Ostentation

Ostentation (pronounced os-ten-tey-shuhn or os-ten-tey-tuhn)

(1) Pretentious or conspicuous show, as of wealth or importance; display intended to impress others or invite admiration or applause.

(2) The act of showing or exhibiting; a display for some purpose (archaic).

(3) A collective noun for a number of peacocks.

1425–1475:  From the late Middle English ostentacioun (ambitious display, pretentious show, display intended to evoke admiration or attract attention), from the mid-fourteenth century Middle French ostentation, from the Old French ostentacion, from the Classical Latin ostentātiōnem (nominative ostentātiō) (showing, exhibition, vain display), past participle of ostentāre (to present, display or exhibit), the construct being ostentat(ionem) + ion.  The –ion suffix was from the Middle English -ioun, from the Old French -ion, from the Latin -iō (genitive -iōnis).  It was appended to a perfect passive participle to form a noun of action or process, or the result of an action or process.  The adjective ostentatious in the sense of “characterized by display or show from vanity or pride” was in use by the turn of the eighteenth century while the more familiar meaning “showy, gaudy, intended for vain display” emerged probably within a decade.  In sixteenth & seventeenth century English there were the now extinct forms ostentative, ostentive & ostentous while the adverb ostentatiously and the noun ostentatiousness both appear in texts from the 1650s.  Ostentation & ostentatiousness are nouns, ostentatious is an adjective and ostentatiously is an adverb; the noun plural is ostentations.  The adjective unostentatious is almost always used as a compliment.

The origins of the meaning of the adjectives ostensive & ostensible (neither directly associated with ostentation’s sense of “showy, flamboyant etc”) lie in the now archaic meaning of ostentation as “an act of showing or exhibiting; a display for some purpose”.  Ostensive (apparently true, but not necessarily; clearly demonstrative) was from the French ostensif, from the Medieval Latin ostensivus.  Ostensible (apparent, evident; meant for open display; appearing as such; being such in appearance; professed, supposed (rather than demonstrably true or real)) was from the French ostensible, the construct being the Latin ostens(us), the past participle of ostendō (show) + -ible.  The suffix –ible was from the Middle English, from the Old French, from the Latin –ibilis (the alternative forms were –bilis & -abilis.  An adjectival suffix, now usually in a passive sense, it was used to form adjectives meaning "able to be", "relevant or suitable to, in accordance with", or expressing capacity or worthiness in a passive sense.  The suffix -able is used in the same sense and is pronounced the same and –ible is generally not productive in English, most words ending in -ible being those borrowed from Latin, or Old & Middle French; -able much more productive although examples like collectible do exist.  The other form in the Medieval Latin was ostensibilis.

An ostentation of peacocks.

The collective noun for peacocks (male), peahens (female) & peachicks (the offspring) is “pride”, “ostentation” or “muster”.  All these can also be used of just the peacocks but the popular convention seem to be to use “ostentation”, the reason being it so suits the extravagant, colorful plumage.  The females have feathers which blend in with the surroundings, making them less conspicuous, a differentiation which may strike a chord with feminists.

Recently, the reasons for the difference were explained in a helpful piece which was obviously authoritative because it was written by Ms Emily Peacock.  According to Darwinian theory, the large, heavy assembly of tail feathers must confer some evolutionary advantage and in the case of the peacock the colourful array’s purpose must be compelling because zoologists have in the wild noted cases where the train has grown to the extent the weight impedes movement, thereby making the unfortunate bird “vulnerable to predators.”  Ms Peacock explained evolution happened this way because of a particular instance of Darwin’s theory of natural selection: “survival of the sexiest”, the peahen selecting “beautiful males for mating”.  While it’s true the spreading of the tail does create a large surface area with the illusion of large penetrating eyes which can deter potential predators (such as snakes or large wild cats), it’s the appeal to peahens which matters most, the “…more extravagant the fan, the more likely a male will find a mate” and thus continue his gene line.  At the biological level, the point is that rather than being shallow creatures attracted merely to the attractiveness of the display, the peahen uses the peacock's tail feathers as a marker of health and virality, choosing the male with the most obviously strong genes because it means her offspring will be more likely to survive.  

A peacock being ostentatious; a peahen playing hard to get.

The feathers with their array of exotic colors also attract people and as well as their use in fashion (real and stylized), for millennia they have been symbols of wealth and power.  The Peacock Throne (a jewelled creation on which early seventeenth century craftsmen toiled for some six years) was the seat of the emperors of the Mughal Empire in India although the term gained its modern notoriety because of the later association with the Shahs of Persia (Iran after 1935), the object looted by invading Persians in 1739.  Although always popularly known as the “Peacock Throne” because of the prominent use of depictions of the birds in the renderings, there were various official names for the throne, all quite prosaic by comparison.  The appeal continued in modern times, the NBC (National Broadcasting Company) broadcasting network in the US adopting the peacock’s fan for the corporate logo when in 1956 television transmission began in color.  Still used today, the colors allude to the spectrum used in TV broadcasts rather than the bird’s more elegant mix.

Faux ostentation: Lindsay Lohan in fur.  Given that on none of these fur-trimmed outings did Tash Peterson, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) activists or other angry vegans appear from the darkness flinging blood and screaming accusations of murder, it may be assumed she was wearing faux fur.

Like many twentieth century politicians who in their youth served in the military during technologically simpler times and then immersed themselves in the history of pre-modern battle, emerging with a Napoleonic attitude to the business, Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) disapproved of the trend in military personnel establishments to “bottom-heaviness”, noting the ever-growing volume of (usually) non-combatant mechanics, drivers, dentists and such.  He was especially critical at the numbers on the “Q side” (based on the office of Quartermaster, the officer in charge of barracks, stores, supplies and logistics), the legion of clerks, cooks, storemen and others who functions as the cogs in the modern, mechanised military machine.  Although no technophobe (indeed his enthusiasm for new inventions often caused alarm in the high command), Churchill’s view of an army was still colored by memories of knee-to-knee cavalry charges and rows of battalions advancing with fixed bayonets; he was sceptical of the need for the administrative appendage to comprise sometimes nearly half a unit’s establishment.  In his view, the army needed “more fighting men and fewer typists”, complaining to Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke (1883–1963; Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) 1941-1946) that the British army was “like a peacock, all tail and very little bird”.  Alanbrooke, one of the country’s most prominent bird-watchers (the respectable term now “birder” and the hobby “birding”) wasn’t about to let the ornithological slight pass unanswered and responded: “The peacock would be a very poorly balanced bird without its tail.”  Churchill remained unconvinced but, unlike his opponent in Berlin, didn’t interfere in such operational details.

GM’s advertising for the 1958 Buicks.  So taken was Buick with the grille that unusually, it was given a name: The “Fashion-Aire Dynastar Grille” which contained 160 diecast faceted chrome squares.  The aerospace industry was quite an influence on Detroit during this era and B-58 was an allusion to the naming schemes used for US warplanes, the notion of a B-52 for the road at the time an attractive idea for many buyers.

Before sanity (in shape if not always in size) began to prevail in the 1960s, the trend in post-war car design in the US had been one of increasing ostentation and while it was the 1957 Chrysler line which probably deserves the most blame for starting it, it was the huge resources of the General Motors Technical Center (a billion dollar (in 2024 US$ values) venture in the 1950s) which allowed stylists (they weren’t yet called “designers”) to cast themselves adrift from the moorings of reality imposed by restraint and good taste.  To understand what happened in the late 1950s, one has to imagine some of the more bizarre creations stalking the catwalks of London, Paris, Milan & New York not only appearing in high street shops with affordable price tags but people buying them to wear to the grocery store.  The famous tail-lamps recalling bright red bullets fired from the vertiginous fins of the 1959 Cadillac are the best remembered from the era but in fairness they are nicely detailed and a single point of focus on a design which was, by comparison with some, actually not over-embellished.

1958 Buicks: Special convertible (left) and Roadmaster Limited convertible (right).  The side trim on the 1958 Buicks varied according to their place in the model hierarchy (Special, Super, Century & Roadmaster & Roadmaster Limited (Riviera was a body style designation and a badge as such wasn’t used in 1958)).  It seems a sterile debate to discuss which is the more ostentatious.

The award for the most ostentatious range of those years goes to the 1958 Buicks, the most expensive of which were adorned with just about every motif which could be rendered in chrome or stainless steel, curves, angles and lines horizontal & vertical all competing for the eye.  Infamously, GM’s bulbous 1958 bodies were so obviously dated they were replaced after only one season and while the 1959 models were ostentatious in their own way (exuberant rather than baroque), to this day they have many admirers while the 1958 cars are thought by most something between a period piece and a freak show.  In an issue which afflicted the whole industry, the single platform used by the big three (GM, Ford & Chrysler) for most of their models had become very big (the unique ones used for some exclusive lines bigger still) and all had projects in the pipeline to respond to the increasing sales of smaller imports, programmes which ultimately would yield the highly successful “compact” and “intermediate” ranges.  The influence the existence these smaller cars would have on the appearance of the full-sized lines is often underestimated; their reduced size meant the styling tricks which worked at scale couldn’t be replicated so something simpler had to be used.  This produced bodies which were balanced and attractive, influencing the upcoming full-sized lines even before their release and the big cars from 1958-1961 were (almost) the last of their type; baroque didn’t quite die with the coming of 1962 because Chrysler still had old ideas to re-cycle but that was the last gasp.

Buick’s promotional postcard for the 1958 Buick “Wells Fargo”.

There was then, in 1958, no company with a better base on which to build a distinctive promotional vehicle for a TV network and Buick custom-made one for Dale Robertson (1923–2013), the star of NBC's western adventure series Tales of Wells Fargo (1957-1962).  The unique interior features included bucket seats of Danish calfskin with hand-tooled western motif leather inserts (the door panels matching), a then still quite novel centre console, natural calfskin carpeting and flip up door handles while the exterior was in one way (sort of) toned-down, solid walnut panels replacing the three banks of imitation louvers on both sides.  However, to add to the effect, the words “Wells Fargo” appeared on the panels in large chromed letters and to remind everyone of the “western” theme, a longhorn steer's head was superimposed over the standard hood emblem, flipper wheel-covers completing the package.  The highlight though was the armory, (1) a gun rack holding two chrome-plated Winchester lever-action rifles with carved stocks and (2) hand-tooled leather pistol holsters attached to each door, containing a brace of pearl-handled .38 caliber Colt revolvers.  In the America of Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; US president 1953-1961), these handy accessories seem to have attracted no critical comment but then, the dawn of the age of mass shootings was almost a decade away.  Proud of their work, Buick’s PR team toured the country, displaying the car at shows before presenting it to Mr Robertson who drove it for the next three decades-odd.  The car still exists and occasionally appears at collector auctions.

Vanity

Vanity (pronounced van-i-tee)

(1) An excessive pride in one's appearance, qualities, abilities, achievements, etc; character or quality of being vain; conceit.

(2) An instance or display of this quality or feeling.

(3) Something about which one is vain or excessively proud.

(4) Lack of real value; hollowness; worthlessness.

(5) Something worthless, trivial, or pointless.

(6) A small case, usually used for make-up items.

(7) A usually small dressing table used to apply makeup, preen, and coif hair. Normally quite low and similar to a desk, with drawers and one or more mirrors on top.  Often paired with a bench or stool to sit upon.

(8) A type of bathroom fitting, usually a permanently-fixed storage unit including one or more washbasins.

(9) An alternative name for a portfolio maintained as a showcase for one's own talents, especially as a writer, actor, singer, composer or model.

(10) Any idea, theory or statement entirely without foundation (UK only, now obsolete).

1200-1250: From Middle English vanite, borrowed from Old French vanité (self-conceit; futility; lack of resolve) derived from the Classical Latin vānitās (emptiness, aimlessness; falsity (and when used figuratively "vainglory, foolish pride”), root of which was vānus (empty, void (and when used figuratively "idle, fruitless”).  A more precise equivalent in Latin was probably vanitatem (emptiness, foolish pride).  Root was the primitive Indo-European wano-, the suffixed form of the root eue- (to leave, abandon, give out).  English also absorbed many synonyms and related words: egotism, complacency, vainglory, ostentation, pride, emptiness, sham, unreality, folly, triviality, futility.  Except in religious texts, the old meaning (that which is vain, futile, or worthless) faded from general use, the modern meaning (self-conceited), which endures to this day, is attested from the mid-fourteenth century.  The first reference to furniture was the vanity table, dating from 1936, a use adopted by manufacturers of bathroom fittings in the later post-war period.  The first vanity table seem to have been advertised in 1936.

The Old Testament

Vanity of vanities, said the preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. (Ecclesiastes 1:2)

The word translated as vanity appears 37 times in Ecclesiastes, more than in the entirety of the rest of the Old Testament so is clearly a theme of the text.  The meaning of vanity is used here in its original form of something that is transitory and quickly passes away.  In that it’s a literal translation of the Hebrew hebel, best understood in this context as meaning breath of wind, something which, whatever its immediate effects, is soon gone.  Unfortunately for nihilists, emos and other depressives trawling texts for anything confirming the pointlessness of life, biblical scholars agree the phrase is not an assertion that life is meaningless or that our labors in this fallen world are ultimately useless.  Instead, it’s a saying to help people put their lives in the proper perspective.  Ecclesiastes is not saying all our efforts are worthless, just observing that all we do in our three score and ten years upon this earth is but a brief prelude to our eternal existence and much of life escapes our understanding, for we cannot comprehend how everything fits into the grand story of creation.

All very poetic but, perhaps sadly, improbable.  It’s more likely the universe is a violent, doomed, swirl of matter and energy, life is pointless, right or wrong are just variable constructs, everything is meaningless and all any can hope for is a fleetingly brief false consciousness which might make us feel happy.

Vanity Fair

Published in 1678, John Bunyan’s (1628–1688) The Pilgrim's Progress is an allegory of the Christian’s spiritual journey through the sins and temptations of earthly existence to the salvation of the Kingdom of Heaven; a symbolic vision of an English worthy’s pilgrimage through life.  In the village of Vanity is a perpetual fair, selling all things to satisfy all desires and Vanity Fair represents the sin of man’s attachment to and lust for transient worldly goods, a critique echoed later in secular criticisms of materialism.

Novelist William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863), although making no mention of Bunyan or his work when he published Vanity Fair in 1848, could rely on his readers being well acquainted with the symbolism of the earlier allegory.  By the mid-nineteenth century when Thackeray’s portrait of British society was published, the term had become laden too with secular and class-conscious meanings, suggesting the imagery both of self-indulgent playground and the sense of that stratum of society where the only habitué are the idle and undeserving rich.  Thackeray explored both.

Lindsay Lohan. Vanity Fair Italia, August 2011

Over the years, on both sides of the Atlantic, a number of periodicals have used the masthead Vanity Fair.  The current one has its roots in Condé Nast’s purchase in 1913 of a men's fashion journal called Dress, and Vanity Fair, a magazine devoted to performing arts with an emphasis on theatre.  After a brief, unsatisfactory foray as the combined title Dress and Vanity Fair, in 1914 he re-launched as Vanity Fair and success was immediate, continuing even until well into the depression years of the 1930s.  Curiously different to the vicissitudes of the digital age, although revenue from advertising had collapsed, by the time Condé Nast in 1936 folded Vanity Fair into his companion title Vogue, circulation had reached an all-time high.  The problem was the cover price of an issue wasn’t sufficient profitably to cover production and distribution costs; advertising was essential.  In a situation familiar to newspaper publishers in their halcyon days, it wasn’t advantageous to achieve higher sales.

Condé Nast Publications revived the title, February 1983 the first issue.  Like most print publications, its advertising revenue has declined but, critically in this market, so have newsstand sales.  Its subscriber base is said to be stable but Condé Nast doesn’t release data indicating the breakdown mix and it’s thus unknown how much of this is made up from less lucrative bundled packages.  Newsstand sales of single-issue copies are a vital metric in this market, editors judged by monthly sales, a school of analysis now devoted to deconstructing the relationship between the photograph on an issue’s cover and copies sold; editorial content, while not ignored, seems less relevant.

The magazine’s future is thus uncertain as are the options were it not to continue as a distinct, stand-alone entity with a print version.  It’s a different environment from 1936 when it was absorbed into Vogue and different even to the turn of the century when Mirabella, a similar publication facing similar problems, closed.  The now well-practiced path of ceasing print production and going wholly digital may become attractive if circulation continues to suffer.  While it true Condé Nast already has digital titles which would seem to overlap with Vanity Fair, that’s less of a concern than cannibalization in print where the relationship of production and distribution costs to individual sales is different; both are marginal in gaining additional digital subscriptions.

Vanity Cases

The vanity case is an ancient accessory, one, three-thousand years old, made from inlaid cedar containing ointment, face-paint, perfume and a mirror of polished metal, was discovered during one of Howard Carter’s (1874–1939) archaeological digs.  Well known in something recognizably modern from the fourteenth century in France and Italy, they became fashionable in England only during the 1700s and then for men, as a small box called a “dressing case”, designed to fit into larger “dressing case”.

Enamel vanity case by Gérard Sandoz, Paris, circa 1927.

Cigarette case by Cartier, Paris, circa 1925.

During the 1920s, the modern styles evolved.  Most exquisite were the art-deco creations designed as companion pieces to the cigarette cases newly fashionable with women as the social acceptability of young ladies smoking became prevalent.

Oculus

Oculus (pronounced ok-yuh-luhs)

(1) In anatomy, an eye.

(2) In architecture, a window or other circular (or oval) opening, especially one at the apex of a dome.

(3) In archaeology, a design representing an eye, as on funerary pottery found in megalithic tombs of Europe.

(4) In the mechanical engineering (associated with fluid dynamics), the central boss of a volute.

(5) In poetic and literary use, luminary of the sun and stars; eye of the soul, mind's eye; a spot resembling an eye, such as on a peacock feather; a principle ornament or the main feature of something.

(6) In botany, a bud, bulb or knob on many roots, on the reed etc.

(7) As oculist (plural oculists), one who practices the discipline of oculism (an archaic name for an ophthalmologist or optometrist).

1857: From the Latin oculus (an eye), from the Proto-Italic okwelos, from the primitive Indo-European hsokw (eye; to see).  It was cognate with the Sanskrit अक्षि (ákṣi), the Ancient Greek ὄσσε (ósse), the Gothic augō, the Old English ēaġe (from which Modern English would gain eye) & the Proto-Slavic oko.  Originating in antiquity, it was a widely used feature of Byzantine and Neoclassical architecture, known in French as the œil de boeuf (bull's-eye).  The noun plural is oculi.  An impressively long word with the same root is ocularpneumoplethysmography, a non-invasive technique for detecting carotid stenosis by measurement of ophthalmic artery pressure.  Oculus & oculist are nouns; the noun plural is oculi (under the standard rules of English plural formations, the result would be oculuses by that seems to have been too awful to contemplate). 

The Pantheon

The Pantheon in Rome (from the Latin Pantheum, from the Ancient Greek Πάνθειον (Pantheion) ([temple] of all the gods) was built as a Roman temple and since the 609 has been a Roman Catholic church (Basilica di Santa Maria ad Martyres or Basilica of Saint Mary and the Martyrs).  It was built on the site of an earlier temple constructed during the time of Christ and rebuilt by the Emperor Hadrian circa 126 AD, the actual date uncertain because Hadrian retained the old inscriptions.

Cylindrical with a portico of sixteen staggered Corinthian columns, the dome has a diameter of 43.2m (142 feet) and was for over 1300 years the largest in the world and remains, after some two-thousand years, the largest unreinforced concrete dome, a feat achieved by a gradual reduction in the thickness and weight of the materials used for the upper layers.  Each of the granite columns weigh sixty tons.  Quarried in Egypt, they were dragged 100 km (60 miles), placed on barges and shipped up the Nile to Alexandria where they were transferred to boats to cross the Mediterranean to the port of Ostia.  From there, they were sent by barges, up the Tiber to Rome where they were dragged to the construction site for erection.

The dome was originally covered in bronze and there are reports from travelers of it sparkling in the sunlight, the glint playing on the surrounding skyline.  However during the middle ages most was pilfered, sometimes with official sanction, sometimes not, the shortage of building materials often acute.  The last of it, Pope Urban VIII (Maffeo Barberini, 1568–1644, pope 1623-1644) in 1631, needing ordinance for his military campaigns to expand the borders of the Papal States, stripped what bronze remained as well as that from the portico to melt down for cannons.  Romans, as cynical about their rulers then as now, were soon sharing the saying “quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini” (what was not done by the barbarians, was done by the Barberini).

The ass's ears, circa 1860.

Roman architect and Engineer Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (circa 75-10 BC) wrote the influential De architectura which defined the building and aesthesis standards of Classical architecture and the design of the Pantheon follows his rules, height and width exactly match, meaning a perfect sphere would precisely fit inside the dome.  Vitruvius would not have been best pleased at the additions made in the 1600s by Urban VIII.  Sometimes wrongly blamed on Bernini, pontiff turned amateur architect added two bell towers to the sides of the façade which, although disliked by Romans who nicknamed them le orecchie del culo (the ass’s ears), it wasn’t until late in the nineteen century they were finally demolished.

The Pantheon, Rome.

The oculus in the Pantheon is the most famous of the many built by the Romans.  Open to the weather, it allows rain to enter and fall to the floor, where it is carried away through drains. A masterpiece of Roman architectural scale, though it looks small, the oculus’ diameter is 27 feet (8.2m) allowing it to light the building as the sun lights the earth and rain also keeps the building cool during the hot summer months.  A clever trick of lighting (and mathematics) was played out on every 21 April, the founding date of Rome.  At midday, the sunlight hits the metal grille above the door, filling the entrance way with light, timed to coincide with a ceremony at which the emperor appears in the space, reflecting his status as either an earthly god on one on whom the blessings of the gods shone.  Which of these applied depended on the Emperor.  In style, if not scale, the Pantheon was the inspiration for the Große Halle (Great Hall (and referred to in contemporary documents also as the Volkshalle (People's Hall or Ruhmeshalle (Hall of Glory)) which was to be the centrepiece of Germania as Berlin was to be re-named upon becoming the capital of the Third Reich.

Albert Speer's (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) post-war memoirs (1969) are not wholly truthful but on matters of architecture they are thought reliable and provide an insight not only into the grandiose plans but also the political and psychological aspects of representational buildings to which Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) attached such importance.  The monumental size alone was significant and despite Hitler being scornful of the mystical notions of some of his paladins, Speer was convinced that inherent in the awe-inspiring scale of the designs was the idea of them becoming places of worship, something which would be reinforced as they aged, unchanged, over the centuries.  Able to accommodate 150-180,000 people, the dome would have had a diameter of 250 metres (825 feet). rising in a slightly parabolic curve to a height of 221 metres (726 feet) while the oculus would be 46 metres (152 feet) in diameter, larger than the entire dome of either the Pantheon (43 metres (142 feet)) or that of St Peter's Basilica (44 metres (145 feet)).  The interior would be 16 times the volume of St Peter's.

Model of the Great Hall intended for Germania.

Speer also noted that even in the late 1930s when first he showed the architectural drawings to Hitler, the Führer suspended belief in facts when it suited him.  Because it was technically possible, Speer originally envisaged building the dome without the use of any structural steel but Hitler objected that were it to be struck by a bomb, the vaulting might be so damaged that without a supporting framework, repairs would be impossible.  Speer conceded the point but when he had questioned whether it was wise to have so tall a structure build in the very heart of the Reich's capital where it would act as a navigational aid for attacking bombers, Hitler breezily replied that Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945) had assured him his Luftwaffe would ensure "no enemy plane will ever enter Germany's skies".  Infamously, the Reichsmarschall would boast to the German people: "If as much as a single enemy aircraft flies over German soil, my name is Meier!"; the Royal Air Force's (RAF) bombing raids on Berlin soon began.

Lindsay Lohan with peacock feathers. during blonde phase.

The eye-like feature on a peacock's tail-feathers are called an oculus and because the collective noun for a group of peacocks (peafowl) is "an ostentation" so these several could be styled "an ostentation of oculi".  This photograph is available as a 2024 calendar.                   

Dubiety

Dubiety (pronounced doo-bahy-i-tee or dyoo-bahy-i-tee)

(1) Doubtfulness; doubt; the state of being doubtful.

(2) A matter of doubt; a doubtful matter; a particular instance of doubt or uncertainty.

1740s: From the Late Latin dubietās (doubt; uncertainty), a dissimilation of dubiitās, the construct being dubi(us)  (vacillating, fluctuating (and figuratively “wavering in opinion, doubting”) + -etās  (the noun suffix, a variant of -itās (after vocalic stems)).  The earlier form dubiosity was in use by the 1640s and dubiousness had emerged within a decade; for whatever reason, “dubiety” declined while “dubious” flourished and endures to this day.  Dubiety, dubitation, dubiosity & dubitability are nouns, dubitable is an adjective and dubitably is an adverb; the noun plural is dubieties.

Dubiety is one of those words which has become vanishingly rare while its antonym forms (indubitably, indubitable, indubitability, indubitableness, indubitability, indubitation, indubiosity) meaning “clearly true; providing no possibility of doubt; In a manner that leaves no possibility of doubt; undoubtedly) has survived in a niche, that being a deliberately humorous interjection (although used unwisely, it tends to be thought pretentious).  The most common form is the adverb “indubitably” a word in use since the early seventeenth century.  It differs from other jocular coinings in that it was wholly organic, unlike “combobulate” and “gruntle” which were respectively nineteenth & twentieth century back-formations from discombobulate (itself fanciful) & disgruntled (although “gruntle” had a long history in another context). 

Henry Fowler’s list of working & stylish words.

The synonyms of dubiety include “scepticism, mistrust, distrust & suspicion”, all in common use and all vested with the helpful virtue of being understood buy most, a quality not enjoyed by dubiety.  Still, the word in there to be used and it adds variety so all who put themselves through reading literary novels might meet it.  So those after a certain style might find it handy but not all are amused by such stylishness.  The stern Henry Fowler (1858–1933) in his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) included an entry which listed examples of “working & stylish words” which opened with the passage: “No one, unless he has happened upon this article at a very early stage of his acquaintance with this book, will suppose that the word “stylish” is meant to be laudatory.”  He went on to say there was a place for such forms “…when they are used in certain senses…” but made it clear that for most purposes the plain, simple “working word” is the better choice.  He offered the example of “deem” which in law has a precise and well understood meaning so is there essential but it’s just an attempt at stylishness if used as a substitute for “think”.  Other victims of his disapproving eye included “viable” which he judged quite proper in the papers of biologists describing newly formed organisms but otherwise a clumsy way of trying to assert something was “practicable” and “dwell” & “perchance” which appeared usually as “…conspicuous, like and escaped canary among the sparrows.”  Henry Fowler liked stylish phrases but preferred plain words.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

Fowler completed his text by 1925 and things have since changed, some of the “stylish” cohort seemingly having become “working” words, possibly under the influence of the use in computing and other technologies, their once specialized sense migrating into general use because the language of those industries became so common.  Although he did twenty years before the first appeared, one suspects he’d not have found Ferraris “stylish” and would probably have called them “flashy” (in the sense of “vulgar ostentation” rather than “sparkling or brilliant”); dating from the mid sixteenth century, “flashy” would seem to have a suitably venerable lineage.

Taxi

Taxi (pronounced tak-see)

(1) A shortening of taxicab (itself a truncation of taximeter cab), traditionally a light vehicle usually fitted with a taximeter, available for hire (with its driver) to carry passengers to a specified destination; a taxi-truck extends the same concept to freight.

(2) To ride or travel in a taxicab

(3) In aviation, to cause (an aircraft) to move along the ground under its own power, especially before take-off and after landing, or to cause an aircraft to move along the ground in this way.

(4) In military slang, the act of transporting troops or the helicopter or plane used for the transport.

1907: A shortened form of taximeter cab, taximeter (automatic meter that records distance and fare) from the French taximètre, from the German Taxameter, from Taxanom, the construct a coinage based on Taxe (tax, charge or scale of charges), from the Medieval Latin taxa (tax, charge) + meter.  Ultimately however, taxi may be traced back to the Ancient Greek τάξις (taxis) from τάσσω (to place in a certain order (in the sense of “commanding an orderly battle line” or “ordaining the payment of taxes”) to the extent that ταξίδι (taxidi) ("journey" in Modern Greek) originally denoted an orderly military march or campaign (an "operation whereby displaced parts are put back in their natural situation”) noted in 1758 in the Medical Latin , a verbal noun of tassein (arrange), from the primitive Indo-European root tag- (to touch, handle).  Meter (also metre) in this sense was from the Old English meter (versification), from the Latin mētrum, from the Ancient Greek μέτρον (metron) (meter, a verse; that by which anything is measured; measure, length, size, limit, proportion) from the primitive Indo-European root me- (to measure).  It seems the word was in the early fourteenth century re-borrowed after a three-century gap in recorded use, from Old French metre, with the specific sense of "metrical scheme in verse" from the Latin mētrum and it has since been part of a structural language of poetry as well as the general sense related to “measure”.  The taximeter, originally a mechanical (clockwork) device, was later electro-mechanical and finally electronic, was the means by which the distance travelled was recorded and the fare calculated.

Stuffed: A tiger, reputedly a thirty-year old male which died from natural causes while in captivity.

In use since 1820, taxidermy (the stuffing of animal carcases for purposes of display) combines taxi in classical sense of "arrangement, an arranging with derma (skin, from the primitive Indo-European der-(to split, flay, peel), the idea again being an "operation whereby displaced parts are put back in their natural situation”;  Reflecting the popularity of big-game hunting and the volume of dead animals increasingly available to display as trophies, the profession of taxidermist was first noted in 1827.  Taxonomy (the nomenclature of the science of classification in zoology, botany etc), dates from 1819, from the (1813) French taxonomie and was an (irregular) formation from the Ancient Greek taxis (ie the sense of “arrangement") +  -nomia (method), the related forms being taxonomic & taxonomist.

Dating from 1766, cabriolet (light two-wheeled chaise, a type of horse-drawn carriage), was from the French cabriolet, from the Italian cabriole & cabriole (horse caper) +‎ -et.  Cabriole & cabriole were from the Latin capreolus (wild goat), from the primitive Indo-European kápros (buck, he-goat) and related to the Old Norse hafr (he-goat), the Old English hæfr, the Welsh gafr and the Old Irish gabor.  The seemingly strange relationship between the Latin capreolus (roebuck; wild goat) and the eighteenth century horse-drawn carriage is explained by the French cabriole (little caper) a meaning derived from its light movement, from cabrioler (to leap, caper), from the Italian capriolare (to somersault), from the Latin capreolus (roebuck; wild goat), the idea being of something light and agile in movement.  The larger, more upscale version of the lightweight carriages the French named cabriolet, “cab” being the common form in the vernacular.  The –et suffix, indicating diminution or affection, was borrowed from Old French -et, and its feminine variant -ette, both derived from the Late Latin -ittus (and the other gender forms -itta, -ittum).

1966 Mercedes-Benz 300 SE Cabriolet.

In the collector-car market, the Mercedes-Benz W111 (1961-1971) & W112 (1962-1967) remain coveted and, as is usually the case, it's the convertibles which are most sought after, even though the cabriolet lacks the coupé's lovely roofline.  Pedants note that although the two-door W111s & W112s are technically a Coupé B & Cabriolet B in the factory's naming system, they're never referred to as such because no other configuration was offered in the model.  The W112 (300 SE) is of interest too because of the chrome moldings around the wheel arches, a feature which had been seen on some earlier cars and would be shared by the 600 Grosser (W100, 1963-1981).  Criticized by some when they appeared on the 600, the additional chrome on the W112 wasn't to everyone's taste (and it was a "delete option" when new) but it clearly had an enduring appeal because for decades after-market suppliers found a read market among those with later model Mercedes-Benz, BMWs, Jaguars and some others.  This is not approved of by the purists and whether in chrome, stainless steel or anodised plastic (!) it makes not difference: the originality police insist if it wasn't done by the factory, it shouldn't be done.

1971 Mercedes-Benz 280SE 3.5 Cabriolet (a converted coupé).

This is one really to upset the originality police because (1) it started life as a coupé, (2) the chrome wheel-arch moldings were never available on this model and (3) the (Fuchs Bundts) aluminium wheels have been chromed (and may anyway be reproductions).  Such is the price premium the cabriolets command compared with the coupés, over the years, many have been tempted to cut but exactly to replicate what the factory did is harder than it sounds.   

The application of cabriolet to describe convertible cars emerged in the early years of the continental motor industry because of the conceptual similarity to the earlier, light horse-drawn two-seater carriages but as the years went by, although there was never all that much exactitude in the nomenclature, the terms to describe the variations in convertible coachwork became merely model names (except for the much later targa which Porsche had the foresight to register as a trademark) and if a car was called a roadster, drophead coupé, phaeton, cabriolet or landau, it was an indication only that the roof could (usually) be removed or folded back.  One exception to that was Daimler-Benz which tightly defined the specifications of roadsters and landaulets and, with Teutonic thoroughness, in the mid-twentieth century codified the five variations of Mercedes-Benz cabriolets as Cabriolet A, B, C, D & F (if ever there was a Cabriolet E, the factory’s definition has never surfaced.

The taxicabs of Paris were first equipped with meters in 1898; originally called taxibread, they were renamed taximètres in 1904 and the first six-hundred petrol (gas) powered New York taxicabs were imported from France (then the world’s largest producer of automobiles) in 1907, the name “taxicab” borrowed from London where it had been in used for some time.  Fake news soon emerged, reports circulating in the New York press that the handy new vehicles were named after Franz II von Taxis of the house of Thurn and Taxis (1514-1543; postmaster for Philip of Burgundy) and his nephew Johann Baptiste von Taxis (1470-1541; Postmaster-General of the Holy Roman Empire).  Both were innovative in instituting in Europe (for the first time since the Roman Empire) fast and reliable postal services and on some routes passengers were also able to purchase seats so while the Taxis’ did provide taxi services in something close to the modern sense of the word, they never used the word “taxi” for service or the vehicles.  They did however for centuries keep the lucrative postal business in family hands.

The word taxi spread quickly around the world and exists as a borrowing in many languages but some tongues localized the spelling including Burmese (takka.ci), Cantonese (的士 (dik)), Mandarin (的士 (dīshì or díshì), Irish (tacsaí), Japanese (タクシー (takushī)), Korean (택시 (taeksi)), Malay (teksi), Welsh (tacsi), Yiddish (אַקסי‎ (taksi)), Yoruba (takisí & tasín), Asturian (tasi), Basque (taxilari & taximetro), Catalan (taxista), Czech (taxík), Danish (definite singular taxien, indefinite plural taxier, definite plural taxierne), Dutch (taxietje (as a diminutive & taxichauffeur (the driver) & Indonesian (taksi (a colonial descendent from the Dutch)) although with these, the English taxi often peacefully co-exists.

Hansom Cabs, New York City, 1900.

The Hansom cab was a two-wheeled horse-drawn carriage, named after its designer, English architect Joseph Hansom (1803–1882), founder of the architectural journal The Builder (1843) and noted for his work in the Gothic Revival style and . He patented the Hansom cab in 1834 and it became instantly popular, being more compact, faster and more manoeuvrable than the hackney cabs (pulled by Hackney horses) it replaced and safer too, the centre of gravity considerably lower.  What convinced many operators to switch was that the Hansom cab was light enough to be pulled by a single horse, lowering operating costs by at least 40% and their small size made accessible many more parts of London’s tight and congested nineteenth-century streets.  Within two years they had spread to the continent, throughout the British Empire and to the United States and after clockwork mechanical taximeters (then called taxameters) were in 1894 added to measure fares, the name became taxicab.  To this day, they’re still sometimes incorrectly called “handsome cabs”.

In aviation, taxi was a slang use, an allusion to the way a taxi driver slowly cruises when looking for fares, applied to an airplane “taxiing" slowly along the tarmac coming from or going to the runway.  At some airports, designated parts of the tarmac are still designated as taxiways, a word which seems not to have been otherwise adopted although runway is now often used in the fashion industry, the traditional catwalk seen by some as too gender-loaded.  Another adoption which didn’t endure was the 1930s “taxi dancer” (a woman whose services (as a dance partner) were available for hire at a dance hall).

Checker taxicab, circa 1974.

Immortalized over decades by their appearances in film and television, for decades the usually yellow (Dupont M6284 yellow was the actual paint-code) Checker was the taxicab which dominated the US market.  They were not retired from service until 1999, their appearance almost unchanged from the last major styling in 1959 and the final tranche in taxi service had covered more than a million miles (1.6m km), a reasonable achievement for a life spent mostly in the confines of cities.  The company in its modern form emerged just in time to suffer the effects of the great depression in the early 1930s but it survived and, although producing vehicles only in small volumes which never exceeded a few thousand a year, it remained profitable until the 1970s when the recession and two oil shocks threatened survival, it not being obvious that the capital could be raised to develop a new, more fuel-efficient generation of taxis.  At the same time, under pressure from operators, cities were de-regulating the technical requirements for taxis, meaning the mass-produced mainstream models from the major manufacturers could be added to fleets.  Cheaper to produce and buy, their adoption was the death knell for Checker and production ceased in 1982, the company continuing as a part supplier until finally shuttered in 2010 in the wake of the recession which followed the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).

Checker Marathon advertising, 1960s.

As well as the taxicab which was for six decades the mainstream line, between 1960-1982, Checker also sold a consumer version as the Marathon, aimed at the private buyer who was prepared to sacrifice the advantages of more modern designs for the virtues of the taxi (robustness, timelessness (albeit circa 1955) and interior space).  So dated was the appearance that Checkers built in the 1970s were often used in film and television even though the productions were depicting periods from earlier decades and in films set during the Cold War, they were popular as convincing substitutes the cars of Eastern Bloc apparatchiks.  The Marathon was available as a sedan or station wagon and even a few long-wheelbase limousines were built although in an age of stylistic exuberance, there was little demand for something which echoed the stolid lines of the early 1950s.

Most distinctive however were the six and eight-door Aerobuses aimed at the resort-hotel and airport shuttle business.  Available (off and on) between 1962-1977 and never built in great numbers, the eight-door models were the most numerous and both could be ordered as station wagons which Checker marketed sometimes as the “nine-door”, a European practice which counted the tailgate.  Surprisingly, despite the startlingly elongated appearance, there were few engineering challenges in developing and producing the Aerobus, the Marathon’s X-section reinforced frame was as sturdy as many light trucks and with a body made with heavy gauge steel, the lengthening process detracted little from structural integrity.  The affected central section was unchanged for its entire life and the anyway hardly expensive costs of development were amortized long before production ceased in 1977, something induced by a collapse in demand, not inherent unprofitability.

The Checker Limousine was an interesting venture into a market segment which did exist, even if not generally acknowledged.  There had always been those who easily could afford to buy a Cadillac yet instead drove Buicks or Oldsmobiles and their reasons varied.  Some eschewed ostentation, some (with conspicuous visibility to customers or clients) preferred to appear just prosperous enough to inspire confidence and others just couldn't see the additional value for the extra cost.  Checker thought they might be able to carve a niche in this segment and in 1963, announced what they would come to advertise as the "Custom Limousine" (although the initial publicity material described it as the "Marathon Town Custom"), built on a 129 inch (3277 mm) wheelbase, a 9 inch stretch of the standard platform, all the additional space gained by the rear compartment.

For Checker, it was neither a novel nor an expensive project, the engineering for the six and eight-door Aerobuses (1962-1977), respectively on 154½ inch (3924 mm) & 189 inch (4801 mm) wheelbases proving the robustness of the chassis and, in the tradition of the company, there was no attempt to offer the luxurious interior appointments familiar in most limousines although the quality of the upholstery was better and accessories like power windows were available; perhaps it was thought the divider isolating passengers from the chauffeur and the option of a vinyl roof was distinction enough.  There was though the luxury of space and an ease of ingress and egress which increasingly had been sacrificed as Cadillacs, Lincolns and Imperials had become lower.  With its flat floor and high roof, that might have been attractive for the older demographic of men who might have been tempted, many of whom presumably still wore hats, something they could leave on when seated, a design aspect last championed by Chrysler in the early 1950s.  Essentially, the Checker Limousine was little different in appearance to the to the GAZ-13 Chaika (Seagull), built in the USSR between 1959-1981 by Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod (GAZ, Gorky Automobile Plant), almost exclusively for well-connected apparatchiks in the Communist Party.  A pastiche of early-mid 1950s US styling trends, most consider it owed its greatest debt to the Packards of the era though whether this was in genuine admiration or a nod to comrade Stalin’s fondness for the marque isn't known.

The Checker Limousine however never approached the GAZ either in the volume made nor longevity.  Priced (perhaps optimistically) low in the range of (non-limousine) Cadillacs, production didn't reach far into two figures and after three lacklustre seasons (1964-1967), the model was withdrawn from the list although Checker probably did amortize the investment, the 129 inch wheelbase platform re-cycled (the limousine's A19E chassis code changed to A12E for the purpose) to create a taxi version with seating for an additional two or three.  In Australia, that approach appealed to both Ford and GMH (General Motors Holden) which, in small volumes for the taxi and hire-car industries, offered cheaper, less well appointed, versions of their long-wheelbase executive models (respectively as the Fairlane Custom and the Statesman), an approach which lasted until the mid 1970s.

Long-time New York City taxi customer, Lindsay Lohan.