Rack

Rack (pronounced rak)

(1) A framework of bars, wires, or pegs on which articles are arranged or deposited.

(2) A fixture containing several tiered shelves, often affixed to a wall.

(3) A vertical framework set on the sides of a wagon and able to be extended upward for carrying hay, straw, or the like in large loads.

(4) In certain cue sports (pool, snooker), a frame of triangular shape within which the balls are arranged before play; the balls so arranged.

(5) In butchery & cooking, the rib section of a fore-saddle of lamb, mutton, pork or veal (historically used also of the neck portion).

(6) In nephology (the branch of meteorology concerned with cloud formation, structure, classification, and dynamics), as “cloud rack”, a group of drifting clouds.

(7) In machinery, a bar, with teeth on one of its sides, adapted to engage with the teeth of a pinion rack and pinion or the like, as for converting circular into rectilinear motion or vice versa (best known from the “rack & pinion” steering apparatus used in motor vehicles).

(8) An instrument of torture consisting of a framework on which a victim was tied, often spread-eagled, by the wrists and ankles, to be slowly stretched by spreading the parts of the framework; there were many variations.

(9) As “on the rack”, originally a reference to the torture in progress, later adopted figuratively to describe a state of intense mental or physical suffering, torment, or strain.

(10) In equestrian use, the fast pace of a horse in which the legs move in lateral pairs but not simultaneously (the “horse's rack”).

(11) In military use, a fixed (though sometimes with some scope for movement for purposes of aiming), a framework fixed to an aircraft, warship or vehicle and used as a mounting for carrying bombs, rockets, missiles etc.

(12) In zoology, a pair of antlers (more commonly used of wall mounted trophies (eight-point rack etc)).

(13) In slang, ruin or destruction (a state or rack).

(14) In slang, a woman's breasts (often with a modifier).

(15) In slang, a large amount of money (historically a four-figure sum).

(16) In military, prison and other institutional slang, a bed, cot, or bunk.

(17) In slang, to go to bed; go to sleep.

(18) In slang, to wreck (especially of vehicles).

(19) In slang, as “to rack up”, a sudden or dramatic increase in the price of goods or services.

(20) In slang, to tally, accumulate, or amass, as an achievement or score (often expressed as “racked up”).

(21) In vinification (wine-making), to draw off (wine, cider etc) from the lees (to “rack into” a clean barrel).

(22) To torture; acutely to distress or torment (often expressed as “racked with pain”).

(23) To strain in mental effort (often expressed as “racked her brain”).

(24) To strain by physical force or violence; to strain beyond what is normal or usual.

(25) To stretch the body of a victim in torture by the use of a rack.

(26) In nautical use, to seize two ropes together, side by side:

(27) In cue sports, as “rack 'em up”, to place the balls on the tales in the correct spot with the use of a rack.

1250–1300: From the Middle English noun rakke & rekke, from the Middle Dutch rac, rec & recke (framework) and related to the Old High German recchen (to stretch), the Old Norse rekja (to spread out), the Middle Low German reck and the German Reck.  The use to mean “wreck” dates from the late sixteenth century and was a phonetic variant of the earlier wrack, from the Middle English wrake, wrache & wreche, a merging of the Old English forms wracu & wræc (misery, suffering) and wrǣċ (vengeance, revenge).  Except as a literary or poetic device (used to impart the quality of “vengeance; revenge; persecution; punishment; consequence; trouble”) or in some dialects to mean “ruin, destruction; a wreck”), wrack is now archaic.  The equestrian use (the fast pace of a horse in which the legs move in lateral pairs but not simultaneously (the “horse's rack”)) dates from the 1570s and the origin is obscure but it may have been a variant of “rock” (ie the idea of a “rocking motion”).  Nephology (the branch of meteorology concerned with cloud formation, structure, classification, and dynamics) adopted “cloud rack” (a group of drifting clouds) from mid-fourteenth century use in Middle English where the original spellings were rak, recke & reck, from the Old English wrǣc (what is driven) and related to the Gothic wraks (persecutor) and the Swedish vrak.  The use in vinification (wine-making), describing the process of drawing off (wine, cider etc) from the lees (to “rack into” a clean barrel) dates from the mid fifteenth century and was from the Old Provençal arraca , from raca (dregs of grapes), ultimately from the by then obsolete Old French raqué (of wine pressed from the dregs of grapes).  The use in butchery & cooking (the rib section of a fore-saddle of lamb, mutton, pork or veal (historically used also of the neck portion)) dates from the mid sixteenth century and is of uncertain origin but was probably based upon either (1) the cuts being placed on some sort or rack for preparation or (2) having some sort or resemblance to “a rack”.  Rack is a noun & verb, racker is a noun, racking is a noun, verb & adjective, racked is a verb and rackingly is an adverb; the noun plural is racks.

Lindsay Lohan in her natural habitat: with clothes rack, rendered as comic book character by Vovsoft.

In idiomatic use, the best known include “racking one’s brains” (thinking hard), “going to rack and ruin” (to decay, decline, or become destroyed”, “on the rack” (originally a reference to the torture in progress, later adopted figuratively to describe a state of intense mental or physical suffering, torment, or strain) and “racked with pain” (again an allusion to the consequences of being “racked” “on the rack”).  The “rack” as a description of a woman’s breasts is one in a long list of slang terms for that body part and dictionaries of slang are apparently divided on where it’s the breasts, genitals or buttocks which have provided the most inspiration for the creation of such forms.  The Australian slang “rack off” is an alternative to the many other forms popular in the country used to mean “please go away” including “sod off”, “piss off”, “fuck off”, “bugger off” etc; depending on context and tone of voice, these can range from affectionate to threatening.  The term “clothes rack” was once used to describe attractive women whose only function in public appearances appeared to be being conspicuously well-dressed.

Luggage rack & ski rack page in the 1968 Chrysler Parts Accessories Catalog (left) and promotional images for the 1968 Chrysler Town and Country (right).  Because the full-sized US station wagons could be fitted with a third seat in the back compartment (thus becoming eight-seaters), the roof-rack was sometime an essential fitting.

In transport, luggage racks were among the earliest “accessories” in that they were additions to hand & horse-drawn carts and carriages which enabled more stuff to be carried without reducing the passenger-carrying capacity.  There were “roof racks” and “trunk racks”, both there for the purpose of carrying trunks, secured usually with leather straps.  The most obvious carry-over to motorized vehicles was the roof-rack, still a popular fitting and still sometimes fitted as standard equipment to certain station wagons (estate cars).

1972 De Tomaso Pantera.

Although it wouldn’t have been something the designer considered, the mid-engined De Tomaso Pantera (1971-1992) had a rear section defined by buttresses which made it so suited to the installation of a luggage rack that Gran Turismo (an after-market accessories supplier) produced one which was as elegant as any ever made.  Because of the location directly behind the rear window, when loaded it obviously would have restricted rearward visibility so in certain jurisdictions doubtlessly it would have been declared unlawful but if one lives somewhere more permissive, it remains a practical apparatus.  Ironically, the Pantera had probably the most capacious frunk (a front mounted trunk (boot)) ever seen in a mid-engined sports car and one easily able to accommodate the luggage the car’s two occupants were likely to need for a weekend jaunt.  Even if superfluous however, in the collector market it’s an interesting period piece and well-designed; easily removed for cleaning, the four mounting brackets remain affixed to the deck lid.

1973 Chrysler Newport two-door hardtop (left) and 1973 Triumph Stag (right).

Larger cars of course carried more than two and if they travelled over distances, usually they carried luggage.  The full-sized US cars of the early 1970s were very big and had a lot of trunk space but many, with bench seats front and rear were configured as genuine six-seaters and that could mean a lot of luggage.  Accordingly, both the manufacturers and after-market suppliers in the era offered a range of luggage racks.  Upon debut, the lovely but flawed Triumph Stag (1970-1978) was a much-praised design which offered the pleasure of open-air motoring with the practicality of four seats (although those in the rear were best suited for children) but the sleek, low lines did mean trunk space was not generous and luggage racks were a popular fitting.

1959 Austin-Healey Sprite (left) and 1971 C3 Chevrolet Corvette Convertible LS5 454/365 (right).

There have been cars (and not all of them were sports cars) with no trunk lid.  In the case of the Austin-Healey Sprite (1958-1971), the lack of the structure on the early versions (1958-1961) was a cost-saving measure (the same rationale that saw the planned retractable headlights replaced by the distinctive protuberances atop the hood (bonnet) which lent the cheerful little roadster its nickname (bugeye in North American and frogeye in the UK & most of the Commonwealth).  It had additional benefits including weight reduction and improved structural rigidity but the obvious drawback was inconvenience: to use the trunk one had to reach through the gap behind the seats.  It was easy to see why luggage racks proved a popular accessory, sales of which continued to be strong even when later versions of the Sprite (1961-1971) and the badge-engineered companion model (the MG Midget (1961-1980)) gained a trunk lid.

Have trunk, can travel: Nor Cal’s (of Stockton, California) trunk lid kit for Austin Healy Sprite, May 1961.  Note the standard-sized license plate; the Sprite really was small.

However, noting Austin-Healey’s cost-cutting meant the Series 1 Sprite’s trunk came lidless, modern commerce quickly saw a gap (technically also a “lack of gap”) in the market and “lid kits” soon appeared.  Advertised as meaning “no more acrobatic maneuvers when loading luggage”, mention was made also of an installation making the spare tyre easier to reach, a matter in the early 1960s of some significance because tyres then were not as durable and punctures more frequent.  The advertising copy was selective in that it mentioned “no welding necessary” but neglected to point out an owner would need to cut the required hole; presumably, that would have been thought obvious.  It was a proper trunk lid in that it was lockable and said also to be “waterproof”, the latter a quality owners of British sports cars really didn’t expect so the novelty would have been a selling point.  For those Sprite owners whose family had gained a child, the improved accessibility to the trunk would have been most helpful because, as parents know, going anywhere with an infant requires carrying a large bag of stuff.  They might also have been attracted to the "baby seat" available as an accessory from the Healey factory; it was a design which would now be thought extraordinary (others might use a different term) but at the time it was just the way things were done.  

1963 Corvette (C2) Coupe. This was one of GM's official publicity stills and one can see why the decision was taken not to include a trunk lid but the absence enhanced structural integrity and it was this Chevrolet chose to emphasize.

Curiously, the Chevrolet Corvette (C1, 1953-1962) did have a trunk lid but when the second generation (C2, 1962-1967) was released for the 1963 model year, it had been removed and not until the fifth generation (C5, 1997-2004) did one again appear.  Access to the storage compartment in the "non-trunk" years could thus demand some athleticism but people didn't buy Corvettes on the basis on the basis of their utility as baggage carriers.  By the the twenty-first century, the Corvette's luggage rack moment mostly had passed but there were still those who retro-fitted them as a "period accessory" even though, in the modern collector market, the very sight of the things seems to upset some.

Racks on Porsche 911s.

Variations of the theme: ski rack (left), bike rack (centre) and surfboard rack (right).  The luggage rack has proved an adaptable platform and specialist versions are available for many purposes but in many cases the same basic structure can be used as a multi-purpose device with “snap-on” fittings used to secure objects of different shapes.  The Porsche 911 (in production since 1964) was an early favorite on the ski fields because of the combination of and air-cooled engine and the rear-engine/rear wheel drive configuration which provided good traction in icy conditions.

Mercedes-Benz and the ski rack.

Mercedes-Benz in the 1950s offered a variety of ski racks as a factory option and one available for the 190 SL (W121, 1955-1963, left) was thoughtful in that it permitted access to the trunk (boot), even if the skis were in place.  The design used for the 300 SL Roadster (W198-2, 1957-1963, right) was more conventional (and restrictive although it could be used with the soft-top up or down or with the hard-top installed but the unique, doors on the 300 SL Coupé (W198-1 (Gullwing), 1954-1957, centre) precluded the usual placement and the skis had to be centre-mounted.

Maserati Mistral with ski rack, advertising copy for ZEGNA’s Winter 2025 collection.

Most ski racks were fitted using clamps or were in some way bolted to the bodywork or bumpers but for those with sufficient faith in the physics, some could be attached to glass with rubberized suction-cups.  These were best suited to “fastback” sports cars with rear windows which sloped at an acute angle.  Tuned for top-end power for high-speed touring, the Mistral probably wasn't an ideal choice for snow country but it certainly looked the part and contemporary testers praised the quality of the heater although the optional air-conditioning was found less impressive.

With over 2,200 coupés and spyders (roadsters) made between 1957-1964, the 3500 GT (Tipo AM101) had proved Maserati's most successful road car and although the volume may not seem high for close to eight years effort, the high-priced machines were much more profitable than the factory's earlier A6 (1947-1956) which was much more bespoke; in some years, fewer than a dozen were made.  By the early 1960s more 3500s had been made that all previous Maseratis (for road or track) combined but the car was looking dated and in some aspects the body construction owed more to the traditions of the 1930s than modern practice.  Its replacement was the Mistral (Tipo AM109) which, in an increasingly crowded market, proved a success, 844 coupés and 124 spiders made in a run between 1963-1970.  The Mistral was very much a transitional model, its lines hinting at future directions while it was the last Maserati fitted with the classic, twin-spark, DOHC (double overhead camshaft) straight-6 derived from the unit the company had used in sports car racing and with which it won the 1957 Formula One World Championship.  Produced simultaneously with the company’s new V8 models (Quattroporte (Tipo AM107, 1963-1969), Mexico (Tipo AM112, 1966-1972) and Ghibli (Tipo AM115, 1967-1973)), it was styled by Pietro Frua (1913- 1983) who must have fallen in love with the shape because it was for a while his house’s signature design language, variations on the theme appearing on both the AC 428 Frua (1965–1973) and the early Monteverdi High Speed 375.  Not all were happy with this recycling, lovely though the results were.

Markers of the state of civilization: Gun rack in the back window of pickup truck (left) and silver plate toast rack by Daniel & Arter of Birmingham, circa 1925 (right).

The toast rack has been in use since at least the 1770s and, like the butter knife, is one of the markers of living a civilized life.  That aside, their functionality lies in the way they provide a gap between the slices, allowing water vapour to escape, preventing it condensing into adjacent slices and making them soggy while also maintaining a buffer of warm air between so the cooling process is slowed.  In the way of such things, there have over the years been designs ranging from the starkly simple to the extravagant but some of the most admired are those from the art deco era of the inter-war years.

The gun rack in the back of a pickup truck is now a classic MAGA (Make America Great Again) look but the devices have been in use for decades and were always popular in rural areas with a tradition of hunting.  Whether such things are lawful depends on the jurisdiction.  In the US, some states have an “open carry” law which means one is free to carry certain firearms unconcealed and this includes gun racks which are similarly unrestricted; in states where an “open carry” permit is required, a separate permit is required for a gun rack to be used in a vehicle while in jurisdictions with no “open carry” legislation, gun racks are also banned except for those able to obtain a specific exemption.  So, it can be that travelling across state lines can involve some additional effort, even if one is authorized to carry a firearm in both placed.  Usually, this demands the weapon being unloaded and encased in an area inaccessible to both driver and passengers.

The rack as a marker of the state of civilization: Cuthbert Simpson, Tortured on the Rack in the Tower of London (1558), published in from Old England: A Pictorial Museum (1847) and reprinted in The National And Domestic History Of England by William Aubrey (circa 1890).

The most famous of the many apparatus of torture which proliferated during the Middle Ages (and beyond), the rack was an interrogation tool which remained in use until the eighteenth century.  Although the rack is most associated with the Roman Catholic Church's Inquisition, it was popular also in England as a device to extract confessions to various crimes, especially heresy.  The designers were imaginative and racks were produced in many forms including vertical devices and wheels but the classic version was a flat, bed-like structure, made with an open, rectangular wooden frame with rollers or bars at each end to which the wrists and ankles of the accused (or “the guilty” as often they were known) were secured.  The rollers moved in opposite directions by the use of levers with the victim’s joints slowly and painfully separated.  Among the rack "operators", it's believed many really enjoyed their work; for some in the Inquisition, it clearly was a calling.

RACK is used as an acronym, one being “Random Act of Conditionless Kindness” which seems not substantively different from the better known “random act of kindness” although presumably it imparts some depth of emphasis, given random acts of conditional kindness are likely the more commonly observed phenomenon.  In certain sub-sets of the BDSM (Bondage, Discipline (or Dominance) & Submission (or Sadomasochism) community, RACK means either “Risk-Aware Consensual Kink” or “Risk-Accepted Consensual Kink).  Both describe a permissive attitude towards conduct which is to some degree “risky”, undertaken on the basis of “a voluntary assumption of risk”.  In that it differs from the tastes of BDSM’s SSC (Safe, Sane & Consensual) sub-set which restricts it proclivities to things “not risky”.  The RACK practitioners acknowledge the difficulties inherent in their kinks and do not claim to make a distinction between “safe” & “unsafe” but rather between “safer” and “less safe” (ie degrees of danger).  What this means is that in extreme cases there are potential legal consequences because while the implication of RACK is that to some degree one can “contract out” of the statutory protections (citing a voluntary assumption of risk) usually available in such interactions, in the case of serious injury or death, the usual legal principles would apply.

Osphresiolagnia

Osphresiolagnia (pronounced aus-free-see-a-lan-gee-ah)

A paraphilia characterized by recurrent sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviour involving smells.

Early-mid twentieth century: A coining in clinical psychiatry the construct being osphres(is) + lagina.  Osphresis was from the Ancient Greek ὀσφρῆσις (osphrēsis) (sense of smell; olfaction).  Lagina was from the Ancient Greek λαγνεία (lagina) (lust; sexual desire), from λᾰγνός (lagnos) (lustful; sexually aroused).  Osphresiolagnia thus translated literally as “lust or sexual arousal related to or induced by one’s sense of smell”. Osphresiolagnia & Osphresiolagnism are nouns and osphresiolagnic is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is Osphresiolagnias.

The synonym is olfactophilia (sexual arousal caused by smells or odors, especially from the human body) and in modern clinical use, that’s seems now the accepted form.  Although now rare, in clinical use a renifleur was paraphiliac who derived sexual pleasure from certain smells.  Renifleur was from the French noun renifleur (the feminine renifleuse, the plural renifleurs), the construct being renifler +‎ -eur.  The construct of the verb renifler was re- (used in the sense of “to do; to perform the function”) + nifler (to irritate, to annoy); it was from the same Germanic root as the Italian niffo & niffa (snout) and related to the Low German Niff (nose, mouth, bill), the Dutch neb (nose, beak) and the English neb (nose, beak, face).  The French suffix -eur was from the Middle French, from the Old French -eor or -or, from the Latin -ātōrem & -tor and a doublet of -ateur.  It was used to form masculine agent nouns from verbs (some of which were used also as adjectives).

Pioneering Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) never developed his hypothesis of osphresiolagnia into a fully-developed theory and in his papers it’s mentioned only as an aspect of the psychoanalytic exploration of human sexuality, specifically focusing on the role of olfactory stimuli (sense of smell) in sexual arousal.  It was part of a body of work in which he explored his concept of fetishism and infantile sexuality.  In psychoanalysis, osphresiolagnia described the condition (“the state” might now be thought a better way of putting it) where certain smells become associated with sexual pleasure or arousal and to Freud these naturally were those related to bodily functions, such as sweat, skin, or other natural odors because he believed different sensory experiences, including smell, could become a focus of sexual fixation, particularly if something in early psychosexual development caused this association.  The tie-in with fetishism was that an obsessive focus on the sense of can form as a way of displacing or substituting more normative sexual interests.  Freud spoke also of the significance of the senses (including smell) in early childhood development and linked them to psychosexual stages, where early experiences with stimuli can influence later adult sexuality and while he didn’t use the word, he believed a smell associated with some significant childhood experience, could, even decades later, act as a “trigger”.  Although it’s been in the literature for more than a century, osmophresiolagnia (also now sometimes called “olfactory stimulation”) seems to have aroused more clinical and academic interest in the last fifteen years and while the psychological and physiological responses to certain smells have been well-documented, it was usually in the context of revulsion and the way this response could influence the decision-making processes.  However, positive responses can also be influential, thus the renewed interest.

In medicine and the study of human and animal sexuality, the significance of “olfactory attraction” has been researched and appears to be well understood.  At its most, the idea of olfactory attraction is that animals (including humans) can be attracted to someone based on scent; in the patients seen by psychiatrists, they can also be attracted to objects based on their smell, either because of their inherent quality or by their association with someone (either someone specific or “anyone”.  The best known aspect of the science is the study of pheromones (in biology A chemical secreted by an animal which acts to affects the development or behavior of other members of the same species, functioning often as a means of attracting a member of the opposite sex).  Human pheromones have been synthesised and are available commercially in convenient spray-packs for those who wish to enhance their desirability with a chemical additive.  More generally, there is also the notion of “fragrance attraction” which describes the allure another’s smell (either natural or the scent they wear) exerts and this can manifest in “objective transference” (keeping close during periods of absence a lover’s article of clothing or inhaling from the bottle of perfume they wear.

The opposite of being attracted to a smell is finding one repellent.  What is known in the profession technically as ORS (olfactory reference syndrome) has never been classified as a separate disorder in either the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) or the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Classification of Diseases (ICD).  The DSM-III-R (1987) did mention ORS in the context of “aversion”, noting “convictions that the person emits a foul odor…are one of the most common types of delusional disorder, somatic type”, the idea extended in DSM-IV (1994) which referred to the concept as a type of delusional disorder, somatic type, although the term “olfactory reference syndrome” was not mentioned.

In October 2024, it was reported by Greek news services that a court in Thessaloniki (the capital of the Macedonia region and Greece's second city) in the north of the country had imposed a suspended one-month prison sentence on a man convicted of “…disturbing his neighbors by repeatedly sneaking into their properties to smell their shoes.”  According to the AP (Associated Press), the 28-year-old man was unable to explain his behaviour although he did tell the court he was “embarrassed by it”, adding that he had “…no intention of breaking the law or harming anybody…” and his neighbours did testify he never displayed any signs of aggression during his nocturnal visits to the shoes, left outside the door to air.  The offences were committed in the village of Sindos, some 15 kilometres (9 miles) west of Thessaloniki and the police were called only after the man had ignored requests sent to his family that his conduct stop.  According to the neighbours, there had in the last six months been at least three prior instances of shoe sniffing.  In addition to the suspended sentence, the defendant was ordered to attend therapy sessions.

The postman always sniffs twice, Balnagask Circle, Torry, Aberdeen, Scotland, August 2024.  Helpfully, the video clip was posted by the Daily Mail and from his grave of a hundred-odd years, old Lord Northcliffe (Alfred Harmsworth, 1865–1922) would be delighted.

Osphresiolagnia is however not culturally specific and in August 2024, a postman delivering mail to an address on Balnagask Circle in the Torry area of South Aberdeen, Scotland was captured on a doorbell camera, pausing to “to sniff a girl's shoes.”  All appeared normal until the osphresiolagnic servant of the Royal Mail had put the letters in the slot but then he turned and, after a brief glance at the shoe rack, bent down and picked up a white trainer which he sniffed before leaving to resume his round (and possibly his sniffing).  The mother of the girl whose shoes fell victim to the postman posted the video on social media, tagging the entry: “I would just like to let everyone know just to watch out for this postman; he sniffed my daughter's shoes; what an absolute creep.”  The clip came to the attention of the Scottish police which issued a statement: “We received a report of a man acting suspiciously in the Balnagask Circle area of Aberdeen.  Enquiries were carried out and no criminality was established. Suitable advice was given.”  It wasn’t made clear what that advice was or to whom it was delivered but presumably the constabulary’s attitude was: no shoe being harmed during this sniffing, all’s well that ends well.

Shoe-sniffing should not be confused with Podophilia (a paraphilia describing the sexualized objectification of feet (and sometimes footwear), commonly called foot fetishism although the correct clinical description is now “foot partialism”).  The construct was podo- +‎ -philia.  Podo- (pertaining to a foot or a foot-like part) was from the Ancient Greek πούς (poús), from the primitive Indo-European pṓds.  It was cognate with the Mycenaean Greek po, the Latin pēs, the Sanskrit पद् (pad), the Old Armenian ոտն (otn) & հետ (het), the Gothic fōtus and the Old English fōt (from which Modern English gained “foot”).  It was Sigmund Freud who admitted that, lawfulness aside, as animals, the only truly aberrant sexual behavior in humans could be said to be its absence (something which the modern asexual movement re-defines rather than disproves).  It seemed to be in that spirit the DSM-5 (2013) was revised to treat podophila and many other “harmless” behaviors as “normal” and thus within the purview of the manual only to the extent of being described, clinical intervention no longer required.  Whether all clinicians agree with the new permissiveness isn’t known but there's nothing in the DSM-5-TR (2022) to suggest podophiles will soon again be labeled deviants.

Point of vulnerability to osphresiolagnism: Lindsay Lohan taking off her shoes and putting them on the shoe rack.  The photo shoot featured Ms Lohan as a nueva embajadora de Allbirds (new Allbirds ambassador), in a promotion for Allbirds (Comfortable, Sustainable Shoes & Apparel) and the shoes are the Tree Flyer in Lux Pink which include “no plastics” in their construction.  The photo session may have been shot on a Wednesday.

Shoe sniffing is different and clinicians define it as an instance of “intimacy by proxy” in a similar class to those who steal women’s underwear from their clothes lines; an attempt to in some way be associated with the wearer (or just "women" generally).  This differs from those with an interest in the shoes or garments as objects because, conveniently & lawfully they can fulfil their desires by buying what they want from a shop.  How prevalent are such proclivities isn’t known because, the fetish being pursued in a lawful (and in most cases presumably secret) manner, unless self-reported, clinicians would never become aware of the activity.

Battery

Battery (pronounced bat-rhee or bat-uh-ree)

(1) A combination of two or more cell electrically connected to work together to store electric energy (also called galvanic battery or voltaic battery); another name for accumulator

(2) Any large group or series of related things; a group or series of similar articles, machines, parts etc.

(3) In army jargon, two or more pieces of artillery used for combined action or a tactical unit of artillery, usually consisting of up to six guns together with the artillerymen and equipment required for their operation.

(4) A parapet or fortification equipped with artillery (mostly historic).

(5) In baseball, the pitcher and catcher considered as a unit (obsolete).

(6) In Admiralty use, a group of guns, missile launchers, searchlights, or torpedo tubes on a warship having the same caliber or used for the same purpose; the whole armament of a warship.

(7) In psychology, a series of tests yielding a single total score, used for measuring aptitude, intelligence, personality etc.

(8) The act of beating or battering; an instrument used in battering.

(9) In law, an unlawful attack upon another person by beating or wounding, or by touching in an offensive manner; In common law countries, the meaning varies in civil and criminal law.

(10) In orchestral music, the instruments comprising the percussion section of an orchestra (also known as the batterie).

(11) Any imposing group of persons or things acting or directed in unison.

(12) In agribusiness, a large group of cages for intensive rearing of poultry.

(13) In chess, two pieces of the same colour placed so that one can unmask an attack by the other by moving.

(14) An apparatus for preparing or serving meals (archaic).

1525-1535: From the Middle French batterie, from twelfth century Old French baterie (beating, thrashing, assault) from the Latin battuere and battuō (beat) & batre (to beat).  The ultimate source was the Gaulish.  The sense in law (the unlawful beating of another) was adapted by the military, the meaning in French shifting from bombardment (heavy blows upon city walls or fortresses) to "unit of artillery", a sense recorded in English army records in the 1550s.  It was first extended to the "electrical cell in 1748 by Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), his thoughts undocumented but presumably analogous with artillery: force being stored in a manner able to be discharged upon demand.  In Middle English, bateri meant only "forged metal ware". In US baseball jargon, in 1867, battery was a term for the pitcher (again drawing on the imagery of artillery) and later for both pitcher and catcher considered as a unit, again presumably drawing a military connection; the term is long obsolete.  As applied to cooking, the meaning emerged because batter needed to be beaten.  Battery is a noun and batteried an adjective; the noun plural is batteries.

In Law

Although the terms assault and battery have for centuries been used in criminal law, their origins are as two of the most ancient common law torts, classified now as one of the trespass to the person torts, all of which are known as intentional torts.  Both assault and battery are actionable per se (without proof of damage) although, if the wrongful act does result in injury, damages can be recovered for that injury as well.  In malicious prosecution proceedings however, it’s necessary to assert and prove damage.

Lindsay Lohan portable battery charger.

An assault is any direct and intentional threat made by a person that places the plaintiff in reasonable apprehension of an imminent contact with the plaintiff’s person, either by the defendant or by some person or thing within the defendant’s control.  The effect on the victim’s mind created by the threat is the crux, not whether the defendant actually had the intention or means to follow it up.  The intent required for the tort of assault is the desire to arouse an apprehension of physical contact, not necessarily an intention to inflict actual harm.  Although words are often a feature in threats which constitute an assault, actions alone may suffice if they place the plaintiff in reasonable apprehension of receiving an imminent (though not of necessity an immediate) battery.  A battery is a voluntary and positive act, done with the intention of causing contact with another that directly causes that contact.  The requisite intention for battery is simply that the defendant must have intended the consequence of the contact with the plaintiff; the defendant need not know the contact is unlawful and they need not intend to cause harm or damage as a result of the contact.  Not every contact is a battery.  Those in crowded trains are implied to have consented to most contacts, as has a rugby player who may have consented in writing although, even then, limitations exist and beyond tort, the criminal law can intervene if the degree of the contact exceeds that to which could reasonably thought to have been consented, a distinction influenced on technical grounds by those engaged in professional sport being in a workplace.  Where such things are contested, as a general principle, it will be the responsibility of the defendant to raise a defense of consent and prove it.

The early development of rockets in military aviation

Battery of wing-strut mounted Le Prieur rockets on Nieuport 11 (1917).

Although it became well-known only late in World War II (1939-1945), the ground-attack rocket had a surprisingly long history in military aviation, the Royal Flying Corps (RFC; 1912-1918, predecessor of the Royal Air Force (RAF; 1918-)) using wing-strut mounted Le Prieur solid-fuel rockets previously used by the French army on the battlefield.  Severely limited as an infantry tactical weapon because of inaccuracy and an effective range of barely 100 m (330 feet) (although 150 m (330 feet) was quoted based on experimental firings in ideal, controlled conditions), when used in the air, the latter drawback could somewhat be mitigated if a pilot could maneuver into a position at a helpful height and angle above the target.  Altitude though brought its own problems, the rocket’s trajectory affected by winds and the inaccuracy meant it was something which could only ever be effective against large, slow moving targets like observation balloons.  Against these, the RFC enjoyed some success, but the rockets were never popular with pilots because, depending on the capacity of the airframe, batteries of between six and twelve were used and, although all were triggered simultaneously, actual ignition could vary between rockets by one or two seconds, during which, the airplane had to maintain travelling in the direction of the target.

Ground-based test-firing of Le Prieur rocket (1917).

A one-two second delay sounds not critical but, even at the relative closing speed (typically not more than 80 mph (130 km/h)), because firing had to be at close range, it was enough significantly to increase the risk of collision.  That the RFC’s pilots managed to bring down some fifty balloons without loss may suggest some caution was exercised.  Strangely, despite the big airships being tempting targets, there’s no record of rockets downing a Zeppelin although even when using more conventional munitions, the defenses enjoyed only what was at the time thought limited success.  Of the dozens of Zeppelins the Germans lost, only a handful were destroyed by aircraft, more were the victims of ground-fire or, overwhelmingly, accidents.  It was only after the war the British fully understood the difficulties of mounting fighter defenses against bomber attack; of the biggest bombers used in the war by the Germans, not one would be lost and the experience allowed “the bomber will always get through” doctrine to shape the policies of many European nations during the inter-war years.

Modern (cosmetic) replica of Le Prieur rocket battery.

The sometimes stuttering rate of fire was a product of the construction.  The rocket was made by filling a cardboard tube with 200 g (6 ½ oz) of black powder, topped with a conical, 75 mm (3 inch) steel-tipped, wooden head.  Cardboard being porous, the black powder was prone to moisture infiltration and this happened at different rates, hence the delay sometime encountered in firing.  Directional assistance was limited to a 1.5 m (5 foot) wooden stick taped to the cardboard; they were essentially a big firework of the kind still made today.  Their limitations made them impractical for air-to-air combat although there is a record of a German fighter succeeding in forcing a RFC aircraft to crash-land after inflicting damage in a rocket attack but the rarity of the event does suggest it might have been a lucky shot.  Despite that one-off-victory, no effort seems to have been made to improve the technology and as soon as tracer rounds and incendiary-tipped bullets became available, they were replaced, the RFC’s last rocket-equipped sortie flown early in 1918.

Feuerlile AA Missile.

During the inter-war years, no air force seems much to have explored aircraft-mounted rockets although advances in the propulsion systems did see them developed as ground-based anti-aircraft batteries.  The early British devices were simple but a useful augmentation to the anti-aircraft guns which were only ever marginally effective in high-altitude attacks.  The German efforts, typically, were technically intriguing but never reached the point of being decisive weapons, all the projects falling victim to the usual bureaucratic inertia and squabbles between competing interests.  Although, both the Henschel Hs 117 Schmetterling (Butterfly) and the two Feuerlilie (Fire lily) rockets needed development beyond what was within the economic and industrial capacity of the Nazi state, the Wasserfall (waterfall) could by 1944 have been deployed had the resources been made available although military analysts doubt it would have been effective without the proximity fuses that Germany lacked.  Lacking the Wagnerian flavor he preferred, it's doubtful Hitler's approval was sought for the code-names.

Battery of RP-3 rockets.

Allied interest in the rocket was revived early in the war when its potential as a ground attack weapon was realised.  Early attempts to create the so-called “tank-buster” fighters by equipping the Hawker Hurricane (IV) with a pair of 40 mm canons had been partially successful but more firepower was needed to disable the heavier tanks and there were limits to the weight and calibre of canon a fighter could support.  The solution lay in the adoption of batteries of the RP-3 (Rocket Projectile 3 inch (75 mm)) which proved a versatile weapon.  Equipped with a 60-pound (27 kg) warhead, it was used against moving and static targets on both land and sea, proving effective even against submarines.

Single-rack mount (four rockets per wing) RP-3 battery on Hawker Typhoon Mark 1B (1943).

As the war dragged on, the ground-attack aircraft with rocket batteries became an increasingly important tactical weapon, able to deliver a destructive load with a speed and accuracy otherwise unattainable and at minimal cost in manpower and machinery.  The effectiveness of the rocket batteries also played a role in saving an aircraft on the verge of being abandoned,  turning it into one of the more important fighters of the later stages of the conflict.  The Hawker Typhoon (1941-1945) had been intended as the Hurricane’s replacement but the performance at altitude was disappointing and production seemed unlikely.  However, it was rushed into service because, whatever it’s failings, at low altitude it was the fastest thing the RAF possessed and, in 1941, changes in the nature of the Luftwaffe’s attack meant that was where the need lay.  It didn’t go well for the Typhoon, the exposure to combat revealing basic problems with the wing design and weaknesses in the fuselage which sometimes resulted in catastrophic structural failure.  The whole project was going to be scrapped.

Double-rack mount (six rockets per wing) RP-3 battery on Hawker Typhoon Mark 1B (1945).

Hawker however persisted and rectified the faults to the point where it was a useful part of the fleet, though it would never be the high-altitude interceptor originally intended.  By 1943 however, the nature of the Allied war effort was shifting to attack and the robust wing of the Typhoon was adapted to carry batteries of the RP-3 rockets and it proved a devastating combination.  One early drawback however was the misleading intelligence gained early in the Typhoon’s second career in ground-attack, subsequent reconnaissance revealing the pilots' reports of destruction being exaggerated sometime by a factor of hundreds.  It was perhaps understandable given the lack of visibility inherent in such operations and, after the war, it was realised the rocket attacks had a military effectiveness well beyond the actual damage caused.