Hoodie

Hoodie (pronounced hood-ee or hoo-dee (Scots))

(1) An originally informal term for a hooded sweatshirt, sweater, or jacket.

(2) A young person who wears a hooded sweatshirt, regarded by those who read London's Daily Telegraph as someone either (1) committing a crime, (2) on their way to a crime, (3) coming from a crime or (4) planning a crime.

1789: Hoodie was originally a familiar term for the hooded crow (Corvus cornix), a Eurasian bird species in the Corvus genus, known also (regionally) as the Scotch crow and Danish crow, the slang shortening of hooded sweatshirt first noted in 1991 (sometimes written as hoody).  The word is still a slang term but has also become the accepted proper description of the garment which can even be a fashion item.   

Hood was from the pre-900 Middle English hood & hod, from the Old English hād & hōd (a hood, soft covering for the head" (usually extending over the back of the neck and often attached to a garment worn about the body), from the Proto-Germanic hōdaz (source also of the Old Saxon & Old Frisian hoed & hod (hood), the Saterland Frisian Houd, the Middle Dutch hoet, the Dutch hoed (hat), the Old High German huot (helmet, hat), the German Hut (hat) and the Old Frisian hode (guard, protection), which is of uncertain etymology, possibly from the Latin cassis (hat), the ultimate root likely the primitive Indo-European kadh- (to cover (and related to “hat)).  It was cognate with the Proto-Iranian xawdah (hat), the Avestan (xåda) and the Old Persian xaudā, also from the primitive Indo-European kadh.  The suffix -ie was a variant spelling of -ee, -ey & -y and was used to form diminutive or affectionate forms of nouns or names.  It was used also (sometimes in a derogatory sense to form colloquial nouns signifying the person associated with the suffixed noun or verb (eg bike: bikie, surf: surfie, hood: hoodie etc).  The –y suffix is from the Middle English –y & -i, from the Old English -iġ (-y, -ic), from the Proto-Germanic -īgaz (-y, -ic), from the primitive Indo-European -kos, -ikos, & -iḱos (-y, -ic).  It was cognate with the Scots -ie (-y), the West Frisian -ich (-y), the Dutch -ig (-y), the Low German -ig (-y), the German -ig (-y), the Swedish -ig (-y), the Latin -icus (-y, -ic) and the Ancient Greek -ικός (-ikós); a doublet of -ic.  The –y suffix was added to (1) nouns and adjectives to form adjectives meaning “having the quality of” and (2) verbs to form adjectives meaning "inclined to".

Amanda Seyfried (b 1985) in hoodie in Red Riding Hood (2011).  Little Red Riding Hood is a 1729 translation of Charles Perrault's Petit Chaperon Rouge (Contes du Temps Passé (1697)).

The modern spelling dates emerged in the early 1400s and reflected the "long" vowel, the spelling enduring although hood is no longer pronounced as such.  Use extended to hood-like-things or animal parts from the mid-seventeenth century and the meaning “foldable or removable cover for a carriage to protect the occupants" is from 1826, extended to "sunshade of a baby-carriage" by 1866.  The meaning "hinged cover for an automobile engine" attested from 1905 and is the standard use in North America but elsewhere in the English-speaking world, the preferred term is “bonnet”; confusingly, hood can also refer the folding roof of a convertible, otherwise called a folding-top or soft-top

Lindsay Lohan in Vetements hoodie with asymmetric cold shoulder.

As an American English shortening of hoodlum, use is attested from as early as 1866 but it became popular only with the emergence in popular culture of the stereotypical gangster in the 1920s.  As a shortened form of neighbourhood, use in the African-American vernacular is noted from 1987 and it’s recently been identified as a racial slur in certain contexts.  In nautical use, a hood is one of the endmost planks (or, one of the ends of the planks) in a ship’s bottom at the bow or stern.  In ophiology, a hood is an expansion on the sides of the neck typical for many elapids (eg some cobras) and (in colloquial use) the osseous or cartilaginous marginal extension behind the back of many a dinosaur such as a ceratopsid and reptiles such as Chlamydosaurus kingie is often referred to as "the hood".  In the human hand, the hood is the extensor digitorum, an expansion of the extensor tendon over the metacarpophalangeal joint.  Hood has been a most productive accessory in English (extractor hood, hoodie, hoodwink, range hood, under the hood, neighbourhood, girlhood etc).  In clothing, hoods (variously named) have of course existed for thousands of years, adopted and adapted to provide protection from the elements (wind, sun, snow, rain etc).  The hoods used in executions, often worn (though for different reasons) by both executioner and the condemned can't be thought of as hoodies because the purpose in such situations was to conceal the face.

A hoodie offers a (pre-lingual) comment on David Cameron's (b 1966; UK prime-minister 2010-2016) "Hug-a-Hoodie" speech in which (while prime-minister), he advocated a softer approach to social justice.  He is now Lord Cameron, having been ennobled so he can sit in the House of Lords and serve as foreign secretary, there evidently being no Tory in either the Lords or the Commons with the required talent (or whatever else is required) for the job.  He's the first former prime-minister since Lord Home (Alec Douglas-Home; UK prime minister 1963-1964) in 1970 to return to cabinet and all wish him well.

In many cultures, hoods were added to garments for purposes other than mere functionality and depending on factors such as color, style, the volume or design of the materials used, they could indicate things like rank, membership of an order, length of service or academic status.  Hoods were part of imperial regalia, court dress, academic gowns, military dress uniforms, ecclesiastical garb and of course, cults like the Freemasons.  The pragmatic adoption of the hoodie by petty criminals as a means of concealment in late 1980s London appears related to the increasingly widespread use of CCTV (closed-circuit television) surveillance systems and advances in AI (artificial intelligence) mean software now has the ability to "see through" hoodies and this means it is inevitable hoodies will be available with some form of "cloaking" material within; it's just another arms race.  The popularity with (career and aspiring) criminals and certain social groups (distinctions between the two somewhat fluid) appears imitative, the adoption of the symbols of petty crime actually a status-symbol to some and a way of asserting group identity.

It was mere coincidence that the words "hoodie" and "hoodlum" appeared within a few years of each other, the early US use (dating from 1866 but not widely used until the stereotypical Chicago gangster became a staple of popular culture during the 1920s) of hoodlum appearing wholly unrelated to hood.  There are etymologists who list the origin as uncertain and offer other possibilities but the most plausible origin of hoodlum is probably that cited by Herbert Asbury (1889-1963) in The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld (1933).  He believed the word an imperfect echoic originating in San Francisco from a particular street gang's call to unemployed Irishmen to "huddle 'em" (to beat up Chinese migrants).  San Francisco newspapers then took to calling street gangs hoodlums, that being the best they could make of the Irish accent.

Hood

Hood (pronounced hood)

(1) A soft or flexible covering for the head and neck, either separate or attached to a cloak, coat and similar garments.

(2) Something resembling or suggestive of such a covering (especially in shape) and used in botany to describe certain petals or sepals.

(3) In North America and other places subject to that linguistic influence, the (usually) hinged, movable part of an automobile body covering the engine (the bonnet in the UK and most of the old British Empire).  Despite geographical spread, the phrase “under the hood” is now close to universal, referring to (1) the engine of an automobile & (2) by extension, the inner workings or technical aspects of anything (a computer’s specifications etc).

(4) In the UK and most of the old British Empire, the roof of a carriage or automobile, able to be lowered or removed (ie on a convertible, cabriolet, roadster, drophead coupé (DHC) etc).  In North America and other places subject to that linguistic influence such things tend variously to be called soft-tops or convertible tops.

(5) A metal cover or canopy for a stove, fitted usually with a ventilation system (a flue or extractor fan).

(6) In falconry, a cover for the entire head of a hawk or other bird, used when not in pursuit of game.

(7) On academic gowns, judicial robes etc, an ornamental ruffle or fold on the back of the shoulders (in ecclesiastical garments, and in cults such as the Freemasons, also used as a mark of one’s place in the hierarchy).

(8) In nautical use, as hooding ends, one of the endmost planks (or, one of the ends of the planks) in a ship’s bottom at bow or stern which fits into the stem and sternpost rabbets.  When fitted into a rabbet, these resemble a hood (covering).

(9) In zoology, a crest or band of color on the head of certain birds and other animals (such as the fold of skin on the head of a cobra, that covers or appears to cover the head or some similar part).

(10) In anatomy (the human hand), over the extensor digitorum, an expansion of the extensor tendon over the metacarpophalangeal joint (the extensor hood (dorsal hood or lateral hood).

(11) In colloquial use in palaeontology, the osseous or cartilaginous marginal extension behind the back of many dinosaurs (also known as the “frill”).

(12) As the suffix –hood, a native English suffix denoting state, condition, character, nature, etc, or a body of persons of a particular character or class, formerly used in the formation of nouns: childhood; likelihood; knighthood; priesthood and of lad appended as required (Twitterhood, Instahood etc, subsets of Twitterverse & Instaverse respectively).

(13) In slang, a clipping of hoodlum.

(14) In slang, a clipping of neighborhood, especially an urban neighborhood inhabited predominantly by African Americans of low socioeconomic status (a part of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and adopted also by LatinX) although use in these communities does now transcend economic status.

(15) To furnish with or fit a hood; to cover with or as if with a hood.

(16) In medieval armor, a range of protective cloakings or coverings

Pre 900: From the Middle English hode, hod, hude, hudde & hoode (hoodes apparently the most common plural), from the Old English hōd, from the Proto-Germanic hōdaz, (related to the Old High German huot (hat), the Middle Dutch hoet and the Latin cassis helmet) and cognate with the Saterland Frisian Houd, the Old Frisian hōde, the West Frisian & Dutch hoed, the Proto-Iranian xawdaH (hat), the German Low German Hood and the German Hut (hat).  The Old English hād was cognate with German –heit and was a special use used to convey qualities such as order, quality, rank (the sense surviving academic, judicial & ecclesiastical garments).  The ultimate source is uncertain but most etymologists seem to support the primitive Indo-European kad & kadh (to cover).  Hood is modified as required (chemical hood, clitoral hood, un-hood, de-hood, fume hood, hood-shy, hood unit, hoodwink, range hood, riding hood etc) and something thought hood-shaped is sometimes described as cuculliform.  Hood is a noun & verb, hooded & hooding are verbs, hoodless hoodesque & hoodlike are adjectives; the noun plural is hoods.

Hooded: Lindsay Lohan in hoodie, JFK Airport, New York City, NYC April 2013. The bag is a Goyard Saint Louis Tote (coated canvas in black).

Hood as clipping of hoodlum (gangster, thug, criminal etc) dates from the late 1920s and would influence the later use of “hoodie” as a slur to refer to those wearing the garment of the same name, the inference being it was worn with nefarious intent (concealing identity, hiding from CCTV etc.  Hood as a clipping of neighborhood (originally especially an urban (inner-city) neighborhood inhabited predominantly by African Americans of low socio-economic status) dates from circa 1965 and became part of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and was adopted also by LatinX) although use in all communities does now transcend economic status.  It was an alternative to ghetto (a word with a very different tradition) and encapsulated both the negative (crime, violence, poverty) & positive (group identity, sense of community) aspects of the low-income inner city experience.  Although a part of AAVE, it never formed part of Ebonics because its meaning was obvious and, to an extent, integrated into general US vernacular English.  The phrase “all good in the hood” is an example of the use of the clipping.

Blu-Ray & DVD package art for Red Riding Hood (2006).  In US use, "alternate" seems to have been accepted as a synonym for "alternative".  Few seem to mind.

The verb hood in the sense of “to put a hood” & “to furnish with a hood” on dates from circa 1400 while although hooded & hooding aren’t attested until decades later, it’s possible the use emerged at much the same time.  The Old English hod was typically "a soft covering for the head" which extended usually over the back of the neck but only in some cases did it (permanently or ad-hoc) attach to some other garment.  The modern spelling emerged early in the fifteenth century and indicated a “long vowel” although that pronunciation is long extinct.  The word was picked up in medicine, botany & zoology in the seventeenth century while the use to describe the “foldable or removable covers on a carriage which protects the occupants from the elements” was documented since 1826 and that was used in a similar context by the manufacturers of prams and baby-carriages by at least 1866.  The meaning “hinged cover for an automobile engine” was in use in the US by 1905 while across the Atlantic, the British stuck to “bonnet”.  The fairy tale (some read it as a cautionary tale) Little Red Riding Hood (1729) was a translation of Charles Perrault's (1628-1703) Petit Chaperon Rouge which appeared in his book Contes du Temps Passé (Stories or Tales from Past Times (1697)).

The suffix -hood (a word-forming element meaning “state or condition of being”) was an evolution of the Old English -had (condition, quality, position) which was used to construct forms such as cildhad (childhood), preosthad (priesthood) & werhad (manhood); it was cognate with German –heit & -keit, the Dutch -heid, the Old Frisian & Old Saxon -hed, all from the Proto-Germanic haidus (manner, quality (literally “bright appearance”, from the primitive Indo-European skai & kai- (bright, shining) which was cognate with the Sanskrit ketu (brightness, appearance).  It was originally a free-standing word but in Modern English survives only in this suffix.

HMS Hood in March 1924.  The last battlecruiser built for the Royal Navy, it was 860 feet (262 metres) in length, displaced 47,000 tons and had a main armament of eight 15 inch (380 mm) guns.

HMS Hood (1918-1941) was a Royal Navy battlecruiser named after Admiral Samuel Hood, first Viscount (1724–1816), one of five admirals the family would provide.  Although the Battle of Jutland (1916) had exposed the inherent limitations of the battlecruiser concept and the particular flaws in the British designs, the building of the Hood anyway continued and the revisions made in the light of the Jutland experience in some way exacerbated the ship’s problems; weight was added without fully affording the additional protection required.  The Admiralty was aware of this and of the four battlecruisers of her class planned, Hood was the only one completed as the Navy embarked on a re-design but the naval disarmament agreed between the major powers in the aftermath of World War I (1914-1918) meant none were built (indeed no navy would launch a new battlecruiser until the 1980s and even then the notion was thought strange) and for almost two decades Hood remained the largest warship in the world.

Naval architecture, fire control ballistics and aviation had however moved on in those years and although the biggest warship afloat (the “Mighty Hood” in the public imagination), Hood was outmoded but as late as the early 1930s this mattered little because the prospect of war between the big powers seemed not only remote but absurd.  Hood is still thought one of the most elegant warships ever and it spent those years touring the empire and other foreign ports, her fine lines and apparent might impressing many although the Admiralty was well aware the days of Pax Britannica were over.  Much comment has been made about the design flaw which resulted in the Hood sinking in minutes after a shell from the German battleship Bismarck, fired from a range of some ten miles (16,000 m), penetrated the deck (some modern analysts contest this because of technical details relating to the angle of fire available to the German gunners), causing the magazine to explode, essentially splitting the hull in two.  In fairness to the Kriegsmarine (the German navy), it was a good shot but at that range, it was also lucky, that essential element in many a battle.

In structural linguistics, the term “Americanisms” is used to describe several sub-sets of innovations in English attributed to those (and their descendents) who settled in North America.  They include (1) spellings (color vs colour), most of which make more sense than the originals, (2) simplification of use (check used for cheque as well as its other meanings), (3) coinings (sockdolager (decisive blow or remark), a nineteenth century American original of contested origin) and (4) alternatives (suspenders vs braces).  Hood was one word where used differed in the US.  In the UK, the hood was the (traditionally leather but latterly a variety of fabrics) folding top which began life on horse-drawn carriages and later migrated to cars which eventually were, inter alia, called cabriolets, drophead coupés or roadsters.  In the US the same coachwork was used but there the folding tops came to be called “soft tops”, one reason being the hood was the (usually) hinged panel which covered the engine.  In the UK, that was called a bonnet (from the Middle English bonet, from the Middle French bonet (which endures as the Modern French bonnet), from the Old French bonet (material from which hats are made), from the Frankish bunni (that which is bound), from the Proto-Germanic bundiją (bundle), from the primitive Indo-European bend- (to tie).  The origins of the use of bonnet and hood as engine coverings were essentially the same: the words were in the nineteenth century both used on both sides of the Atlantic to describe cowls or coverings which protected machinery from the elements, impacts etc (the idea based on the familiar garments) and it was only chance that one use prevailed in one place and one in the other.  There were other differences too: what the British called the boot the Americans said was the trunk which on the early automobiles, like many of the stage coaches they replaced, indeed it was.

Unhinged: Not all hoods were hinged.  In 1969, some Plymouth Road Runners (left) and Dodge Super Bees (right) could be ordered with a lightweight, fibreglass hood held in place by four locking pins.  Known as the "lift-off hood", it need two conveniently to remove the thing so it wasn't the most practical option Detroit ever offered but to the target market, it was very cool.

Noose

Noose (pronounced noos)

(1) A loop with a running knot, as in a snare, lasso, or hangman's halter, that tightens as the rope is pulled; a device to restrain, bind, or trap.

(2) A tie or bond; snare.

(3) To secure by or as by a noose.

(4) To make a noose with or in (a rope or the like).

1400-1450: From the late Middle English nose (noose, loop), of unclear origin.  Etymologists have speculated it may be from the Old French nos or Old Occitan nous & nos (both forms known also in the descendent Provençal), the nominative singular or accusative plural of nou (knot), with the meaning shifting from the knot to the loop created by the knot, the French forms from the Latin nōdus (knot; node), from the primitive Indo-European root ned (to bind; to tie).  If that’s true, it was cognate with the French nœud (knot), the Portuguese nó (knot) and the Spanish nudo (knot).  The alternative etymology (which most authorities appear to find more convincing) is it was borrowed from Middle Low German nȫse (loop, noose, snare), also of obscure origin although it may have been derived from an incorrect division of ēn' ȫse (literally “a loop”), from the Middle Low German ȫse, from the Old Saxon ōsia, from the Proto-West Germanic ansiju (eyelet, loop).  It’s possible the Saterland Frisian Noose (loop, eyelet) & Oose (eyelet, loop) may have emerged from the same process.  In English, use of noose was rare prior to the early seventeenth century.  Although it’s a popular tale, it’s a myth a hangman’s noose always has 13 coils.  The old spelling nooze is long obsolete.  Noose is a noun & verb; nooser is a verb, nooselike & nooseless are adjectives and noosed & noosing are verbs; the noun plural is nooses.

The Nazis and the noose

Soviet cartoon: Caricature of the defendants and the anticipated Nuremberg judgment (1946) by the Soviet artists known as the Kukryniksy: Porfiry Krylov (1902-1990), Mikhail Kupriyanov (1903-1991) & Nikolai Sokolov (1903-2000).  As the trial wore on, at least two of the defendants were recorded as requesting shirts with “larger collars” and on one occasion one removed his tie, explaining it was “suddenly feeling tight”.  The famous quote “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully” appears in volume 3 of The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791) by James Boswell (1740-1795) (a biography of the English writer and literary critic Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)).

As a prelude to the main Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) of the most notable or representative Nazis, the list of two-dozen-odd defendants was assembled to be indicted variously for (1) conspiracy to commit a crime against peace, (2) planning or waging wars of aggression, (3) war crimes and (4) crimes against humanity.  Even before the trial started it was known the International Military Tribunal (IMT) enjoyed capital jurisdiction (although in his opening remarks the president of the tribunal took care to explain the legal basis of their right to impose death sentences) and the court-appointed psychologist noted from his interviews with the accused that all expected the proceedings to be nothing more than a Stalinesque “show trial” with the death penalty inevitable for all, something the assurances of their (German) defense council seemed little to assuage.  As representatives from the world’s press (not yet called “the media”) began to arrive they were reported as mostly sharing the assumption and even as the trial unfolded and the defendants came to realize that for at least some of them there was the prospect of avoiding the noose or perhaps even securing an acquittal, the straw polls among the journalists still thought the death sentence likely for the majority.

Soviet cartoon The twelfth hour of the Hitlerites by Boris Efimov (1900-2008), from the series Fascist Menagerie, Izvestiia, 1 January 1946.

The prospect of imminent death is said “to focus the mind” and among the military defendants, all more than once expressed the opinion that as soldiers, they were entitled to execution by firing squad rather than by the hangman’s noose, the gallows too associated with the fate of common criminals (although one avoided that by having hanged himself (technically by act of strangulation) before the trial began.  In the end, of those present in the dock, 11 were sentenced to be hanged by the neck until dead, Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945 and Reichsmarschall 1940-1945) avoiding the indignity of the noose by committing suicide, poisoning himself on the eve of his scheduled execution in circumstances which have never been clear.  Another, Erich Raeder (1876–1960; head of the German Navy 1928-1943) lodged one of the more unusual appeals after being sentenced to life imprisonment, asking that he instead receive the death penalty, life in prison apparently a worse prospect than being hanged; his appeal was declined.  Many lurid stories about the botched nature of some of the hangings circulated in the post-war years but while some might not have caused instant death, it’s unlikely any took anything like the 17 minutes it was claimed some took to die.

Caricature of Rudolf Hess at Nuremberg (1946) by New Zealand-born UK cartoonist David Low (1891-1963).

The author Rebecca West (1892–1983) covered the trial as a journalist and wrote some vivid thumbnail sketches, noting: "Hess was noticeable because he was so plainly mad: so plainly mad that it seemed shameful that he should be tried.  His skin was ashen and he had that odd faculty, peculiar to lunatics, of falling into strained positions which no normal person could maintain for more than a few minutes, and staying fixed in contortion for hours. He had the classless air characteristic of asylum inmates; evidently his distracted personality had torn up all clues to his past.  He looked as if his mind had no surface, as if every part of it had been blasted away except the depth where the nightmares live."

The strangest case in so many ways was that of Rudolf Hess (1894–1987; Nazi Deputy Führer 1933-1941).  Before the proceedings formerly commenced, the tribunal had been considering discharging Hess because it seemed clear there was sufficient doubt his mental state was adequate to ensure a fair trial.  He went to trial only after making an extraordinary admission his display of amnesia had to that point been merely “tactical” and he was quite lucid and able to understand all that was going on; at the time, it was probably the trial's most sensational event.  He’d actually achieved the very thing sought by but denied to so many defendants yet he chose instead to be tried.  His conduct thereon was just as bizarre, declining to enter a plea (his "Nein!"the court recorded as “not guilty”), often preferring to read novels rather than follow the proceedings and when his sentence was announced, he claimed not to have listened, saying, apparently without much concern, he assumed it was death.  Actually, he was sentenced to imprisonment for life and with six others entered Berlin’s Spandau Prison where he would remain until 1987 when, aged 93, he hanged himself, having fashioned a noose from a length of electrical cable.  For the last two decades, he was the sole inmate of the huge facility designed to accommodate hundreds and, having entered captivity in 1941 after his bizarre “peace mission” to Scotland, had by the time of his death been locked-up for 46 years.

Low’s take on the official German line explaining Hess deserting the German government as “madness”.  This cartoon does represent what was then the prevailing public perception of the typical behaviour expected of those in “lunatic asylums”.  Depicted (left to right) are:

Hermann Göring: Committed suicide by by crushing between his teeth an ampule of a potassium cyanide (KCN), smuggled into his cell in circumstances never confirmed, shortly before he was to be hanged after being convicted on all four counts ((1) Conspiracy to wage aggressive war; (2) Waging aggressive war; (3) War crimes and (4) crimes against humanity.

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945): With his wife Eva Hitler (née Braun; 1912–1945) of a few hours, committed suicide (he by gunshot and KCN, she by KCN alone) with the tanks of the Red Army only a couple of blocks from the Berlin Führerbunker.

Dr Robert Ley (1890–1945; head of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Labour Front) 1933-1945): Committed suicide by hanging (by means of suffocation) himself in his cell in Nuremberg prior to the trial after for some years have made a reasonable attempt to drink himself to death.  He died with his underpants stuffed in his mouth.

Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945): Hanged at Nuremberg after being convicted on all four counts.

Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945): With his wife (Magda Goebbels (née Ritschel; 1901-1945), committed suicide (by gunshot) in the courtyard above the Führerbunker, shortly after they’d murdered their six children.

Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945; Reichsführer SS 1929-1945): Captured by the British while attempting to escape disguised as a soldier, he committed suicide using an ampule of (KCN) he’d concealed in his mouth.

Burberry’s hoodie with noose, 2019, (left) and model Kylie Jenner (b 1997) wearing a Givenchy Noose Necklace, 2023.

Because of the association with suicide, slavery and the history of lynching in the century after the US Civil War (1861-1865), the noose can be a controversial thing if invoked in an insensitive way.  Controversy though is just another technique to be weaponized when there’s the need to generate publicity and in the fashion business, it’s no longer enough to just to design something elegant or otherwise pleasing to the eye because it will barely be noticed on the catwalk and probably won’t make the magazines or become clickbait.  Thus the temptation to try to shock which will guarantee the desired publicity, the added attraction being the certainty the will do its job then quickly subside.  The Givenchy Noose Necklace model Kylie Jenner wore in January 2023 at Paris Fashion Week had been see before, causing a bit of a stir on the catwalk in 2021 when it was used in the fashion house’s Spring/Summer 2022 show.  Then, on cue, The Guardian called it out as “blatantly offensive”, guaranteeing even wider coverage although Givenchy solved the short-term problem by responding to the paper’s request for a comment with an Élysée-like “The house does not have an official response on this”.  They may have learned that in such matters apologies probably make things worse from Burberry’s "We are deeply sorry for the distress caused by one of the products that featured in our Autumn/Winter 2019 collection”, issued after being condemned for showing a hoodie with a noose.

Checkered

Checkered (pronounced chek-erd)

(1) Marked by numerous and various shifts or changes; variegated; diversified in color; alternately light and shadowed.

(2) Figuratively, changeable; inconsistent, marked by dubious episodes; suspect in character or quality, often in the forms “a checkered career”, “a checkered past” etc.  The still preferred spelling in the UK and much of the old British Empire is "chequered". 

(3) A fabric or other material marked with squares (most often in alternating black & white).

1350–1400: Check was from the Middle English chek & chekke, from the Old French eschek, eschec & eschac, from the Medieval Latin scaccus, from the Arabic شَاه‎ (šāh) (king (or check at chess); shah), from the Persian شاه‎ (šâh) (king, shah), from the Middle Persian mlkʾ & šāh, from the Old Persian xšāyaθiya (king), from the Proto-Indo-Iranian kšáyati (he rules, he has power over), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European tek- (to gain power over, gain control over).  The phrase “checkered past” appeared first in print in 1831 as a figurative use in the sense of “variegated with different qualities or events, having a character both good and bad”.  Checkered is an adjective.  Exchequer was from the Middle English escheker and eschequier, borrowed from the Anglo-French escheker and eschekier, derived from the Old French eschequier and escheccheck (chessboard, counting table).  Source was the Medieval Latin scaccarium (chess board).  The meaning with which it’s now most associated, government finances, emerged under the Norman kings of England, basis being the design of the cloth, divided in squares, covering the tables on which accounts of revenue were reckoned with counters.  These reminded all who saw them of a chess board and the name was adopted.  The English respelling with an -x- was because of the erroneous medieval belief that it originally was a Latin ex- word.

Flags in motorsport

Taking the checkered flag: Ralph Mulford (1884–1973) in a Lozier Type 51, winning the Vanderbilt Cup, Savannah, Georgia, USA, 28 November 1911.  In motorsport, the term "taking the checkered flag" means winning the race although at the conclusion of an event, the flag is displayed to all competitors as they cross the finish line for the final time.  Even in the digital age, flags continue to play a vital part in motorsport.  Despite progress, flags remain an efficient and reliable system instantly to convey information to those in visual range although in top-flight competition (such as Formula One) the bunting is now augmented by color-coded in-car display systems.  The most commonly seen flags are:

Green: Normal racing conditions apply.  The green flag is used also by staff under the control of the race director (the old "clerk of the course", a term borrowed from horse racing which donated much early terminology to the sport) in a way the drivers never see: When the cars are assembled on the grid prior to the start of an event, the race marshal posted at the back of the field will wave a green flag to indicate all vehicles are correctly placed; once the starter sees this, they are free to start the race which they do by waving a flag and while this may be green, these days it's often a national (or sub-national) flag or one with the symbol of a sponsor.    

Yellow: The hazard flag.  Its use varies according to the rules of the sanctioning body but in general: (1) it waved, it denotes a hazard on the racing surface, (2) if stationary a hazard near the racing surface and if two yellow flags are waved simultaneously, there’s a hazard (an object or person) blocking at least part of the racing surface.

Red and yellow vertical stripes: The oil flag.  It’s really the slipperiness flag because it’s used to warn of something on the surface (oil, coolant, sand, gravel, other fluids etc) which mean the track will offer less grip; despite that everybody calls it the oil flag.  Some sanctioning bodies display the flag until the hazard has cleared; others use it only for a couple of laps, the hazard beyond that point deemed "part of the track” with which the drivers are assumed to have become familiar.

Red: Stop the race.  This is usually done because a severe accident or natural conditions (weather, earthquake etc) mean it’s too dangerous to continue and, depending on the circumstances, drivers need either immediately to stop or slow to a safe speed and proceed to the pits.  Sometimes it’s used in conjunction with a yellow flag (there’s even a diagonally divided red and yellow flag for this purpose) to indicate the field should assemble for a re-start.

White: Once, the white flag was used to warn drivers an ambulance was sharing the track and as late as the 1970s, ambulances were deployed with the field still at racing speed and those for whom that sounds remarkable, should view footage of the aftermath of the horrific accident at Le Mans in 1955 to see how things used to be done without interfering with the running of the race.  Of late the white flag has come to be used in US motorsport as a component in the Green–White–Checker finish (GWC), an innovation which was a product of the sport being a content provider for television (and latterly other) feeds.  Its core rationale is to ensure races end under competitive conditions rather something anti-climatically processional under caution the caution flag.  Adopted in NASCAR, IndyCar (with variations), and other US series, the official explanation is that GWC ensures fairness while maintaining a structured approach but it’s really a device to ensure the product (the viewers) continue happily to be delivered to the customers (the advertisers).  In NASCAR the GWC is implemented with set parameters: (1) a green flag is waved to indicate the start of the final two laps (the so-called “overtime”) and (2) a white is waved to signify the final lap.  Should another caution flag be required before the white flag point is reached, the process can begin anew and this can be done as often as is possible within whatever “retries limit” rule applies on the day; should the white flag be taken, the next flag (checkered or caution) ends the race.  Other series have variations on the system, some extending laps under green or utilizing “red flag” stoppages to enable a competitive finish.

Black: The solid black flag is shown to inform a drive they should return to the pits to serve a penalty for some infringement of the rules or to have the vehicle checked because of some concern.  The black flag with an orange disc in the centre (the so-called meatball flag) is used to call a vehicle to the pits to have some mechanical defect immediately rectified.  The meatball flag, either by explicit regulation or convention, is used only when the mechanical defect presents some real or immediate risk to drivers or spectators (oil leaks, protruding bodywork etc)  

Blue: A proximity warning.  If held in a static position, it tells the driver another vehicle is closely following while if waved, it means another vehicle is attempting to overtake.  The idea is a slower car should not impede the progress of a faster one but the pattern of enforcement varies, the most common regulation being that lapped cars must yield to one attempting to pass but while this is mandated in some series, in others it remains merely advisory (although conduct can still be subject to “bad sportsmanship” rules, the ultimate on-track sanction of which is the “black flag”).  Often, the blue flag is used also at the exit from the pits to assist vehicles safely to re-join the race without disrupting those still circulating.

Checkered:  Also known as the chequered flag, the checkered flag indicates the end of a race.  Some sources suggest historically it was waved to acknowledge the race winner and held static to indicate to others the race had finished but there’s no evidence this practice was ever written into rules or even widely adopted and the checkered flag seems mostly to be waved.  The winner of a race is said to have “taken the checkered flag”.  Checkered flags are usually black and white and rendered in squares or rectangles but different color combinations have been used, sometimes to suit the needs of sponsors.  A noted innovation came in the 1980 Indianapolis 500 when two checkered flags were waved at race-end and the Indy series has adopted this as a standard.

Lindsay Lohan with fingernails in checkered flag pattern.

Various stories have been offered as the origin of the checkered flag in motorsport.  One suggests that in the horse-racing events popular at the large public picnics held during the settlement of the American mid-west during the nineteenth century, when the ladies were ready to serve lunch, they would wave large, checker-board tablecloths to inform the men food was ready and they competition should quickly be concluded.  As motorsport emerged as another amusement for men, because the early competitions were almost always held on dirt tracks, it’s said the contrasting colors of the checkerboard pattern were easier to see in a dusty environment and were thus ideal to signal the finish line.  Historians of the sport think these stories dubious on the basis of a lack of any contemporary evidence and for the some reason they’ve always been unwilling to give credence to any link with late nineteenth century bicycle racing in France.

British Admiralty Flag Chart.  

More convincing is the notion it may have been a borrowing from a naval flag signaling system and those of some admiralties did include a black (or blue) & white checkerboard to denote “Z” (ie final letter and thus the end in that sense).  It may be true or else, like many things, the checkered flag was chosen for its purpose at random.  What all agree upon is the documentary record.  The earliest known use of the checkered flag, based on the photographic record, is the one used to mark the end of the 1906 Vanderbilt Cup race in Long Island, New York.

Manufacturers used the checkered flag to convey a sense of high performance and to suggest some link (which sometimes was real) with a competition history.

The flag of Croatia

A banner used in Croatia between 925-1102 (left), the current Croatian flag adopted after independence in 1990 (centre) and the Croatian naval ensign (1990).

One of the most ancient symbols to endure in modern nation flags is the red & white checkered pattern used to this day on the flag of Croatia.  The oldest known example dates from 925 and the pattern was used (with the odd interruption) for centuries, even when the country was a non-sovereign component of supranational states such as the Habsburg Empire.  A red star was used instead when Croatia was a part of comrade Marshall Tito’s (1892-1980) Jugoslavija (Yugoslavia) between 1945-1990 but the red & white checks were restored when independence was regained in 1990.

Ivana Knoll at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

Noted Instagram influencer Ms Ivana Knoll (b 1992) was a finalist in the Miss Croatia beauty contest in 2016 and for her appearances at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, chose a number of outfits using the national symbol of the red and white checkerboard, matching the home strip worn by the team.  By the standards of Instagram, the design of the hoodie she donned for Croatia's game against Morocco at the Al-Bayat stadium wasn't particularly revealing but it certainly caught the eye.  As if Gianni Infantino (b 1970, president of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA, the International Federation of Association Football) since 2016) didn't have enough to ponder, the former Miss Croatia contestant tagged FIFA in her posts, fearing perhaps the president might not be among her 600,000 Instagram followers and her strategy seems to have had the desired effect.  Although it deems dubious the design (which did cover her hair, shoulders and legs) was sufficiently demur to satisfy the local rules, it seems she posted throughout the event, undisturbed.   The guidance provided by FIFA indicated non-Qatari women didn't need to wear the abaya (the long, black robe) but tops had to cover the midriff and shoulders, and skirts, dresses or trousers must cover the knees; moreover, clothing should not be tight or reveal any cleavage.  In accordance with the rules or not, Ms Knoll proved a popular accessory for Qatari men seeking selfies.

Croatian FIFA World Cup 2022 strips, home (left) & away (right). 

On the basis of her Instagram posts, the German-born beauty (although perhaps technically in violation of some rules) had a pleasant tournament if she's had any problems, Sepp Blatter's (b 1936; FIFA president 1998-2015) lawyers may have been available.  They seem pretty good.  Paradoxically, although the impressively pneumatic Ms Knoll generated much interest in her hoodie, had she worn an all-enveloping burka in the red & white checkerboard, it might have gained even more clicks.