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 nautical design, a propeller consisting of a single blade that oscillates like the tail of a fish while swimming.
(6) In
jewelry design, a setting consisting of four prominent triangular corner prongs
to hold the stone.
(7) In
dance, a step in ballroom dancing in which the feet are quickly crossed
(8) 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.
(9) A kind of chisel with a flared blade.
(10) 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. The hyphenated form fish-tail is common. Fishtail is a noun & verb and fishtailing & fishtailed are verbs; the noun plural is fishtails. Presumably, were one to be employed to chop the tails off fish, one would be called a "fishtailer" but the term seems never to have been used.
An artist's depiction of Lindsay Lohan as
mermaid.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 OED (Oxford English Dictionary) suggested 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 four-port “fishtail” exhaust extension.
An unmistakable look, the “fishtail
tip” polarizes opinion; it really is a “love it or hate it” fitting but they
retain great 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.
1937 Norton
Model 30 International with Brooklands Can (technically the Brooklands Silencer)
(left) and 1934 MG Magnette 'K3' Specification Supercharged Roadster (right).
One of the
world’s first dedicated venues for motorsports and aviation, England’s
Brooklands motor racing circuit was built in 1907, predating the IndianapolisMotor Speedway by two years. Located in
what had until then been the quiet little hamlet of Weybridge in the county of
Surrey, some 20 miles (12 km) south-west of London, it sits 9 miles (14.5 km)
south of Heathrow Airport and a portion of the original outer circuit
(originally 2.75 miles (4.4 km) in length with the banking in places rising
almost 30 feet (9.1 m) high) still exists.
Then, as now, Motorsport was a very noisy business and as the sport
boomed in popularity after World War I (1914-1918), the tolerance of the
inhabitants of Weybridge must have been tested because there’s a record of
complaints about the noise (especially on Sundays and during the 24 hour events
sometimes run) and eventually, in September 1924, a group commenced in the High
Court an action in the tort of nuisance.
By July 2025 (reasonably brisk by the standards of the legal system), a
settlement was agreed which included a permanent injunction limiting the days
and hours of operation and the creation of the novel “Brooklands Can”, a design
of muffler which could be adapted to both cars and motorcycles. Were it created today, it'd likely be dubbed the “Brooklands Nimby” (not in my backyard).
1937 Norton
Model 30 International with Brooklands Can (Left), diagram of Brooklands Can for
a number of contemporary 1930s MGs close to the Magnette NE (1934) specification
(centre) and a Luminous White male Guppy (right).
What the
High Court’s injunction required was even on those days when racing was
allowed, noise levels had to be reduced and the obvious solution was a muffler
(in England then known optimistically as “silencers”) and the case turned out
to be influential as the century progressed, often cited as the way a court
might balance technological progress, any public nuisance created and the right
of individuals to the “quiet enjoyment” of life in their homes. Interestingly, the French (silencieux) and
Italians (silenziatore) followed the English practice while the more practical
Germans adhered to the realistic literalness of the Americans with Schalldämpfer
(sound damper). All Brooklands cans had
two distinguishing characteristics: a rhomboidal receptacle located close to
the engines header pipes which emerge from the exhaust manifold and a fishtail tip
(although those used on some smaller capacity cars did terminated in a straight
“dump pipe” and depending on the displacement (and thus the volume of exhaust
gasses), the dimensions of the apparatus varied. The “silencer” didn’t make the machines “quiet”
in the accepted sense of the word; just less noisy.
Tilly Shilling on her Norton N30 500, Brooklands, July 1935. Note the fishtail Brooklands Silencer.
Ms Beatrice “Tilly” Shilling (1909-1990) was a pre-modern rarity, a female engineer and amateur racing driver. Even before gaining a MSc (Master of Science) in mechanical engineering, Ms Shilling had been building and racing motorcycles and it was on her modified (at one point even fitting a supercharger) 490 cm3 Norton M30, she lapped the Brooklands track at 106 mph (171 km/h), a feat for which she was awarded the BMRC (British Motorcycle Racing Club) Brookland Gold Star; she remains only one of three women to have lapped the famous banked circuit “at the ton” before it was closed in 1939. With the coming of war, she returned the Norton to road use, riding in this form until 1953.
Battle of Britain (1940) era Hawker Hurricane Mk IIA (upper) and Supermarine Spitfire Mk II (lower).
In 1940, while employed as an engineer at the RAE (Royal Aircraft Establishment) at Farnborough, Ms Shilling worked on the "fuel delivery problem" reported by RAF (Royal Air Force) Fighter Command pilots, the Rolls-Royce Merlin V12s in their Hurricanes and Spitfires "cutting out" for as long as 1½ seconds during a "negative G-force maneuver" (pitching the nose hard down), the fuel being forced upwards to the top of the carburetor's float chamber rather than into the combustion chamber, leading to a loss of power. If the negative G continued, the fuel would collect in the top of the float chamber, forcing the float to the bottom. This in turn would open the needle valve to maximum, flooding the carburetor with fuel, drowning the supercharger with an over-rich mixture which would shut down the engine, a serious matter in aerial combat. While 1½ seconds doesn't sound long, in combat at altitude, travelling at hundreds of mph, inches and seconds can be critical: the difference between life and death. The complete solution for fuel starvation was a pressurized fuel system such as the direct injection used by Daimler-Benz 600-series inverted V12s as used in the German fighters but such a development would take months to design, test, manufacture and install.
RAE Anti "G" carburetor restrictor plate instruction sheet. As a stop-gap measure, Ms Shilling designed a flow restrictor: a small metal disc with a central orifice, looking much like a plain metal washer. The restrictor orifice was sized to accommodate just the fuel flow needed for maximum engine power, the setting usually used during dogfights and it solved the immediate, critical, problem of the engine shutdowns following flooding. Officially named the RAE Restrictor or RAE Anti “G” Carburetor, the device proved popular with pilots, who much preferred to call it Miss Shilling's orifice or the Tilly orifice. The simple and elegant solution proved effective until pressurized carburetors (essentially throttle-body injection, a simplified version of the Daimler-Benz direct fuel injection) were developed which permitted even inverted flight. With a backpack of RAE Restrictors, she toured RAF airfields on the same Norton N30 500 on which she'd once lapped Brooklands at 100 mph, instructing and assisting the maintenance crews with the installation of the devices. Ms Shilling was a serious engineer making an important contribution to the war effort and was not amused by the nicknames for her invention but, reportedly regarded it as something typical of minds of men, rolled her eyes and carried on with her work. The orifice was but a footnote in the history of the Merlin and the Allied war effort but did typify the improvisation and speed with which British industry developed "quick & dirty" solutions, especially in the early days of the war.
1933
Napier-Railton.
Driven by John Cobb
(1899–1952), this car in 1935 set the Brooklands lap record for the Outer
Circuit at 143.44 mph (230.84 km/h) a mark which will stand for all time
because after being appropriated in 1939 for military purposes, the facility
never re-opened. The Napier-Railton was
powered by a W12 (the so-called “broad arrow”) aero engine of 24 litres (1,461
cubic inch) and because the configuration had the cylinders in three banks of
four, three of the Brooklands Cans had to be fitted and, with each bank displacing
some 8 litres (487 cubic inch), each system was among the largest ever
built. Away from the delicate ears and
aspidistras of Surrey's respectable residents, the machine sometimes ran “unsilenced”,
including on the Bonneville Salt Flats where it ran with nothing more open
stack exhausts, setting a world 24 hour record at an average speed of 158.6 mph
(242 km/h).
1937 Rudge Special 500; like their aquatic sources of inspiration, the fishtail exhausts came in both symmetrical and asymmetric forms.
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” (a minor or secondary part of something which is controlling or dominating the whole or the main part) is from 1907 and was part of the jargon of political
science.
A whale fluking its fluke (left) and 1987 Ford Sierra RS Cosworth (1986-1992).
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 (930, 1974-1989), a vehicle which gained the nickname “widow-maker” 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.
English
model & actor Cara Delevingne (b 1992), Met Gala 2026, Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York City, May 2026.
The event's “dress code”
for 2026 was “fashion
is art” though at the Met Gala it's more “suggested theme” than
enforced code and designers have always interpreted things liberally. That liberality sometimes has assumed such a
level of abstraction that Met Gala outfits have defied attempts to see a link
with the code but Ms Delevinge’s fishtail gown with delicate appliqués was a
tribute to the art of the seamstress. Quite
when a “fishtail” becomes a “train” may be in the eye of the beholder but a
photographer staging shots on the Met’s staircase could arrange the fabric in ways
to produce either effect.
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 (left); Vanity Fair Oscar
Party, Morton’s West Hollywood, Los Angeles, March 2006 (centre); Liz & Dick premiere, Beverly Hills Hotel, Los Angeles, November 2012 (right).
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. Some 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.
Students and their mannequins, Pints & Ponytails, London, March 2026. Presumably, there would be some inverse correlation between symmetry of braids and consumption of pints of beer. As a quirk of English, while one doing the braiding is a braider, there is no companion word braidee for the one being braided; the same convention applies to plait. Braiding and platting of hair has for some time been political because certain styles are claimed to have specific cultural or religious connections so anyone not of the background adopting those looks risk being accused of a gamut of offences ranging from microaggression to cultural appropriation. Recently, the braid has also entered the “toxic masculinity” debate after self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate (b 1986 and dubbed by some the “high priest of toxic masculinity”) disapprovingly shared a video from a “Pints and Ponytails” event in London. The novel P&Ps are conducted to train men in the art of creating their daughters’ braids, plaits and pony-tails, something which to most probably doesn’t look challenging until they make an attempt and find out it’s something of an art, the tresses just one component in a process which extends also to the mysteries of pins, brushes, detangler spray, leave-in conditioner and hair-ties.
To hairdressers, braids and plaits are a “basic style” taught to entry-level apprentices, but even for those familiar with tasks such as stranding cables, early results are likely to be disappointing; to assure those concerned, no daughter was damaged by the neophyte stylists, the P&P sessions conducted using the same mannequins salons use in their training. The courses have proved popular with men as might be expected of any event including pints of beer but the serious rationale was an attempt to improve bonding between fathers and daughters as well as increasing the participation of men in child-raising chores. As the organizers expected, the sessions also provided a time and place in which men could discuss the problems and challenges of fatherhood, the unique environment of drinking beer while learning to plait tending to encourage conversation on topics probably not often raised in situations where men gather; in other words, the sort of discussions familiar to young mothers. Cultural critic Andrew Tate cast aspersions on the masculinity of the men taking part although one might have thought he’d see benefits in women being relieved of responsibility for the daily pony tail(s), thereby leaving them more time for cooking & cleaning.
