Gully

Gully (pronounced guhl-ee)

(1) A small valley or ravine originally worn away by running water and serving as a drainage-way after prolonged or heavy rain.

(2) A ditch or gutter.

(3) In cricket, a position in the off-side field (some 30^o behind square), between point and the widest of the slips (or wicket-keeper if no slip is set); the fielder occupying this position.

(4) In tenpin bowling, either of the two channels at the side of the bowling lane.

(5) To make gullies in the ground or an object

(6) In hydrology, to form channels by the action of water.

(7) In slang, or relating to the environment, culture, or life experience in poor urban neighborhoods; vulgar, raw, or authentic and sometimes used as an alternative to ghetto.

(8) In (US) slang, as gullywasher, an intense, but typically brief rain event, the form dating from 1887.

(9) In Scotland and northern England, a knife, especially a large kitchen or butcher’s knife (the alternative spelling gulley).

(10) In some parts of the English-speaking word, a synonym for valley, especially one heavily wooded; a deep, wide fissure between two buttresses in a mountain face, sometimes containing a stream or scree (although in most traditions gullies are usually dry, water flowing only after heavy rain or a sudden input of water from other drainage systems.

(11) In engineering slang, any channel like structure which is available to be used for some purpose such as ducts or cables (applied to anything from computer motherboards to nuclear reactors).

(12) In engineering, a grooved iron rail or tram plate (mostly UK).

(13) In civil engineering, sometimes used as a descriptor for drop-kerbs, gutters etc.

(14) Of liquid, noisily to flow (obsolete).

(15) In South Asia (chiefly India but known also in Pakistan, Bangladesh & Sri Lanka), an alleyway or side street.     

1530–1540: Etymologists have traced several possible sources of the word and it’s not impossible the word evolved independently in different places.  It may have been a variant of the Middle English golet (esophagus, gullet), from Old French goulet (the French –et ultimately replace by –y), from Latin gula (throat) and the meaning-shift in the Middle English to "water channel, ravine" may have been influenced by Middle English gylle, gille & galle (deep narrow valley, ravine), hence gill for some time being a synonym.   An alternative source from The French has been suggested as goulet (neck of a bottle).  The use is South Asia is more certain, borrowed from Hindi गली (galī) and the Urdu گَلی‎ (galī) with the spelling evolving under the Raj under the influence of English.  It was inherited from Ashokan Prakrit galī and was cognate with the Punjabi ਗਲੀ (galī) / گَلی‎ (galī), the Gujarati ગલી (galī), the Sindhi ڳَليِ‎ / ॻली, the Marathi गल्ली (gallī) and the Bengali গলি (gôli), the Latin callis, the Italian calle and Spanish calle (street, lane or path).  The first reference (in Scottish English) to the knife (the spelling gully or gulley) dates from circa 1575–1585, the origin unknown.  Gully is a noun & verb and gullied & gullying are verbs; the noun plural is gullies.

Fielding positions in cricket.  Although some seem now mysterious, at some point all would have made sense to someone.

Historically, a gully was a natural formation of water flows which was usually dry except after periods of heavy rainfall or a sudden input of water from other drainage systems after more remote flooding or the melting of snow or ice.  Over the years the meaning has become less precise and other words are sometimes used to describe what are understood by many as gullies.  The noun ravine (long deep gorge worn by a stream or torrent of water) dates from 1760 and was from the mid seventeenth century French ravin (a gully), from the Old French raviner (to pillage; to sweep down, cascade), and the French ravine (a violent rush of water, a gully worn by a torrent), from the Old French ravine (violent rush of water, waterfall; avalanche; robbery, rapine).  Both the French noun and verb ultimately came from the Latin rapina (act of robbery, plundering (related to rapine and the source of much modern confusion because “rape” was long used in the sense of “pillage” or “kidnapping”)) with sense development influenced by the Latin rapidus (rapid).  Entries for ravine appear in early seventeenth century dictionaries with the meaning “a raging flood” whereas in fourteenth century Middle English, both ravin & ravine meant “booty, plunder, robbery”, this circa 1350-1500 borrowing of the Latin influenced French word.  Dating from 1832, the noun gulch (deep ravine), despite being of recent origin, is a mystery.  It may have been from the obsolete or dialectal verb gulsh (sink in to the soil) or "gush out" (of water), from the early thirteenth century Middle English gulchen (to gush forth; to drink greedily), the most evocative use of which was the mid thirteenth century gulche-cuppe (a greedy drinker).  Despite the vague similarities, etymologists maintain these forms had no etymological connection with gully.  Other words (trench, culvert, crevasse, chasm, notch, chase, watercourse, channel, gutter gorge watercourse etc), even when they have precise meanings in geography or hydrology, are also sometimes used interchangeably with gully.

Japanese manhole covers (マンホールの蓋 (Manhōru no futa)) can be delightful or functional (in a typically thoughtful Japanese manner, some include a locality map with directions) but usually provide little inspiration for those designing wheels.

In the nineteenth century, German picked up Gully from English in the sense of “a road drain, a drainage channel” (synonym: Straßenablauf), the covering of a road drain or gully being Ablaufgitter & Ablaufdeckel.  One adaptation quickly coined was Gullydeckel (manhole cover), the construct being gully + deckel, (an untypically economical construct in German given the usual forms for manhole were Kontrollschacht & Einstiegschacht), an alternative to Kanaldeckel (manhole cover).  Deckel (lid, cap, cover of a container) was an ellipsis of Bierdeckel (beer mat) and also used in humorous slang to mean “headwear, hat” although it was most productive in the formation of compounds with cap in the sense of “an artificial or arbitarily imposed upper limit or ceiling” such as Preisdeckel (price cap), the common synonym being Deckelung (capping).

A German Gullideckel (left), a Mercedes-Benz “Gullideckel” aluminum wheel (centre) and a 1988 Mercedes-Benz 560 SL so equipped.

The alternative spelling was Gullideckel and it was this which was picked up to describe the design of aluminum wheel adopted by Mercedes-Benz in 1982.  The reference is explained by the wheel’s design bearing a similarity to that typically used by German manhole covers although Mercedes-Benz dryly explained their concerns were less artistic or a tribute to Teutonic urban hydrology than a reflection of the imperatives of optimizing the air-flow required for brake cooling and a reduction in drag compared to their earlier, long-serving design.  It was in the 1980s that the greatest improvement in the aerodynamic efficiency of cars was achieved and wheels were a significant, though often little-noticed part of the process.

Top row: Mercedes-Benz C111 at Hockenheimring, 1969 (left).  The C111 series was originally a rolling test bed for the evaluation of Wankel engines ad it was on the C111 that the new wheels (then called “Premier”) were first shown although no production versions (centre) were ever made so wide.  The 6½ inch versions were first used on the 450 SEL 6.9 (right).  Bottom row: A bundt cake tin (left); like the wheels, the tins are made from aluminum but are always cast or pressed, not forged.  A ginger bundt cake (centre) and a lemon blueberry bundt cake with vanilla icing (right).      

Aunger magazine advertisement, Australia, 1974.  Not all wheels use an existing circular product as a model.  A style popular in the 1970s, it was known colloquially as the “jellybean”, “slotted” or “beanhole”.  Later in the decade, “phonedial” wheels (and wheel covers) arrived. 

The earlier design used by Mercedes-Benz was apparently not inspired by any existing product but the public soon found nicknames.  Introduced in 1969 and soon an option throughout the range except du Grosser (the 600 (W100) 1963-1981) until 1986, the factory initially listed them as the “Premier Wheel” (ie the “top of the range”) but in the public imagination the nicknames prevailed.  First informally dubbed "Baroque" because of what was then considered an ornate design, the name which endured was “Bundt” an allusion to the popular “bundt cakes”, a circular cake with a hole in the centre and there was certainly some resemblance.  Produced by the Otto Fuchs (pronounced fuks) Company of Meinerzhagen (near Cologne), the early versions were all painted silver (though not clear-coated) and available only in a 14 x 6-inch size, 5½ inch versions soon offered to suit the lower powered cars while in the mid-1970s, production began of 6½ inch versions to handle the tyres fitted to the much faster 450 SEL 6.9 (W116) and 450 SLC 5.0.  Demand for the bundt wheel option grew rapidly, forcing Fuchs to add a line of cast wheels in the same design, the casting process able to achieve both higher volumes and a lower unit cost.  The process of forging aluminum requires great heat and immense pressure (Fuchs used as much as 7,000 tons of force) and realigns the granular structure of the material in the direction of the flow, creating a more homogeneous and less porous micro-structure.  Forging renders aluminum as strong as steel for less weight and provides a notably higher resistance to fatigue and corrosion but the process is expensive.  Fuchs also manufactured small runs of a 15 x 7-inch version and today these are much sought after but, being expensive, they remain rare.  Such is the appeal of the style, specialists in the US have fabricated versions in both a 16 & 17-inch format to enable the use of the larger, more capable tyres now available.  Today, factories often offer a variety of designs of aluminum wheels with some styles available only briefly but for over fifteen years, the Bundt was the only one available on a Mercedes-Benz.

Five-leaf clover: Fuchs wheels on Porsche 911s in matte, (left), polished (centre) & with painted "recessed areas" (right).  The five spoke wheel is a matter of particular interest to the originality police in the Porsche collector community and great attention is paid to date-stamping and paint, it being very important that where appropriate the wheels variously should be polished, painted or raw metal.  The Porsche pedants (who in intensity and seriousness recall seventeenth century Jesuit priests) do not tolerate any deviance from what was done by the factory and have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the way paint was sometimes applied to recessed areas.  

Half a decade earlier, the neighbors in Stuttgart had also designed an aluminum wheel.  Porsche had planned a 1965 release for its new 911S, at that time the fastest, sportiest version of the 911 which had been on sale since 1963 and the distinctive five-spoke shape would first be sold in 1966 and remain on the option list until 1989, the popularity so enduring it’s since been reprised more than once.  Distinctive though it was, there were really only two requirements for the new wheel: It needed to be durable and light, strong enough to endure the stresses the higher speed of the 911S and delivering a reduction in un-sprung mass weight significant enough to enhance handling.  The design target was an aluminum wheel which weighted 3 kg (6½ lb) less than steel wheel of the same dimensions.

1957 Volkswagen (Type 2) Microbus Deluxe (23 window) with 15 inch Fuchs-style chromed wheels (not a VW part-number).  Between 1951-1967, the Microbus was offered as the Kleinbus Sonderausführung (small bus, special version) which was marketed variously as the Microbus Deluxe, Sunroof Deluxe & Samba; the most obvious distinguishing features were the folding fabric sunroof and the unusual “skylight” windows which followed the curve of sides of the roof, a technique borrowed from tourist train carriages, busses and sightseeing boats.  The early versions (1951-1963) had 23 pieces of glass but when the bodywork was revised, the rear section would have had insufficient structural integrity had the curved rear-corner windows been retained so those built between 1964-1967 had only 21, thus the premium (reckoned at up to 20%) attached to the first generation.  Sambas faithfully restored to original specification have sold for over US$300,000 but on those which have been modified (larger displacement engines often fitted), the "five-leaf clover" wheels sometimes appear.  

Porsche had also used the Otto Fuchs Company, impressed by the foundry having developed a new manufacturing process which, instead of using a cast rim, manufactured it in one piece from an alloy made of 97% aluminum with the remainder composed mostly of magnesium, silicon, manganese & titanium, the technique still used by the company today.  The five-leaf clover design was based on nothing in particular and done in-house by Porsche, the only change from the original prototype apparently a smoothing of the scalloped shape which first adorned the spokes.  The design proved adaptable, the original 15 x 4½-inch wide wheels growing eventually to eight inches when fitted to the rear of the 911 Turbo (930; 1975-1989), the additional rubber required to tame (to some degree) the behavior of a machine which some labeled the “widow maker”.  Later designs have offered various specific improvements but none has matched the charm of the original and Fuchs have continued its manufacture for later model 911s, some in larger diameters to accommodate advances in suspension geometry and tyres.

Top row, gas-burners butt-to-butt: Lindsay Lohan using gas-burner as improvised cigarette lighter, Terry Richardson (b 1965) photo-shoot, 2012 (left) and 1970 Porsche 914/6 with Mahle “gas-burner” wheels.  Bottom row: Five-hob Kenmore gas-burner stove, circa 1950 (left) and a quintet of five-lug Mahle “gas-burners” (option code 975, part number 901.361.017.00, 5½"J x 15", 42mm offset).  The five-lug wheels were used on the 911 & 914/6 while the four lug version (part number 914-361-015-00) was for the 914.

Although the five-leaf clover design never picked-up an association with circular shapes like manhole covers or cakes, there was another Porsche wheel which did.  Produced by Mahle GmbH and quickly dubbed “gas-burners” (an allusion to the resemblance to the hobs on gas-stoves), they were available on the 911, 912 & 914-6 between 1970-1972 and although generally not thought as attractive as Fuchs’ creations, the gas-burners have a cult following based on pure functionality: pressure cast in magnesium and available only in a 15 x 5½-inch format, at 4.3 kg (9½ lb) they’re said to be the lightest 15-inch wheel ever made, more svelte even than the 15 x 6-inch units Michelin rendered in glass fibre & resin for the Citroën SM (1970-1975) (the so-called “plastic wheels”).

1972 Porsche 917/10.

The Mahle “gas-burners” usually were seen in unadorned metal and over the years that hasn’t changed, Porsche owners usually resisting any temptation to have them chrome-plated, a commendable restraint which didn’t extend to many with Mercedes-Benz SLs, SECs, CLs and such, the lure of the shiny apparently afflicting only those of certain German cargo cults.  The Mahles did though in 1974 have one colourful outing, Porsche making a thousand-odd 914 LEs (Limited Edition) models to celebrate the success of the 917/10 & 917/30 in the 1972 & 1973 Can-Am (Canadian-American Challenge) Cup series for unlimited displacement (Group 7) sports cars.  The LE version came with the 914’s mechanical specification unchanged so it was a modest tribute to one of the most extraordinary racing cars ever built (one which routinely took to the track with 1,000 horse power (HP) and in qualifying trim could be tuned to generate close to 1,500) but it was a difficult era (post emission control & pre modern electronics) in which to make street-legal high-performance variants so colors & bundled extras it had to be.

1972 Porsche 917/30.

The plan had been for the run to be called the “914 Can-Am” but while the SCCA (Sports Car Club of America, the sanctioning body for the series) was in principle agreeable, the parties, after some haggling, couldn’t agree on the per-vehicle royalty fee so the bland (and free) “LE” moniker was used; on the option list, the package appeared as M-778 (Can-Am equipment) so presumably the material was printed in anticipation of agreement being reached with the SCCA.  All the LEs left the factory in the spring of 1974 and, in the way Porsche then did things, their specification was close to identical with the odd variation, things like tinted glass or the rear demister sometimes fitted, sometimes not.  The Porsche clubs account for this by the LEs not being produced in a single, dedicated batch (The VINs (vehicle identification number) span a range of 2400-odd) with the parts fitted as cars came down the line, meaning the LEs were interpolated with standard 914s.  There were two basic LEs: some 500 in Black (LO41) with Sunflower Yellow (L13K) highlights (code U1V) and 500 in a Light Ivory (L80E) & Phoenix Red (L32K and visually close to orange) mix (code U2V9), the former picking up the predictable nickname “Bumblebee” the latter, more imaginatively, dubbed “Creamsicle” (a type of ice cream with a similar color scheme).  Rumours of a Yellow & Green combo were apparently an urban legend so the “Grasshopper” was a fabulous beast although privately, some 914s have been transformed thus.

1974 Porsche 914 LE “Bumblebee”.

All the LEs were shipped to North America for sale in the US and Canada and along with the RPO (regular production option) Appearance Group option (Code 06, fog lamps and centre console with clock and additional gauges (oil temperature & voltmeter) at US$300), the LE package (an additional US$320) included special interior appointments, the Mahle “gas-burner” wheels, a front air-dam (spoiler), front and rear anti-sway bars and, of course, the two unique paint combinations, highlighted by a “negative stripe” just above the rocker panels, spelling out “Porsche”.  All LEs were fitted with the 1971 cm³ (120 cubic inch) Volkswagen-based flat four which, rated at 91 HP (as certified for use in the US) had made the 914 more competitive than when fitted with the original 1795 cm³ (110 cubic inch), the characteristics of which were judged “marginal” in a sports car and the factory must have agreed, the fraction in its claim of 72½ HP a hint every little bit helped.  Few though ever complained about the handling the mid-engined configuration offered and the four-wheel disc brakes also attracted praise.

1974 Porsche 914 LE “Creamsicle”.

The 914 LE was a one-off but it did pass on some bits and pieces used later in the 914’s run (1969-1976), the most obvious of which was the front air-dam (part number 914.503.235.10), listed eventually on the RPO list for US$145 and supplied as a dealer-fitted kit with a pair of mounting brackets (left 914.503.237.10 & right 914.503.238.10); it replaced the standard metal valence.  In common with many fittings of its type, the air dam was susceptible to impacts with kerbs and it’s the part of the LE least likely to have survived the years; while reproductions have been made, the Porsche community notes the quality of the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) units was superior.  Also available in the aftermarket are reproduction side stripes and they exist because (1) some cars were (at the customer’s request) supplied un-striped and (2) there was in 1974 some market resistance to the distinctive color schemes so dealers sometimes resorted to restoring them to what were essentially plain Black or Light Ivory 914s, an approach taken in 1970-1971 by some Plymouth dealers who found the wildly styled Superbird sometimes a “hard sell”.  However, the 914 LE now has a cult following and when one is discovered without its distinctive fittings, a restoration is common although collectors note the twenty-first century’s reproduction Phoenix Red vinyl doesn’t quite match what was done in 1974.

1929 Isotta Fraschini 8A SS Roadster Cabriolet by Castagna.

Fifty-odd years on, in an age of black, gray, silver & white, Porsche’s “Creamsicle” might be thought an example of the excruciable colour combinations of the 1970s (a decade of browns, oranges and greens disturbingly recalling meconium) but, as events fade from memory into history, constructs of what the past “looked like” must come from paintings, photographs and films.  After color photography in the post-war years became ubiquitous, the hues part of the environment became recorded with increasing accuracy as the equipment improved and with the advent of mass-market digital devices, such is the volume stored that it’s now likely that somewhere, accessible by someone, there’s a HD (high-definition) color image of just about every public space.  However, in the pre-war years, most of the photographic record was in “monochrome” (actually gray-scale or sepia).  Although the Autochrome process became available in 1907, it produced images which often can’t relied upon to be an accurate depiction of a color and it was anyway expensive, meaning it was used mostly by professionals and governments (the military especially attracted because of the possibilities it offered for aerial photography).  Not until the mid-1930s when Eastman Kodak’s Kodachrome and Agfa’s Agfacolor Neu were released as consumer products (at a price the middle-class could afford), did color photography reach the mass-market.

1930 Packard 745 Deluxe Eight Convertible Victoria by Dietrich.  Even if in 1974 Porsche's “Bumblebee” color scheme might have startled some, folk in 1930 may have been untroubled by the sight of expanses of yellow and black.

When what was described as a “1929 Isotta Fraschini 8A SS Roadster Cabriolet by Castagna” appeared on an auction site, much discussion ensued, the debates focused on “originality”, that holy grail of the collector market.  What the commentators were interested in was the mechanical specification and the bodywork but just when it gained its orange & cream finish was also unclear.  Whether this car, all those years ago, left the coach-builder in exactly the hues presented may never be known but color imagery from the 1920s does confirm it was not an era of beige and such, vibrant colors common and two, three and even four-tone finishes not uncommon.  That trend continued; although it became fashionable to speak of the 1950s as an era of “dull conformity”, while there would be sociologists who’d support the notion, in clothes and on cars, it was a colourful time and all indications are the 1920s and 1930s often similarly were vivid; far from being radical, Porsche’s “Creamsicle” scheme was really a “retro-look”.  The Isotta Fraschini in February, 2026 sold for US$275,000 which also attracted comment, comparisons made with other examples of the marque having realized over a million.  There are reasons for that including the importance of originality and a documented pedigree but what can’t be denied is the general decline in the value of pre-war “collectables”, something related not to general economic conditions but the simple fact that those with an emotional connection to machines of that era are dying off.

Cordon

Cordon (pronounced kawr-dn)

(1)  A line of police, sentinels, military posts, warships, etc., enclosing or guarding an area.

(2) A cord or braid worn for ornament or as a fastening.

(3) A ribbon worn usually diagonally across the breast as a badge of a knightly or honorary order.

(4) A projecting course of stones at the base of a parapet.

(5) The coping of a scarp.

(6) In architecture, a stringcourse, especially one having little or no projection.

(7) A cut-stone riser on a stepped ramp or the like.  Also called a string course or belt course, an ornamental projecting band or continuous moulding along a wall.

(8) In horticulture, a fruit tree or shrub trained to grow along a support or a series of such supports.  Tree consists of a single stem bearing fruiting spurs, produced by cutting back all lateral branches

(9) To surround or blockade with or as with a cordon (usually followed by off).

(10) In cricket, the arc of fielders on the off side, behind the batsman; the slips and gully (but not the more distant third man).

1400–1450: Borrowed by Middle English from Middle French cordon (ribbon), diminutive of the Old French corde (string), derived from the Classical Latin chorda (gut) and Ancient Greek (Doric) χορδή or khordḗ (string of gut, cord, string of a lyre).

The meaning "cord or ribbon worn as an ornament” dates from the 1560s.  Sense of "a line of people or things guarding something" is from 1758.  The form cordon sanitaire (sanitary cordon), first noted in 1857, was a public health measure in the French Second Empire (Napoleon III), a guarded line between infected and uninfected districts during outbreaks of infectious disease.

The Cordon Sanitaire in Geopolitics

Originally a public health measure to contain the spread of infectious diseases, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929; Prime Minister of France 1906-1909 & 1917-1920) conjured the phrase as a geopolitical metaphor in March 1919.  He urged the newly independent border-states, stretching from Finland to the Balkans (also called limitrophe states) that had seceded from the Russian Empire (and its successor the USSR) to form a defensive union and thus quarantine Western Europe from the spread of communism.

The concept evolved and was in its most politically and geographically defined form during the cold war when buffer states gave shape to the so-called iron curtain between east and west.  Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK Prime Minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) didn’t invent the phrase but made it famous in his address at Fulton, Missouri in March 1946 when he noted that “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.”  This was the opposite of Clemenceau’s vision of protecting west from east; instead the buffer-states existed to protect the USSR from any prospect of another invasion from a resurgent Germany, a dominant theme in early post-war Soviet foreign policy.

Comrade Stalin's Cordon Sanitaire: the Cold-War Buffer States

The buffer states were a construct of Comrade Stalin (1878–1953; leader of the USSR, 1924-1953), his words backed first by four-hundred divisions and later the Soviet nuclear arsenal.  They lasted more than forty years, the system beginning to fracture only in the mid-1980s when USSR Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev (b 1931; leader of the USSR, 1985-1991) retreated from adherence to the Brezhnev (Leonid Brezhnev; 1906–1982; leader of the USSR, 1964–1982) Doctrine which held that if socialism was threatened in any state, other socialist governments had an obligation to intervene to preserve it.  Gorbachev initiated the policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (economic restructuring), both of which exposed the contradictions inherent in the Soviet system.  By 1989, long an economic failure, the eastern bloc began politically to crumble and a wave of revolutions began.  In 1991, the USSR was dissolved.

Crowd control cordon creation: Metal outside & the velvet rope within, Mean Girls Premiere, Los Angeles, April 2004.

Temporary cordons are often not sufficiently robust physically to act as an effective barrier against a breach induced even by mild force and rely on their symbolic value in the same way the red, amber & green traffic signals controlling intersections usually achieve the desired effect even though pieces of illuminated colored plastic inherently can't stop a car.  Respect for them (coupled with a fear of the consequences if flouted) is what makes them effective.  The cordoning of crowds at events often works the same way.  While facilities such as stadiums or race tracks usually have permanent fences or other structures difficult to cross, ad-hoc events in spaces intended for other purposes use relatively flimsy temporary barriers which wouldn't withstand much pressure and rely on the cooperation (and again, fear of consequences) of those cordoned off.  Outside, cordons typically are created with movable metal or plastic modular fencing while inside, the favored form is the "velvet rope", strung between stanchions (although lengths of plastic chain are sometimes seen).  These have the advantage of being able to re-configure a cordon at short notice and when not in use, demand little space to store.         

Legside

Legside (pronounced leg-sahyd)

(1) In the terminology of cricket (also as onside), in conjunction with “offside”, the half of the cricket field behind the batter in their normal batting stance.

(2) In the terminology of horse racing, in conjunction with “offside”, the sides of the horse relative to the rider.

Pre 1800s: The construct was leg + side.  Leg was from the Middle English leg & legge, from the Old Norse leggr (leg, calf, bone of the arm or leg, hollow tube, stalk), from the Proto-Germanic lagjaz & lagwijaz (leg, thigh).  Although the source is uncertain, the Scandinavian forms may have come from a primitive Indo-European root used to mean “to bend” which would likely also have been linked with the Old High German Bein (bone, leg).  It was cognate with the Scots leg (leg), the Icelandic leggur (leg, limb), the Norwegian Bokmål legg (leg), the Norwegian Nynorsk legg (leg), the Swedish lägg (leg, shank, shaft), the Danish læg (leg), the Lombardic lagi (thigh, shank, leg), the Latin lacertus (limb, arm), and the Persian لنگ (leng).  After it entered the language, it mostly displaced the native Old English term sċanca (from which Modern English ultimately gained “shank”) which was probably from a root meaning “crooked” (in the literal sense of “bent” rather than the figurative used of crooked Hillary Clinton).  Side was from the Middle English side, from the Old English sīde (flanks of a person, the long part or aspect of anything), from the Proto-Germanic sīdǭ (side, flank, edge, shore), from the primitive Indo-European sēy- (to send, throw, drop, sow, deposit).  It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian Siede (side), the West Frisian side (side), the Dutch zijde & zij (side), the German Low German Sied (side), the German Seite (side), the Danish & Norwegian side (side) and the Swedish sida (side).  The Proto-Germanic sīdō was productive, being the source also of the Old Saxon sida, the Old Norse siða (flank; side of meat; coast), the Danish & Middle Dutch side, the Old High German sita and the German Seite.  Legside is an adjective.

A cricket field as described with a right-hander at the crease (batting); the batter will be standing with their bat held to the offside (there’s no confusion with the concept of “offside” used in football and the rugby codes because in cricket there’s no such rule).

In cricket, the term “legside” (used also as “leg side” or “on side”) is used to refer to the half of the field corresponding to a batter’s non-dominant hand (viewed from their perspective); the legside can thus be thought of as the half of the ground “behind” the while the “offside” is that in front.  This means that what is legside and what is offside is dynamic depending on whether the batter is left or right-handed and because in a match it’s not unusual for one of each to be batting during an over (the basic component of a match, each over now consisting of six deliveries of the ball directed sequentially at the batters), as they change ends, legside and offside can swap.  This has no practical significance except that because many of the fielding positions differ according to whether a left or right-hander is the striker.  That’s not the sole determinate of where a fielding captain will choose to set his field because what’s referred to as a “legside” or “offside” field will often be used in deference to the batter’s tendencies of play.  It is though the main structural component of field settings.  The only exception to this is when cricket is played in unusual conditions such as on the deck of an aircraft carrier (remarkably, it’s been done quite often) but there’s still a legside & offside, shifting as required between port & starboard just as left & right are swapped ashore.

The weird world of cricket's fielding positions.

Quite when legside & offside first came to be used in cricket isn't known but they’ve been part of the terminology of the sport since the rules of the game became formalized when the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club) first codified the "Laws of Cricket" in what now seem a remarkably slim volume published in 1788, the year following the club’s founding.  There had earlier been rule books, the earliest known to have existed in the 1730s (although no copies appear to have survived) but whether the terms were then is use isn’t known.  What is suspected is legside and offside were borrowed from the turf where, in horse racing jargon, they describe the sides of the horse relative to the rider.  The use of the terms to split the field is reflected also in the names of some of the fielding positions, many of which are self-explanatory while some remain mysterious although presumably they must have seemed a good idea at the time.  One curious survivor of the culture wars which banished "batsman" & "fieldsman" to the shame of being microaggressions is "third man" which continues to be used in the men's game although in women's competition, all seem to have settled on "third", a similar clipping to that which saw "nightwatch" replace "nightwatchman"; third man surely can't last.  The ones which follow the dichotomous description of the field (although curiously “leg” is an element of some and “on” for others) including the pairings “silly mid on” & silly mid off” and “long on & long off”, while in other cases the “leg” is a modifier, thus “slip & leg slip” and “gully & leg gully”.  Some positions use different terminology depending on which side of the field they’re positioned, “point” on the offside being “square leg” on the other while fractional variations in positioning means there is lexicon of terms such as “deep backward square leg” and “wide long off” (which experts will distinguish from a “wideish long off”).

Leg theory

Leg theory was a polite term for what came to be known as the infamous “bodyline” tactic.  In cricket, when bowling, the basic idea is to hit the stumps (the three upright timbers behind the batter), the object being to dislodge the bails (the pair of small wooden pieces which sit in grooves, atop the three).  That done, the batter is “dismissed” and the batting side has to send a replacement, this going on until ten batters have been dismissed, ending the innings.  In essence therefore, the core idea is to aim at the stumps but there are other ways to secure a dismissal such as a shot by the batter being caught on the full by a fielder, thus the attraction of bowling “wide of the off-stump” (the one of the three closest to the off side) to entice the batter to hit a ball in the air to be caught or have one come "off the edge" of the bat to be “caught behind”.  It was realized early on there was little to be gained by bowling down the legside except restricting the scoring because the batter safely could ignore the delivery, content they couldn’t be dismissed LBW (leg before wicket, where but for the intervention of the protective pads on the legs, the ball would have hit the wicket) because, under the rules, if the ball hits the pitch outside the line of the leg stump, the LBW rule can’t be invoked.

A batter can however be caught from a legside delivery and as early as the nineteenth century this was known as leg theory, practiced mostly the slow bowlers who relied on flight in the air and spin of the pitch to beguile the batter.  Many had some success with the approach, the batters unable to resist the temptation of playing a shot to the legside field where the fielders tended often to be fewer.  On the slower, damper pitches of places like England or New Zealand, the technique offered little prospect for the fast bowlers who were usually more effective the faster they bowled but on the generally fast, true decks in Australia, there was an opportunity because a fast, short-pitched (one which hits the pitch first in the bowlers half of the pitch before searing up towards the batter) delivery with a legside line would, disconcertingly, tend at upwards of 90 mph (145 km/h) towards the batter’s head.  The idea was that in attempting to avoid injury by fending off the ball with the bat, the batter would be dismissed, caught by one of the many fielders “packed” on the legside, the other component of leg theory.

Leg theory: Lindsay Lohan’s legs.

For this reason it came to be called “fast leg theory” and it was used off and on by many sides (in Australia and England) during the 1920s but it gained its infamy (and the more evocative “bodyline” label) during the MCC’s (the designation touring England teams used until the 1970s) 1932-1933 Ashes tour of Australia.  Adopted as a tactic against the Australian batter Donald Bradman (1908–2001) against whom nothing else seemed effective (the English noting on the 1930 tour of England he’d once scored 300 runs in a day off his own bat at Leeds), bodyline became controversial after a number of batters were struck high on the body, one suffering a skull fracture (this an era in which helmets and other upper-body protection were unknown).  Such was the reaction the matter was a diplomatic incident, discussed by the respective cabinets in London and Canberra while acerbic cables were exchanged between the ACBC (Australian Cricket Board of Control) and the MCC.

Japanese leg theory: Zettai ryōiki (絶対領域) is a Japanese term which translates literally as “absolute territory” and is used variously in anime gaming and the surrounding cultural milieu.  In fashion, it refers to that area of visible bare skin above the socks (classically the above-the-knee variety) but below the hemline of a miniskirt, shorts or top.

Japanese schoolgirls, long the trend-setters of the nation's fashions, like to pair zettai ryouiki with solid fluffy (also called "plushies") leg warmers.  So influential are they that the roaming pack in this image, although they've picked up the aesthetic, are not actually real school girls.  So, beware of imitations: Tokyo, April 2024.

High-level interventions calmed thing sufficiently for the tour to continue which ended with the tourists winning the series (and thus the Ashes) 4-1.  The tour remains the high-water mark of fast leg theory because although it continued to be used when conditions were suitable, the effectiveness was stunted by batters adjusting their techniques and, later in the decade, the MCC updated their rule book explicitly to proscribe “direct attack” (ie deliveries designed to hit the batter rather than the stumps) bowling, leaving the judgment of what constituted that to the umpires.  Although unrelated and an attempt to counter the “negative” legside techniques which had evolved in the 1950s to limit scoring, further rule changes in 1957 banned the placement of more than two fielders behind square on the leg side, thus rendering impossible the setting of a leg theory field.  Despite all this, what came to be called “intimidatory short pitched bowling” continued, one of the reasons helmets began to appear in the 1970s and the rule which now applies is that only one such delivery is permitted per over.  It has never been a matter entirely about sportsmanship and within the past decade, the Australian test player Phillip Hughes (1988-2014) was killed when struck on the neck (while wearing a helmet) by a short-pitched delivery which severed an artery.