Functionalism

Functionalism (pronounced fuhngk-shuh-nl-iz-uhm)

(1) An early twentieth century movement which advocated design in engineering, architecture, furniture and objects as pure fulfilments of material requirements, the aesthetic effect derived from proportions and finish with decorative effects being excluded or greatly subordinated.  Essentially, the theory that the form of a thing should be determined by its use.

(2) In psychology, a doctrine which emphasizes the adaptive flexibility in mental or behavioral processes.  Essentially, a system of thought based on the premise that all mental processes derive from their usefulness to the organism in adapting to the environment.

(3) In sociology (and styled usually as structural functionalism) a theoretical construct of societies as systems of interdependent parts whose functions contribute to the stability and survival of the system.  The analysis suggests things continue to exist because they perform some useful function.

(4) In anthropology (as biological functionalism), a utilitarian theory which maintains individual survival is the provocation of actions and the importance of social rigidity is negligible.

1914:  A compound word, function + al +‎ ism.  Function was from the Middle French function from the Old French fonction, from the Classical Latin functionem (accusative of functiō) (performance, execution) from functus (perfect participle of fungor) (I perform, I execute, I discharge).  The -al suffix was from the Middle English -al, from the Latin adjectival suffix -ālis, ((the third-declension two-termination suffix (neuter -āle) used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or numerals) or the French, Middle French and Old French –el & -al.  It was use to denote the sense "of or pertaining to", an adjectival suffix appended (most often to nouns) originally most frequently to words of Latin origin, but since used variously and also was used to form nouns, especially of verbal action.  The alternative form in English remains -ual (-all being obsolete).  The origin remains uncertain but the Latin is thought likely formed from the Etruscan genitive suffix.  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  First used in 1914 in the social sciences, it entered use in architectural criticism in 1930.  Functionalism was also a briefly fashionable school of thought in international relations in the early inter-war years and in any context, it’s often used with an initial capital letter.

Functionalist architecture: Bauhaus School building, Dessau (1925-1926).

Sociology: Three of the the discipline's usual suspects

Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) was a French sociologist who developed the theory of functionalism from data he collected while exploring links between social integration and suicide; his findings suggesting social institutions should be understood in terms of the contribution their existence makes to society.   In a nod to Hobbes (and even Marx and Freud), Durkheim described man as homo duplex in which all have dual natures, one selfish, the other concerned with shared moral values.

US sociologist Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) was the dominant theorist in American sociology during the mid-twentieth century whose most important work was The Social System (1951) in which he describes the most elaborate model yet constructed of the ways institutions in society contribute to social order. He was influential but later attracted criticism for his work being too derivative of earlier German models of the two dichotomous sociological types, gemeinschaft & gesellschaft (community and society).

Robert Merton (1910–2003) was an American sociologist, who work saw phrases from academic sociology (such as “self-fulfilling prophecy”) enter popular use.  He suggested in different societies, institutions, however functional may tend to act with some autonomy so that a change in a particular institution may have little or no effect on others.  He noted also that despite the implications of Durkheim’s work, not all social systems necessarily perform a positive function and that some institutions like family or religion aren’t part of all human societies.  Merton claimed his method of analysis meant functionalism could no longer be perceived as ideological.

Structural Functionalism

Structural functionalism was a dominant school of thought in sociology for much of the twentieth century.  It built models of a symbiotic society where the framework was its institutions and its bonding energy the functions they fulfilled, viewing human interaction as producing a complex system of parts, each with a specific function which contributed to the stability and functioning of the whole.  Sometimes appearing unimportant if viewed in isolation, the component parts were understood as interdependence building blocks of social institutions, their function in the structure their role in maintaining social order and stability.  The structural functionalist model asserts every society has certain structures (divided classically into organizations, institutions & norms) which fulfil important functions ensuring the operation of society.  In the language of the discipline, the functions can be manifest (intended and recognized) or latent (unintended and often unrecognized), social stability maximized when these structures and functions are in balance.

In sociology, functionalism is where it's found and it's found by neo-Marxists, Mean Girls (2004) fans and others.

In the way of academia, the remarkably simple theoretical model of structural functionalism attracted very clever sociologists who published papers by the thousand adding layers of nuanced complexity, mapping onto the ever-growing literature models every imaginable social dynamic, some of which (notably power structures, race conflict, social change, feminism and sexual politics) exposed the limitations of the approach.  For that reason, it came to be much criticized, not because the theory’s theoretical framework was fundamentally wrong but because some some contradictions in specific interactions exposed flaws which meant it could never be a global “theory of everything”.  Long unfashionable, its core assumptions continue to underlie (and even underpin according to some) a number of modern orthodoxies in sociology.

1939 Mercedes-Benz T80, Mercedes-Benz Museum, Stuttgart, Germany.

When building machines to set the world's lands speed record (LSR), nothing matters except functionalism, everything else discarded as extraneous.  Designed by Ferdinand Porsche (1875–1951), the Mercedes-Benz T80 was built between 1937-1939 to lay siege to LSR but with the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945), the attempt was never made.  It was a single-purpose machine designed to achieve maximum terminal velocity and for that reason, the T80 was an exercise in pure functionalism; not one nut or bolt was used other than for the purpose of ensuring its top speed would be as high as possible.  Cognizant of the existing record, the initial goal was 550 km/h (342 mph) but as others in the late 1930s raised the mark, so were Professor Porsche’s ambitions and when the final specification was set in 1939, the target was 650 km/h (404 mph) (not 750 km/h (466 mph) as is sometimes quoted).  Configured with six wheels, the T80 would have used a supercharged, fuel-injected, 44.5 litre (2716 cubic inch) Daimler-Benz DB 603 inverted V12 aero-engine, an enlarged version of the DB 601 which powered a number of Messerschmitts and other warplanes.  Intended for use in bombers, the T80’s engine was actually the third DB 603 prototype and tuned initially to generate some 2237 kW (3000 horsepower) on an exotic cocktail of methyl alcohol (63%), benzene (16%), ethanol (12%), acetone (4.4%), nitrobenzene (2.2%), avgas (2%), and ether (0.4%) with MW (methanol-water) injection for charge cooling and as an anti-detonant.  This was more than twice the output of the Hurricanes, Spitfires and Messerschmitts which in 1940 fought the Battle of Britain but Porsche’s calculations suggested 2,574 kW (3,500 hp) would be needed to touch the 650 km/h target and the DB 603 would have been tweaked to achieve this as an EWR (emergency war rating, a concept of extracting maximum power at the expense of component longevity).

1939 Mercedes-Benz T80, Mercedes-Benz Museum, Stuttgart, Germany.

Some 8 metres (26 feet) in length with two of the three axles providing drive, the weight when fuelled and crewed was some 2600 kg (2.9 short tons) while the measured coefficient of drag (CD) was reported at 0.18, an impressive figure for such a thing as late as the 1990s and it would have been lower still, had wind-tunnel testing not revealed the need to add two small “winglets” to provide sufficient down-force to ensure the shape didn’t at speed assume the characteristics of an aeroplane and "try to take off"; notably, when in 1964 the Bluebird-Proteus CN7 ran on Australia's Lake Eyre salt flats, it was the first LSR machine to include “ground effect” technology to reduce lift.  Fundamentally, the aerodynamics are thought sound although there would be the usual vulnerability to cross-winds, the cause of several deaths in such attempts and the surface conditions of what was a temporarily closed public road would also have been critical; whether the tyre technology of the time would have been adequate under such conditions will never be known.  Had the T80 been run on the long, flat straights of the salt flats in the US or Australia, the prospects of success would have been better but for propaganda purposes (always a theme for the Nazis) the LSR runs had to be on German soil.

Bluebird-Proteus CN7, Lake Eyre, Australia, 1964.

The plan was for the attempt to be staged in January 1940 during what the regime dubbed RekordWoche (Record Week) on a section of the Berlin-Halle-Leipzig autobahn (now part of the A9), closed for the occasion.  The legend is that Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) himself choose the nickname Schwarzer Vogel (Black Bird) but that too may have been propaganda.  Hitler did though like romantic names so the story is least plausible.  He also had so little regard for titles he used them like cheap gifts and bribes, creating 26 field marshals during his rule including 7 after in February 1943 he'd declared he'd never appoint another.  That vow was prompted by his disappointment at Friedrich Paulus (1890–1957) declining to shoot himself and instead capitulating to the Red Army besieging Stalingrad.  Hitler had promoted Paulus the very day he surrendered and despite Hitler offering him this "one final satisfaction", he chose not to blow his brains out "for that Bohemian corporal" (a phrase attributed to Generalfeldmarschall Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934; Reichspräsident (1925-1934) of Germany 1925-1934) who misunderstood the geography of Hitler's birthplace).  The Führer also appointed Ferdinand Porsche a professor although that was in recognition of his stellar work in the armaments industry rather than his equally impressive contributions to designing fast cars and anyway not too much should be made of it, Hitler conferring the academic honor even on his favorite photographer.  The design of the T80 was done in the era of slide rules and although some computer work has been applied to simulating the event, there’s no consensus on whether the thing really would have hit 650 km/h and set a new LSR.  As it was, it wasn't until August 1963 a turbojet-powered machine was clocked at 655.722 km/h (407.447) mph in a run on the Bonneville Salt Flats.  It was there in November 1965 a machine powered by four fuel injected Chrysler 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) hemi V8s recorded a two-way average of 658.526 km/h (409.277 mph) and, in the class for wheel-driven vehicles, that mark stood for some 43 years.  In July 1964, it had been rain-affected surface conditions on the salt flats at Lake Eyre which had sabotaged the run by the gas turbine-powered Bluebird-Proteus CN7, limiting the speed to 648.73 km/h (403.10 mph).  Had the surface still been as hard and true as it had been when surveyed in 1962, the Bluebird would have a higher average over the measured distance because it was clocked at 710 km/h (440 mph) towards the end of a run.  The vehicle had a theoretical maximum speed of some 800 km/h (500 mph) but that was calculated in what was still the age of the slide rule and most experts now doubt that was attainable although something in excess of 450 mph (720 km/h) was plausible.  No wheel-driven car has ever come close to 500 mph.

Crepuscule

Crepuscule (pronounced kri-puhs-kyool or krep-uh-skyool)

(1) Twilight; dusk.

(2) By extension, a brief period of transition between two states.

1350-1400: From the Middle French crepuscule, from the thirteenth century Old French crépuscule, from the Latin crepusculum (morning or evening twilight), the construct being crepus- (akin to creper (dark, dusky; obscure)) + -culum, the accusative singular of cūlus (a vulgar term for the buttocks) from the Proto-Italic kūlos, from the primitive Indo-European kul-, from kew- (to cover), the cognates for which included the Old Irish cúl (bottom) and the Lithuanian kẽvalas (skin, cover); it was related to cutis (hide).  Crepuscule, crepuscle & crepusculum are nouns, crepuscular is an adjective; the noun plural is crepuscules.

Before the provision of electricity which by the twentieth century meant much of the world was no longer constrained in their activities by the hours of sunlight, even other forms of artificial light could be variously expensive, unavailable or unreliable so sunlight was important, socially and economically so it’s not surprising a number of words evolved to describe the transition from light to dark including blackness, dark, dusk, gloom, obscurity, twilight, sundown, sunset, black, blackout, brownout, cloudiness, dimness, duskiness, eclipse, lightlessness, murk, murkiness, nightfall, blue hour, gloaming, evenfall, fogfall & smokefall.

Lindsay Lohan in daylight (left), as the crepusculum descends (centre) and in the dark of night (right).

The most attractive of these is twilight, an evocative word and one to which poets have always been drawn, whether to suggest some sense of uncertainty or the last days of life before the darkness of death.  Twilight was from the Middle English twilight & twyelyghte, the construct being twi- (double, half-) +‎ light, thus literally “second light, half-light”.  It was cognate with the Scots twa-licht, twylicht & twielicht (twilight), the Low German twilecht & twelecht (twilight), the Dutch tweelicht (twilight, dusk) and the German Zwielicht (twilight, dusk).  In the Old English, the form was twēone lēoht (twilight).  The curious word twilit (the simple past tense and past participle of twilight) has long intrigued etymologists.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) the earliest known use dates only from 1869 and the speculation is it was coined by someone who found the conventional forms (twilitten & twilighted) inelegant.  Smokefall (the close of the day before nightfall, when fog comes) was apparently used as early as the eleventh century and reflects the use of “smoke” in some regional dialects to refer variously to darkness, smoke and fog.  After thing became more precise, it was re-purposed to describe “the soot which falls from a cloud of smoke” and much later was adopted by those creating special effects to mean “an artificial waterfall of smoke for shows”, the smoke (sometimes combined with a mist of fine water vapor) used to reflect images created by light projection.

The development of languages in cultures of course reflects their environment and priorities although the oft-repeated claim that the Inuit and other nations in arctic and sub-arctic regions had 400 (the number does vary from source to source) words for “snow” are misleading although linguistic anthropologists have explored this on a number of occasions and all have concluded there are at least a few dozen and if the net is cast wider to encompass all aspects of snow (types of tracks in snow, suitability for wildlife etc), then the number is in three figures.  Linguistics is a discipline which illustrates structural functionalism in its pure form: words are created according to need and remain in use if they fulfill a useful purpose.  To most living in urban environments in industrial societies “snow” is adequate for most situations but those running ski-fields need more nuances while for the peoples in arctic regions, the correct description of the type of snow they will soon have to traverse can be the difference between life and death.

Chaste

Chaste (pronounced cheyst)

(1) Refraining from sexual intercourse, either by choice or to conform to some imposed system of morality or religion; to be virtuous.

(2) Not engaging in sexual relations; the state of voluntary celibacy.

(3) A virgin.

(4) In conduct, literature etc, free from obscenity; decent.

(5) By extension, anything define as pure (white snow, certain grades of stainless steel, architecture simple in style and not needlessly embellished or excessively ornamented etc).

(6) An unmarried female (obsolete).

1175–1225: From the Middle English chaste (virtuous, pure from unlawful sexual intercourse (as defined by the Church)), from the Old French chaste (morally pure), from the Latin castus (clean, pure, morally pure), the verbal adjective from the same root as careō (I lack), possibly from the primitive Indo-European ḱes- (to cut).  The most common modern use (one who refrains from sexual intercourse) is the transferred sense of "sexually pure" which had emerged by the fifteenth century (although chaste as a noun meaning (a virgin person) had been in use from the early fourteenth century).  The meaning was by the 1620s extended to conduct or language “free from obscenity”, and in general to artistic or literary styles which were “simple and unadorned” by the 1750s.  “Chaste architecture” (that with pure lines and without needless embellishments) became an (admiring) term describing the built environment in the early nineteenth century but should not be confused with the later schools of functionalism and brutalism.  The adjective unchaste first appeared in the late fourteenth century.  Depending on context, the synonyms can include continent, clean, decorous, proper, unsullied, celibate, virginal and virtuous or unaffected, unadorned & neat.  The antonyms can include immoral, promiscuous, coarse, rococo or ornate.  The verbs chasten, chastening & chastened do have an archaic sense related sexual purity but are most often used as forms of chastise (to punish, scold, censure or castigate).  Chaste, chaster & chastest are adjectives, chasten, chastening & chastened are verbs chastely is an adverb and chastity, chasteness & chastenedness are nouns; the most common (though rare) noun plural is chastities.  Chasity is also a (rare) proper noun when used as a female given name.  When Chastity Bono (b 1969; the only child of 1960s pop-music husband & wife duo Sonny (b 1935) & Cher (b 1946) Bono) transitioned to become a trans-man, he chose the name Chaz.

The Chastity Belt

Lindsay Lohan announcing (the resumption of) her chasteness, 2018.

There must be few medieval accessories which have been as well documented and displayed as the chastity belt which, according to legend, was a device men would have their wives wear during those weeks, months or even years while they were off somewhere performing military service.  The term “belt” is a little misleading because the “belt” component was there merely to ensure the vital components remained in place and couldn’t be removed or otherwise penetrated, a key-lock system included; they key of course held by the travelling husband.  The vital components were fashioned usually in metal (there are some accounts of those made using a thick leather) and were designed to make sexual intercourse anatomically impossible.

However, like much that in the centuries after the Renaissance came to be regarded as historical “fact”, the tale that the origins of the chastity belt was as an anti-temptation device during the Crusades has been discredited and there is no credible evidence the things even existed prior to the fifteenth century and that although they were certainly documented in the 1500s, they appears to have been much discussed but little used although there are references in medical texts to women fashioning such things (though perhaps not of metal) for their own protection against rape.  Intriguingly too, there are records of one being found on the skeleton of a young woman in her grave, fitted presumably to protect her virtue on her path to heaven or wherever else she was headed.  The great flourishing in chastity belt production actually happened in the nineteenth century when there was demand from museums and travelling exhibitions for such things and, because real relics were rare to the point of non-existence, fakes were needed.  Just as many of the gruesome and supposedly “Medieval” torture devices were products of the Victorian imagination, the chastity belts were equally bogus, although as curators of such things have noted, many were a tribute to the skills of the craftspeople (and women really were involved in artisan work) who not only managed to make convincing “artefacts” but rendered the patina of centuries.

The nineteenth century also saw the beginnings of psychiatry as it would now be understood and one of the orthodoxies of the age was that masturbation was harmful.  Psychiatrists (mostly) didn’t claim masturbation made people go blind but they assembled plenty of other reasons the practice was so undesirable it should be avoided and as in many things, suggestions of abstinence were doubtlessly understood to be ineffective so physical devices were often recommended.  Interestingly, many were aimed at the parents of female adolescents and latter-day feminist criticism has suggested this emphasis was because it was feared if girls learned about the pleasures of sex it might lead them to promiscuity, the implication that self-administration was likely to be a more pleasant experience than sex with most men.  In the medical literature, it wasn’t until the late 1920s that the general disapprobation of masturbation was relaxed and only in the post-war years did the idea fade from mainstream psychiatry (although the churches often continued to believe the old ways were best).  Chastity belts haven’t entirely gone away and every now and then, in the parts of the internet where bizarre and salacious stories are the best click-bait, there will be reports of them being worn (often unwillingly); many of these tales seem to come from east of Suez.  In the world of consensual depravity that is the BDSM (bondage and discipline, domination and submission, sadism and masochism), chastity belts are a niche device; the purposes of use presumably vary.

Congress of Berlin (1881), oil on canvas by Anton von Werner (1843–1915).  Lord Salisbury is the tall, bearded figure, third from the right.

The Congress of Berlin (13 June-13 July 1878) was held to re-organize the arrangement of states in the Balkans after the Russo-Turkish War of (1877–1878).  It was convened in Berlin because (1) the Russians would have been unwilling to attend elsewhere (especially London) and (2) because Otto von Bismarck (1815-1989; Chancellor of the German Empire 1871-1890) did not want anything to be agreed which might lead to war or anything else which might disrupt his intricate system of interlocking treaties and alliances which maintained a general peace in Europe.  The language of diplomacy was then still French so Bismarck insisted on all discussions being conducted in French (even though) the French representatives were there as little more than observers.  The UK's prime-minister, Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881, UK prime-minister Feb-Dec 1868 & 1874-1880) didn’t speak French so the transaction of the substantive matters fell to the foreign secretary, Lord Salisbury (1830–1903; UK Prime Minister for thirteen years variously 1885-1902 ("prime-minister since God knows when" in Churchill's words)).  Under Bismarck’s strict chairmanship, the congress proceeded with a rare efficiency, concluding in a month, securing peace for a generation and gaining the crumbling Ottoman Empire a final four decades of existence.  Salisbury regarded the outcome of the conference as most satisfactory but what gave him the greatest amusement was when, at the final ceremony, the Sultan of Turkey presented Lady Salisbury with “The Order of Chastity, Third Class” which the marchioness accepted gracefully.  Lord Salisbury was later told by the protocol staff that only the wives of crowned monarchs received The Order of Chastity, First Class while other royal ladies received the Second Class and the wives of diplomats the Third Class.

Baroque

Baroque (pronounced buh-rohk or ba-rawk (French)).

(1) Of or relating to a style of architecture and art originating in Italy in the early seventeenth century and variously prevalent in Europe and the New World for a century and a half, characterized by free and sculptural use of the classical orders and ornament, by forms in elevation and plan suggesting movement, and by dramatic effect in which architecture, painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts often worked to combined effect (often used with an initial capital letter).

(2) In music, of or relating to the period following the Renaissance, extending (circa 1600-1750) which tended to be characterized by extensive use of the thorough bass and of ornamentation to create dramatic effects. Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frederick Handel, and Antonio Vivaldi were great composers of the baroque era.

(3) In literature, a style of prose thought extravagantly ornate, florid, and convoluted in character or style.

(4) An irregularly shaped pearl (rare except in technical use).

(5) In pre-modern twentieth century design or engineering, objects intricately or ornately detailed in a way no longer financially viable.

(6) Descriptively (of any object where the technical definitions don’t apply), variously (1) ornate, intricate, decorated, laden with detail & (2) complex and beautiful, despite an outward irregularity.

(7) In stonemasonry & woodworking, chiselled from stone, or shaped from wood, in a garish, crooked, twisted, or slanted sort of way, grotesque or embellished with figures and forms such that every level of relief gives way to more details and contrasts.

(8) Figuratively, something overly or needlessly complicated, applied especially to bureaucracy or instances like accounting systems which either are or appear to be designed to conceal or confuse.

1765: From the French baroque (originally “pearl of irregular shape”), from the Portuguese barroco or barroca (irregularly shaped pearl) which was in some way influenced by either or both the Spanish berrueco or barrueco (granitic crag, irregular pearl, spherical nodule) and the Italian barocco, of uncertain ultimate origin but which may be from the Latin verrūca (wart).  The etymology is however murky and some suggest the Portuguese words may directly have come from the Spanish berruca (a wart) also from the Latin verrūca (a steep place, a height (and thus “a wart” or “an excrescence on a precious stone”).  Most scholars think at some point it probably conflated with Medieval Latin baroco, an invented word for a kind of obfuscating syllogism although one speculative alternative is the word was derived from the work of the Italian painter Federigo Barocci (1528-1612), a founder of the style, but most think this mere coincidence.  The comparative is baroque and the superlative baroquest, both thankfully rare.  Baroque is a noun & adjective, baroqueness is a noun and baroquely is an adverb, the noun plural is baroques.

Marble Court, Palace of Versailles.  Commissioned in the 1660s by Louis XIV (1638–1715; le Roi Soleil (the Sun King), King of France 1643-1715), the Palace of Versailles is thought one of the the finest example of secular Baroque architecture.

Baroque is one of those strange words in English which has evolved to have several layers of meaning including (1) a term which defines epochs in music & architecture, (2) a term referencing the characteristics in the music & architecture most associated with those periods, (3) a term which is a negative criticism of those characteristics, (4) a term which is (by extension) a negative criticism of the excessively ornate in any field (especially in literature) and (5) a term applied admiringly to things intricately or elaborately detailed.  In English, baroque began as an expression of contempt for the style of architecture which most historians believe began in early seventeenth century Rome and which shocked many with its audacious departure from the traditions of the Renaissance which paid such homage to (what was at least imagined to be) the Classical lines from Antiquity.  In architecture, baroque has never been exactly defined, something some explain by analogy with Clement Attlee’s (1883–1967; UK prime-minister 1945-1951) observation that it was as pointless to define socialism as it was an elephant for “...if an elephant ever walked into the room, all would know what it was”.

Karlskirche, Vienna.The Vatican's Saint Peter’s Square is often used to illustrate Baroque architecture and all those colonnades do make quite a statement but Vienna's Karlskirche better represents the way church architects took to the form.  It was commissioned in 1713 by Charles VI (1685–1740; Holy Roman Emperor 1711-1740) after the end of the last great epidemic of Plague as an act of memorial to Cardinal Carlo Borromeo (1538-1584; Archbishop of Milan 1564-1584), revered as a healer of those suffering from Plague.

Actually, although etymologists would say that's true, that’s not how the word is actually often applied because the terms baroque and rococo are often used interchangeably by non-specialists when speaking of just about any building adorned with the elaborate details not seen since modernism, functionalism & brutalism prevailed.  What distinguishes things is less the actual shapes than the feeling imparted, baroque and rococo both noted for asymmetry, luxuriant detailing, extravagant, unexpected curves & lines and a polychromatic richness but where baroque’s language is of grandeur, weight & monumentalism, rococo’s implementations summon thoughts of lightness, playfulness and frivolity.  Tellingly, rococo, when used as a critique is applied almost always in the negative, suggesting something fussy, pointlessly elaborate and overstated whereas baroque is often used admiringly, literature about the only field in which use is universally negative.  The other common use of baroque in the negative applies to bureaucracy or tangled administrative systems when it’s used as a synonym of byzantine.  For those seeking a rule of thumb, except in literature, baroque tends not to be used negatively and when describing objects which contain ornate or intricate detailing, it’s adopted usually to suggest something complex and beautiful, despite an outward irregularity.  Baroque suggests restraint and good taste (there are many other words with which to describe the garish, crooked, twisted or grotesque) and to damn something as silly, over detailed and laden with decorations with no functional or aesthetic purpose, there’s rococo.

Winter Palace, Saint Petersberg.  Some do find the Winter Palace a bit rococo and there are elements of that in the interior but architecturally, it's an example of early baroque, albeit much modified by later renovations.  It was built as a residence of Peter the Great (Peter I, 1672-1725; Tsar of Russia 1682-1725) and remain an official palace of the Romanov Tsars between 1732 and the 1917 revolutions.  The present appearance reflects both the restorative work of the late 1830s when it was rebuilt after a severe fire and the restoration after the damage suffered during the Siege of Leningrad (1941-1944).

The use in the language of literary criticism is, like any application of “baroque” in the non-visual arts, inherently imprecise.  Even in music, it’s understood as a period and many of the compositions which emerged from the era do have a style which is recognisably “baroque” but there was also much which was anything but.  The same can of course be said of the European buildings of the same period, the overwhelming majority of which were neither “baroque”, nor memorable, the adjective in what is now called the “built environment” making sense only when used of representational architecture.  That’s a well-understood distinction in architecture and even painting but more contentious in music, something made murkier still by musicologists having divided the baroque into the “early”, “middle” and late”, mapped onto a range of styles which were sometimes particular to one country and sometimes popular in many.  Interestingly, although as a generalized descriptor it needs still to be thought of as something which began as a term of derision in architecture (and it is from there it gained its parameters), there is an earlier, anonymous piece of (not especially serious) opera criticism which labelled a work as du barocque (in the sense of the original meaning “pearl or irregular shape”), damning the music as un-melodic, discordant and a roll-call of just about every known compositional device; something more like a student’s assignment than a opera.  It’s a critique not greatly different from that made some three centuries later by comrade Stalin (1878–1953; leader of the USSR, 1924-1953) who’d been displeased by one of comrade Dmitri Shostakovich’s (1906-1975) operas, calling it формализм (formalism), "chaos instead of music", a self-indulgence of technique by a composer interested only in the admiration of other composers.

L'Estasi di Santa Teresa (The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa) by Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) is a sculptural group rendered in white marble, set in an elevated aedicule in the Cornaro Chapel of the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome.  It’s thought one of the sculptural masterpieces of the High Roman Baroque and depicts Teresa of Ávila, a Spanish Carmelite nun and saint, in a state of religious ecstasy, a spear-holding angel watching over her.  The installation in 2007 (briefly one supposes) gained baroque sculpture a new audience when it was used in a popular meme which noted some similarity with an early morning photograph of Lindsay Lohan resting in a Cadillac.

The last days of baroque: 1967 Mercedes–Benz 600 Pullman Laudaulet (left & rght) and 1971 Mercedes-Benz 280 SE 3.5 Cabriolet (centre).  There was intricate detailing on the W111 and W100s, the last truly coach-built Mercedes-Benz.  Most were produced between 1963-1971 although the W100s continued in a trickle, substantially hand-built, until 1981.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), remembered as the philosopher who loomed over the French revolution, was also a composer and in his Dictionnaire de la musique (Dictionary of Music, 1767) declared baroque music to be that “...in which the harmony is confused, and loaded with modulations and dissonances. The singing is harsh and unnatural, the intonation difficult, and the movement limited...”, noting the term was a re-purposing of baroco (an alternative spelling of baroko (from a mediaeval mnemonic chant and a mode of syllogism used whenever some point seemed to be exist only pointlessly to obfuscate), used since the thirteenth century by philosophers discussing the tendency by some of their peers (usually those in the Church or university) needlessly to complicate simple concepts and arguments, just for the sake of grandiose academic gloss; formalism as it were.  Etymologists however remain unconvinced by Rousseau’s speculation and cite earlier evidence which suggests it was from architecture that the use in painting and music was derived, pondering that had Rousseau’s musicology been influenced by him being an architect rather than a philosopher, he too may have identified the source in brick and stone.  Anyway, baroque music as it’s now understood is a surprisingly recent construct, discussed as a thing only in the twentieth century, the term widely used only after the 1950s when the advent of long-playing (LP) records made the packaging and distribution of long-form composition practical and the industry became interested in categorizations, the Baroque something different from the Renaissance and the Classical despite the popular association of them all as one.

Vintage

Vintage (pronounced vin-tij)

(1) The wine from a particular harvest or crop (usually a season).

(2) Of wine, the product of a season of outstanding quality (labeled by calendar year)

(3) The annual produce of the grape harvest, especially with reference to the wine obtained (technically also recorded as the “yield of grapes during one season”).

(4) The time of gathering grapes, or of winemaking.

(5) The act or process of producing wine; winemaking.

(6) The class of a dated object with reference to era of production or use.

(7) A wine of a specified vintage:

(8) Attributively, a subset of something, representing often the most memorable or highest quality items produced (although it can apply to all associated with the designated era) such as vintage cars, vintage dresses etc.  Sometimes, what constitutes a “vintage” item (as opposed to a “veteran” or “antique” etc) is defined by various institutions (vintage watches for example said to be those dated between 1870 and 1980).

(9) Attributively, something old-fashioned or obsolete.

(10) Attributively, something the being the best of its kind.

1400-1450: From the Middle English vendage & vyndage, from the Anglo-Norman vendenge, from vinter, from the Old French vendage & vendenge (vine-harvest, yield from a vineyard (and cognate with the French vendange)), from the Latin vindēmia (a harvest of grapes, vintage), the construct being vīn(um) (grape; wine) + dēmō (take off or away, remove), the construct being de (of; from, away from) + (e)mō (acquire, obtain).  A number of European languages including Spanish, Polish and (surprisingly) France adopted “vintage from English”.  Vintage is a noun, verb & adjective, vintager is a noun, vintagey is (a non-standard) adjective and vintaged & vintaging are verbs; the noun plural is vintages.

Warrnambool Heritage "The Aged Vintage" cheese.  Very good.

The meaning shifted to “age or year of a particular wine” after 1745 with the general adjectival sense of “being of an earlier time” emerging in the early 1880s.  In the business of winemaking, the notion of “vintages” came in the twentieth century to become elastic, the term not of necessity misleading, just one which needed to be understood.  Originally, a vintage was one wine, produced with grapes grown and harvested in the one season and that system is still used but the word has long been used also as a label to denote “something of a superior quality”.  The taste of wine being a subjective thing however and something the industry (often in the small print or with a “NV” added) markets as “non-vintage” may by many buyers be preferred to a “vintage” because the “un-vintaged” drop might be a blend of wine from several years; something routinely done to ensure a particular product tastes much the same from year to year.  Even then, while the regulatory environments in many jurisdictions do specify that to qualify as a “vintage”, the fluid in the bottle must contain a minimum volume from the year on the label but the “foreign” content can be as high as a quarter and according to EU regulators, in some places special exemptions have been granted permitting a 50/50 split.  The use also proved attractive to others and there are many “vintage” cheeses and other foodstuffs, the word in this context meaning little more than being sold at a higher price.

Brass era: 1915 Stutz Bearcat Model F.  Although untrue, it was for years part of Stutz folklore than anyone who died in one merited an obituary in the New York Times.

“Vintage” has been used of cars since 1928 but in the post-war years when the idea of cars as collectables coalesced, in various places categories were created and while somewhat arbitrary, the cut-off points between one era and another tended to reflect the existence of something significant which (at least for the majority of the vehicles involved) made them in some way identifiably different from what came before.  The terms vary: The most evocative is the “brass era” used in the US and it covers essentially anything produced between the beginning of organized production in the mid 1890s and 1915, the name chosen because of the extensive use of brass for fittings such as headlamp surrounds radiators and levers, the polished metal lending the distinctiveness.  The choice of 1915 as the end of the brass era reflected the decline in the use of the material as mass production made the use of other materials more attractive but the main factor was that was the year Ford ceased use for the Model T, the car which had for years dominated the market.  In the UK (and therefore throughout most of the old British Empire), cars produced prior to 1919 were called “veteran” although there was for a time a fashion to speak of them as “Edwardian, a reference to the reign of Edward VII (1841–1910; King of the UK & Emperor of India 1901-1910), the imprecision in the dates accounted for by “Edwardian” being used as a descriptor of the fashion, architecture etc of the era rather than the reign proper.  “Vintage” cars are those made between 1919-1930 (or 1916-1930 in US use) and as an epoch that follows what was at the time called “post-war” (between the end of the World War (1914-1918) and the onset of the Great Depression.  Conveniently, it conforms (more or less also to the advances in engineering and style which made the machines of the 1920s distinct from those of the next decade.

Post-war classic: 1948 Cisitalia 202 CMM by Vignale.

So, what in political science are the “inter-war years” are divided by the collector car community into “vintage” and “pre-war”, the later epoch being 1930-1942 (US passenger car production ending early in 1942).  Most of what was produced between 1945-1948 was a continuation of what was abandoned with the onset of hostilities but nothing produced after 1945 is grouped with the “pre-war” cohort and the era is generally called “post-war classics” and depending on who is writing the classification, that period ends somewhere around 1960-1962, motoring’s beginning of “the modern” although that’s obviously inexact, some strikingly modern stuff coming from as early as the 1940s and some true relics still on sale as late as 1968.  These definitions don’t apply to stuff made outside the West and in places like the Warsaw Pact nations, the relics would endure until the 1990s; nor do they include retro devices like the Morgan or products of pure-functionalism like Jeeps and Land Rovers.  In the modern age, the labeling has changed and the tendency now is to use self-explanatory terms like “1970”s, “muscle car era” etc.

Lindsay Lohan in a vintage Herve Leger bandage dress, New York, May 2007 (left) and in a vintage-style dress, New York, February 2017.    

In fashion, “vintage” can mean a piece from decades ago or just a few seasons earlier.  Vintage items can sometimes be genuine museum pieces or simply be “old” enough to have gained some sort of respectability.  To be “vintage”, something needs to be the product of an acknowledged designer or manufacturer; items which have gained their notoriety for some other reason (who it’s associated with or the circumstances in which it was worn) can be newsworthy but they’re not “vintage”.  The word is used also of style, a “vintage look” an indicating that an outfit is something which either recalls something associated with an older style or uses known motifs to achieve the effect.  Depending on the implementation, the latter can also be treated as a “retro” whereas a “vintage look” is something where the relationship is more vague.

There is vintage and there is retro: Lindsay Lohan in an art deco mini-dress, said to be a vintage original, paired with a pair of retro Prada stilettos in burgundy.

Mini

Mini (pronounce min-ee)

(1) A skirt or dress with a hemline well above the knee, popular since the 1960s.

(2) A small car, build by Austin, Morris, associated companies and successor corporations between 1959-2000.  Later reprised by BMW in a retro-interpretation.

(3) As minicomputer, a generalized (historic) descriptor for a multi-node computer system smaller than a mainframe; the colloquial term mini was rendered meaningless by technological change (Briefly, personal computers (PC) were known as micros).

(4) A term for anything of a small, reduced, or miniature size.

Early 1900s: A shorted form of miniature, ultimately from the Latin minium (red lead; vermilion), a development influenced by the similarity to minimum and minus.  In English, miniature was borrowed from the late sixteenth century Italian miniatura (manuscript illumination), from miniare (rubricate; to illuminate), from the Latin miniō (to color red), from minium (red lead).  Although uncertain, the source of minium is thought to be Iberian; the vivid shade of vermilion was used to mark particular words in manuscripts.  Despite the almost universal consensus mini is a creation of twentieth-century, there is a suggested link in the 1890s connected with Yiddish and Hebrew.

As a prefix, mini- is a word-forming element meaning "miniature, minor", again abstracted from miniature, with the sense presumed to have been influenced by minimum.  The vogue for mini- as a prefix in English word creation dates from the early 1960s, the prime influences thought to be (1) the small British car, (2) the dresses & skirts with high-hemlines and (3) developments in the hardware of electronic components which permitted smaller versions of products to be created as low-cost consumer products although there had been earlier use, a minicam (a miniature camera) advertised as early as 1937.  The mini-skirt (skirt with a hem-line well above the knee) dates from 1965 and the first use of mini-series (television series of short duration and on a single theme) was labelled such in 1971 and since then, mini- has been prefixed to just about everything possible.  To Bridget Jones (from Bridget Jones's Diary (1996) a novel by Helen Fielding (b 1958)), a mini-break was a very short holiday; in previous use in lawn tennis it referred to a tiebreak, a point won against the server when ahead.

Jean Shrimpton and the mini-skirt

Jean Shrimpton, Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne, 1965.

The Victorian Racing Club (VRC) had in 1962 added Fashions on the Field to the Melbourne’s Spring Racing Carnival at Flemington and for three years, women showed up with the usual hats and accessories, including gloves and stockings, then de rigueur for ladies of the Melbourne establishment.  Then on the VRC’s Derby Day in 1965, English model Jean Shrimpton (b 1942) wore a white mini, its hem a daring four inches (100 mm) above the knee.  It caused stir.

The moment has since been described as the pivotal moment for the introduction of the mini to an international audience which is probably overstating things but for Melbourne it was certainly quite a moment.  Anthropologists have documented evidence of the mini in a variety of cultures over the last 4000 odd years so, except perhaps in Melbourne, circa 1965, it was nothing new but that didn’t stop the fashion industry having a squabble about who “invented” the mini.  French designer André Courrèges (1923-2016) explicitly claimed the honor, accusing his London rival to the claim, Mary Quant (b 1930) of merely “commercializing it”.  Courrèges had shown minis at shows in both 1964 and 1965 and his sketches date from 1961.  Quant’s designs are even earlier but given the anthropologists’ findings, it seems a sterile argument.

Minimalism: Lindsay Lohan and the possibilities of the mini.

The Mini

1962 Riley Elf.

The British Motor Corporation (BMC) first released their Mini in 1959, the Morris version called the Mini Minor (a link to the larger Minor, a model then in production) while the companion Austin was the Seven, a re-use of the name of a tiny car of the inter-war years.  The Mini name however caught on and the Seven was re-named Mini early in 1962 although the up-market (and, with modifications to the body, slightly more than merely badge-engineered) versions by Riley and Wolseley were never called Mini, instead adopting names either from or hinting at their more independent past: the Elf and Hornet respectively.  The Mini name was in 1969 separated from Austin and Morris, marketed as stand-alone marque until 1980 when the Austin name was again appended, an arrangement which lasted until 1988 when finally it reverted to Mini although some were badged as Rovers for export markets.  The Mini remained in production until 2000, long before then antiquated but still out-lasting the Metro, its intended successor.

1969 Austin Maxi 1500.

The allure of the Mini name obviously impressed BMC.  By 1969, BMC had, along with a few others, been absorbed into the Leyland conglomerate and the first release of the merged entity was in the same linguistic tradition: The Maxi.  A harbinger of what was to come, the Maxi encapsulated all that would go wrong within Leyland during the 1970s; a good idea, full of advanced features, poorly developed, badly built, unattractive and with an inadequate service network.  The design was so clever that to this day the space utilization has rarely been matched and had it been a Renault or a Citroën, the ungainly appearance and underpowered engine might have been forgiven because of the functionality but the poor quality control, lack of refinement and clunky aspects of some of the drivetrain meant success was only ever modest.  Like much of what Leyland did, the Maxi should have been a great success but even car thieves avoided the thing; for much of its life it was reported as the UK's least stolen vehicle.          

1979 Vanden Plas Mini (a possibly "outlaw" project by Leyland's outpost in South Africa).

Curiously, given the fondness of BMC (and subsequently Leyland) for badge-engineering, there was never an MG version of the Mini (although a couple of interpretations were privately built), the competition potential explored by a joint-venture with the Formula One constructors, Cooper, the name still used for some versions of the current BMW Mini.  Nor was there a luxury version finished by coachbuilders Vanden Plas which, with the addition of much timber veneer and leather to mundane vehicles, provided the parent corporations with highly profitable status-symbols with which to delight the middle-class although there was one "outlaw".  Between August 1978-September 1979, Leyland's South African operation (Leykor) offered a Vanden Plas Mini.  It used the 1098cm³ A-Series engine, a four-speed manual transmission and drum brakes all round.  Available only in a metallic bronze with gold basket weave side-graphics (shades of brown seemed to stalk the 1970s), standard equipment included a folding sunroof, matt-black grille with chrome surround, tinted glass, twin chrome door mirrors, a chrome exhaust tip, mud-flaps and a dipping rear view mirror.  The interior appointments weren't up to the standard of the English VDPs but there was cashmere pure wool upholstery, a walnut veneer dashboard with twin glove boxes, a leather bound steering wheel and mahogany cut-pile carpets.  Apparently, the project was shut down when London got to hear about it.   In the home market, third-party suppliers of veneer and leather such as Radford found a market among those who appreciated the Mini's compact practicality but found its stark functionalism just too austere. 

The Twini

Mini Coopers (1275 S) through the cutting, Mount Panorama, Bathurst, Australia, 1966.

In that year's Gallaher 500, Mini Coopers finished first to ninth.  It was the last occasion on which anything with a naturally-aspirated four-cylinder engine would win the annual endurance classic, an event which has since be won on all but a handful of occasions by V8-powered cars (memorably a V12 Jaguar XJS triumphed in 1985 when Conrod Straight was still at it full length), a statistic distorted somewhat by the rule change in 1995 which stipulated only V8s were allowed to run.    

Although it seemed improbable when the Mini was released in 1959 as a small, utilitarian economy car, the performance potential proved extraordinary; in rallies and on race tracks it was a first-rate competitor for over a decade, remaining popular in many forms of competition to this day.  The joint venture with the Formula One constructor Cooper provided the basis for most of the success but by far the most intriguing possibility for more speed was the model which was never developed beyond the prototype stage: the twin-engined Twini.

Prototype twin-engined Moke while undergoing snow testing, 1962.

It wasn’t actually a novel approach.  BMC, inspired apparently by English racing driver Paul Emery (1916–1993) who in 1961 had built a twin-engined Mini, used the Mini’s underpinnings to create an all-purpose cross-country vehicle, the Moke, equipped with a second engine and coupled controls which, officially, was an “an engineering exercise” but had actually been built to interest the Ministry of Defence in the idea of a cheap, all-wheel drive utility vehicle, so light and compact it could be carried by small transport aircraft and serviced anywhere in the world.  The army did test the Moke and were impressed by its capabilities and the flexibility the design offered but ultimately rejected the concept because the lack of ground-clearance limited the terrain to which it could be deployed.  Based on the low-slung Mini, that was one thing which couldn’t easily be rectified.  Instead, using just a single engine in a front-wheel-drive (FWD) configuration, the Moke was re-purposed as a civilian model, staying in production between 1964-1989 and offered in various markets.  Such is the interest in the design that several companies have resumed production, including in electric form and it remains available today.

Cutaway drawing of Cooper’s Twini.

John Cooper (1923-2000), aware of previous twin-engined racing cars,  had tested the prototype military Moke and immediately understood the potential the layout offered for the Mini (ground clearance not a matter of concern on race tracks) and within six weeks the Cooper factory had constructed a prototype.  To provide the desired characteristics, the rear engine was larger and more powerful, the combination, in a car weighing less than 1600 lb (725 kg), delivering a power-to-weight ratio similar to a contemporary Ferrari Berlinetta and to complete the drive-train, two separate gearboxes with matched ratios were fitted.  Typically Cooper, it was a well thought-out design.  The lines for the brake and clutch hydraulics and those of the main electrical feed to the battery were run along the right-hand reinforcing member below the right-hand door while on the left side were the oil and water leads, the fuel supply line to both engines fed from a central tank.  The electrical harness was ducted through the roof section and there was a central throttle link, control of the rear carburetors being taken from the accelerator, via the front engine linkage, back through the centre of the car.  It sounded intricate but the distances were short and everything worked.

Twini replica.

John Cooper immediately began testing the Twini, evaluating its potential for competition and as was done with race cars in those happy days, that testing was on public roads where it proved to be fast, surprisingly easy to handle and well-balanced.  Unfortunately, de-bugging wasn't complete and during one night session, the rear engine seized which resulting in a rollover, Cooper seriously injured and the car destroyed.  Both BMC and Cooper abandoned the project because the standard Mini-Coopers were proving highly successful and to qualify for any sanctioned competition, at least one hundred Twinis would have to have been built and neither organization could devote the necessary resources for development or production, especially because no research had been done to work out whether a market existed for such a thing, were it sold at a price which guaranteed at least it would break even.

Twini built by Downton Engineering.  Driven by Sir John Whitmore (1937– 2017) &  Paul Frère (1917–2008) in the 1963 Targa Florio, it finished 27th and 5th in class.

The concept however did intrigue others interested in entering events which accepted one-offs with no homologation rules stipulating minimum production volumes.  Downton Engineering built one and contested the 1963 Targa Florio where it proved fast but fragile, plagued by an overheating rear-engine and the bugbear of previous twin-engined racing cars: excessive tire wear.  It finished 27^th (and last) but it did finish, unlike some of the more illustrious thoroughbreds which fell by the wayside.  Interestingly, the Downton engineers choose to use a pair of the 998 cm³ (61 cubic inch) versions of the BMC A-Series engine which was a regular production iteration and thus in the under-square (long stroke) configuration typical of almost all the A-Series.  The long stroke tradition in British engines was a hangover from the time when the road-taxation system was based on the cylinder bore, a method which had simplicity and ease of administration to commend it but little else, generations of British engines distinguished by their dreary, slow-revving characteristics.  The long stroke design did however provide good torque over a wide engine-speed range and on road-course like the Targa Florio, run over a mountainous Sicilian circuit, the ample torque spread would have appealed more to drivers than ultimate top-end power.  For that reason, although examples of the oversquare 1071 cm³ (65 cubic inch) versions were available, it was newly developed and a still uncertain quantity and never considered for installation.  The 1071 was used in the Mini Cooper S only during 1963-1964 (with a companion 970 cm³ (61 cubic inch) version created for use in events with a 1000 cm³ capacity limit) and the pair are a footnote in A-Series history as the only over-square versions released for sale

Twin-engined BMW Mini (Binni?).

In the era, it’s thought around six Twinis were built (and there have been a few since) but the concept proved irresistible and twin-engined versions of the "new" Mini (built since 2000 by BMW) have been made.  It was fitting that idea was replicated because what was striking in 2000 when BMW first displayed their Mini was that its lines were actually closer to some of the original conceptual sketches from the 1950s than was the BMC Mini on its debut.  BMW, like others, of course now routinely add electric motors to fossil-fuel powered cars so in that sense twin (indeed, sometimes multi-) engined cars are now common but to use more than one piston engine remains rare.  Except for the very specialized place which is the drag-strip, the only successful examples have been off-road or commercial vehicles and as John Cooper and a host of others came to understand, while the advantages were there to be had, there were easier, more practical ways in which they could be gained.  Unfortunately, so inherent were the drawbacks that the problems proved insoluble.