Mermaid

Mermaid (pronounced mur-meyd)

(1) In folklore, a female marine creature, having the head, torso, and arms of a woman and the tail of a fish.  The less well-known masculine equivalent is a merman.

(2) Slang term for a highly skilled female swimmer.

Mid-1300s: From the Middle English mermayde (maid of the sea), the construct being mere + maid. From the Middle English mere, from the Old English mere (sea; inlet; lake), from the Proto-Germanic mari derived from the primitive Indo-European móri. It was cognate with the West Frisian mar, the Dutch & Low German meer and Norwegian mar (only used in combinations, such as marbakke).  It was related to the Latin mare, the Breton mor and the Russian мо́ре (móre).  Maid is from the Middle English mayde or maide, an abbreviation of maiden. Ultimate source is the Proto-Germanic magaþs (maid, virgin) and there were links to the Dutch meid & Magd.  The fourteenth century image of the "fabled marine or amphibian creature having the upper body in the form of a woman and the lower in the form of a fish, with human attributes" appeared most often in conjunction with the idea of a creature "usually working harm, with or without malignant intent, to mortals with whom she might be thrown into relation".

Along with meremenn, meremennen & meremenin, Old English had the equivalent merewif (water-witch (related is the modern “wife”)) and meremenn (mermaid, siren) which were cognate with the Middle Dutch meer-minne and the Old High German meri-min which, circa 1200, became the Middle English mere-min, shortened in the early thirteenth century to mere (siren), the later mermaid probably a re-expansion of this.  Interestingly, where similar forms existed in northern Europe, they were tail-less; the fishy form a medieval influence from classical sirens, mermaids said sometimes to lure sailors to destruction with song.

An artist's depiction of Lindsay Lohan as mermaid.

Mermaids became a popular sign displayed by taverns and inns (and not just those in ports or coastal towns) in the early fifteenth century and Mermaid pie, first sold in the 1660s, was a sucking pig baked whole in a crust and documented from 1825 was the mermaid's purse (the baked egg-case of a skate, ray, or shark), a dish (an aquatic take on the culinary tradition of haggis) thought of Scottish origin.  The merman (fabulous sea-creature, man above and fish below (literally "man of the sea)) dates from circa 1600; the gender-neutral merpeople from 1849 and merfolk (inhabitants of the sea with human bodies and fish-like tails) from 1846.  The recent male gender formations never caught the public imagination in quite the same way and seem pointless add-ons to the myth, al la Barbi's Ken.

Садко в Подводном царстве (romanized as Sadko v Podvodnom tsarstve) and commonly called Sadko although known also as Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom (1876), oil on canvas by Ilya Yefimovich Repin (1844–1930), Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg.  

Repin painted Sadko (an imposing 127 in × 90.6 inches (3.225 x 2.3m)) while living in France.  The artist was inspired by an epic-length Russian poem, depicting the merchant and musician Sadko who must choose for his wife one of the daughters of the Underwater King.  Biographers have noted the subject an uncharacteristic one for Repin and have suggested his choice of a tale from Russian folklore may have reflected the homesickness he felt after three years in self-imposed exile although it exhibits too the influences of the artistic and social milieu of Paris's Montmartre.  At the time, Repin was ambivalent about the state of Russian art and for some time, Sadko sat abandoned in his studio but the society painter Alexey Petrovich Bogolyubov (1824–1896) thought it so compellingly Russian he prevailed upon Tsesarevich Alexander Alexandrovich (1845-1894; the future Tsar Alexander III (1881-1894)) to commission it, prompting Repin to finish the work.

The bylina (an oral epic poem) which inspired the painting was from north-west Russia and recounts how Sadko had been brought to the realm of the Underwater King to perform a recital which went well, so well the king danced with such delight that he caused a devastating storm.  To show his appreciation, the king offered Sadko the choice of one of his mermaid daughters to take as his wife but following the advice of a saint, Sadko refuses three times three hundred daughters before accepting the last, named Chernavushka.  In the painting, Sadko appears at the right, watching the mermaids flow past his gaze, the unchosen at the front of the procession looking more disappointed than the fish John West rejects.  Chernavushka, last in the aquatic queue is shown glancing at her man.  At the time, the work received a mixed reaction.  All acknowledged the technical skill displayed in the execution but it appealed only to Russian traditionalists, those critics who moved in more liberal circles and were attracted more to realism than a mystical allegory of an undersea kingdom thought it sentimental "folk-art" and urged Repin to return to the naturalistic style with which he'd established his early reputation.

Nice work if you can get it: The Disneyland mermaids.

In summer, between 1959-1967, women dressed as mermaids were employed to splash around four hours a day, operating from a coral reef in the middle of the Submarine Lagoon at the Disneyland Resort in California.  The criteria to qualify for selection as a Disney mermaid included having long hair and being able to swim, the other qualifications not listed on the advertisements but presumably implied by the nature of the appointment.  Those lucky enough to succeed in the first stage of the recruitment process needed to prove their prowess in the hotel pool and, upon demonstrating adequate aquatic adeptness, were given a job which included their tails.  The weekly salary was US$65 which was above average for the time, their other perk being the right to swim in any of the park's many pools (without their tails).

For a few weeks, prior to the opening in June, the mermaids practiced in Submarine Lagoon, surrounded by construction activity, neither the lagoon or the Matterhorn yet complete and were warned to keep their distance from the submarine, since there was no barrier and the installation contained what were described, ominously, as "moving parts".  After opening, the mermaids would swim around the submarine, giving guests a memorable experience under and above the surface, performing tricks such as flips and turns with their tails.  Their costumes consisted of a starfish top and a remarkably life-like neoprene tail which could be seen shimmering in the water by those aboard the monorail which transported guests between the park and the Disneyland Hotel.

An integral and important part of the lagoon’s design was a centrally-located rock which was artificially heated, vital because the water was cold and on cooler days, the mermaids really needed the warmth.  The rock became the hangout spot for the mermaids to warm up in the sun and chat amongst themselves, itself something of a tourist attraction and one of the park’s more photographed scenes although the volume of the crowds gathered to enjoy the view did create congestion.  That was manageable but the programme had to be closed in 1967 after a number of mermaids were found to be suffering illness, caused by a combination of prolonged exposure to diesel submarine's exhaust fumes and the highly chlorinated water.  After an absence of many years, mermaids can again be seen in the lagoon but, unlike the flesh, blood and neoprene originals, today’s creatures are animatronic creations.

Batwing

Batwing (pronounced bat-wing)

(1) In zoology, the wing of a bat (and, informally, related creatures).

(2) In entomology, several South or Southeast Asian species of tailless dark swallowtail butterflies in the genus Atrophaneura.

(3) An object or design formed or shaped in a way resembling the extended wing of a bat.

(4) In architecture, as “batwing doors”, pairs of swinging doors which typically do not lock nor cover the full vertical range of the doorway (leaving a large gap at the top and bottom), common as entrances to commercial kitchens and in bars.  It was the US industry in the mid-1950s which adopted “batwing doors” to replace “saloon doors” because there was some “middle class resistance” to the association with such establishments; it was a in time which rising prosperity had made mass market interior decorating a thing, hence the re-branding.

(5) In fashion, a garment or part of a garment resembling or conceived of as resembling the wing of a bat, applied usually to a loose, long sleeve (some flaring out, some with a tight wrist and known also as the “magyar sleeve”) but also to hem-lines.

(6) In hairdressing, a variation of the pigtail (in which the tied hair extends from the scalp at close to 90^o before cascading) in which the tied hair extends from the scalp upwards at an acute angle before cascading.  Batwings can be single ties but more typically appear symmetrically to the sides, in emulation of the wings of a bat.

(6) In physical training, an exercise routine or posture on the stomach wherein a dumbbell row or lateral raise is performed.

(7) In slang, an area of flabby fat under a person's arms (known in some places as “tuck shop lady’s arms).

(8) In automotive design, a type of rear fin which extended laterally rather than upwards.

1955–1960: The construct was bat + wing.  Bat (in the sense of the small flying mammal) dates from the late 1570s and is thought to be from a Scandinavian source, possibly the dialectal Swedish natt-batta, a variant of the Old Swedish natt-bakka (night-bat).  It replaced the Middle English bake & bak, from balke & blake, also from a Scandinavian source.  The related Nordic forms included the dialectal Swedish natt-blacka and the Old Icelandic ledhr-blaka (bat), the construct being ledhr (skin, leather) + blaka (flutter) and understood in the vernacular as “leather flapper”, the sense something like the later Old Danish nathbakkæ (literally “night-flapper”).  The earlier use (to describe a club, staff etc) dated from the turn of the thirteenth century and was from the Middle English noun bat, bot & batte, from the Old English batt which may have been from Celtic (the Irish & Scots Gaelic bat & bata meant “staff, cudgel”.  The Middle English verb batten, came partly from the noun, influenced by the Old French batre (batter).  Wing dates from the mid-twelfth century and was from the Middle English plural nouns winge & wenge, from the Old Danish wingæ (the other Nordic forms including the Norwegian & Swedish vinge and the Old Norse vǣngr (wing of a flying animal, wing of a building)).  In the Old Norse, the architectural sense of “a building’s wing” extended to nautical use, a vængi a “ship's cabin”.  The Nordic forms came from the Proto-Germanic wēingijaz, from the primitive Indo-European hweh- (to blow (hence the connection with “flapping” & “wind”).  The cognates included the Danish vinge (wing), the Swedish vinge (wing) and the Icelandic vængur (wing).  In English, “wing” came to replace the Middle English fither, from the Old English fiþre, from the Proto-Germanic fiþriją), which merged with the Middle English fether (from Old English feþer, from Proto-Germanic feþrō).  The spellings bat wing & bat-wing are also used.  Batwing is a noun and adjective, batwinged & batwingish are adjectives; the noun plural is batwings.

Gothic Batwing Sleeved Mermaid Long Dress by Punk Design (left) and Gothic Black A-Line wedding dress with leg Slit, batwing sleeves and bat hem by Wulgaria Couture (right).  Goths like batwings (usually in black with the odd splash of purple), the flowing sleeves often paired with leather or the more accommodating “wet latex look”.  Wulgaria Couture describe the A-Line style as a “wedding dress in gothic black” but it’s available also in a blood red for those non-Goths who like the batwing aesthetic.

Alfa Romeo BAT 5 (1953, left), BAT 7 (1954, centre) and BAT 9 (1955, right), designed by Franco Scaglione (1916–1993).

The Alfa Romeo BAT (Berlina Aerodinamica Tecnica, best translated as “exploration of aerodynamic principles in cars”) concept cars were among the most stylistically adventurous (and aerodynamically successful) of the transatlantic movement in the 1950s which focused on applying the lessons learned from progress in aeronautics during World War II (1939-1945).  The tail fin had been seen as early as the 1920s and their role in enhancing straight-line stability was imported directly from aircraft design but on the road they’d tended to be single, upright structures, best remembered from the use in the pre-war Czechoslovakian Tatras, intriguing things which, configured with a rear-mounted V8 engine, at speed needed a “stabilizing fin” more than most.  However, it was in the 1950s, when such publicity was afforded to jet aircraft, rockets & missiles, that designers took a renewed interest in fins & wings.  In the US, they quickly became extravagances, divorced from any functional relationship to fluid dynamics much beyond the merely coincidental but for Europeans, for whom fuel was more expensive and incomes lower, it was understood aerodynamics alone could improve both a vehicle’s economy and its performance.

Batwings: A grey-headed flying fox.

The performance of the trio was, by contemporary standards, remarkable, all able to attain in excess of 200 km/h (125 mph), despite being powered by a relatively small 1.9 litre (115 cubic inch) engine, albeit one fitted with double overhead camshafts (DOHC).  The wings (the BAT acronym for the cars was opportunistic) were just one part on a design which in all aspects was intended to optimize air-flow and although even at the time there were cars with smaller frontal areas, the BATs gained much of their advantage from the lowering of the front coachwork and the drag coefficient (CD) of the three ranged from 0.19-0.23, impressive even today.  It’s on BAT 7 that the batwing motif is most pronounced, the wings extending as a single structure from the base of the A-pillar, at the rear tilting and sweeping in an arc towards the centre-line.  When the metalworkers in the coach-building house first saw the design, their reaction was something like that of the structural engineers on first viewing the “sails” on the blueprints of Jørn Utzon’s (1918–2008) Sydney Opera House but they rose to the occasion.  The design would never have been suitable for mass-production; the famous fins on the US cars of the era were not only simpler structures but also designed in a way which accommodated the relatively “lose” manufacturing tolerances which permitted them being built quickly and at scale.  Perhaps tellingly, BAT 9 appeared with appendages less batwing-like and more attuned to the way Detroit was doing things.

It's the batwings which made BAT 7 the most memorable of the three and in 2008, Carrozzeria Bertone (builders of the original trio) built the Alfa Romeo BAT 11dk prototype, a conceptual rendering in clay, Styrofoam & filler, designed to use the underpinnings of the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione.  Commissioned by a former owner of BAT 7, the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) scuttled its appearance at the Geneva Motors Show and certainly any prospect of a small production run or even a one-off creation.

Misty was a weekly British comic magazine for girls which, unusually, was found also to enjoy a significant male readership.  Published UK house Fleetway, it existed only between 1978-1980 although Misty Annual appeared until 1986.  The cover always featured the eponymous, raven haired beauty.  Befitting its theme, bats often featured in the artwork.

Lindsay Lohan in Anger Management (2013) demonstrates the batwing (left), defined by the tied hair extending upwards from the scalp before cascading, as distinct from the “pig tail” (centre) which extends from the scalp at close to 90^o before cascading.  Batwings can be single ties (centred or asymmetric) but more typically appear symmetrically to the sides, in emulation of the wings of a bat.  There are also batwing hair clips (right), also called “batwing hair claws” which is more evocative.

Chevrolet Bel Air: 1957 (left), 1958 (centre) and 1959 (right).

The 1959-1960 Chevrolets quickly picked up the nickname “batwing” and richly it was deserved; there was nothing like them at the time and there’s been nothing since.  The 1959 range actually had a strange and rushed gestation.  The fins on the 1955-1956-1957 cars (the so-called “tri-five Chevies”) had grown upwards in the fashion of the time but the corporation decided something different was needed and for 1958 chose baroque, the embryonic batwings obvious now but it was only when the next year’s model was released they would be understood thus.  The reason the General Motors (GM) 1958 body shape would last only one season was that at time it suffered by comparison with the sleek Chryslers; it was thought frumpy and even bloated and that it was released into that year’s short but sharp recession, didn’t help. The re-design for 1959 had its flaws (many of which (including toning down the batwings) were fixed for 1960) but it could never have been called “frumpy” and the “cats eye” taillights are admired even today.  Still the market didn’t respond as GM would have liked and the batwings soon flew off; by 1963 the Chevrolet was so blandly inoffensive it was being described as “a little bit like every car ever built”.  It proved a great success.

1960 Chevrolet "bubbletop" Impala Sport Coupe (left) and 1963 Ford Consul Capri (right).  On the 1960 Chevrolets, the memorable “cats eye” taillights were replaced by round units, three aside for the top-of-the-line Impala, two for the less expensive Bel Air & Biscayne.

For 1960, Chevrolet made the batwings a little less “batwingish” and the idea travelled across the Atlantic, Ford in the UK applying the scaled-down motif to their Ford Consul Classic (1961-1963) and Consul Capri (1961-1964), the latter a two-door coupé which the company wanted to be thought of as a “co-respondent's car” (ie the sort of rakish design which would appeal to the sort of chap who slept with other men’s wives, later to be named as the “co-respondent” in divorce proceedings).  Whether or not the “batwingettes” played a part isn’t known but neither the Classic nor the Capri were successful.

Rehab

Rehab (pronounced ree-hab)

(1) A clipping of rehabilitation.

(2) In slang (though also sometimes used formally), a programme or facility for treating substance abuse (those addicted to narcotics or alcohol.

(3) In slang (though also sometimes used formally), a programme or facility for treating those recovering from certain medical conditions:

(4) In slang, a building which has been renovated, usually in the context of urban renewal and re-development being.

(5) Of or relating to rehabilitation.

(6) In the vernacular of post-war New Zealand English, the informal short form for the Department of Rehabilitation, a government institution established to cater for the needs of injured military personnel.

(7) To rehabilitate (something, someone, a concept or idea).

(8) In political science, to restore an individual to their previous status (drawn from late medieval civil & canon law and associated particularly with Soviet-era Russia and undertaken to rectify those unpersoned).

(9) In environmental science, a defined area (land or aquatic) in which a programme of rehabilitation is being undertaken or has been completed.

1948 (as documented although there may have been previous ad-hoc use in various oral traditions):  The original form emerged in the vernacular of post-war New Zealand English NZ the informal short form for the Department of Rehabilitation, a government institution established to cater for the needs of injured military personnel.  It worked in conjunction with the civil organization the Rehabilitation League, formed in 1931 with similar aims.  By the early 1970s, the word as a slang term was used in relation to housing and urban renewal programmes.  The extension of the meaning to “an action of restoring anything to a previous condition” emerged in the mid-nineteenth century and was soon used of land, buildings, machinery etc and in the 1940s it began to be applied to programmes designed to re-educate & re-train criminals, addicts and such for a successful re-entry to society.  Rehab is a noun & verb, rehaber is a noun & rehabbed & rehabbing; the noun plural is rehabs.

The Collins Dictionary tracks patterns of word use and while the pre-modern statistics are neither comprehensive or exact to the extent revealed by analysis of the wealth of modern data, it's thought still usefully illustrative.  Clearly there was a trend of use in the eighteenth century but this is thought not indicative of "rehab" being treated as a stand-alone word but as a contraction to save space when printing legal and ecclesiastical documents, a required technique in an era when ink and paper were both expensive.  Rehab, as currently used, is very much a word of the twenty-first century.

The noun rehabilitation (act of reinstating in a former rank or standing) dates from the 1530s and was from the French réhabilitation or the Medieval Latin rehabilitationem (nominative rehabilitatio) (restoration), a noun of action from the past-participle stem of rehabilitare, the construct being re- (again) + habitare (make fit), from the Latin habilis (easily managed, fit).  At least some etymologists suspect the derived verb rehabilitate may have emerged concurrently but the earliest known citation is from 1583.  The process originally applied exclusively to those who, having earlier been punished for some transgression by being stripped for rank or status, were for whatever reason restored to their former position.  The verb was from the Medieval Latin rehabilitatus, the past participle of rehabilitare and the processes were at various times codified in both civil and canon law.  The process is now best remembered from the practices in the Soviet Union where comrades guilty of especially unworthy acts (or thoughts) could be “unpersoned” (ie erased from all records).  In some cases, circumstances could change and the unpersoned were rehabilitated.

Lindsay Lohan with broken wrist (fractured in two places in an unfortunate fall at Milk Studios during New York Fashion Week) and 355 ml (12 fluid oz) can of Rehab energy drink, Los Angeles, September 2006.  The car is a 2006 Mercedes-Benz SL 65 (R230; 2004-2011) which would later feature in the tabloids after a low-speed crash.  The R230 range (2001-2011) was unusual because of the quirk of the SL 550 (2006-2011), a designation used exclusively in the North American market, the RoW (rest of the world) cars retaining the SL 500 badge even though both used the 5.5 litre (333 cubic inch) V8 (M273).

Doubtlessly, substance abuse has existed ever since substances became available to be abused and just a certainly, over the millennia, individuals, families and societies have devised their own methods to rehabilitate those afflicted.  There was great variation in the approaches but in the West, most tended to be influenced by the dominant ethos that addiction was a moral failing and personal weakness, the literature suggesting punishment and abstinence were there preferred course of treatment; “drying out” has a long history.  It was in the late twentieth century that the notion of “rehab” being not only a process but one which could be treated in a permanent structure, an institutionalization of earlier ad-hoc approaches of which Alcoholics Anonymous, beginning in 1935 is probably the best known although it was by no means the first and much of its success in attracting followers has been attributed to it distancing itself from the religious affiliations which characterized many of its predecessors.

Lindsay Lohan in rehab center, Sundance, Utah, 2007.  It is possible to purchase alcohol in Utah although the regulatory environment is more restrictive so presumably the state is more suited than many to host rehab centers.

Even by the 1970s, there was still much stigma attached to rehabilitation programmes and it was probably the admission by Betty Ford (1918–2011; US First Lady 1974-1977) that she was an alcoholic which was most instrumental in lending some legitimacy to the concept.  After leaving the White House she would found her own rehab clinic which continues to operate.  In the years since, there’s been an attempt to re-classify addiction as a treatable medical condition rather than a moral failing or something worse which need to be treated punitively.  To an extent that has worked and there’s probably a general public perception that addiction is exactly that, a chemical relationship between the substances and the physical brain but in some jurisdictions, such is the volume of addiction that it’s simply not possible to provide rehab services on the scale required.  There’s a critique also of rehab as something which has come to be seen by the TikTok generation as something almost fashionable, presumably because of the frequency with which pop-culture celebrities are clients and even addiction can now thus be rationalized as one of the corollaries of the creative mind.  There’s also of course the link between rehab clinics and wealth, the association created because (1) they’re places where even short-stay programmes can cost tens of thousands of dollars and (2) the only time they’re attract publicity is when a celebrity or some other famous figure attends.  Criticism has been extended too because there’s often little sympathy for those who use an admission of addiction in mitigation (“excuse” in the popular imagination) when on trial for this or that and there’s a perception rehab is an attractive alternative to actual punishment.

Monster Rehab energy drinks.

According to the helpful site Caffeine Informer, Monster's Rehab energy drinks (Peach Tea, Raspberry Tea, Orangeade, Watermelon, Strawberry Lemonade & Tea + Lemonade) contain 160 mg of caffeine (except the watermelon flavor which weighs in at 150).  A cup of black coffee will typically contain between 55-70 mg.  According to the manufacturer, the Rehab drinks are "packed with electrolytes, vitamins, and botanicals that deliver on advanced hydration helping you reduce fatigue and increase concentration."  Their target market is those who wish to "refresh, recover & revive" and their staccato advertising copy captures the moment they'd like customers to visualize:

It’s 2 P.M. Still sleeping, but who’s banging on the door?  “Housekeeping!”  Your eyes open to see a mermaid scoot her ass across the floor.  The housekeeper screams and mutters a prayer.  This can’t be right.  Your eyes close.  It’s after 4 now.  Your head’s pounding.  So many questions.  You’ve got to meet everyone downstairs in an hour to do it all again.  Not a problem.  You’re a professional.  You crack open a Rehab Monster Tea + Lemonade and let the lemon-infused electrolytes, vitamins, and botanicals work their life-giving, hydration magic.  Congrats, You’re back from the dead.

Fishtail

Fishtail (pronounced fish-teyl)

(1) As "to fishtail" or "fishtailing", to swerve or skid from side to side, as the rear end of a car (an oversteering sequence).

(2) In aviation, to slow an airplane by causing its tail to move rapidly from side to side; such a maneuver.

(3) A gas burner having two jets crossing each other so as to produce a flame resembling a fish's tail.

(4) A device having a long, narrow slot at the top, placed over a gas jet, as of a Bunsen burner, to give a thin, fanlike flame.

(5) In jewelry design, a setting consisting of four prominent triangular corner prongs to hold the stone.

(6) In dance, a step in ballroom dancing in which the feet are quickly crossed

(7) In fashion design, a dress or skirt with a flowing, scalloped hemline sometimes longer at the back than at the front, flaring usually from about the knee.

(8) In hair-styling, a two-stranded braid.

1400–1450: From the late Middle English, the construct being fish + tail.  Fish the noun (strictly a vertebrate which has gills and fins adapting it for living in the water but the word came to be more widely applied, zoologically) was from the Middle English fisch, from the Old English fisċ (fish), from the Proto-West Germanic fisk, from the Proto-Germanic fiskaz (fish) (source also of the Old Saxon, the Old Frisian & the Old High German fisc, the Old Norse fiskr, the Middle Dutch visc, the Dutch vis, the German Fisch & the Gothic fisks) and related to the West Frisian fisk, the Danish, Norwegian & Swedish fisk, the Irish iasc & the Latin piscis; Root probably either the primitive Indo-European peysḱ- (fish) or pisk (a fish) but at least one etymologist, on phonetic grounds, has suggested it might be a northwestern Europe substratum word.  Fish the verb is from the Old English fiscian (to fish, to catch or try to catch fish), and was cognate with the Old Norse fiska, the Old High German fiscon, the German fischen & the Gothic fiskon, all derived from the noun.  In popular use, since Old English, fish has been used to apply to "any animal that lives entirely in the water," hence shellfish & starfish although, in English there’s an early fifteenth century document which describes fishes bestiales as "water animals other than fishes").  Today, aquatic mammals like dolphins are presumed fish by some.  The plural is fishes, but in a collective sense, or in reference to fish meat as food, the singular fish is commonly used as a plural so, except for the pedants, that battle is lost.  Regarding the heavens, the constellation Pisces is from the late fourteenth century.

Tail was from the Middle English tail, tayl & teil (hindmost part of an animal), from the Old English tægl & tægel (tail), from the Proto-Germanic taglaz & taglą (hair, fiber; hair of a tail) (source also of the Old High German zagal, the German Zagel (tail), the dialectal German Zagel (penis), the Old Norse tagl (horse's tail) and the Gothic tagl (hair), from the primitive Indo-European doklos, from a suffixed form of the roots dok & dek- (something long and thin (referring to such things as fringe, lock of hair, horsetail & to tear, fray, shred)), source also of the Old Irish dual (lock of hair) and the Sanskrit dasah (fringe, wick).  It was cognate with the Scots tail (tail), the Dutch teil (tail, haulm, blade), the Low German Tagel (twisted scourge, whip of thongs and ropes; end of a rope), the dialectal Danish tavl (hair of the tail), the Swedish tagel (hair of the tail, horsehair), the Norwegian tagl (tail), the Icelandic tagl (tail, horsetail, ponytail), and the Gothic tagl (hair). In some senses, development appears to have been by a generalization of the usual opposition between head and tail.  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) suggest the primary sense, at least among the Germanic tongues, seems to have been "hairy tail," or just "tuft of hair," but already in Old English the word was applied to the hairless "tails" of worms, bees etc.  The alternative suggestion is that the notion common to all is that of the "long, slender shape."  It served as an adjective from the 1670s.  A long obsolete Old English word for tail was steort.

1952 Vincent Black Shadow with “fishtail” exhaust extension.

An unmistakable look, the “fishtail tip” polarizes opinion; it really is a “love it or hate it” fitting but they retain some popularity in the Harley Davidson community, a crew as devoted to their machines as any.  There are many modern takes on the design; while all feature the characteristic vertical, narrow flare in the distinctive shape, many are upswept and some protrude from the back more than others.  As well as the look, fishtails often are advertised on the basis of their sound (loud) and internally, are tuned to create different resonances, the ears of Harley Davidson riders as sensitive to the variations as are collectors of Stradivarii.

The sense in common law of tail (limitation of ownership) which endures mostly in the law of real property began as a legal term in English in the early fourteenth century (late thirteenth in Anglo-French & Anglo-Latin); in almost all cases it was a shortened form of entail.  The verb tail dates from the 1520s and was derived from the noun, the sense originally "attach to the tail", the meaning "move or extend in a way suggestive of a tail" dating from 1781.  The meaning “secretly to follow" is a US colloquial creation from 1907, borrowed from the earlier sense of "follow or drive cattle”.  The saying "tail off” (diminish) was noted in 1854.  The tail of a coin (reverse side; opposite the side with the head, hence “heads or tails”) appears to have been first described that was in the 1680s.  The more predictable "backside of a person, buttocks" is recorded from circa 1300, the slang sense of "pudenda" is from the mid-fourteenth century and as a term to refer to an “act of copulation with a prostitute”, it was first noted in 1846.  From circa 1933 it was applied to mean "woman as sex object" is from 1933.  In printing and typography, tail was the technical term to describe the descending strokes of letters from the 1590s.  As “tails”, the formal dress for men (coat with tails), the first advertisements appeared in 1857.  The tail-race, the part of a mill race below the wheel is from 1776.  The phrase “to turn tail” (take flight) dates from the 1580s and was originally from falconry, later to be adopted by the Admiralty and the army.  The image of the “tail wagging the dog” is from 1907 and was part of the language of political science.

A whale "showing the fluke" (left) and 1976 Porsche 911 Turbo (930, 1975-1989, right) with "whale tail".

Among the most photographed “fish tails” are those of whales, once hunted for their meat and oil, they’re now charismatic creatures and among nature’s most prolific content providers, their tails “fluking” (appearing above the surface just as a deep dive is about to begin) long an Instagram staple.  Whales are however not fish, all being mammals, they’re thus within the zoological class Mammalia, not Pisces.  The “whale tail” spoiler first appeared on Porsches in 1974 and is best remembered for its use on the 911 Turbo, a vehicle which gained the nickname “widowmaker” because, in unskilled hands, the quirky handling (the 930 wasn’t exactly a “250 horsepower VW Beetle” but the layout was the same and the inherent characteristics thus exaggerated although (up to a point), well-tamed) could lead to “fishtailing” and worse.  The “whale tail” later evolved into the “tea tray” although the original nickname remains more widely used, even of later variants.

Fish appears often in idiomatic use.  The figurative sense of “fish out of water” (a person in an unfamiliar and awkward situation) is attested from the 1610s, the use extended from circa 1750, usually with a modifier (strange fish, queer fish, cold fish) but from at least 1722 it was used in reference to a person considered desirable to “catch”, a sense preserved in the phrase “plenty more fish in the sea”, a form picked up by one dating site.  To “drink like a fish” (one with a habitually high consumption of alcohol) is from 1744 and the “fishy story” (an incredible or extravagant narration) was first noted in 1819, a US colloquial form based on the tendency of anglers to exaggerate the size of “the one that got away”.  Having “other fish to fry” (having other things which demand one’s attention) is from the 1650s.  In optics, the fish-eye lens was patented in 1959.  Fish-and-chips seem first to have been advertised in 1876 and fish-fingers were first sold in 1962.

Lindsay Lohan in fishtail dresses.  Herbie: Fully Loaded premiere, El Capitan Theatre, Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, June 2005; Vanity Fair Oscar Party, Morton’s West Hollywood, Los Angeles, March 2006; Liz & Dick premiere, Beverly Hills Hotel, Los Angeles, November 2012.

A fitted bodycon construction, the distinguishing feature of the fishtail dress is the flowing, scalloped hemline, often longer at the back and tending to flare from around the knee-line.  Because a successful implementation of the style depends most on length and volume, most fishtail dresses are floor length, many better described as gowns although some have tried shorter variations.  The bodice can vary but fitted waists are the most frequently seen.  The design was originally called the "fishtail train" and the early versions, first seen in the 1870s, all featured the asymmetric extension at the back and it wasn’t until the turn of the century the flaring lowered from mid-thigh to the knee.  Prior to the Victorian era, trains were not unknown but they were then worn only as evening gowns and were really an addition to existing garments.

Some in the industry refer to the “fishtail” as the “trumpet” or the more charming “mermaid” and there are those who insist on distinguishing between the three, based usually from the point at which the flare begins but the distinction escapes the many who use the terms interchangeably, regarding all as variations on a theme.  However described, the great advantage of the lines is that they create, on a suitable frame, an hourglass figure and one with a range of definition, all determined by the point at which the flare begins and the volume of material chosen for the fishtail; done properly it can render a feminine and flawless silhouette, perhaps the most persuasive reason it’s chosen by so many brides.  Sore however are probably too easily persuaded, the fishtail really not suited to those either too short or too wide.  Successfully to wear a fishtail, it’s not necessary to be truly statuesque or actually thin but beneath a certain height, one starts to look like part of a condiment set; one must be realistic about what shapewear can achieve.  The recommendation is that the style can be worn by those of at least average height and it works best on those who are slim with small or medium size hips.  A good seamstress can adapt things to better suit other shapes but there’s a law of diminishing returns the more one is removed from the ideal; a deep but narrow cut can disguise only so much.

The fishtail braid is a variation of the French braid, both with a smoothly woven appearance, the fishtail dividing the hair into two sections instead of the French three.  The technique essentially is that a small piece of each section is passed over to the other, the process repeated until the braid assumes its shape; in the nineteenth century this was known as the "Grecian braid".  The fishtail braid appears intricate because it's built with small strands but hairdressers say it's a simple, and essentially repetitive, nine-step process.  On great advantage of the fishtail is it lends itself well to a looser braid, one which over a couple of days will tend usually (and gradually) to deconstruct into a deliberately messy look, the attraction is technical as well as aesthetic: the messy fishtail is uniquely suited to act as a framework for hair extensions.

(1) Split the hair into two equal strands

(2) Pick up a small section of hair on the right side of the right strand

(3) Cross the small section over and add it to the left strand

(4) Pick up a small section of hair on the left side of the left strand

(5) Cross the small section over and add it to the right strand

(6) Pick up a small section of hair on the right side of the right strand

(7) Cross the small section over and add it to the left strand

(8) Pick up a small section of hair on the left side of the left strand

(9) Cross the small section over and add it to the right strand

(10) Repeat steps 2-9 until the end is reached.