Prosaic

Prosaic (pronounced proh-zey-ik)

(1) Of writing or speaking, straightforward; matter-of-fact; lacking the feeling or elegance of poetry.

(2) Something commonplace or dull; matter-of-fact or unimaginative; overly plain, simple or commonplace, to the point of being boring.

(3) Of or having the character or form of prose, the ordinary form of spoken or written language, rather than of poetry (now of technical use only).

1650-1660: From the fifteenth century Middle French prosaïque and directly from the sixteenth century Medieval Latin prōsaicus (in prose), from the Classical Latin prōsa (prose), from prorsus (straightforward, in prose), from the Old Latin provorus (straight ahead), the construct being pro- (forward) + vorsus (turned), from vertō (to turn), from the primitive Indo-European wer- (to turn, to bend).  The original meaning was technical, distinguishing text as prose rather than poetry and in this sense was usually written as prosaicus (in prose).  The first hints of literary hierarchy were first noted in French in 1746 when used to contrast the “character” of prose in contrast to the “feeling” of poetry.  The sense of describing something ordinary or mundane first seen in French in 1813, a meaning soon adopted in English.  Prosaic & prosaical are adjectives, prosify is a verb, prosified & prosifying are verbs & adjectives, prosaicness is a noun and prosaically is an adverb.

Figurative use of poetic & prosaic:  Jaguar E-Type (XK-E, 1961-1974) (left) & Jaguar XJ-S (1975-1996) (right).  "Poetry in motion" is a cliché but when the E-Type first was seen, that was the phrase some journalists chose.

Whether Enzo Ferrari (1898-1988) ever called the E-Type "the most beautiful car in the world" remains uncertain (though he certainly never issued a denial) but over the decades plenty have echoed the sentiment, sometimes using the phrase "poetry in motion".  By 1975, the world had changed and there were now rules with which to comply and although the XJ-S (later XJS) wasn't really a replacement for the E-Type, because of the timing, that was the basis on may of the early reports based at least some of their critique.  Dynamically, on about any objective measure, it was a better car than the E-Type but nobody is known to have claimed it was better looking and in some contemporary reviews, the styling was described as "prosaic".  It might have been more accurate to use the word "pragmatic" and the lines perhaps aged better than many at the time anticipated, the car in (almost) continuous production for over twenty years and the platform endured until 2006, providing the underpinnings for the first generation of Jaguar's XK8 (1996-2005) and the Aston Martin DB7 (1997-2004), both of which looked better than the XJ-S although neither matched the timeless E-Type.  Upon release, there was much comment about the styling lacking the appeal of the E-Type but the XJ-S was less a replacement than an entry into a new market segment, the anyway declining sports car segment abandoned.  Regarding its capabilities, the press were fair, one publication noting it was smooth, quiet and luxurious yet "capable of speeds that would have won a grand prix not 15 years ago".  That comparison was admittedly with Formula One's voiturette (1.5 litre, naturally aspirated) era but it was an indication that even in the troubled 1970s, there had been progress.   

1983 Jaguar XJ-S Lynx Eventer shooting brake.

What many regard as the best-looking XJS version were the "shooting brakes" (a kind of station wagon) made by specialist coach-builders, the best-known of which was the Lynx Eventer, 67 of which were made.  Critics at the time noted the rear treatment rendered a better balanced shape and much the same observation was made of the convertible (1988-1996) version (less so the SC "cabriolet" (1983-1988)).  Although the pre-war shooting brakes often were built for the HFS (hunting, fishing & shooting) set who needed space for shotguns, fishing rods, hunting hounds and such, in the 1980s they emerged in the niche of the "horsey" set although there was obviously appeal for those who liked the image even if they never sat in a saddle.  In naming the Eventer, Lynx may have had in mind the sport of "eventing", an equestrian sport in which a single horse & rider compete against others across the three disciplines of dressage, cross-country, and show jumping, the roots in the drills European armies conducted to ensure officers seeking a commission in the cavalry possessed the requisite skills.  Eventing has a reasonably impressive death toll of both riders and beasts but it continues to exert a pull with women especially drawn; that's not surprising because some girls fall in love with horses at pony club and never quite recover.

1986 "Daimler S Design Study".

The shooting brake coachwork eliminated the buttresses that were the design's most distinctive feature and interestingly, they were sacrificed also when the factory in 1986 undertook a “design-study” for a proposed "luxury version", to be sold as the “Daimler S”.  The shape was judged most pleasing, unlike the “Coupé” version of the Jensen Interceptor (1966-1976), a reputed 60 of which were built in 1975-1976.  Without the dramatically expansive rear window (nicknamed "the fishbowl"), the design didn't please many and it was later revealed that, struggling to recover from the mid-1970s recession and collapse in demand for big, thirsty cars (both a consequence of the first oil shock), the company had exhausted their supply of closed body shells so "cobbled together" a top to be attached to some of remaining convertible (1974-1976) bodies awaiting completion.  That's may account for why it looked like something of a design college project that may (generously) have been graded a "C-" but, approaching bankruptcy, Jensen was in its death throes.

The original Jensen Interceptor (1966-1976, left) "saloon" and the hastily improvised Coupé (1975-1976, right).  The vinyl glued to the roof didn't help and it was a difficult time for the dying company but Jaguar's execution of the same concept (add a roof to a convertible) on the one-off Daimler S was more accomplished.  Verging on the brutish, nobody ever called the Interceptor's lines "poetic" but the appeal has endured and even today there are companies offering "refurbishment packages" including modern power-trains and electronics.

One thing the Daimler S had in common with the unfortunate Interceptor Coupé was the project being relatively cheap to execute because much of the engineering work had already been done in creating open versions (a full convertible by Jensen; the “SC” version of the XJS with a Triumph Stag-like fixture atop).  Sales of the XJ-S SC were sufficiently encouraging for a team to be formed to produce a conventional convertible, one aspect of the project a removable hard-top (always a factory option for the smaller E-Type).  Because of the sheer size (and consequently weight) of such a structure, that proved unviable but, the styling done, the idea of a “notchback coupé” was explored, the “Daimler” brand available to enable the thing to be sold at a higher price.  The prototype Daimler S required more than welding on the aborted hard-top but not much more, the main differences the different rear-side windows and fluted fittings on the grill & trunk (boot) lid trim.  The planned interior fit-out (a more lavish use of timber veneers, carpet & leather) was never fitted to the prototype and wilder thoughts in the engineering office included AWD (all-wheel drive) but none of the speculation ever even reached the drawing boards.  The one-off Daimler S did get as far as US focus groups for "market reaction" to be assessed but it had the misfortune of being displayed with a prototype XJ-S convertible and while the response to the coupé was polite, the convertible was received with an enthusiasm matched by the US dealer network, none of whom needed a focus group to tell them where demand lay.  While the lines of neither the Lynx Eventer or Daimler S would be likely to attract the epithet "poetic", both shapes improved on the original.  

Prosaic is an example of the figurative adoption of a word with a precise technical meaning assuming such popularity that the original sense became relegated to specialists.  Once, any text not poetic was “prosaic” (ie “written in prose”), and this description denoted nothing negative; it was just a way of distinguishing between written forms, reflecting prosaic’s origins in the Latin prosa (prose).  However, by the seventeen century, poetry had come to be regarded as a most superior form of expression, considered more beautiful, imaginative, and emotional, prose relegated to the status of the mundane and procedural.  The figurative use evolved from this and prosaic came to be used to refer to anything thought ordinary or unimaginative including music, ideas, architecture, Jaguars etc.  The adjective thus transformed into a synonym for "colorless, drab, lifeless, lacklustre, humdrum, dull, pedestrian, unimaginative" etc and this resulted in phrases which once would have been thought bizarre or tautological: “prosaic poetry” & “prosaic prose”.  In its original technical sense (distinguishing the style of writing used for poetry from other literature), the word is now rarely used other than by those somewhere in the "literature business" and, even there, use can be challenging because of the implications of the modern sense(s).  Still, for those who wish to emphasise certain bad texts are worse even than others, the comparative is "more prosaic" and the superlative, "most prosaic".

Dylan Thomas (1914–1953, left) and his wife Caitlin Thomas (née Macnamara; 1913-1994, right) in the bar of Brown’s Hotel, Laugharne, Wales, 1938.

As the origin in the Latin prosa or pronersa oratio (straightforward discourse) suggests, “prose” is the language in its direct, unadorned form, flowing in the way of style(s) written or spoken in everyday life.  It differs from poetry or verse in not being restricted in rhythm, measure or rhyme although, in literary theory, there exists also “poetic prose” and the “prose poem”.  Literary theory however has, in the last sixty years-odd, constructed a large and sometimes bewildering array of technical terms and categories and the possible number of distinct prose forms may be close to limitless.  Poetic prose is prose which approximates to verse in the use of rhythm (perhaps even a kind of meter) in the elaborate and ornate use of language, and especially in the use of figurative devices like onomatopoeia, assonance and metaphor.  Except in experimental form, poetic prose usually is deployed only as a literary device, appearing in short works or in brief passages in longer pieces in order to achieve a (not always entirely clear) specific effect although the common element seems to be something like “an elevation of the emotional temperature”.  Authors interpolating passages of poetic prose have included Thomas De Quincey (1785–1859, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821)), Herman Melville (1819–1891), Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891), James Joyce (1882–1941, whose use of poetic prose wasn’t always immediately accessible), Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) and William Faulkner (1897–1962).  Classic examples of the “hybrid form” are sectionsof the narrator’s narrative in the radio play Under Milk Wood (1952) by Dylan Thomas (1914–1953).

The Collected Prose of T.S. Eliot (2024), in four volumes, edited by Archie Burnett.

A prose poem is a composition printed as prose but distinguished by elements common in poetry, such as often elaborately contrived rhythms, figures of speech, rhyme, internal rhyme, assonance, consonance and startling imagery.  In academic use, it’s the tragic and only posthumously recognized French proto-symbolist Aloysius Bertrand (pen name of Louis Jacques Napoléon Bertrand, 1807-1841) who is acknowledged as having introduced prose poetry to French writing and, more that others, it was him who (retrospectively) made it a fashionable sub-genre among the avant-garde, the seminal work being Gaspard de la Nuit-Fantaisies à la manière de Rembrandt et de Callot (Gaspard of the Night-Fantasies in the Manner of Rembrandt and Callot, 1842), a collection of fantasies in the manner of the Dutch painter Rembrandt (Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn; 1606-1669) and Jacques Callot (circa 1592–1635, a printmaker in the baroque style, born in the then independent Duchy of Lorraine).  Although it was the intricacy of the ornate and rhythmical language that contributed to the recognition of the prose poem as a literary form, upon publication, it made little impact and only later became influential though for more than a century it remained neglected in English.  When French critics finally took notice, the initial spread of the work owed much to the dazzling images, a number of which were, by the standards of the age, monumentally grotesque.  The influence on the French poet, essayist, translator and art critic Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) was obvious in his Le Spleen de Paris (Paris Spleen, 1869 and better known by its subsequent title Petits Poèmes en prose (Little Poems in Prose)), a collection of 50 short prose poems and one of the building blocks of literary modernism.  The symbolist poets and surrealists also acknowledged a debt, as did T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) although his fork of modernism was so striking it seems almost unfair much to dwell on the precursors.

Lindsay Lohan, a poem by Amber Tambling, from the collection Dark Sparkler (2015).

Actress and author Amber Tamblyn (b 1983) solved the writer's dilemma about whether to handle the subject of Lindsay Lohan in prose or poetry by using no text at all.  The publisher HarperCollins described her third collection Dark Sparkler (2015) as a “…hybrid of poetry and art exploring the lives and deaths of actresses who began their careers as child stars.”  The book, which included original artwork by a number of artists, was well received, critically and commercially.  The title was well-chosen because Dark Sparkler was a catalogue of murder and suicide but what attracted much comment was the inclusion of one living soul: Lindsay Lohan, her entry (on page 47) blank but for her name as the title.  An author’s relationship ultimately is with their readers but first it’s with their critics and the response to that one proved it’s possible to deconstruct text even when it doesn’t appear.  As the postmodernists explained, even a blank page is "text" to be deconstructed to find meaning and should the conclusion be there is "no meaning", that too is "a meaning".  Whether fashionable or not, postmodernism made a contribution to literary criticism and remains available for readers to take from it what they will.  Some of the critical reaction to Ms Tambling's Lindsay Lohan was something in vein of those who approached John Cage’s (1912–1992) 4:33 (1952) in that, without much with which to work, the only obvious question seemed to be “What did you mean?”  Ms Tamblyn did say she found it “upsetting” when, after reading several of the poems dedicated to starlets who died young, she spoke the words “Lindsay Lohan” and the audience laughed; perhaps, in the age of the TikTokers she’d not now be surprised.  The poet claimed the inclusion of the piece in its unusual form was not to say “you’re next” but explicitly to avoid writing anything about a life in progress, the idea being Ms Lohan’s life was her own story to write.  Like any work of prose or poetry, page 47 was there for people to take from it what they found but presumably, the interpretative range might be wider than for those reading something like John Keats’ (1795-1821) ode To Autumn (1820).

Prose & poetry: shifting sensibilities

Products in the marketplace, prose and poetry are as subject to the whims of fashion as cars or frocks.  Some products fail while others succeed and that success may be fleeting or endure for generations but “success” is also nuanced, some items receiving critical acclaim but few sales while other are derided by the critics yet achieve either a brief or sustained popularity.  More intriguingly, some fade into obscurity for a century or more, only to be “re-discovered” by a new generation, often to enjoy a brief revival (as happens in fashion) or even enter the canon (as happened with the music of the Italian composer of the Baroque Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) who, neglected for centuries, gained recognition in the 1920s).  The trend of “coming and going” from favour is a feature of literature, partly explained by the use of language shifting, making something once accessible seem to new generations stilted and clumsy.  A handful of authors have benefited from this, William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) texts in many places needing explanatory notes yet valued as “period pieces”, the works surviving by virtue of timeless thematic power.  Similarly, were a modern author to adopt the style of Jane Austen (1775–1817) it would seem absurd but her writings remain valued because they’re imagined as “capturing the moment of their time” (although the evidence suggests even the subset of society she documented were likely in speech not often so precise).

Frontpiece for first edition of The Faerie Queene (1590).  It's an example of one of those works essential in the study of English literature yet now hardly read (at least by choice, students may find it imposed).

Even among professional critics, opinions will be divided, the English poet & satirist Alexander Pope (1688-1744) in his last days noting approvingly of Edmund Spenser’s (circa 1552-1599) Epic poem The Faerie Queene (1590-1596; some 35,000 lines in stanzas): “…there is something Spenser that pleases one as strongly in one’s old age as it did in one’s youth. I read the Faerie Queene when I was about twelve with a vast deal of delight; and I think it gave me as much when I read it over about a year or two ago.”  Although dutifully still acknowledged as Spenser’s magnum opus, it’s now read only by students of literary history or linguistics; it’s unlikely many of them go much beyond what they need for their purposes to extract because it’s so tiresomely archaic.  Even in the nineteenth century it was thought “hard work with not enough reward”, the Whig historian Thomas Babington “T.B.” Macaulay (1800–1859) in 1831 summing up: “Spenser, though assuredly one of the greatest poets that ever lived, could not succeed in the attempt to make allegory interesting.  It was in vain that he lavished the riches of his mind on the House of Pride and the House of Temperance.  One unpardonable fault, the fault of tediousness, pervades the whole of The Faerie Queene.  We become sick of cardinal virtues and deadly sins, and long for the society of plain men and women.”  His call for modernism would within decades be answered and his view of the poem’s fate in the hands of readers would not differ greatly if written today:  Of the persons who read the first canto one in ten reaches the end of the first book, and not one in a hundred perseveres to the end of the poem.  Very few and very weary are those who are in at the death of the Blatant Beast.”  Even before TikTok, attention spans had shortened.

By the twentieth century, tastes certainly had shifted to prose that was punchier and conveyed meaning with less of the author’s display of erudition.  Writing of Gertrude Stein (1874–1946), the author and critic (Percy) Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957; best remembered for his seminal contribution to short-lived Vorticist movement that was extinguished by the blast of World War I (1914-1918)) dismissed her prose as “…a cold, black suet-pudding.  We can represent it as a cold suet roll of fabulously reptilian length.  Cut it at any point, it is the heavy, sticky, opaque mass all through and all along . . . it is mournful and monstrous composed of dead and inanimate material.”  As Vorticism demonstrated, even in artful form, Lewis knew how to make meaning clear, but Stein may have had the last laugh, he mostly forgotten while she often still is referenced although that’s more for her place in the LGBTQQIAAOP pantheon than any literary contribution.

Portrait of Virginia Woolf (circa 1917), oil on canvas by Roger Fry (1866-1934).

Still, Gertrude Stein is at least remembered for something.  In the rich field of novelists with diminished reputations there’s no example better than the Scottish author Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), among the most widely read (to the bafflement of some critics) of the nineteenth century.  His legacy endures curiously in those he inspired (notably Jane Austen) but the wordy style didn’t survive the onset of modernity, E. M. Forster (1879–1970) in Aspects of the Novel (1927) finding him prolific yet slight, saying: “He is seen to have a heavy mind and a trivial style.  He cannot construct.  He has neither artistic detachment nor passion, only a temperate heart, gentlemanly feelings and an intelligent affection for the countryside; this is not basis enough for great novels.”  The English vicar John Skinner (1772–1839) made scant contribution to theology but is remembered as one of the amateur antiquarians and archaeologists England produced in the days of empire and his writings make clear he had the qualities of patience of perseverance demanded by all his callings.  He’d have needed both to plod through Scott’s The Black Dwarf (1816 and one of the “Waverley Novels”), Skinner noting in his diary in 1830: “…strive to amuse myself by reading novels and have finished that of the Black Dwarf by Sir Walter Scott.  I must be reduced to a sad state when I feel obliged to read such nonsense for a pastime.”  While unfair to suggest any connection, some years later, Skinner committed suicide, blowing his brains out with a shotgun.  Although still sometimes the subject of academic study (it transpired Scott’s texts were rich pickings for the deconstructionists of postmodernism), Scott is now little read although, counterintuitively, Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) was a fan, in 1932 lamenting him as among the last to echo the Shakespearean style in dialogues: “We have lost the art of the poetic speech” she concluded.  When madness overtook her, Woolf chose a more romantic form of suicide.

The Tay Bridge Disaster

William Topaz McGonagall (circa 1825–1902) was a Scottish poet of Irish ancestry, now acknowledged as perhaps the worst poet ever to have been published in English, a fair achievement given the wealth of modern competition.  His best known work remains The Tay Bridge Disaster (1880), lamenting the disaster of 28 December, 1879 when, during a severe gale, the central section of Dundee's Tay Rail Bridge collapsed, sending to their deaths in the freezing water the 80-odd souls aboard the Wormit-Dundee train passing at the time.  Regarded during its brief existence as a triumph of Victorian (1837-1901) engineering, the Tay Rail Bridge was nearly two miles (3.2 km) long and then the longest in the world but it had been built with an insufficient allowance for lateral wind-load, the structure that night succumbing to the gale-force winds estimated at 80 mph (130 km/h, 70 knots).  An enquiry was conducted and the designer, Sir Thomas Bouch (1822-1880) (dubbed a Knight Bachelor at Windsor Castle on 26 June, 1879 by Victoria (1819–1901; Queen of the UK 1837-1901) in recognition of the quick and economic construction of the bridge) was found for primarily responsible for the disaster.  His health suffered as a consequence of the event and within a year of the collapse, he was dead.

The Tay Bridge after the collapse (National Library of Scotland image).

Whether the The Tay Bridge Disaster can be said to be prosaic is debatable because there are probably better adjectives but critics have long been united that it's a very bad piece of poetry and it's doubtful a re-rendering in prose would be much of an improvement, one writing of it that McGonagall was “deaf to poetic metaphor, employing inappropriate rhythms that resulted in unintentionally amusing poetry.”  Said to be wholly oblivious to the invective almost universally directed to his oeuvre of over two-hundred pieces of verse, his sheer awfulness and tenacity caused him to be remembered to this day for at least something while countless poets who were merely earnest and competent are long forgotten.  Whether The Tay Bridge Disaster is the "worst ever" poem is up to readers but the problem with poetry is that its appreciation is a specific skill-set and not all possess the skill.  Were the critics to have praised the piece as a work or rare genius and pronounced it a masterpiece, many of us would have taken their word for it.

The Tay Bridge Disaster by William McGonagall

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
 
’Twas about seven o’clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seem’d to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem’d to say-
“I’ll blow down the Bridge of Tay.”
 
When the train left Edinburgh
The passengers’ hearts were light and felt no sorrow,
But Boreas blew a terrific gale,
Which made their hearts for to quail,
And many of the passengers with fear did say-
“I hope God will send us safe across the Bridge of Tay.”
 
But when the train came near to Wormit Bay,
Boreas he did loud and angry bray,
And shook the central girders of the Bridge of Tay
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
 
So the train sped on with all its might,
And Bonnie Dundee soon hove in sight,
And the passengers’ hearts felt light,
Thinking they would enjoy themselves on the New Year,
With their friends at home they lov’d most dear,
And wish them all a happy New Year.
 
So the train mov’d slowly along the Bridge of Tay,
Until it was about midway,
Then the central girders with a crash gave way,
And down went the train and passengers into the Tay!
The Storm Fiend did loudly bray,
Because ninety lives had been taken away,
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
 
As soon as the catastrophe came to be known
The alarm from mouth to mouth was blown,
And the cry rang out all o’er the town,
Good Heavens! the Tay Bridge is blown down,
And a passenger train from Edinburgh,
Which fill’d all the peoples hearts with sorrow,
And made them for to turn pale,
Because none of the passengers were sav’d to tell the tale
How the disaster happen’d on the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
 
It must have been an awful sight,
To witness in the dusky moonlight,
While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,
Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,
Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.

Flat

Flat (pronounced flat)

(1) Level, even, or without unevenness of surface, as land or tabletops.

(2) Having a shape or appearance not deep or thick.

(3) Deflated; collapsed.

(4) Absolute, downright, or positive; without qualification; without modification or variation.

(5) Without vitality or animation; lifeless; dull.

(6) Prosaic, banal, or insipid.

(7) In artistic criticism, lifeless, not having the illusion of volume or depth or lacking contrast or gradations of tone or colour.

(8) Of paint, without gloss; not shiny; matt.

(9) In musical criticism, not clear, sharp, or ringing, as sound or a voice lacking resonance and variation in pitch; monotonous.

(10) In musical notation, the character ♭ which, when attached to a note or a staff degree, lowers its significance one chromatic half step.

(11) In music, below an intended pitch, as a note; too low (as opposed to sharp).

(12) In English grammar, derived without change in form, as to brush from the noun brush and adverbs that do not add -ly to the adjectival form as fast, cheap, and slow.

(13) In nautical matters, a sail cut with little or no fullness.

(14) A woman’s shoe with a flat heel (pump) or no heel (ballet flat).

(15) In geography, a marsh, shoal, or shallow.

(16) In shipbuilding, a partial deck between two full decks (also called platform).

(17) In construction, broad, flat piece of iron or steel for overlapping and joining two plates at their edges.

(18) In architecture, a straight timber in a frame or other assembly of generally curved timbers.

(19) An iron or steel bar of rectangular cross section.

(20) In textile production, one of a series of laths covered with card clothing, used in conjunction with the cylinder in carding.

(21) In photography, one or more negatives or positives in position to be reproduced.

(22) In printing, a device for holding a negative or positive flat for reproduction by photoengraving.

(23) In horticulture, a shallow, lidless box or tray used for rooting seeds and cuttings and for growing young plants.

(24) In certain forms of football, the area of the field immediately inside of or outside an offensive end, close behind or at the line of scrimmage.

(25) In horse racing, events held on flat tracks (ie without jumps).

(26) An alternative name for a residential apartment or unit (mostly UK, Australia, NZ).

(27) In phonetics, the vowel sound of a as in the usual US or southern British pronunciation of hand, cat, usually represented by the symbol (æ).

(28) In internal combustion engines (ICE), a configuration in which the cylinders are horizontally opposed.

1275–1325: From the Middle English flat from the Old Norse flatr, related to Old High German flaz (flat) and the Old Saxon flat (flat; shallow) and akin to Old English flet.  It was cognate with the Norwegian and Swedish flat and the Danish flad, both from the Proto-Germanic flataz, from Proto-Indo-European pleth (flat); akin to the Saterland Frisian flot (smooth), the German flöz (a geological layer), the Latvian plats and Sanskrit प्रथस् (prathas) (extension).  Source is thought to be the Ancient Greek πλατύς (platús & platys) (flat, broad).  The sense of "prosaic or dull" emerged in the 1570s and was first applied to drink from circa 1600, a meaning extended to musical notes in the 1590s (ie the tone is "lowered").   Flat-out, an adjectival form, was first noted in 1932, apparently a reference to pushing a car’s throttle (accelerator) flat to the floor and thus came to be slang for a vehicle’s top speed.  The US colloquial use as a noun from 1870 meaning "total failure" endures in the sense of “falling flat”.  The notion of a small, residential space, a divided part of a larger structure, dates from 1795–1805; variant of the obsolete Old English flet (floor, house, hall), most suggesting the meaning followed the early practice of sub-dividing buildings within levels.  In this sense, the Old High German flezzi (floor) has been noted and it is perhaps derived from the primitive Indo-European plat (to spread) but the link to flat as part of a building is tenuous. 

Dauphine by French sculptor César Baldaccini (1921-1998).

Dauphine was Baldaccini's first Compression plate (Flat compression) piece in his Compression d'Automobile (Compressed cars) series) and was literally a Renault Dauphine (1956-1967) “turned into art” using a hydraulic press; it was first shown in Milan in 1970.

The installation’s other pieces are Compressions cubiques (Cubed compressions), made from the salvaged wrecks of cars of various makes (Simca, Renault, Fiat etc) in what are presumably “designer colors”, the artist’s thing being depictions of shapes (including the human form, in whole or in part) in materials like scrap metal and plastics.  The symbolism was apparently something about the movement’s usual suspects (consumerism, alienation and the wastefulness of capitalist mass-production).  Baldaccini was leading light in the Nouveau Réalisme (“new wave of realism) movement (post-war Europe was a place of political and artistic “movements”) and he’s now best remembered for his many “compression” pieces, most of which were cars which had emerged from the crusher.  It had been the sight of a hydraulic crushing machine at a scrap yard which had inspired the artist and the pieces became his signature, rather as “wrapping” large structures was for Christo (Christo Javacheff (1935–2020)).  The pair encapsulated modern art: Christo wrapped a building and called it “art”, while Baldaccini took a crushed car, put it in a gallery and called it “art”.  Prior to some point in the twentieth century, such antics would have been implausible but after things moved from the critical relationship being between artist and audiences to that between artist and critics, just about anything became possible, thus all those post-war “movements”.  A footnote in Baldaccini's life is that in 1959 he became the second owner of Brigitte Bardot's (1921–1998) 1954 Simca 9 Weekend Cabriolet.  Whether he bought it or it was a gift isn't clear but it was a genuine one-off, the aluminum and steel body hand made by the coachbuilder Facel (soon to become famous for the memorable Facel Vegas) and, appropriately, carries serial number 001.  It still exists and is on permanent display at the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville, Tennessee.  Lane specializes in European cars (with a commendable emphasis on the rare, strange and truly bizarre) and, like most of its exhibits, the Simca remains in sound working order; it is, in the jargon of the collector trade, “a survivor”, being wholly original and never having been restored.    .

The Flat Earth

Members of the Flat Earth Society believe the Earth is flat but there's genuine debate within the organisation, some holding the shape is disk-like, others that it's conical but both agree we live on something like the face of a coin.  There are also those in a radical faction suggesting it's actually shaped like a doughnut but this theory is regarded by the flat-earth mainstream as speculative or even "heretical".  Evidence, such as photographs from orbit showing Earth to be a sphere, is dismissed as part of the "round Earth conspiracy" run by NASA and others.

The flat-earther theory is that the Arctic Circle is in the center and the Antarctic is a 150-foot (45m) tall wall of ice around the rim; NASA contractors guard the ice wall so nobody can fall over the edge.  Earth's daily cycle is a product of the sun and moon being 32 mile (51 km) wide spheres travelling in a plane 3,000 miles (4,800 km) above Earth.  The more distant stars are some 3100 miles (5000 km) away and there's also an invisible "anti-moon" which obscures the moon during lunar eclipses.

Lindsay Lohan in Lanvin Classic Garnet ballet flats (Lanvin part-number is FW-BAPBS1-NAPA-A18391), Los Angeles, 2012.  In some markets, these are known as ballet pumps.

Flat Engines

“Flat” engines are so named because the cylinders are horizontally opposed which means traditionally (though not inherently) there are an equal number of cylinders.  It would not be impossible to build a flat engine with an uneven cylinder count but the disadvantages would probably outweigh anything gained and specific efficiencies could anyway be obtained in more conventional ways.  The flat engine configuration can be visualized as a “flattened V” and this concept does have some currency because engineers like to distinguish between the “boxer” and the “180^o V” (also called the “horizontal V”, both forms proving engineers accord the rules of math more respect than those of English).  The boxer is fitted with one crankpin per cylinder while the 180^o V uses one crankpin per pair of horizontally opposed cylinders.

The 180^o Vee vs the Boxer.

Both engines use a 180^o layout but the boxer gains its name from the manner in which each pair of opposing pistons operate: Those with pairs of pistons which move inwards and outwards at the same time are dubbed “boxers” on the metaphor of the pugilist punching their gloves together before the start of the match whereas those where the strokes vary are merely “flat”.  Apart from engineers, this matters to pedants who enjoy pointing out that while all boxers are flat, not all flats are boxers, a distinction Ferrari to this day are not much concerned about, on the factory website cheerfully referring to the flat-12 introduced in the 365 GT4 BB variously as a “boxer”, a “flat-12” and a 180^o V12”.  Actually, the story of the BB (1974-1983) is even more amusing because years later the factory would admit the designation stood not for “Berlinetta Boxer” but really was a reference to Brigitte Bardot, the engineers developing the thing as besotted with her as men everywhere.  There’s also another version of the flat engine and that’s one in which there are two crankshafts (at the far left & right) and no cylinder head; the combustion chamber created in the gap between the two pistons.  The layout offers some advantages and enjoyed limited success in commercial vehicles but never really caught on.

Kinetic Cutaway display of Porsche flat-six (1970 2.2 litre Type 911/08  (911T)) by Greg Stirling.

The boxer layout has been in use since 1897 when Carl (also as Karl) Benz (1844–1929) released a twin cylinder version and it was widely emulated although Mercedes-Benz has never returned to the idea while others (notably BMW (motorcycles), Porsche and Subaru) have made variations of the flat configuration a signature feature.  The advantages of the flat form include (1) a lower centre of gravity, (2) reduced long-term wear on the cylinder walls because some oil tends to remain on the surface when not running, meaning instant lubrication upon start-up and (3) reduced height meaning the physical mass sits lower, permitting bodywork more easily to be optimized for aerodynamic efficiency although this can't be pursued to extremes on road cars because there are various rules about the minimum heights of this & that.  The disadvantages include (1) greater width, (2) accessibility (a cross-flow combustion chamber will necessitate the intake or exhaust (usually the latter) plumbing being on the underside, (3) some challenges in providing cooling and (4) the additional weight and complexity (two cylinder heads) compare to an in-line engine (although the same can be said of conventional vees).

Flat out but anti-climatic: The Coventry-Climax flat-16

Flat engines have ranged from the modest (the flat-4 in the long-running Volkswagen Beetle (1939-2003)) to the spectacular (Coventry-Climax and Porsche both building flat-16s although both proved abortive).  The most glorious failure however was the remarkable BRM H16, used to contest the 1966-1967 Formula One (F1) season when the displacement limit was doubled to three litres.  What BRM did was take the 1.5 litre V8 with which they’d won the 1962 F1 driver and constructor championships, flatten it to and 180^o V and join two as a pair, one atop the other.  It was a variation on what Coventry-Climax had done with their 1.5 litre V8 which they flattened and joined to create a conventional flat-16 and the two approaches illustrate the trade-offs which engineers have to assess for merit.  BRM gained a short engine but it was tall which adversely affected the centre of gravity while Coventry-Climax retained a low profile but had to accommodate great length and challenges in cooling.  The Coventry-Climax flat-16 never appeared on the track and the BRM H16 was abandoned although it did win one Grand Prix (albeit when installed in a Lotus chassis).  Unfortunately for those who adore intricacy for its own sake, BRM's plan to build four valve heads never came to fruition so the chance to assess an engine with sixteen cylinders, two crankshafts, eight camshafts, two distributers and 64 valves was never possible.  Truly, that would have been compounding existing errors on a grand scale.  Tellingly perhaps, the F1 titles in 1966-1967 were won using an engine based on one used in the early 1960s by General Motors in road cars (usually in a mild state of tune although there was an unsuccessful foray into turbo-charging) before it was abandoned and sold to Rover to become their long-running aluminium V8.  As raced, it boasted 8 cylinders, one crankshaft, two camshafts, one distributer and 16 valves.  The principle of Occam's Razor (the reductionist philosophic position attributed to English Franciscan friar & theologian William of Ockham (circa 1288–1347) written usually as Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem (entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity) is essentially: “the simplest solution is usually the best".

The ultimate flats: Napier-Sabre H-24 (left) and BRM H-16 (right).

The H configuration though was sound if one had an appropriate purpose of its application.  What showed every sign of evolving into the most outstanding piston aero-engine of World War II (1939-1945) was the Napier-Sabre H-24 which, with reduced displacement, offered superior power, higher engine speeds and reduced fuel consumption compared with the conventional V12s in use and V16s in development.  The early teething troubles had been overcome and extraordinary power outputs were being obtained in testing but the arrival of the jet age meant the big piston-engined warplanes were relics and development of the H24 was abandoned along with the H-32 planned for use in long-range heavy bombers.

A mastectomy bra with prostheses (left) and with the prostheses inserted in the cups' pockets (centre & right).

For those who elect not to have a reconstruction after the loss of a breast, there are bras with “double-skinned” cups which feature internal “pockets” into which a prosthetic breast form (a prosthesis) can be inserted.  Those who have had a unilateral mastectomy (the surgical removal of one breast) can choose a cup size to match the remaining while those who lost both (a bilateral or double mastectomy) can adopt whatever size they prefer.  There are now even single cup bras for those who have lost one breast but opt not to use a prosthetic, an approach which reflects both an aesthetic choice and a reaction against what is described in the US as the “medical-industrial complex”, the point being that women who have undergone a mastectomy should not be subject to pressure either to use a prosthetic or agree to surgical reconstruction (a lucrative procedure for the medical industry).  This has now emerged as a form of advocacy called the “going flat” movement which has a focus not only on available fashions but also the need for a protocol under which, if women request an AFC (aesthetic flat closure, a surgical closure (sewing up) in which the “surplus” skin often preserved to accommodate a future reconstructive procedure is removed and the chest rendered essentially “flat”), that is what must be provided.  The medical industry has argued the AFC can preclude a satisfactory cosmetic outcome in reconstruction if a woman “changes her mind” but the movement insists it's an example of how the “informed consent” of women is not being respected.  Essentially, what the “going flat” movement (the members style themselves as "flatties") seems to be arguing is the request for an AFC should be understood as an example of the legal principle of VAR (voluntary assumption of risk).  The attitude of surgeons who decline to perform an AFC is described by the movement as the “flat refusal”.

Exordium

Exordium (pronounced ig-zawr-dee-uhm or ik-sawr-dee-uhm)

(1) The beginning of anything.

(2) The introductory part of an oration, treatise etc.

(3) In formal rhetoric, the introductory section of a discourse in Western classical rhetoric.

(4) In legal drafting (probate), as an exordium clause, the first paragraph or sentence in a will and testament

1525–1535: From the Latin exōrdium (beginning, commencement), from exōrdīrī (I begin, commence) the construct being ex- (out of; from) + ōrd(īrī) (to begin) + -ium.  The ex- prefix was from the Middle English, from words borrowed from the Middle French, from the Latin ex (out of, from), from the primitive Indo-European eǵ- & eǵs- (out).  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek ἐξ (ex) (out of, from), the Transalpine Gaulish ex- (out), the Old Irish ess- (out), the Old Church Slavonic изъ (izŭ) (out) & the Russian из (iz) (from, out of).  The “x” in “ex-“, sometimes is elided before certain constants, reduced to e- (eg ejaculate).  The –ium suffix (used most often to form adjectives) was applied as (1) a nominal suffix (2) a substantivisation of its neuter forms and (3) as an adjectival suffix.  It was associated with the formation of abstract nouns, sometimes denoting offices and groups, a linguistic practice which has long fallen from fashion.  In the New Latin, it was the standard suffix appended when forming names for chemical elements.  Exordium and exord are nouns, exordior is a verb, exordial is an adjective; the noun plural is exordiums or exordia, the choice dictated by consistency of use within a document, either the Latin or English being used in all cases where both exist.

The original meaning of the Latin exōrdium was “the warp laid on a loom before the web is begun” which entered general use as “starting point” and used liberally of physical objects, processes or abstractions.  The term came to assume a specific technical meaning when it was applied to the first of the traditional divisions of a speech established by classical rhetoricians, this later extended to many forms of literature to describe introductions, especially the opening section of a discourse or composition.  In English law, this was formalized in the law of probate as the exordium clause in wills, an opening statement of (more or less) standardized facts. In English, there are many words used to convey the same meaning including introduction, forward, preamble, abstract, (executive) summary, preface, prologue, preliminary, prelude, opening, presentation, proposition, signal, overture, preliminary, prolegomenon, prelusion & proem.  However, although English is notorious for accumulating synonyms (often with other or overlapping meanings), the language is not unique in that, the synonyms of the Latin verb exōrdior (I begin) (present infinitive exōrdīrī, perfect active exōrsus sum) including incohō, occipiō, incipiō, coepiō, ōrdior, initiō, ineō, moveō & mōlior.

The exordium clause

In common law jurisdictions a will need not contain an exordium clause, indeed, an English court once held to be valid a will which consisted of the words “All to mum” scratched on the paint of the overturned tractor which would crush to death the writer.  It was a document of interest too because the judge ruled the “mum” referred not to the deceased’s mother (as would be the prima facie assumption under the usual principles of interpretation) but instead his wife, the decision based on evidence of the man’s use of the term.  It’s said to be the shortest legitimate will in the English language although a Czech court trumped it for brevity by accepting the linguistically unambiguous Vše ženě (everything to wife) scrawled on a bedroom wall.  One might be tempted to ponder the circumstances in which that transpired.

Extract from Adolf Hitler’s last will & testament (with English translation, held by US National Archives).

Adolf Hitler’s (1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) will contained an exordium which was unlike the prosaic list of facts familiar in English law but, in the circumstances prevailing in the Führerbunker on 29 April 1945, it was probably thought redundant to bother with things like name, address or an assertion of one’s soundness of mind although he did mention his upcoming marriage, though without naming the lucky woman.

As I did not consider that I could take responsibility, during the years of struggle, of contracting a marriage, I have now decided, before the closing of my earthly career, to take as my wife that girl who, after many years of faithful friendship, entered, of her own free will, the practically besieged town in order to share her destiny with me. At her own desire she goes as my wife with me into death. It will compensate us for what we both lost through my work in the service of my people.

He went on to the brief business of what he was leaving to his beneficiaries:

What I possess belongs - in so far as it has any value - to the Party. Should this no longer exist, to the State; should the State also be destroyed, no further decision of mine is necessary.  My pictures, in the collections which I have bought in the course of years, have never been collected for private purposes, but only for the extension of a gallery in my home town of Linz on Donau.  It is my most sincere wish that this bequest may be duly executed.

I nominate as my Executor my most faithful Party comrade, Martin Bormann.  He is given full legal authority to make all decisions. He is permitted to take out everything that has a sentimental value or is necessary for the maintenance of a modest simple life, for my brothers and sisters, also above all for the mother of my wife and my faithful co-workers who are well known to him, principally my old Secretaries Frau Winter etc. who have for many years aided me by their work.

Saving others the trouble, he thoughtfully then made the funeral and cremation arrangements.

I myself and my wife - in order to escape the disgrace of deposition or capitulation - choose death. It is our wish to be burnt immediately on the spot where I have carried out the greatest part of my daily work in the course of a twelve years' service to my people.

Page 1 of Adolf Hitler’s political testament.

As a will, Hitler’s document was valid at the time of its execution and remained so even after the dissolution German state.  Hitler’s sister Paula (1896-1960) attempted in 1952 to enforce the will in a FRG (Federal Republic of Germany, the old West Germany) court but was denied on the technical grounds that he’d not yet been declared legally dead and it wasn’t until 1960, some six months after her death, that a Federal Court in Berchtesgaden awarded her a portion of the estate.  The companion document, Hitler’s political testament, has bothered legal theorists and political scientists ever since.  Arbitrarily, Hitler reverted to the constitutional model to that which had last existed in 1934, splitting the roles of head of state (president) and government (chancellor), appointing two different people although the title of Führer remained unique to him.  He also named a new cabinet (although not all of these offices were so-filled) and the consensus among historians is that in the circumstances of the time and given the nature of the führerstaat (the leadership practices and principles in the Nazi state), the appointments were lawful between Hitler’s death and the dissolution of the German state on 8 May 1945.  It was thus a continuation of the existing entity, not a "Fourth Reich" as the last few weeks are sometimes called and certainly, there was after the dissolution no legal basis for the so-call “cabinet” which continued to meet until the members were arrested on 23 May 1945. 

Jane Austen’s (1775–1817) last will & testament.

However it’s recommended a will include an exordium clause in something like its standard form though it need not be described as such and what the clause does is list the document’s key elements including (1) the name of the person making the will (including any other names by which they may then or in the past have been known), (2) the person’s normal place of residence (expressed in full including street or flat numbers, the locality and province etc), (3) a declaration revoking any earlier wills and (4) a declaration the document is the will belonging to the named person.  The historical practice (still often seen in fiction) of (5) including a phrase like “being sound of mind and body” seems now used with less frequency but some still feature this.  In long or complex wills, all other matters may be handled in other clauses but if the matters are simple, (6) beneficiaries can be included in the exordium clause, as can (7) any other parties who may in some way be involved including issues dealing with the guardianship of minors.

What an exordium clause thus does is set out basic facts and it’s important they are written in such a way that there can be no misinterpretation or ambiguity, beneficiaries for example identified where necessary with some collateral information such as a date of birth or some other information unique to them.  A well-written exordium clause can ensure there can be no contesting of a will on the basis of factual error and seeking legal advice is recommended, even Warren Burger (1907–1995 US Chief Justice 1969-1986) causing his executor problems because the judge was a bit sloppy in his drafting.  A model example might be:

I, Lindsay Dee Lohan, born July 2, 1986, residing at 10585 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90025, being sound of mind and body, declare this to be my will and I revoke any and all wills and codicils previously made.

Although not allowed in all jurisdictions, the exordium clause can work in conjunction with other clauses including (1) the residuary clause which deals with any assets which remain after the specifics of the will have been executed, (2) the in terrorem (in fear) clause which states that should a beneficiary challenge the will, they will be denied any benefits of that will, (3) the testamentary trust clause which, for various purposes, passes the estate into a trust prior to any distribution of assets and (4) a no-contest clause, a variation of the in terrorem clause in that it denies benefits to any beneficiary who challenges the will and loses, the purpose being to discourage vexatious actions or those with no prospect of success.