar modern tee not predominate until the late eighteenth century.  The Russian chai, the Persian cha, the Greek tsai, the Arabic shay and the Turkish çay all came overland from the Mandarin form.  The meaning “afternoon meal at which tea is served” dates from 1738 and is still used in certain regions to mean “evening meal” in the sense other use “dinner” (historically, for these folk “dinner was served around midday).  In US use, tea was slang for “marijuana” during the 1930s (apparently an allusion to it being often brewed in boiling water) but an onrush of newer slang rendered it obsolete as early as the early 1950s.

Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap (1998) with silver tea tray.

Tray (a small, typically rectangular or round, flat, and rigid object upon which things are carried) predates the eleventh century and was from the Middle English treye, from the Old English trēġ & trīġ (flat wooden board with a low rim), from the Proto-West Germanic trauwi, from the Proto-Germanic trawją or traujam (wooden vessel), from the primitive Indo-European dóru, a variant of the root drewo- (be firm, solid, steadfast (with also the specialized senses  “tree; wood” and derivatives referring to objects made of wood. The primary sense may have been “wooden vessel”).  It was cognate with the Old Norse treyja (carrier), the Old Swedish trø (wooden measure for grain & corn), the Low German Treechel (dough trough), the Ancient Greek δρουίτη (drouítē) (tub, vat) and the Sanskrit द्रोण (droṇa) (trough); trough and tree were influenced by the same sources.  The alternatives teatray and tea-tray are both accepted as standard forms but both are usually listed as “rare”, the former especially so.  Tea tray is a noun; the noun plural is tea trees.

George IV sterling silver tea set, hallmark from the silver workshop of Rebecca Emes (widow of silversmith John Emes (circa 1765-1810)) & Edward Bernard who were in partnership between 1808-1829.

The pieces are rendered in a melon shaped form with a textured leaf inspired frieze at the top register, rising from embellished shell form feet.  Originally a four piece set (teapot, coffee pot, cream jug and open sugar bowl) more than a century later a Canadian owner commissioned (through Birks (Canada)) a matching muffin dish.  The trademark on the muffin dish is that of Ellis & Co, Empire Works, Great Hampton Street & Hall Street, Birmingham (hallmarked 1937).  The tea tray is a sterling silver “George III” tea tray by Solomon Hougham,

High tea at the Savoy, London: High teas are events where ladies meet to talk about their feelings.

Although there are some striking modernist creations, the most sought after teas sets are those of porcelain or sterling silver, antique versions of the latter more common simply because they are less fragile, lasting centuries with only minimal care.  The first tea sets seem to have been the simple porcelain containers made in China during the Han Dynasty (206–220 BC).  From these humble, functional beginnings came eventually the intricately designed services of the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries which included not only the teapot and tea tray but also cups, sugar bowls with tongs, milk jugs, small plates for lemon slices and a remarkable variety of strainers and sieves to filter out pieces of the leaves.  In the sixteenth century porcelain tea sets arrived with the leaf and like many innovations from the East, consumption was originally limited to the rich who soon began to object to scalding their fingers on the handle-less cups; cups with handles (surely a marker of civilization) soon became essential in any drawing room.  Less pleasingly, adding milk and sugar also became fashionable so sugar bowls and milk jug (creamers) were added to sets along with the necessary teaspoons.  The tea craze thus influenced furniture, the “tea table” the item on which tea was served, sometime a place for the tea tray to sit but used also for more elaborate events which included cakes and such; this was the origin of the modern “high tea” which became such a profitable side-line for hotels.  Sterling silver tea sets began to appear in the late eighteenth century although it would be some decades before they attained great popularity, aided by Queen Victoria’s (1819–1901; Queen of the UK 1837-1901) fondness for tea and although the influence of the British royalty on the fashions of society was often negligible, in this she seems to have led the way.

Forks in evolution: The ducktail, the whale tail and the tea tray

There was much thoughtful engineering which made the 1973 Porsche 911 Carrera RS 2.7 such a formidable car in competition both in terms of what was taken out (most creature comforts) and what was put in (horsepower, light weight components and a braking system said to cost about as much as a new Volkswagen Beetle) but what caught the eye of most were the lurid graphics along the sides (Yellow, Blue, Green, Red and Blood Orange among the choices) and the spoiler which sprouted from the rear; it came to be called the “Ducktail” and was the subject of Patent 2238704: “The invention relates to a passenger car with a rear spoiler – one preferably mounted between side panels - and an aerodynamic device in the rear to increase the dynamic rear wheel pressure.”

1973 Porsche 911 Carrera RS 2.7 during wind tunnel testing of the Ducktail spoiler (left) and a production version with blue graphics (right).

The 911 Carrera RS 2.7 was a homologation special and Porsche planned to build only the 500 identical road-legal versions examples demanded to qualify the thing to be eligible competition under the Group 4 (Gran Turismo) regulations.  Although its 210 hp (156 kW) doesn’t sound impressive fifty years on (and even in the era there were many more powerful machines), weighing a svelte 960 KG (3086 lb), it could reach 100km/h (60 mph) in 5.8 seconds and touch 245 km/h (152 mph).  Given the performance, the Ducktail was a necessity to ensure there was at speed no dangerous lift at the rear but the factory was soon compelled to issue a bulletin warning that anyone fitting a ducktail to any other 911 would also have to fit the factory's front spoiler because, without the front unit, the rear down-force would become “excessive”, lifting the nose, the result: instant instability.  As it turned out, demand was greater than expected and eventually 1580 cars were built, many with a few of the creature comforts restored and today the 1973 Carrera is among the most collectable of the 911s; sales over US$2 million have been recorded.

1974 Porsche 911 Carrera RS 3.0 with whale tail.

The delicate lines of the 911 were spoiled when the 1974 models were released, the “impact” bumpers grafted on to satisfy US regulations an unhappy addition but in fairness to Porsche, their implementation was aesthetically more successful than many, notably their Stuttgart neighbors Mercedes-Benz which appeared to have taken for inspiration the naval rams once fitted beneath the waterlines of battleships and there to sink smaller vessels by ramming; at least on warships they couldn’t be seen.  The Ducktail however survived the legislative onslaught and became available on the new Carrera coupe (fitted as standard in North American markets) which was a pure road car without any of the compromises which made its raw-boned predecessor so engaging.

Later in the year however, a variant of the rear spoiler evolved for the 911 Carrera RS 3.0, this time rendered as a larger, flatter piece with rubber edges, the trailing edge rakishly upturned; it came to be called the “Whale Tail.”  Actually to speak of the Whale Tail as an item is a little misleading because the evolution continued and it was only the early examples which used the simple construction with a recessed grille which tracked the line of the engine cover, blending into the uninterrupted flat expanse of the spoiler itself.  By 1976 the (pre-intercooler) Turbo Carrera (the 930, the so-called “widow-maker”) was fitted with a Whale Tail with a second grille inset into the spoiler itself and to complicate the parts catalogue further, the secondary grille on the RoW (rest of the world) cars was smaller than that fitted to vehicles destined for North America; again the increasingly rigid US regulations the cause.  As the years went by, the Whale Tail continued to change.

The Whale Tail (left) and the Tea Tray (right)

By 1978, there was another evolutionary fork, the 911 Turbo’s spoiler becoming the “Tea Tray”, distinguished by a continuous raised rubber lip around the sides and rear edge.  The recessed grilles were replaced by a large, inset louvered plastic grille, needed to accommodate the additional height of the intercooler while the base of the assembly became a wide pedestal mounted through the engine cover and although there were detail changes, the Tea Tray was fitted to 930s (and atmospheric cars with the M491 option) until the retirement of the long-serving (the 1974-1989 911s often called “G Series” although technically that should apply only to the 1974 model year production but such is the visual similarity the use persists) platform in 1989.

Tea Tray on 930 Turbo Cabriolet (left) and Taco on 996.1 GT3 (right)

The Ducktail, Whale Tail and Tea Tray remain the best known of the Porsche spoilers but there were others including the “Swan Neck” but the most photogenic was the “Taco”.  It was introduced on the 911 GT3 (RoW 996.1) and was so admired the factory later made it available as part of an optional aero-kit.  The nickname is of course an allusion to the Mexican culinary staple, the resemblance quite obvious when viewed in profile although it has also been dubbed the “Pacman”.  The 996.1 GT3, production of which was limited to 1868 units, was first displayed at the 1999 Frankfurt Motor Show and was one of the dual-purpose 911s (for road and track, the GT3 badge appearing several times since) and like all the spoilers, the Taco was functional and it needed to be, the 300 lbs (136 KG) downforce generated at the top speed of 304 km/h (189 mph) required to ensure the thing remained in contact with planet Earth.

Spoilers and other aerodynamic aids can be re-purposed.  A young lady with a tea tray (with coffee pot) (left) and laundry hanging on a the wing of a 1969 Dodge Daytona (right).  In period, between stints on the tracks, drivers would hang their sweat-laden racing suits on the wings of Daytonas and Plymouth Superbirds.

Callosity

Callosity (pronounced kuh-los-i-tee)

(1) In pathology, an alternative name for a callus.

(2) In botany, a hardened or thickened part of a plant.

(3) In zoology, as ischial callosity, a large callus on the butts of certain animals.

(4) In the human condition, being of a callous demeanor; insensitivity or hard-heartedness

1375–1425: From the late Middle English calosite, from the Late Latin callōsitās, the construct being callōs(us) (callous) (from callum (hardened skin) +‎ -ōsus (the suffix added to a noun to form an adjective indicating an abundance of that noun)) + -itās which in English was rendered as callus + -ity, the substitute “o” a familiar device.  The –ity suffix was from the French -ité, from the Middle French -ité, from the Old French –ete & -eteit (-ity), from the Latin -itātem, from -itās, from the primitive Indo-European suffix –it.  It was cognate with the Gothic –iþa (-th), the Old High German -ida (-th) and the Old English -þo, -þu & -þ (-th).  It was used to form nouns from adjectives (especially abstract nouns), thus most often associated with nouns referring to the state, property, or quality of conforming to the adjective's description.  Callosity is a noun; the noun plural is callosities.

Essentially a thickening of the skin which forms in response to damage, a callus is one of the body’s protective mechanisms and example of how human skin have evolved to respond to a “fragile” area by replacing it with something “anti-fragile”.  The skin is a good barrier to much which would be dangerous if able to penetrate the surface but easily it can be cut and it’s prone to delimitation if exposed to repeated friction, something well known to gardeners digging holes, the skin on the palms of the hands soon “wearing off” at the points where the handle of the shovel repeatedly rubs.  That will be painful but the body will respond, replacing the dead skin with new skin which is thicker and harder, thus enabling the gardener to soon again pick up their shovel and return to their excavations.  This is an example of the general principle of healthy human physiology which responds to damage not by replacing things with something just as strong but something stronger, able to resist whatever force it was which caused the injury and it is the same with a bone fracture; when the bone knits back together, it will not be merely as strong as it was but a little stronger.  The new skin on the gardener’s hands will also be stronger and as the holes continue to be dug, the skin will become more robust still but the difference should not be thought of as fragile vs robust but as fragile vs anti-fragile, the point being that as pressure is applied, the material responds by becoming less-fragile.

Fragile and robust, although often used as antonyms (and in general use usefully so because the meanings are so well conveyed and understood) are really not opposites but simply degrees of the same thing.  In the narrow technical sense an expression of robustness or fragility is a measure of the same thing; a degree of strength.  The traditions of language obscure this but it becomes clear if measures of fragility or robustness are reduced to mathematics and expressed as comparative values in numbers.  It's true that on such a continuum a point could be set at which point something is regarded as no longer robust and becomes defined as fragile (indeed this is the essence of stress-testing) but this doesn't mean one is the antonym of the other.  The opposite of fragile is actually anti-fragile (the anti prefix was from the Ancient Greek ἀντι- (anti-) (against, hostile to, contrasting with the norm, opposite of, reverse (also "like, reminiscent of"))).  The concept is well known in physiology and part of the object in some forms of strength training is to exploit the propensity of muscles to tear at stress points, relying on the body to repair these tears in a way that doesn’t restore them to their original form but makes them stronger so that if subjected again to the same stress, a tear won’t happen.  It’s thus an act of anti-fragility, the process illustrated also by the calluses which form on the hands after the skin blisters in response to work.  Fragile and robust merely express points on a spectrum and are used according to emphasize the extent of strength; anti-fragile is the true opposite.

The idea of anti-fragile was introduced by Lebanese-born, US-based mathematician and trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb (b 1960) in the book Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder (2012), the fourth of five works which explore his ideas relation to uncertainty, randomness & probability, the best-known and most influential was The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007).  His work was thoughtful, intriguing and practical and was well received although the more accessible writing he adopted for the later volumes attracted criticism from some who felt an academic style more suited to the complex nature of his material; probably few who read the texts agreed with that.  Apart from the ideas and the use to which they can be put, his deconstruction of many suppositions was also an exploration of the rigidities of thought we allow our use of language to create.

Anti-callus devices (gloves the most common type) are used when the aim is to avoid the growth of a callus, the use of an “artificial callus” sometimes preferable to the natural.  A carpet layer in knee pads (left) and bra strap “cushions” (right).

When the new areas of skin are called calluses (calli the alternative plural), callus from the Latin callum (hard skin).  Most often used to describe the hardened areas of skin (typically on hands & feet) induced as a response to repeated friction, wear or use, in anatomy, the same word is applied to the initially soft or cartilaginous substance exuded at the site of a bone fracture which converts ultimately into bone, knitting the fragments into the one piece.  One the process fully is complete, if again exposed to the same stress, the bone will not break.  In botany, it’s used of the new formation over the end of a cutting. Callus is a noun & verb, the calluses, the present participle callusing and the past, callused.

In some professions, the callus can be close to essential; those whose life involves supporting weights on their shoulders form them on the pressure points, enabling them to ply their trade without undue pain or further damage.  However, not all whose shoulders might suffer welcome calluses, however beneficial they might be:  Women who wish to avoid what manufactures term the “shoulder grooving” caused by the pressure of their bra’s shoulder straps (the physics of this a product of (1) the weight supported and (2) its surface distribution which is dictated essentially by the width of the strap) can buy inserts for the straps which increase the surface area, thereby reducing the specific loading by re-distributing the downward pressure.  A variation on this idea is the “knee pad” worn by those who lay carpets, floor tiles and such.  These folk are compelled to work “on their knees” for hours at a time, often upon hard and sometimes rough surfaces and although, given time, calluses would form were the work to be performed unprotected, it would not be a pleasant experience and the degree of hardening needed would likely adversely affect normal mobility.  In zoology, calluses are a noted environmental adaptation among some species, (Old World) gibbons, monkeys and some chimpanzees having evolved notably large calluses on their butts (described as ischial callosities (the seventeenth century ischium (from the Latin ischium, from the Ancient Greek ἰσχίον (iskhíon) (hip joint)) describing the lowest of the three bones that make up each side of the pelvis).  On the animals so endowed, the advantage is the ability to sleep while sitting upright on thin branches, safe from both predators and the risk of falling.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

In figurative use callosity came to be used to refer to one with a lack of feeling or capacity for emotion but the use when documented comes usually with the caveat that those so described are not “psychopaths” but merely the “hard-hearted”.  So it’s there to be used and if it seems not to suit, English offers has quite an array of choice when speaking of those lacking emotional range.  There is “heartless” & “hard-hearted”, both of which allude to the ancient idea of the special significance of the heart as the source of all that human feeling and character; even now it’s known to be a “just a pump”, the romantic notions persist in many culture and variations of the ❤ symbol are among the most frequently used emojis.  “Cold-blooded” is different in that although it’s blood the heart pumps, the operative word really is “cold”, implying decisions made or actions taken without emotion intruding and in idiomatic use, a “cold-blooded murder” (such as a contract killing done for payment) is viewed with less sympathy than a crime of passion (such murderers of said to have been “seeing the red mist” of “hot” blood at the time of their crime.  “Stolid” and “impassive” differs in that they can often be virtues and anyway suggest not an absence of capacity for feeling but its repression and one who wrote on how essential that was to civilization yet simultaneous damaging to individuals was Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), his ideas later taken up by German-American philosopher Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979).  Mankind probably didn’t surprise Freud but doubtless we disappointed Marcuse.  Finally, there is “stoic” which traces back to the Hellenic school of stoicism, a philosophy with a great following in Antiquity which was intended always to be practical, a way to help citizens live good lives rather than anything concerned with abstractions.  In its pure form it survives in that form but the modern re-purposing of the word means it’s now used to mean something like “suffering in silence”.  “Callosity” then is one of many ways to refer to the “unfeeling” and its use in this context is based on the use in medicine, a callosity (ie a callus) being “skin of abnormal hardness & thickness” which can be poked or pricked with the subject barely feeling the intrusion.  In that it’s subtly different from “thick skinned” which usually means “not easily offended”.

Newmanesque

Newmanesque (pronounced new-min-esk)

The feelings of wonderment, awe, fear and enchantment induced in one when looking to the stars.

1860: From the writings of Cardinal Saint John Henry Newman (1801-1890), the construct being Newman + esque.  The -esque suffix was from the French -esque (-ish, -ic, -esque), from the Italian -esco, from the Latin -iscus, of Germanic origin, from the Lombardic -isc (-ish), from the Proto-West Germanic -isk, from the Proto-Germanic -iskaz (-ish), from the primitive Indo-European -iskos.  It was cognate with the Old High German -isc (from which German gained -isch), the Old English –isċ, the Old Norse –iskr and the Gothic -isks.   It was appended to nouns (particularly proper nouns) to form adjectives in the sense of (1) resembling or tending towards and (2) in the style or manner of.  English picked up the suffix directly as –ish; the -esque suffix technically means a stronger association than -ish or -ite but is often anyway preferred for literary effect.   

Saint John Henry Newman (1801-1890).

John Henry Newman was a poet and theologian, first an evangelical Anglican priest (albeit one gradually assuming a higher ecclesiastical tone) who later, despite having once described the Roman church as "…polytheistic, degrading and idolatrous" became a Roman Catholic cardinal.  This appears to have happened because Newman the younger became haunted by the fourth century words of Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430), Securus judicat orbis terrarum!, usually translated by scholars as “the verdict of the world is conclusive” and by theologians as “wherefore the entire world judges out of security, they are not good who separate themselves from the entire world, in whatever part of the entire world”.

To structuralists, it means “it is good to keep the sinners in our midst if this is the way we may convert them”.  Newman dwelt on this for some time, an indication it’s not good for impressionable souls to read Augustine at too young an age.  Among the laity, Newman is most remembered for what’s called the newmanesque or the newmanist: the sense of awe wonderment even atheists might feel when gazing at the stars.  In July 2019, Pope Francis (b 1936; pope since 2013) announced at the Consistory of Cardinals that Newman would be created a saint and his canonisation was formally announced on 13 October, thus becoming the first English saint since the seventeenth century.  It’s a long process: Newman was proclaimed "Venerable" by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in 1991 and was beatified in 2010.  Canonisation was the final step.

The Newmanesque: Look back in awe

Hubble Space Telescope Image NGC 6302 (butterfly nebula), 27 July 2009.

Image NGC 6302, commonly called the butterfly nebula, was taken by the Hubble telescope on 27 July 2009.  Something of a celestial Rorschach test card, cosmic reality belies the delicate appearance of this butterfly, those fragile-looking wings actually boiling cauldrons of gas, swirling at some 36,000^o F (20,000^o C) and travelling through space at 600,000 mph (960,000 km/h), fast enough to travel between earth and the moon in little more than twenty minutes.  The butterfly is in our Milky Way galaxy, some 3800 light-years distant in the constellation of Scorpius, the glowing gas the star’s outer layers, expelled over two millennia, the wingspan more than two light-years across.

At the centre lies a dying star once five times the mass of the Sun but, with its envelope of gases ejected, it’s now unleashing the stream of ultraviolet radiation that gives the cast-off material its glow.  The central star can’t be seen because of the surrounding thick belt of dust which constricts its outflow, creating the classic “bipolar” or hourglass shape shared with many planetary nebulae.  The data from Hubble do however allow scientists to construct a picture with the surface temperature estimated to be over 400,000^o F (220,000^o C), making it one of the Milky Way’s hotter stars.  Before losing the extended outer layers, the star had evolved into a red giant, with a diameter a thousand times that of the Sun, some of the cast-off gas creating the doughnut-shaped ring while other gas was ejected perpendicular to the ring at higher speeds, producing the butterfly’s elongated wings.  Later, as the star heated, a faster stellar wind (a stream of charged particles), ploughed through the structure, again modifying the shape.

Halcyon

Halcyon (pronounced hal-see-uhn)

(1) Calm; peaceful; tranquil.

(2) Rich; wealthy; prosperous.

(3) Happy; joyful; carefree, the best of times.

(4) A mythical bird, usually identified with the kingfisher, said to breed about the time of the winter solstice in a nest floating on the sea, and to have the power of charming winds and waves into calmness.

(5) Any of various kingfishers, especially of the genus Halcyon.

(6) In Classical mythology, Alcyone.

1350-1400: From the Middle English Alceoun, from the Latin halcyōn & alcyōn (kingfisher), from the Ancient Greek halkyṓn, a pseudo-etymological variant of ἀλκυών (alkuṓn). (kingfisher) of unknown origin.  It replaced the Middle English alceon (or alicion), from the Classical Latin alcyōn, from the same Greek root.  By the 1540s it had in English assumed the sense of "calm, quiet, peaceful" in the phrase "halcyon dayes", a translation of the Latin alcyonei dies, from the Greek alkyonides hemerai, the fourteen days of calm weather at the winter solstice, when a mythical bird (identified with the kingfisher) was said to breed in a nest floating on calm seas.  In late fourteenth century Middle English, the fabled bird was known as the alcioun.  The word intrigued etymologists and the orthodox explanation is the construct hals (sea; salt) + kyon (conceiving), the present participle of kyein (to conceive (literally "to swell")) was an ancient folk-etymology to explain a loan-word from a non-Indo-European language.  The proper noun Halcyonidae describes the taxonomic family within the order Coraciiformes (tree kingfishers), sometimes considered a subfamily, as Halcyoninae.  Halcyon is a noun & adjective, halcyonid is a noun and halcyonian is an adjective; the noun plural is halcyons.

The Legend of Halcyone

Halcyone (1915) by Herbert James Draper (circa 1863-1920).

In Greek mythology, Alcyone was the daughter of Aeolus and she married Ceyx, son of Eosphorus (the Morning Star).  Alcyone and Ceyx were very happy together in Trachis and according to Pseudo-Apollodorus's account, playfully they would often call each other Zeus and Hera.  That was sacrilegious and so did it anger Zeus that one day when his mood was especially bad, seeing Ceyx at sea, the god cast a thunderbolt at his boat, sinking the fragile vessel and drowning Ceyx.  That evening, Morpheus, the god of dreams, disguised himself as Ceyx and appeared to Alcyone as an apparition, telling her of her lover's fate, at which in her grief, determined to join Ceyx, she cast herself into the sea and died.  In compassion, the gods changed them both into halcyon birds, named after her and by some accounts the kingfisher-like birds were granted the power to calm stormy, troubled seas and breed in nests floating on calm waters.  Like much mythology from Antiquity, there are variations of the story.  The Roman writers Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso; 43 BC–17 AD) & Hyginus (Gaius Julius Hyginus (circa 64 BC–17 AD) both recount the metamorphosis of the pair after Ceyx's loss in a terrible storm, though neither make mention of the wrath of Zeus, blaming the tragedy on the stormy seas.  Ovid also claims she threw herself into the ocean upon seeing his body washed ashore and Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro (70–19 BC)) makes a brief mention of the affair, again without blaming Zeus.

Halcyon days: The Mean Girls (2004) cast at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards ceremony.

The most common use of halcyon now is "halcyon days" meaning “the best of times”.  Ovid and Hyginus both make Alcyone’s metamorphosis the origin of the etymology for halcyon days although for them it was something literally meteorological: the seven winter days when storms never gather.  These were the fourteen days each year (seven days either side of the shortest day) during which Alcyone (as a kingfisher) laid her eggs and made her nest on the beach and during which her father Aeolus, god of the winds, restrained the winds and calmed the waves so she could do so in safety. The phrase has since come to refer to any peaceful time and this has supplanted the older meaning; that of a lucky break, or a bright interval set in the midst of adversity.