Orchidaceous

Orchidaceous (pronounced awr-ki-dey-shuhs)

(1) In botany, of, relating to, or belonging to the Orchidaceae, a family of flowering plants including (but not limited to) the orchids.

(2) Figuratively, characterized by ostentatiousness; showy; extravagant; excessive in some way.

1830–1840: From the New Latin Orchidace & Orchidaceae, the construct being orchidace + -ous.  It was English botanist John Lindley (1799–1865) who in School Botanty (1845) coined the word orchid from the New Latin Orchideæ & Orchidaceae (Linnaeus), the plant's family name, from the Latin orchis (a kind of orchid), from the Ancient Greek orkhis (genitive orkheos) (orchid (literally “testicle”)) from the primitive Indo-European orghi-, the standard root for “testicle” (and related to the Avestan erezi (testicles), the Armenian orjik, the Middle Irish uirgge, the Irish uirge (testicle) and the Lithuanian erzilas (stallion).  The plant so called because of the shape of its root was said so to resemble testicles (the Greek orkhis also was the name of a kind of olive, named also for its shape).  So striking did the writers of Antiquity fine the double roots of the plant that references appear in some texts.  The Roman historian Pliny the Elder (24-79) was (as was common at the time) also something of a naturalist and he was moved to observe: “Mirabilis est orchis herba sive serapis gemina radice testiculis simili.” (The orchis plant, also known as serapis, is remarkable with its twin roots resembling testicles.)  The noun plural is orchids, the field is orchidology and the breeders, collectors and other obsessives are called orchidologists.  Orchidaceous & orchidean are adjectives and orchidacity is a noun; the noun plural is orchidacities.

Earlier in English (in the Latinesque form) was the mid-sixteenth century orchis while in fourteenth century Middle English it was ballockwort (literally “testicle plant” and related to the more recent ballocks).  The extraneous -d- in the modern spelling was added in an attempt to extract the Latin stem and it is here to stay, the history of that the construct as orch(is) (the plant) + -id(ae).  The irregular suffix –idae is the plural of a Latin transliteration of the Ancient Greek -ίδης (-ídēs), a patronymic suffix which in medieval writing was sometimes interpreted as representing instead the plural of a Latin transliteration of the Ancient Greek adjectival suffix -ειδής (-eidḗs) from εἶδος (eîdos) (appearance, resemblance).  It was adopted in 1811 at the suggestion of British entomologist William Kirby (1759-1850), to simplify and make uniform the system of French zoologist Pierre André Latreille (1762–1833) which divided insect orders into sections; in taxonomy, it’s used to form names of subclasses of plants and families of animals.  The –ous suffix was from the Middle English -ous, from the Old French –ous & -eux, from the Latin -ōsus (full, full of); a doublet of -ose in an unstressed position.  It was used to form adjectives from nouns, to denote possession or presence of a quality in any degree, commonly in abundance.  In chemistry, it has a specific technical application, used in the nomenclature to name chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a lower oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix –ic (as an example, sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).

The sensual orchid.

In the spirit of the figurative use (and usually of women’s fashion), although they’re non-standard, the adjective orchidaceousness and the adverb orchidaceously have been formed and in that vein, the only thing which would make orchidaceous difficult to use as a noun would be forming the plural (orchidaceoux would appall the purists).  Usually though, those commenting on what appears on the catwalks & red carpets seem content with the comparative (more orchidaceous) and the superlative (most orchidaceous).  Henry Fowler (1858–1933) in his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) noted the old spelling (orchis) was “applied chiefly to the English wild flowers and is accordingly the poetic and country word”.  The very idea of “the country word” is now dated and was a particular sort of regionalism: one used by those tied by linguistic tradition to rural England rather than certain locations, and if orchis endures as a literary or poetic device, it’s rare.  Of flowers, although orchidaceous can mean “of, relating to, or belonging to the Orchidaceae”, such is the beauty of orchids, those who write of the things seem drawn to use sexual imagery and rarely can resist “seductive” and other lovely plants are sometimes also described as orchidaceous.

The original etymology survives in medicine as orchidectomy although the construct of that was the Latin orchis (wrongly interpreting orchid- as the stem) +‎ -ectomy (the surgical removal of); the correct term is actually orchiectomy (the surgical removal of one or both testes).  The synonym is testectomy which is interesting because the use of that within the profession (usually by veterinarians) does not of necessity imply something surgical.  The -ectomy suffix was from the Ancient Greek -εκτομία (-ektomía) (a cutting out of), from ἐκτέμνω (ektémnō) (to cut out), the construct being ἐκ (ek) (out) + τέμνω (témnō) (to cut).  In surgery, it was appended to the name of whatever is being removed (eg an appendectomy being the surgical removal of the appendix) although it's borrowed (often for jocular purposes) by plumbers, carpenters and others in professions where there often a need to "cut things off", a "roofectomy" being the process by which a coach-builder converts a coupé (or other closed vehicle) into some sort of convertible.

Lindsay Lohan in a Gucci Porcelain Garden print gown (the list price a reputed £4,040) at the launch of the One Family NGO (non-governmental organization), Savoy Hotel, London, June 2017 (left) and Taylor Swift in Etro navy and yellow silk floral ball gown at the Golden Globes award ceremony, The Beverly Hilton, Los Angeles, January 2020 (right).

Neither cutting-edge nor retro in the conventional sense of the word, Lindsay Lohan’s gown was mostly well-received and for students of intricacy it was worth studying although probably few would have called it orchidaceous because it conveyed such a sense of the conservative; only a burqa could have been more modest.  That’s why the blue was such a good choice; in scarlet there would have been mixed messages.  Some thought it Rococo and perhaps thematically it could have been done with just a ruffled collar, the pussy bow a detail too many, but the patterning was clever and accentuated the lines.  While it’s not certain the vivid floral patterns on Taylor Swift’s gown were actually intended to be suggestive of orchids, the effect was orchidaceous.  It was an exercise in monumentalism which swished around as wafted about, recalling the flowers of an orchid in a breeze.

Orchidacity in Solod colors: Gigi Hadid and the Met Gala, New York, May 2022 (left), Sophie Monk at the TV Week Logie Awards-Gold Coast, June 2019 (centre) and Carolina Gaitan at the Academy Awards ceremony, Los Angeles, March 2022 (right).

Although dedicated (ie obsessional) orchidologists adhere to the language from botanical taxonomy (Epidendrum, Ludisia, Masdevallia, Erythraeum, Promenaea, Spathoglottis, Psychopsis, Angraecum, Encyclia cochleata et al) when classifying their collections, most people describe them in terms of the dominant color or, when a combination is particular striking (as many of the blues & purples especially are) that mix is referenced (orange/yellow, purple/white et al) but that doesn’t mean that for some object to be thought orchidaceous it must be multi-hued.  That’s because the allure of an orchid lies not in the colors but in the sensuality of the shape; they are the sexiest of flowers, soft, feminine things which seem to draw one in to be enveloped.

Giulia Salemie (b 1993, left) & Dayane Mello (b 1989, right), Venice Film Festival, Italy, September 2016.

The trend in recent years for the “naked dress” to become the red carpet motif of the era might have been thought to limit the possibility of the creations being thought orchidaceous because the focus is so much on flesh rather than fabric, of which there’s often precious little.  However, on a fortuitously warm and not too windy September day during the Venice Film Festival, two Italian models proved the naked look could be combined with voluminous folds; it was all in the cut.  For the reasons discussed, the dresses could not be called anything but orchidaceous although the internet had already suggested VVD (visible vag(ina) dress)) which in general was wrong because it correctly the hint was of a visible vulva and on that day in Venice, the models actually wore (that may not be the right word) color-coordinated (ie the same fabric as the dresses) adhesive micro-knickers, held in place with a skin-friendly surgical glue.  In a nice touch, their appearance came during the festival’s premiere of The Young Pope (the first time a television production had been included in the program).

Rabbit

Rabbit (pronounced rab-it)

(1) Any of several soft-furred, large-eared, rodentlike burrowing mammals of the family Leporidae, allied with the hares and pikas in the order Lagomorpha, having a divided upper lip and long hind legs, usually smaller than the hares and mainly distinguished from them by bearing blind and furless young in nests rather than fully developed young in the open.

(2) Any of various small hares.

(3) The fur of a rabbit or hare, often processed to imitate another fur.

(4) A runner in a distance race whose goal is chiefly to set a fast pace, either to exhaust a particular rival so that a teammate can win or to help another entrant break a record; pacesetter.

(5) In sport, a person poor at a sport; in cricket specifically, an unskilled batter (also as “batting bunny”, usually clipped to bunny).

(5) As Welsh rabbit, an alternative form of Welsh rarebit & Welsh ribbit (A snack made of cheese melted with a little ale and served on toast).  Welsh rabbit was the original form but was erroneously marked as a corruption in a dictionary published in 1785 although it’s not clear if the editor made the assumption or drew the conclusion from oral evidence.

(6) In nuclear engineering, a pneumatically-controlled tool used to insert small samples of material inside the core of a nuclear reactor.

(7) In computing theory, a large element at the beginning of a list of items to be bubble sorted, and thus tending to be quickly swapped into the correct position.

(8) In northern English regional slang, as “rabbit catcher”, a midwife or one who by force of circumstance assists in the delivery of a baby.

(9) As “rabbit ears”, the indoor dipole television antenna which typically sat atop the early analogue sets which received a terrestrial signal.

(10) Incessantly or nonsensically to talk.

(11) To hunt rabbits.

(12) In US slang, to flee.

1375-1425: From the late Middle English rabet & rabette, from the Anglo-Latin rabettus, from the Middle French rabouillet (baby rabbit), from the dialectal Old North French rabotte, probably a diminutive of Middle Dutch or West Flemish robbe (rabbit, seal), of uncertain origin but which may be an imitative verb (perhaps robben or rubben (to rub)) and used to allude to a characteristic of the animal.  The related forms include the French rabot (plane), the Middle Dutch robbe (rabbit; seal (from which Modern Dutch gained rob (seal (also “rabbit”), the Middle Low German robbe & rubbe (rabbit), the later Low German Rubbe (seal), the West Frisian robbe (seal), the Saterland Frisian Rubbe (seal) and the North Frisian rob (“seal”) eventually borrowed as the German Robbe (seal).  Early dictionary editors thus described the word as “a Germanic noun with a French suffix”.  Rabbit is a noun & verb, rabbitiness is a noun, rabbited is a verb, rabbitlike & rabbity are adjectives and rabbiting is a noun & verb; the noun plural is rabbits and (especially in the collective) rab·bit.

Lindsay Lohan with rabbit.

Until the late nineteenth century, the meaning was exclusively what would now be understood as “a young rabbit” but it came to be used of the whole species, replacing the original coney, owing to the latter's resemblance to and use as a euphemism for cunny (“vulva” and linked obviously with “cunt” although despite that the preferred slang with some zoological allusion came to include “beaver”, “camel toe” and (especially) “pussy”, rather than “bunny”).  The noun coney dates from the early thirteenth century and was abstracted from the Anglo-French conis and the Old French coniz, (plurals of conil (long-eared rabbit; (Lepus cunicula)) from the Latin cuniculus, the source also of the Spanish conejo, the Portuguese coelho and the Italian coniglio), the small, Spanish variant of the Italian hare (Latin lepus).  The word may ultimately be from the Iberian Celtic although classical writers said it was Hispanic.  In Middle English the two forms were cony & conny (the derivations including coning, cunin & conyng) while the Old French had conil alongside conin.  The evolution seems to be that the plural form conis (from conil, with the -l- elided) was taken into English and regularly single-ized as cony.  The Old French form was borrowed in the Dutch konijn and the German Kaninchen (a diminutive), and is preserved in the surname Cunningham (from a place-name in Ayrshire).  Rabbits not being native to northern Europe, there was no Germanic word for them.  In the fourteenth century “rabbit” came to describe the young of the species and over the centuries came to supplant coney, a process complete by the early nineteenth.  It was another of those exercises in sanitization because in English & Welsh slang, coney had been adopted as a punning synonym for cunny (cunt).  That was complicated by it appearing in the Book of Proverbs in the King James Version of the Bible (KJV, 1611) so the work-around was to change the pronunciation of the original short vowel (rhyming with honey, money) to rhyme with bony, stony.  In the Old Testament, the word translates the Hebrew shaphan (rock-badger).

When Volkswagen in 1974 introduced the Golf in the North American market, it was named the Rabbit, apparently because it would thought the name would suggest qualities such as “agility, speed & playfulness” which were positive attributes in what was then (by US standards) a very small car, much smaller than the more recent versions.  Because of the international success of the Golf, when the revised model was released in 1983, the North American cars switched to that name and it’s been marketed that way since except between 2003-2008 when the Rabbit badge was revived.  The revival was in retrospect a curious choice given the obvious advantages offered by using the one name globally but at the time VW America had a rationalization: “We think we have some opportunities to do something creative with the Rabbit nameplate and recognizes the Golf nameplate has never really caught on with North American consumers as it was overshadowed by the Jetta sedan and wagon.  Volkswagen customers want a relationship with their cars and names like The Thing, Beetle, Fox and Rabbit support this."  Whatever the opportunities may have been, the linguistic experiment wasn’t continued and since 2009, it’s been Golfs all the way.

US market VW Golfs: 1974 Rabbit L (Generation 1)  (left) and 2007 Rabbit TSI (Generation 5).

There was some linguistic irony in VW’s choice because as the US satirist & critic HL Mencken (1880–1956) pointed out in The American Language; An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States (1919): “Zoologically speaking, there are no native rabbits in the United States; they are all hares. But the early colonists, for some unknown reason, dropped the word hare out of their vocabulary, and it is rarely heard in American speech to this day. When it appears it is almost always applied to the so-called Belgian hare, which, curiously enough, is not a hare at all, but a true rabbit.”

The White Rabbit was a character in Lewis Carroll’s (1832–1898) Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and one which appears often, always in a waistcoat with pocket watch and in a hurry, fearful always of the impending fury the duchess will visit upon him should he be a moment late.  It’s the white rabbit which Alice follows down the rabbit hole, leading to the bizarre adventures recounted.  One of popular culture’s best-known rabbits gave rise to the phrase “bunny boiler”, a reference to the scene in the film Fatal Attraction (1987) in which a scorned woman revenged herself upon her adulterous ex-lover by tossing his daughter’s pet rabbit into a pot of boiling water; he arrives home to discover a boiled bunny.  The Warner Brother cartoon character Bugs Bunny first appeared on the screen in 1938 and is often described by his shotgun wielding antagonist, the lisping Elmer Fudd, as "that wascally wabbit".

In idiomatic use there’s “pull a rabbit out of the hat” (to find or obtain a sudden solution to a problem), “rabbit-hearted” (someone timid or inclined to be flighty), “rabbit food” (a disapproving view of vegetables held by some meat-eaters), “the rabbit test” (an early pregnancy test involving the injection of the tested woman's urine into a female rabbit, then examining the rabbit's ovaries a few days later for changes in response to a hormone (“the rabbit died” the phrase indicating a positive test or an admission of one’s pregnancy)), “breed like rabbits” (slang for an individual, family, or sub-group of a population with a high birth-rate), “down the rabbit hole” (a time-consuming tangent or detour, often one from which it’s psychologically difficult to extricate oneself), “lucky rabbit’s foot”, (the carrying of a luckless bunny’s preserved rabbit’s foot as a lucky charm), “like a rabbit warren” (a confusingly labyrinthine environment (used literally & figuratively)), “rabbit in the headlights” (an allusion to the way rabbits (like some other wildlife) sometimes “freeze” when caught in the light of an oncoming vehicle’s headlamps) and the inevitable “rabbit fucker” (a general term of disparagement (although it could be applied literally in the right circumstances)).

The “earless” rabbit with “eared” companions.

In May 2011, some weeks after the meltdown at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant which suffered severe damage in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami, a video of an “earless rabbit” began to circulate, purportedly captured in an area just beyond the crippled plant’s exclusion area.  The immediate speculation was of course the creature’s unusual state was a result of a radiation-induced genetic mutation.  Geneticists however had a less troubling explanation.  Although there’s no doubt the radiation emitting from Fukushima Dai-ichi (some 225 kilometres (140 miles) north-east of Tokyo) represents a major risk to health and the long-term environmental effects remain unclear, the scientists say not only is it unlikely to be linked with the earless rabbit, such creatures are far from unusual.  According to a  statement issued from Colorado State University's Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences: “…radiation can cause mutations that can be occasionally expressed as obvious birth defects, such as shown in the video.  However, to say this is the result of contamination from the Fukushima accident is a stretch, because natural radiation, as well as many other chemical substances in the environment and other factors, can also be mutagenic.  In most cases, the cause of congenital birth defects in humans and other animals cannot be determined and as far as science has shown, there have never been mutations produced by ionizing radiations that do not occur spontaneously as well.”

Rabbits used in nuclear reactors: Polyethylene 1-inch (25 mm) rabbit (left), Polyethylene 2-inch (50 mm) rabbit (centre) and Titanium 2-inch (50 mm) rabbit.

The rabbit does though have a place in nuclear engineering.  In the industry, the term “rabbit” is used to describe a range of pneumatically controlled tools which are used remotely to insert or retrieve items from a nuclear reactor or other radioactive environments.  The name is thought to come from the devices being tubular (on the model of the rabbit borrow) which allows samples rapidly to be injected into the periphery of a reactor core, the injectables moving “with the speed of startled rabbits” although there may also be the implication of rabbits as expendable creatures, the tool essential for maintenance, inspection, and repair tasks in nuclear facilities, where direct human intervention is either dangerous or impossible because of high radiation levels.

Winston Churchill inspecting the progress of project White Rabbit No, 6, Clumber Park, Nottinghamshire, England, November 1941.

The World War II (1939-1945) era White Rabbit No. 6 was an engineering project by the British Admiralty although as a security measure the official code-name was changed to Cultivator No. 6 to make it sound less mysterious and more like a piece of agricultural equipment.  It was a military trench-digging machine and an example of the adage that “generals are always preparing to fight the last war” and although designed exclusively for army use on (and at least partially under) land, it came under the auspices of the Royal Navy because it was a brainchild (one of many) of Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) who, between the outbreak of war in 1939 and his assumption of the premiership some months later, served as First Lord of the Admiralty (the service’s civilian head).  Trenches and artillery had been the two dominant features of World War I (1914-1918) and Churchill had spent some months (1915-1916) in one of the former while under fire from the latter while commanding a battalion; before the implications of mechanization and the German’s Blitzkrieg (lightning war) tactics were apparent, he assumed the new war in France would unfold something like the old, thus the interest in something which would “revolutionize trench warfare”.  Trench warfare however wasn’t repeated so White Rabbit No.6 was soon realized to be already obsolete and the project was abandoned and although the most fully developed of the prototypes did perform according to the design parameters, whether it would have been effective remains doubtful; remarkably, work on these things wasn’t wholly abandoned until 1942.  The “White Rabbit” project codes came from Churchill’s sense of humor, his ideas coming, as he said: “like rabbits I pull from my hat” and he supported many, some of which were of great military value while others, like the “floating runways” (artificial icebergs made with a mixture of shards of timber & frozen water), were quixotic.

White Rabbit © Copperpenny Music, Mole Music Co

Surrealistic Pillow album cover, 1967.

White Rabbit was a song by Grace Slick (b 1939) and released on the album Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane.  The lyrics were inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the sequel Through the Looking-Glass (1871).  It was the psychedelic era and drug references were common in popular music and in the case of White Rabbit it may have been appropriate if the speculation the books been written while the author was under the influence of Laudanum (a then widely-available opiate-infused drug) is true (there's no evidence beyond the circumstantial).  Given the imagery in the text, it’s not difficult to believe he may have been on something and among authors and poets it was a popular way to stimulate the imagination, inspiring at least some of one of the most beloved fragments of English verse, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s (1772-1834) Kubla Khan (1797) which ends abruptly at 54 lines.  According to Coleridge, he was unable to recall the rest of the 300-odd which had come to him in an opium-laced dream (the original publication was sub-titled “A Vision in a Dream”) because he was interrupted by “a person on business from Porlock” (a nearby Somerset village).  Grace Slick would have sympathized with an artist being intruded on by commerce.

White Rabbit lyrics:

One pill makes you larger

And one pill makes you small

And the ones that mother gives you

Don't do anything at all

Go ask Alice

When she's ten feet tall

 

And if you go chasing rabbits

And you know you're going to fall

Tell 'em a hookah-smoking caterpillar

Has given you the call

Call Alice

When she was just small

 

When the men on the chessboard

Get up and tell you where to go

And you've just had some kind of mushroom

And your mind is moving low

Go ask Alice

I think she'll know

 

When logic and proportion

Have fallen sloppy dead

And the White Knight is talking backwards

And the Red Queen's off with her head

Remember what the dormouse said

Feed your head

Vagina & Vulva

Vagina (pronounced vuh-jahy-nuh)

(1) In anatomy & zoology, in many female mammals, the moist, tube-shaped canal part of the reproductive tract which runs from the cervix of the uterus through the vulva (technically between the labia minora) to the outside of the body.

(2) In botany, the sheath formed by the basal part of certain leaves where they embrace the stem.

(3) A sheath-like part or organ (now rare even in technical literature).

(4) In colloquial (and now general) use, the vulva, or the vulva and vaginal passage collectively.

(5) In derogatory colloquial use, an un-masculine man; a weakling (now rare, “pussy” the preferred modern term).

1675-1685: A creation of Medical Latin, a learned borrowing of the Latin vāgīna.  As used in anatomy, the seventeenth century coining was a specialized application of the Latin vāgīna (a sheath, scabbard; a covering, holder; sheath of an ear of grain, hull, husk) of uncertain origin, the suggestion by some etymologists it may have been cognate with the Lithuanian vožiu & vožti (to cover with a hollow thing) dismissed by others as “speculative” or even “gratuitous proposal”.  The use in medicine is exclusive to modern science, the Latin word not used thus during Antiquity.  Vagina is a noun, vaginal & vaginalike are adjectives, vaginally is an adverb; the noun plural is vaginas or vaginae (the old spelling vaginæ is effectively extinct); the part of the anatomy used for copulation & childbirth in female mammals and a similar organ exists in some invertebrates.

The vluva and vagina have for centuries attracted the coining of slang terms, not all of them derogatory.  Borrowed from zoology, "camel toe" directly references the vulva's labia majora. 

In idiomatic use “vaginamoney” is (often embittered) slang for alimony, child support etc, money paid by men to ex-partners after the sundering of a relationship.  One slang form which may not survive is "hairy check book" (cheque book outside the US) because (1) checks are declining in use and (2) body-hair fashions have changed.  In psychiatry, the condition vaginaphobic describes “a fear of or morbid aversion to vaginas) and vaginaphile (an admiration for vaginas) is listed by only some dictionaries which is surprising given authors are so often given to write about them and painters are drawn to painting them (in the sense of oil on canvas etc although there’s doubtless a niche for applying paint directly).  Dating from 1908, the term “vagina dentata” entered psychiatry and its popularization is usually attributed Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) although this perception may be attributable to Freud’s works being better known and more widely read, the term used by many in the profession.  The Latin vagina dentata (toothed vagina) referenced the folk mythology in which a woman's vagina contained teeth, the implication being a consequence of sex might be emasculation or at least severe injury.  The tale was also used as a warning about having sex with unknown women and as a way of discouraging rape.  The vivid imagery of a vagina dentata (in somewhat abstract form) was used by the US military as a warning about the dangers of STIs (sexually transmitted infection (once known as sexually transmitted diseases (STD) & VD (venereal disease).  Some writers have speculated on what this revealed about Freud and his much discussed understanding of women.

Vulva (pronounced vuhl-vuh)

(1) The external female genitalia of female mammals (including the labia, mons veneris, clitoris and vaginal orifice.

(2) In helminthology, a protrusion on the side of a nematode (multivulva used to describe a phenotype of nematode characterized by multiple vulvas).

(3) In arachnology, the spermatheca and associated ducts of the female reproductive system (also known as internal epigyne or internal genitalia).

(4) An internal genital structure in female millipedes (known also as the cyphopod).

Late 1300s: A learned borrowing from the Latin vulva, from the earlier volva (womb, female sexual organ) (perhaps in the literal sense of a “wrapper”), from volvere (to turn, twist, roll, revolve (also “turn over in the mind”)), probably from volvō (to turn, to roll, to wrap around), from the primitive Indo-European root wel- (to turn, revolve), the derivatives referring to curved, enclosing objects.  In the 1970s, when Volvo automobiles weren’t noted for their precise handling, journalists enjoyed noted the translation of the Latin volvō as: “I roll”.   It was akin to the Sanskrit उल्ब (úlba) (womb).  The adjectives vulvalike (also vulva-like) & vulviform both describe objects or designs having the shape of a vulva.  Vulva is a noun, vulval, vulvaless, vulviform, vulvar, vulvate & vulvic are adjectives; the noun plural is vulvas, vulvae or vulvæ.

Ms Gillian Anderson’s “vagina dress”

Gillian Anderson, Golden Globes award ceremony 2024.

There’s nothing novel in the critical deconstruction of the dresses worn on red carpets but the one worn at the 2024 Golden Globe ceremony by actor Gillian Anderson (b 1968) also attracted the attention of word nerds.  Designed by Gabriela Hearst (b 1976), the strapless, ivory corset gown was embroidered with individually stitched embellishments in the shape of vulvas, each of which absorbed some 3½ hours of the embroider’s time.  In an allusion to her sexual wellness brand (G spot), when interviewed, Ms Anderson said she wore the piece: “…for so many reasons. It’s brand appropriate.”  The response in the press and on-line appeared to be (mostly) positive but what did attract criticism was the widespread use of “vagina” to describe the designs, a descriptor used even by Ms Anderson herself.  The more strident of the critics seemed to detect sexual politics in what they claimed was anatomical imprecision, the implication being this lack of respect for gynaecological terminology was casual misogyny; doubts were expressed that anyone would dare confuse a scrotum with the testicles.

Anatomical diagram (left) 1958 Edsel (centre) and the detail on Gabriela Hearst's gown (right).  Although Ms Anderson probably didn't give the 1958 Edsel a thought, it does illustrate why her use of "vagina" to describe the embroidered motifs is defensible.

The pedants are correct in that technically the “vulva” describes on the external portion of the genitalia that leads to the vagina; the vulva including the labia majora, labia minora, and clitoris.  The labia is also a complex structure which includes the labia majora (the thick, outer folds of skin protecting the vulva’s internal structure) and the labia minora (the thin, inner folds of skin directly above the vagina).  However, for almost a hundred years, the term “vagina” has widely been used to refer to the vulva and has come to function as a synecdoche for the entire female genitalia and so prevalent has the use become that even medical professionals use “vagina” thus unless great precision is required.  Still, given Ms Anderson’s brand is concerned with such matters, perhaps the historically correct use might have been better but the actor herself noted “…it has vaginas on it” so linguistically, her proprietorial rights should be acknowledged.

The Edsel, the grill and the myths

1958 Edsel Citation convertible.

Although it went down in industrial history as one of capitalism’s most expensive failures, objectively, Ford Motor Corporation’s Edsel really wasn’t a dramatically worse car than the company’s companion brands Ford & Mercury.  Indeed that was one of the reasons for the failure in the market; sharing platforms, engines, transmissions, suspension and some body parts with Fords & Mercurys, the thing simply lacked sufficient product differentiation.  That sharing of components (and assembly plants; Ford sending the Edsels down the existing production lines in the same factories) also makes it hard to believe the often quoted US$300 million (between US$2.5-3 billion expressed in 2024 values) Ford booked as a loss against the abortive venture as anything but an opportunity taken by the accountants to dump all the bad news in one go, certain taxation advantages also able to be gained with this approach. 

1959 Edsel Corsair two-door hardtop.

The very existence Edsel was owed to a system devised by Alfred P Sloan (1875–1966) while president of General Motors (GM).  Sloan is now mostly forgotten by all but students of industrial & economic history but he was instrumental in the development some of the concepts which underpinned the modern economy including frequent product changes (for no functional purpose), planned obsolescence and consumer credit.  What the Sloan system did was provide GM’s customers with a “status ladder” in which the company could produce a range of products (with substantial cross-amortization) at price points which encouraged them to “step up” to the next level as their disposable income increased.  At one point, GM’s brand-range had nine rungs but the Great Depression of the 1930s necessitated some pruning and what eventually emerged was a five rung system: Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick & Cadillac.  In the 1950s, when the US economy enjoyed the unusual conjunction of rising incomes, stable prices and a remarkably (by both historic and contemporary standards) small disparity between the wealth of the rich and poor, this produced the swelling middle class which was the target market for most consumer products and certainly those on the Sloan ladder.  Ford had in 1938 added a rung when the Mercury brand was spliced between Ford and Lincoln but in the mid 1950s, the MBAs convinced the company the Sloan system was the key to GM’s lead in the market and they too re-structured the company’s products into five rungs: Ford, Mercury, Edsel, Lincoln & Continental.  Actually, in a harbinger, the loss-making Continental Division lasted barely a season, folded into Lincoln before the Edsel debuted for the 1958 model year but the MBAs kept the faith.

It turned out to be misplaced although in fairness to them, the circumstances in 1958 were unfortunate, a short but sharp recession shocking consumers who had become accustomed to growth and stability, believing that such unpleasantness belonged to the pre-war past.  The Edsel never recovered.  Although sales in 1958 were disappointing, given the state of the economy, it could have been worse but Ford’s market research (focus groups a thing even then) had identified problems and in response toned down the styling and moved the brand down-market, notionally to sit between Ford & Mercury, a gap which in retrospect didn’t exist.  Sales dropped that year by about a third and the writing was on the wall, although surprising many, a pared-down Edsel range was released for 1960 using Ford’s re-styled bodies but it seemed not many were fooled and fewer than 3000 left the factory before late in 1959 the end of the brand was announced.

1960 Edsel Ranger Sedan.

Really little more than a blinged-up Ford, the Edsel failed because for such a "hyped" product it was a disappointment and in that it can be compared to something like the administration of Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017).  Barack Obama was not a bad president and he didn’t lead a bad government, indeed most objective analysts rate his term as “above average” but he disappointed because he promised so much, the soaring rhetoric (“highfalutin nonsense” as the press baron Lord Beaverbrook (1879-1964) would have put it) which offered hope and change never realized.  There was also the Elsel’s styling.  There was much clumsiness in the detailing (although the whole US industry was similarly afflicted in 1958) but the single most polarizing aspect was the vertical grill assembly, controversial not because it was a regression to something which had become unfashionable in the “longer, lower, wider” era but because of the shape which to some suggested a woman’s vulva.  Many said that (some preferring “vagina” or “genitalia”) though in those more polite times some publications were reluctant to use such language in print and preferred to suggest the grill resembled a “toilet seat” although that was (literally) a bit of a stretch (and Chrysler's Virgil Exner (1909–1973) was already applying them to trunk lids); more memorable was Time magazine’s “an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon”.

1958 Edsel (left) and 1958 Oldsmobile (right).  One can see why someone at Time magazine thought of "an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon".

1958 Edsel Bermuda “Woody” station wagon.  The “woody” nickname was applied to the station wagons from all manufacturers although after the early 1950s the “wood” was a combination of fibreglass and the DI-NOC plastic appliqué.  The look was intended to evoke the look of the partially timbered-bodied station wagons in production until the early 1950s (Chrysler in the 1960s even did a few convertibles recalling earlier models) and in the US the look lasted until the 1990s.  Ford’s attempt in the 1960s to tempt British & Australian buyers with the charms of DI-NOC proved unsuccessful.

As much as the sedans and convertibles, the Edsel station wagons were just as unwanted.  The Bermuda station wagon was offered only for the 1958 model year and it managed sales of only 2,235, 779 the nine-seater version with an additional row of seating in the rear section, a configuration which was always popular with US buyers in the era before mini-vans and SUVs.  The three-row Bermuda was the rarest of the 1958 Edsels but collectors still price them below the convertibles.  If the vulva-themed front end was confronting, there was a strangeness too at the rear, the turn-indicator lights in the shape of an arrow, a traditional symbol to indicate the intended direction of travel but bizarrely, the Edsel’s arrows pointed the opposite direction, something necessitated by the need to blend the shape with that of the body’s side moldings.

Rococo

Rococo (pronounced ruh-koh-koh or roh-kuh-koh)

(1) A style of architecture and decoration, originating in France about 1720, evolved from Baroque types and distinguished by using different materials for a delicate overall effect and by its ornament of shell-work, foliage etc.

(2) A homophonic musical style of the mid-eighteenth century, marked by a generally superficial elegance and charm and by the use of elaborate ornamentation and stereotyped devices.

(3) In fine art (with initial capital letters) noting or pertaining to a style of painting developed simultaneously with the rococo in architecture and decoration, characterized chiefly by smallness of scale, delicacy of color, freedom of brushwork, and the selection of playful subjects as thematic material.

(4) In sculpture, a corresponding style, chiefly characterized by diminutiveness of Baroque forms and playfulness of theme.

(5) Of or pertaining to, in the manner of, or suggested by rococo architecture, decoration, or music or the general atmosphere and spirit of the rococo.

(6) Ornate or florid in speech, literary style etc.

(7) In the abstract (almost always derogatory), relating to old traditions, which may be seen as foolishly outdated; archaic, old-fashioned, obsolete or backwards.

1797: From the French rococo, a blended word from rocaille (an eighteenth century artistic or architectural style of decoration characterized by elaborate ornamentation with pebbles and shells, typical of grottos and fountains from the Vulgar Latin rocca stone) and barroco, pejoratively to denote a "rock" style which fell from fashion; coined by French Neoclassical painter Pierre-Maurice Quays (1777-1803), a pupil of Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825).  David and Quays, devotees of an austere neoclassical ascetic, were influential in nudging high-culture taste in the dying days of the Ancien Régime back from the frivolity of what they came to describe as the rococo.  Their efforts had little impact on the middle-class fondness for decoration and intricate ornamentation.  The adjective appears to have come into use in English in 1836, a direct borrowing from the French and was being used as a noun by 1840 and the general sense of "tastelessly florid or ornate" is from 1844, extended by abstract to just about anything by the 1860s.

Rococo has long been used as a word of disparagement.  It is a critique of stuff excessively ornate or fussy, things which rely on layers of ornamentation to conceal a poverty of elegance in the basic design.  It’s much associated with pretentiousness but that said, there’s often much to admire in the craftsmanship needed to product work of such intricacy and while the taste might be questionable, in painting, engraving, porcelain, stone-masonry etc, there can be a quaint, decorative charm.

Rococo inside and out.

Rococo fashion: Lindsay Lohan in a Gucci Porcelain Garden print gown (the list price a reputed £4,040) at the launch of the One Family NGO (non-governmental organization), Savoy Hotel, London, June 2017.  Although neither cutting-edge nor retro in the conventional sense of the word, the gown generally was well-received.  Some thought it Rococo and perhaps thematically it could have been done with just a ruffled collar, the pussy bow a detail too many, but the patterning was clever and accentuated the lines.  It was one of those designs where a color change would have been transformative, a rendering in scarlet probably would have been less aesthetically pleasing but would have been eye-catching; the blue was a good choice.