Etceterini
(pronounced et-set-er-rhini)
One or all
of the sports cars & racing cars produced in small volumes by a number of
“boutique” Italian manufacturers during the quarter-century-odd following World
War II (1939-1945).
1980s
(though not attaining wide currency until publication in 1990): A portmanteau
word, the construct being etcetera(a) + ini.
Etcetera was from the early fourteenth century Middle English et cetera (and other things; and so
forth), from the Latin et cētera (and
the other things; and the rest of the things), the construct being et (and) + cetera (the other things; the rest). Et
was from the Proto-Italic et, from
the primitive Indo-European éti or heti and was cognate with the Ancient
Greek ἔτι (éti), the Sanskrit अति (ati), the Gothic iþ (and,
but, however, yet) and the Old English prefix ed- (re-). Cētera was the plural of cēterum, accusative neuter singular of cēterus (the other, remainder, rest),
from the Proto-Italic ke-eteros, the
construct being ke (here) + eteros
(other). The Latin suffix -īnī was an inflection of -īnus (feminine -īna, neuter -īnum), from
the Proto-Italic -īnos, from the
primitive Indo-European -iHnos and
was cognate with the Ancient Greek -ινος (-inos)
and the Proto-Germanic -īnaz. The suffix was added to a noun base
(particularly proper nouns) to form an adjective, usually in the sense of “of
or pertaining to and could indicate a relationship of position, possession or
origin”. Because the cars referenced tended
to be small (sometimes very small),
some may assume the –ini element to be an Italian diminutive suffix but in
Italian the diminutive suffixes are like -ino, -etto, -ello & -uccio but etceterini
works because the Latin suffix conveys the idea of “something Italian”. It was used substantively
or adverbially. Until the early
twentieth century, the most common abbreviation was “&c.” but “etc.” (usually
with a surely now superfluous period (full-stop)) has long been the standard
form. Etcetera is a noun; the noun
plural is etceteras
The word
“etcetera” (or “et cetera”) fully has been assimilated into English and (except
when used in a way which makes a historic reference explicit) is for most
purposes no longer regarded as “a foreign word” though the common use has long
been to use the abbreviation (the standard now: “etc”). If for whatever reason there’s a need for a “conspicuously foreign” form then the
original Latin (et cētera (or even
the Anglicized et cetera)) should be
used. There is no definitive date on
which the assimilation can be said to have been completed (or at least
generally accepted), rather it was a process.
From the 1400s, the Middle English et
cetera was used and understood by educated speakers, due to Latin's prominence
in law, science, religion and academia with it by the mid-eighteenth century
being no longer viewed as a “foreignism” (except of course among the
reactionary hold-outs with a fondness for popery and ecclesiastical Latin: for
them, in churches and universities, even in English texts, et cētera or et cetera
remained preferred). Scholars of
structural linguistics use an interesting test to track the process of
assimilation as modern English became (more or less) standardized: italicization. With “et cetera” & “etcetera”, by the
mid-eighteenth century, the once de rigour italics had all but vanished. That test may no longer be useful because
words which remains classified as “foreign” (such as raison d'être or schadenfreude)
often now appear without italics.
The
so-called “pronunciation spellings” (ekcetera, ekcetra, excetera & exetera)
were never common and the abbreviations followed the same assimilative path. The acceptance of the abbreviated forms in
printed English more widespread still during the 1600s because of the
advantages it offered printers, typesetters much attracted by the convenience
and economy. By early in the eighteenth
century it was an accepted element (usually as “&c” which soon supplanted
“et cet”) in “respectable prose”, appearing in Nathan Bailey’s (circa 1690-1742)
An Universal Etymological English
Dictionary (1721) and gaining the imprimatur of trend-setter Anglo-Irish
author & satirist Jonathan Swift (1667–1745). Dr Johnson (Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)) made
much use of “&c” in his A Dictionary
of the English Language (1755) and although Bailey’s dictionary was influential
in the breadth of its comprehensiveness and remained, over 30 editions, in
print until 1802, it’s Dr Johnson who is better remembered because he was became
a “celebrity lexicographer” (a breed which today must sound improbable.)
One of the
implications of linguistic assimilation is the effect on the convention applied
when speaking from a written text.
Although wildly ignored (probably on the basis of being widely unknown),
the convention is that foreign words in a text should be spoken in the original
language only if that’s necessary for emphasis or meaning (such as Caudillo, Duce or Führer) or emphasis. Where
foreign terms are used in writing as a kind of verbal shorthand (such as inter alia (among other things)) in oral
use they should be spoken in English.
However, the convention doesn’t extent to fields where the terms have
become part of the technical jargon (which need not influence a path of
assimilation), as in law where terms like inter
alia and obiter (a clipping of obiter dictum (something said by a judge
in passing and not a substantive part of the judgment)) are so entrenched in
written and oral use that to translate them potentially might be misleading.
Lindsay
Lohan (b 1986, left), Britney Spears (b 1981, centre) & Paris Hilton (b
1981, right), close to dawn, Los Angeles, 29 November 2006; the car was Ms
Hilton's Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren (C199 (2003-2009)). This paparazzo's image was from a cluster which
included the one used for the front page on Rupert Murdoch's (b 1931) New York
Post with the still infamous headline “BIMBO SUMMIT”. Even by the standards of the Murdoch
tabloids, it was nasty.
So, the
text written as: “Lindsay Lohan, Paris
Hilton, Britney Spears et al recommend that while a handbag always should contain
“touch-up & quick fix-up” items such as lipstick, lip gloss, and lip liner,
the more conscientious should pack more including, inter alia, mascara,
eyeliner, eyebrow pencil, concealer, a powder compact, a small brush set &
comb etc.” would be read aloud as: “Lindsay
Lohan, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and others recommend that while a handbag
always should contain “touch-up & quick fix-up” items such as lipstick, lip
gloss, and lip liner, the more conscientious should pack more including, among
other things, mascara, eyeliner, eyebrow pencil, concealer, a powder compact, a
small brush set & comb etcetera.”
Despite the cautions from purists (including just about every grammar
text-book and style guide on the planet), the “choice” between “etc” and “et
al” does seem to becoming blurred with many using seemingly using the two interchangeably. The rules are (1) “etc” (and other things) is
used of things (and according to the style guides should always appear with a
period (full-stop) even though such use is archaic and another of those
“needless tributes to tradition”) and (2) “et al” (and others) is used of
people (especially in citations and again, always with a period). So, “et al” can’t be used for things;
strictly, it’s for things; it’ll be interesting to see if these rules survive
into the next century. Really, it's a silly rule and because it's hardly difficult to distinguish between a text string of "people" and one of "things", if used interchangeably, the two abbreviations are unlikely to confuse. Et al was the abbreviation
of the Latin et aliī (and others).
A Unix /etc directory.
In computing,
Unix-based operating systems (OS) feature a directory (the word “folder” thought
effete by the Unix community, most of whom are at their happiest when typing
arcane commands at the prompt) called “etc” (along with /root, /boot, dev,
/bin, /opt etc) which is used as a repository for system-wide configuration
files and shell scripts used to boot and initialize the system. Although there are many variants of the OS, typically
an /etc directory will contain (1) OS configuration files (/etc/passwd;
/etc/fstab; /etc/hosts), (2) system startup scripts (/etc/init.d or
/etc/systemd/, (3) network configuration, (4) user login & environment
configuration files and (5) application configuration files. Originally (sometime in 1969-1970), the “etc”
name was adopted because it was “an et cetera” in the literal sense of “and so
on”, a place to store files which were essential but didn’t obviously belong
elsewhere, a single “general purpose” directory used to avoid needless
proliferation in the structure. Rapidly Unix
grew in complexity and configurability so the once “place for the miscellaneous”
became the canonical location for configuration files, the original sense displaced
but the name retained. It is pronounced et-see (definitely not ee-tee-see or et-set-er-uh). Despite their
reputation, the Unix guys do have a joke (and there are unconfirmed rumors of a second). Because so many of the files in /etc can be
modified with any text-editor, in some documents earnestly it’s revealed
/etc is the acronym of “Editable
Text Configuration” but as well as a bad joke, it's also fake news; ETC is a backronym.
The Etceterini: exquisite creations with names ending in vowels
1954 Stanguellini 750 Sport.
In the
tradition of mock-Latin, the word etceterini was a late twentieth century
coining created to refer to the ecosystem of the numerous small-volume Italian
sports & racing cars built in the early post-war years. A portmanteau word, the construct being etceter(a)
+ ini, the idea was a word which summoned the idea of “many, some obscure” with
an Italianesque flavor. Credit for the
coining is claimed by both automotive historian John de Boer (who in 1990
published The Italian car registry: Incorporating the registry of Italian oddities: (the etceterini register) and
reviewer & commentator Stu Schaller who asserts he’d used it previously. Whoever first released it into the wild (and
it seems to have been in circulation as least as early as the mid-1980s) can be
content because it survived in its self-defined niche and the evocative term
has become part of the lexicon used by aficionados of post-war Italian sports
and racing cars. Being language (and in
this English is not unique), it is of course possible two experts, working in
the same field, both coined the term independently, the timing merely a
coincidence. Etceterini seems not to
have been acknowledged (even as a non-standard form) by the editors of any mainstream
English dictionary and surprisingly, given how long its history of use now is,
even jargon-heavy publications like those from the Society of Automotive Engineers
(SAE) haven’t yet added it to their lexicons.
It does though appear in specialist glossaries, car-model registry
websites and niche discussion forums, especially those tied to classic Italian
car culture (OSCA, Moretti, Stanguellini, Siata, Bandini, Ermini etc). So, as a word it has sub-cultural & linguistic
clarity but no status among the linguistic establishment.
1953 Siata 208S Barchetta.
John De
Boer’s comprehensive The Italian car
registry: Incorporating the registry of Italian oddities: (the etceterini
register) was last updated in 1994 and remains the best-known publication
on the many species of the genus etceterini and included in its 350-odd pages not
only a wealth of photographs and cross-referenced details of specification but
also lists chassis and engine numbers (priceless data for collectors and
restoration houses in their quests for the often elusive quality of
“originality”). Nor are the
personalities neglected, as well as some notable owners the designers and
builders are discussed and there are sections devoted to coach-builders, a once
vibrant industry driven almost extinct by regulators and the always intrusive
realities of economics. One thing which
especially delights the collectors are the photographs of some of the obscure
accessories of the period, some rendered obsolete by technology, some of which
became essential standard-equipment and some seriously weird. Mr De Boer’s book was from the pre-internet
age when, except for a pampered handful in a few universities, “publication”
meant paper and printing presses but such things are now virtualized and
“weightless publication” is available instantly to all and there are small
corners of the internet curated for devotees of the etceterini such as Cliff
Reuter’s Etceteriniermini, a title which certainly takes some
linguistic liberties. Some trace the
breed even to the late 1930s and such machines certainly existed then but as an
identifiable cultural and economic phenomenon, they really were a post-war
thing and although circumstances conspired to make their survival rare by the
mid 1960s, a handful lingered into the next decade.
1957 Bandini 750 Sport Saponetta.
That the
ecosystem of the etceterini flourished in Italy in the 1950s was because the
country was then a certain place and time and while the memorable scenes depicted
in La Dolce Vita (1960) might have
been illusory for most, the film did capture something from their dreams. After the war, there was a sense of renewal,
the idea of the “new” Italy as a young country in which “everybody” seemed
young and for those who could, sports car and racing cars were compelling. However, while there was a skilled labor
force ready to build them and plenty of places in which they could be built,
economics dictated they needed to be small and light-weight because the
mechanical components upon which so many relied came from the Fiat parts bin
and the most significant commonality among the etceterini were the small
(often, by international standards, tiny) engines used otherwise to power the
diminutive micro-cars & vans with which Fiat in the post-war years “put
Italy on wheels”. It was no coincidence
so many of the small-volume manufacturers established their facilities near to
Fiat’s factory in Torino, the closest thing the nation had to a Detroit. In the early years, it wasn’t unknown for a
donkey and cart carrying a few engines to make the short journey from the Fiat
foundry to an etceterini’s factory (which was sometime little more than a big
garage). However, just because the
things were small didn’t mean they couldn’t be beautiful and, being built by
Italians, over the years there were some lovely shapes, some merely elegant but
some truly sensuous. Lovely they may appear but the Italians were not reverential when making comparisons with other objects. Of the Bandini 750 Sport, Saponetta translates as literally as "little soap", the idea being the resemblance to a bar of soap as the ends wear away with use although of the nine 750 Sports made, some had an abbreviated Kamm tail which offered aerodynamic advantage at high speed but was less soapbaresque in shape. Despite only nine 750 Sports being made, it was something of a volume model for the marque, for in the 45 years between 1946-1992, only 75 cars emerged from Ilario Bandini's (1911–1992) tiny workshop in Forlì, a municipality in the northern Italian city of Emilia-Romagna. Bathrooms clearly were a thing in the Italian imagination because they dubbed the OSCA S187 (750S) the tubo di dentifricio (toothpaste tube), illustrating yet again how everything sounds better in Italian.
1960 Stanguellini Formula Junior.
Among the etceterini, there was a
high churn rate but many for years flourished and developed also lucrative
“sideline” businesses producing ranges of speed equipment or accessories for
majors such as Fiat or Alfa Romeo and, as has happened in other industries,
sometimes the success of these overtook the original concern, Nardi soon
noticing their return on capital from selling their popular custom steering
wheels far exceeded what was being achieved from producing a handful of little
sports cars, production of which quickly was abandoned with resources
re-allocated to the accessory which had become a trans-Atlantic best-seller. Whether things would have gone on
indefinitely had the laissez-faire spirit of the time been allowed to continue
can’t be known but by the 1960s, traffic volumes rapidly were increasing on the
growing lengths of autostrade (the
trend-setting Italian motorway system begun during the administration of Benito
Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & Prime-Minister of Italy 1922-1943) with
accident rates & the death toll both climbing. Italy, like many jurisdictions began to
impose safety regulations which before long made small-scale production runs
unviable but by then rising prosperity meant people were able to purchase their
own Fiat or Alfa-Romeo and the etceterini faded into fond memory. It is of course unthinkable such a thing
could again happen because the EU (European Union) is now staffed by divisions
of Eurocrats who spend their days in Masonic-like plotting and scheming to
devise new reasons to say no, non, nein,
nee, nein, não etc. Had these
bloodless bureaucrats existed in the 1940s, not one etceterini would ever have reached
the street.
The Auto Sputnik
Italian comrades admiring Auto Sputnik, Rome, Italy, April 1958.
Although
it’s the slinky sports and racing cars which are celebrated as the etceterini,
from the then vibrant ecosystem of Italian coach-building, a wide range of body
types emerged including larger coupés & cabriolets, station wagons, vans,
ambulances, hearses and more. In
post-war Italy, if a manufacturer wanted a run of a few dozen or hundred, there
was a factory to fulfil the contract and for those who wanted some sort of
low-volume model or even a one-off needed for a specific purpose, if need be,
there would be a man in a shed who could form the metal. Again, it was availability of versatile,
mass-produced platforms which made the re-purposing possible and a genuine
one-off was the Auto Sputnik (Sputnik-car),
built for the PCI (Partito Comunista Italiano, the Communist Party of Italy, 1921-1991) as a propaganda vehicle to
travel around the land in the run-up to the 1958 general election. Centre of attention was a model of Sputnik 1,
the first artificial Earth satellite, launched by the Soviet Union on 4
October, 1957, an event which had shocked many in the West because it seemed to
illustrate how much more advanced was Soviet science compare to that in the West. What it heightened was the fear the communist "planned economy" was proving more efficient in producing advanced technology while in the West excessive resources were being absorbed by things like annual changed to the styling of washing machines or making the tailfins on cars rise higher. That feeling rippled around the US Congress,
causing great concern although the scientific and military establishment,
better acquainted with relative industrial capabilities, were more sanguine. Politicians however find it often more
rewarding to respond to perceptions rather than reality and it was the launch
of Sputnik which triggered the “space race”, the first round of which
culminated with the US manned landing on the moon in 1969.
Italian and
Soviet design sensibilities, circa 1958: Auto
Sputnik, colorized (left) and 1958 Soviet UAZ-450 (right). Mechanically somewhat
updated (though stylistically, not by much) , the UAZ is still being made and is believed to be the oldest vehicle
design still in series production, the blueprints delivered to the factory in 1957.
Although just by achieving orbit Sputnik 1
was a landmark in space flight, as it circled the Earth every 96 minutes,
despite much wild speculation, all the 580 mm (23 inch) wide metal sphere did
was transmit “beeps” which could be received by ground-based radios but the PCI’s
model on the Auto Sputnik was, in a
sense, more ambitious because it included an integrated loudspeaker for
broadcasting campaign messages (ie communist propaganda). Having the Sputniks to use as propaganda
tools was certainly a tribute to Soviet design prowess and industrial capacity but
it was good that for Auto Sputnik the PCI turned to Italian rather than Soviet
coach-builders. There was at the time something
in the souls of Italian designers which stopped them drawing an ugly line so the
Auto Sputnik, despite its utilitarian purpose, was a stylish piece of
mid-century modernism, characterized by the mix of fuselage-like flanks, topped
with a formed in sensuously shaped Perspex.
The eye-catching design may be compared with what can be imagined had a Russian
contractor been granted the commission. What
would have been delivered would have been heavy, robust (if not especially
well-finished) and “done the job” but it would not have been stylish. For that, it was best to get an Italian and
in the 1960s, the UK industry would do exactly that, Michelotti among several
doing good business there.
1957 Fiat
600 Multipla (left) and the prototype 1957 600 Marinella (right) by Giovanni
Michelotti (1921–1980), the latter a classic example of the adaptability of the
600 platform, one of a number used by those who created the Etceterini.
In a nice touch, a dog (various real or a stuffed toy) was also
carried, a tribute to Laika, the “Soviet space dog” who was the first animal to
orbit the planet when Sputnik 2 flew into low orbit on 3 November 1957. The Perspex windows on the model of Sputnik
certainly weren’t on the original sphere and were installed just so the dog could
be seen and even that was an attempt to manipulate voters through “associative
cognition”, people trusting dogs in a way they don't trust politicians. Unfortunately for Laika, the technology
of the era precluded a return-flight and some hours into the mission, she died
of hyperthermia. Like the doomed dog, Auto
Sputnik did not survive and although there seem to be no details of either the
coach-builder or platform used, historians of the etceterini are certain it was
based on a Fiat 600 Multipla (1956–1967) and not the 600T because
the latter variant was in production only between 1961-1968. An exercise in pure functionalism, the prime
directive of the 600 Multipa (literally “multiple”) was the optimal utilization
of interior space. The object was a
vehicle in which the maximum possible payload (people or objects) could be
carried within the smallest possible external dimensions, powered by a drive-train
which would do it all at the lowest possible cost. Countless Italians found the Multipla lived
up to the name but the PCI’s use must be among the more unusual.
Flag of the
Italian Communist Party (hammer & sickle in yellow on red background (left)
and the highly regarded “Italian Hot Dogs” sold at Jimmy Buff's.
No color
images of the Auto Sputnik seem to exist
but one monochrome photograph has been colorized, the software confirming it
was finished in red & yellow. These
were the colors of the PCI’s flag so the choice had nothing to do with the
ketchup and mustard of the “Italian Hot Dog”, the invention of which is
credited to Jimmy “Buff” Racioppi, founder of Jimmy Buff's in Newark, New
Jersey where the first “Italian Hot Dog” was sold in 1932.
TELEPHOTO image with explanatory caption, distributed to newspapers by wire services, April 1958.
Routinely in use in the West since the late
1930s, (and known also as “wirephotos”), TELEPHOTOs literally were “photographs
transmitted using telegraph wire infrastructure” and although receiving an
image could take some minutes, for newspapers it was a revolutionary service because
for those in daily production cycles, it was effectively “real-time”. TELEPHOTOS
were one of many steps on the technological ladder to the contemporary world of instantaneous communication. When in 1865 Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865; POTUS
1861-1865) was assassinated, the news didn’t reach Europe until the
fastest clipper had crossed the Atlantic a fortnight later. By the time of William McKinley's (1843–1901;
POTUS 1897-1901) assassination in 1901, within minutes, the news was within minutes transmitted around the world through undersea cables.
In 1963, while news of John Kennedy's (JFK, 1917–1963; POTUS 1961-1963)
death was close to a global real-time event, those many miles from the event
had to wait sometimes 24 hours or more to view footage, the film stock delivered
in canisters by land, sea or air. By
1981, when an attempt was made on Ronald Reagan’s (1911-2004; POTUS 1981-1989)
life, television stations around the planet were within minutes picking up
live-feeds from satellites. The text on the vehicle: "VOTA COMUNISTA", translates as “Vote
Communist” and the 1958 election was unexpectedly difficult for the party because
there had been schisms and defections after (1) the Red Army's crushing the 1956
Hungarian uprising (tellingly, the Kremlin made no attempt to augment their forces with troops from other Warsaw Pact signatories) and (2) comrade Nikita Khrushchev’s (1894–1971; Soviet
leader 1953-1964) “secret” speech in February that year denouncing the excesses
of comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953). Still, the party maintained its support,
gaining 22.7% of the vote against the 22.6% received in 1953, the loss of three
seats (from 143 to 140) the consequence of electoral redistributions and some
changes in the allocation of seats between the various mechanisms. With that, the PCI remained the country’s second-largest
party in Italy although the Democrazia
Cristiana (DC, the Christian Democrats) remained dominant and the
communists still were excluded from government.
Essentially then, the 1958 election maintained the “status quo” but
what had changed since the late 1940s was that agents of the US government (not
all of whom were on the payroll of the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency)) no
longer wandered cities and the countryside with the suitcases of US dollars
thought (correctly) to be the most useful accessory when seeking to influence
elections. When Washington complains
about the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) and others using this method or that to try to
“influence” elections in the US, they know what they’re talking about; while
the tactics of the influencers have changed, the strategy remains the same.
