Strand

Strand (pronounced strand)

(1) To drive or leave (a ship, fish etc) aground or ashore.

(2) To bring into or leave in a helpless position (usually used in the passive).

(3) A shore or beach (now poetic, archaic or regional).

(4) A small brook or rivulet (archaic).

(5) A passage for water; a gutter (Northern England & Scotland)

(6) A foreign country (archaic).

(7) One of a number of fibres, threads, or yarns, plaited or twisted together to form a rope, cord, or the like.

(8) A rope made of such twisted or plaited fibres.

(9) A fibre or filament, as in animal or plant tissue.

(10) A thread or threadlike part of anything.

(11) By extension, a constituent element in a complex argument.

(12) A street in the Westminster district of west-central London, running from Trafalgar Square to Fleet Street parallel to the Thames, so-called because it was the “north strand” (ie shore) of the river; also the areas immediately surrounding the street.

Pre 1000:  From the Middle English strand or strond, (sea shore), from Old English strand (shore), related to the Dutch strand and Middle High German strant (beach) and the Latin sternere (to spread).  The Old English was borrowed from the Proto-Germanic strandaz & strandō (edge, rim, shore), source also of the Danish and Swedish strand (beach, shore, strand), the Old Norse strönd (border, edge, shore) the Middle Low German strant and the German and Dutch strand (beach).  The origin of the Proto-Germanic is uncertain but may be from the primitive Indo-European ster- (to broaden or stretch out), the application of which was “the parts of a shore that lies between the tide-marks” and it applied formerly also to river banks, hence The Strand in London, the name dating from 1246.

Françoise Hardy (b 1944), The Strand, London, 1966.

Historically, in Middle English it described things riparian, the use to refer to “individual fibres of a rope, string etc” or human hair first recorded circa 1500, probably from the Old French estran, from a Germanic source akin to the Old High German streno (lock, tress, strand of hair) from which is derived the Middle Dutch strene (a skein, hank of thread) and the German strähne (a skein, strand) of unknown origin.  The meaning "to drive aground on a shore" from which flowed the figurative sense of "leave lost or helpless" as of a ship left aground by the tide, was first recorded in 1837 and survives in the words stranded & stranding. Descendants of the Germanic root appear in many European languages including Hungarian, Romanian & Serbo-Croatian and it’s a not uncommon proper noun in the Nordic lands, both as a surname and locality name.

The stranded phrase

In linguistic anthropology, a stranded phrase is a once-popular saying that has fallen from use.  The idea is shared with economics where the term stranded asset is used to describe assets held which have been subject to a premature or unanticipated devaluation in their value, the most commonly quoted potential examples being vast, undeveloped coal-fields which decades ago were highly valued, to be capitalized over a productive life which might be forty or more years but which may shortly become worthless because of shifts in the market.  Phrases can fall from favor for structural reasons or just become unfashionable in the way something like “stone the crows” is archaic, stranded in the time of its popularity, sometimes surviving only as period pieces of an era.

The phrase bunny boiler is derived from the film Fatal Attraction (1987) in which an obsessive, spurned woman, in a fit of frenzied jealousy, boils in a pot the pet rabbit of her erstwhile lover's daughter.  The epithet was coined to refer to women unable to remain rational at the end of a romantic relationship and predictably, is only ever applied to women.  In pre-web times, variations in colloquial language tended to spread more slowly than those powered by the latter-day ubiquity of the net and “bunny boiler” seems not to have entered general use until 1994.  The USENET groups which maintain online archives of such things notes bunny boiler was not used on their (pre-web) platform and while there’s no reliable information about use on the web before 1994, given that non-academic use of the internet then was a tiny fraction of today, such data might anyway not be indicative of general use but nor are there more than a handful of instances in the archives of US and British newspapers before that date.  Indeed, the first recorded instance in print is from an interview the rabbit-slaughtering actress Glenn Close (b 1947) gave to the US magazine Ladies' Home Journal in December 1990 during which she observed "…there's nothing like portraying a psychopathic bunny-boiler to boost one's self-esteem”.  If that was the first publication, that’s a plausible reason why it took so long after 1987 to disseminate and it makes sense because the epithet isn't in the original dialogue or promotional material and nor does it appear in any contemporary review.

Despite that, some sources do say it pre-dates 1990 but provide no evidence and all agree it came into wider use only after 1994 when the web began to assist dissemination, a process similar to that described by epidemiologists to illustrate the progress of viruses which, if achieving critical mass, can become an epidemic… or worse.  Bunny boiler thus began to enjoy a rapidity of infection from 1994, use peaking between 1998-2003, then declining to become stranded in its era.  The explanation offered by etymologists is that too much time elapsed between the source in 1987, the origin of the phrase circa 1990 and the mid-decade adoption so it lacked the newness and novelty these things usually require; its historic moment had passed.  Still, for men it remains useful, any needy, possessive, clingy or even talkative woman can be labelled potential or suspected bunny boiler.

Strands of Lindsay Lohan’s hair in an array of colors.

The idea is of course not new.  For some reason, the (anyway incorrectly quoted) phrase “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” is often attributed to Shakespeare, possibly because it’s plausibly in his voice or maybe because for most the only time the Middle English “hath” is seen is in some Shakespearian quote so the association sticks.  The real author however was actually Restoration playwright William Congreve (1670–1729) who coined the phrase for his 1697 play The Mourning Bride, the protagonist of which, although becoming a bit unhinged by the cruel path of doomed love, doesn’t resort to leporidaecide.  Congreve’s line, “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned” was good but actually was a more poetic rendition of a similar but less elegantly expressed version another playwright had used a year earlier.  The Mourning Bride is also the source of another fragment for which the bard is often given undeserved credit: “Music has charms to soothe a savage breast” although that’s often bowdlerized as “Music has charms to soothe a savage beast”.

Fishtail

Fishtail (pronounced fish-teyl)

(1) As "to fishtail" or "fishtailing", to swerve or skid from side to side, as the rear end of a car (an oversteering sequence).

(2) In aviation, to slow an airplane by causing its tail to move rapidly from side to side; such a maneuver.

(3) A gas burner having two jets crossing each other so as to produce a flame resembling a fish's tail.

(4) A device having a long, narrow slot at the top, placed over a gas jet, as of a Bunsen burner, to give a thin, fanlike flame.

(5) In jewelry design, a setting consisting of four prominent triangular corner prongs to hold the stone.

(6) In dance, a step in ballroom dancing in which the feet are quickly crossed

(7) In fashion design, a dress or skirt with a flowing, scalloped hemline sometimes longer at the back than at the front, flaring usually from about the knee.

(8) In hair-styling, a two-stranded braid.

1400–1450: From the late Middle English, the construct being fish + tail.  Fish the noun (strictly a vertebrate which has gills and fins adapting it for living in the water but the word came to be more widely applied, zoologically) was from the Middle English fisch, from the Old English fisċ (fish), from the Proto-West Germanic fisk, from the Proto-Germanic fiskaz (fish) (source also of the Old Saxon, the Old Frisian & the Old High German fisc, the Old Norse fiskr, the Middle Dutch visc, the Dutch vis, the German Fisch & the Gothic fisks) and related to the West Frisian fisk, the Danish, Norwegian & Swedish fisk, the Irish iasc & the Latin piscis; Root probably either the primitive Indo-European peysḱ- (fish) or pisk (a fish) but at least one etymologist, on phonetic grounds, has suggested it might be a northwestern Europe substratum word.  Fish the verb is from the Old English fiscian (to fish, to catch or try to catch fish), and was cognate with the Old Norse fiska, the Old High German fiscon, the German fischen & the Gothic fiskon, all derived from the noun.  In popular use, since Old English, fish has been used to apply to "any animal that lives entirely in the water," hence shellfish & starfish although, in English there’s an early fifteenth century document which describes fishes bestiales as "water animals other than fishes").  Today, aquatic mammals like dolphins are presumed fish by some.  The plural is fishes, but in a collective sense, or in reference to fish meat as food, the singular fish is commonly used as a plural so, except for the pedants, that battle is lost.  Regarding the heavens, the constellation Pisces is from the late fourteenth century.

Tail was from the Middle English tail, tayl & teil (hindmost part of an animal), from the Old English tægl & tægel (tail), from the Proto-Germanic taglaz & taglą (hair, fiber; hair of a tail) (source also of the Old High German zagal, the German Zagel (tail), the dialectal German Zagel (penis), the Old Norse tagl (horse's tail) and the Gothic tagl (hair), from the primitive Indo-European doklos, from a suffixed form of the roots dok & dek- (something long and thin (referring to such things as fringe, lock of hair, horsetail & to tear, fray, shred)), source also of the Old Irish dual (lock of hair) and the Sanskrit dasah (fringe, wick).  It was cognate with the Scots tail (tail), the Dutch teil (tail, haulm, blade), the Low German Tagel (twisted scourge, whip of thongs and ropes; end of a rope), the dialectal Danish tavl (hair of the tail), the Swedish tagel (hair of the tail, horsehair), the Norwegian tagl (tail), the Icelandic tagl (tail, horsetail, ponytail), and the Gothic tagl (hair). In some senses, development appears to have been by a generalization of the usual opposition between head and tail.  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) suggest the primary sense, at least among the Germanic tongues, seems to have been "hairy tail," or just "tuft of hair," but already in Old English the word was applied to the hairless "tails" of worms, bees etc.  The alternative suggestion is that the notion common to all is that of the "long, slender shape."  It served as an adjective from the 1670s.  A long obsolete Old English word for tail was steort.

1952 Vincent Black Shadow with “fishtail” exhaust extension.

An unmistakable look, the “fishtail tip” polarizes opinion; it really is a “love it or hate it” fitting but they retain some popularity in the Harley Davidson community, a crew as devoted to their machines as any.  There are many modern takes on the design; while all feature the characteristic vertical, narrow flare in the distinctive shape, many are upswept and some protrude from the back more than others.  As well as the look, fishtails often are advertised on the basis of their sound (loud) and internally, are tuned to create different resonances, the ears of Harley Davidson riders as sensitive to the variations as are collectors of Stradivarii.

1937 Norton Model 30 International with Brooklands Can (technically the Brooklands Silencer) (left) and 1934 MG Magnette 'K3' Specification Supercharged Roadster (right).

One of the world’s first dedicated venues for motorsports and aviation, England’s Brooklands motor racing circuit was built in 1907, predating the Indianapolis Motor Speedway by two years.  Located in what had until then been the quiet little hamlet of Weybridge in the county of Surrey, some 20 miles (12 km) south-west of London, it sits 9 miles (14.5 km) south of Heathrow Airport and a portion of the original outer circuit (originally 2.75 miles (4.4 km) in length with the banking in places rising almost 30 feet (9.1 m) high) still exists.  Then, as now, Motorsport was a very noisy business and as the sport boomed in popularity after World War I (1914-1918), the tolerance of the inhabitants of Weybridge must have been tested because there’s a record of complaints about the noise (especially on Sundays and during the 24 hour events sometimes run) and eventually, in September 1924, a group commenced in the High Court an action in the tort of nuisance.  By July 2025 (reasonably brisk by the standards of the legal system), a settlement was agreed which included a permanent injunction limiting the days and hours of operation and the creation of the novel “Brooklands Can”, a design of muffler which could be adapted to both cars and motorcycles.

1937 Norton Model 30 International with Brooklands Can (Left), diagram of Brooklands Can for a number of contemporary 1930s MGs close to the Magnette NE (1934) specification (centre) and a Luminous White male Guppy (right).

What the High Court’s injunction required was even on those days when racing was allowed, noise levels had to be reduced and the obvious solution was a muffler (in England then known optimistically as “silencers”) and the case turned out to be influential as the century progressed, often cited as the way a court might balance technological progress, any public nuisance created and the right of individuals to the “quiet enjoyment” of life in their homes.  Interestingly, the French (silencieux) and Italians (silenziatore) followed the English practice while the more practical Germans adhered to the realistic literalness of the Americans with Schalldämpfer (sound damper).  All Brooklands cans had two distinguishing characteristics: a rhomboidal receptacle located close to the engines header pipes which emerge from the exhaust manifold and a fishtail tip (although those used on some smaller capacity cars did terminated in a straight “dump pipe” and depending on the displacement (and thus the volume of exhaust gasses), the dimensions of the apparatus varied.  The “silencer” didn’t make the machines “quiet” in the accepted sense of the word; just less noisy.

1933 Napier-Railton.

Driven by John Cobb (1899–1952), this car in 1935 set the Brooklands lap record for the Outer Circuit at 143.44 mph (230.84 km/h) a mark which will stand for all time because after being appropriated in 1939 for military purposes, the facility never re-opened.  The Napier-Railton was powered by a W12 (the so-called “broad arrow”) aero engine of 24 litres (1,461 cubic inch) and because the configuration had the cylinders in three banks of four, three of the Brooklands Cans had to be fitted and, with each bank displacing some 8 litres (487 cubic inch), each system was among the largest ever built.  Away from the delicate ears and aspidistras of the Surrey middle class, the machine sometimes ran “unsilenced”, including on the Bonneville Salt Flats where it ran with nothing more open stack exhausts, setting a world 24 hour record at an average speed of 158.6 mph (242 km/h).

The sense in common law of tail (limitation of ownership) which endures mostly in the law of real property began as a legal term in English in the early fourteenth century (late thirteenth in Anglo-French & Anglo-Latin); in almost all cases it was a shortened form of entail.  The verb tail dates from the 1520s and was derived from the noun, the sense originally "attach to the tail", the meaning "move or extend in a way suggestive of a tail" dating from 1781.  The meaning “secretly to follow" is a US colloquial creation from 1907, borrowed from the earlier sense of "follow or drive cattle”.  The saying "tail off” (diminish) was noted in 1854.  The tail of a coin (reverse side; opposite the side with the head, hence “heads or tails”) appears to have been first described that was in the 1680s.  The more predictable "backside of a person, buttocks" is recorded from circa 1300, the slang sense of "pudenda" is from the mid-fourteenth century and as a term to refer to an “act of copulation with a prostitute”, it was first noted in 1846.  From circa 1933 it was applied to mean "woman as sex object" is from 1933.  In printing and typography, tail was the technical term to describe the descending strokes of letters from the 1590s.  As “tails”, the formal dress for men (coat with tails), the first advertisements appeared in 1857.  The tail-race, the part of a mill race below the wheel is from 1776.  The phrase “to turn tail” (take flight) dates from the 1580s and was originally from falconry, later to be adopted by the Admiralty and the army.  The image of the “tail wagging the dog” is from 1907 and was part of the language of political science.

A whale "showing the fluke" (left) and 1976 Porsche 911 Turbo (930, 1975-1989, right) with "whale tail".

Among the most photographed “fish tails” are those of whales, once hunted for their meat and oil, they’re now charismatic creatures and among nature’s most prolific content providers, their tails “fluking” (appearing above the surface just as a deep dive is about to begin) long an Instagram staple.  Whales are however not fish, all being mammals, they’re thus within the zoological class Mammalia, not Pisces.  The “whale tail” spoiler first appeared on Porsches in 1974 and is best remembered for its use on the 911 Turbo, a vehicle which gained the nickname “widowmaker” because, in unskilled hands, the quirky handling (the 930 wasn’t exactly a “250 horsepower VW Beetle” but the layout was the same and the inherent characteristics thus exaggerated although (up to a point), well-tamed) could lead to “fishtailing” and worse.  The “whale tail” later evolved into the “tea tray” although the original nickname remains more widely used, even of later variants.

Fish appears often in idiomatic use.  The figurative sense of “fish out of water” (a person in an unfamiliar and awkward situation) is attested from the 1610s, the use extended from circa 1750, usually with a modifier (strange fish, queer fish, cold fish) but from at least 1722 it was used in reference to a person considered desirable to “catch”, a sense preserved in the phrase “plenty more fish in the sea”, a form picked up by one dating site.  To “drink like a fish” (one with a habitually high consumption of alcohol) is from 1744 and the “fishy story” (an incredible or extravagant narration) was first noted in 1819, a US colloquial form based on the tendency of anglers to exaggerate the size of “the one that got away”.  Having “other fish to fry” (having other things which demand one’s attention) is from the 1650s.  In optics, the fish-eye lens was patented in 1959.  Fish-and-chips seem first to have been advertised in 1876 and fish-fingers were first sold in 1962.

Lindsay Lohan in fishtail dresses.  Herbie: Fully Loaded premiere, El Capitan Theatre, Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, June 2005; Vanity Fair Oscar Party, Morton’s West Hollywood, Los Angeles, March 2006; Liz & Dick premiere, Beverly Hills Hotel, Los Angeles, November 2012.

A fitted bodycon construction, the distinguishing feature of the fishtail dress is the flowing, scalloped hemline, often longer at the back and tending to flare from around the knee-line.  Because a successful implementation of the style depends most on length and volume, most fishtail dresses are floor length, many better described as gowns although some have tried shorter variations.  The bodice can vary but fitted waists are the most frequently seen.  The design was originally called the "fishtail train" and the early versions, first seen in the 1870s, all featured the asymmetric extension at the back and it wasn’t until the turn of the century the flaring lowered from mid-thigh to the knee.  Prior to the Victorian era, trains were not unknown but they were then worn only as evening gowns and were really an addition to existing garments.

An artist's depiction of Lindsay Lohan as mermaid.

Some in the industry refer to the “fishtail” as the “trumpet” or the more charming mermaid and there are those who insist on distinguishing between the three, based usually from the point at which the flare begins but the distinction escapes the many who use the terms interchangeably, regarding all as variations on a theme.  However described, the great advantage of the lines is that they create, on a suitable frame, an hourglass figure and one with a range of definition, all determined by the point at which the flare begins and the volume of material chosen for the fishtail; done properly it can render a feminine and flawless silhouette, perhaps the most persuasive reason it’s chosen by so many brides.  Sore however are probably too easily persuaded, the fishtail really not suited to those either too short or too wide.  Successfully to wear a fishtail, it’s not necessary to be truly statuesque or actually thin but beneath a certain height, one starts to look like part of a condiment set; one must be realistic about what shapewear can achieve.  The recommendation is that the style can be worn by those of at least average height and it works best on those who are slim with small or medium size hips.  A good seamstress can adapt things to better suit other shapes but there’s a law of diminishing returns the more one is removed from the ideal; a deep but narrow cut can disguise only so much.

Fishtail braid in blonde.

The fishtail braid is a variation of the French braid, both with a smoothly woven appearance, the fishtail dividing the hair into two sections instead of the French three.  The technique essentially is that a small piece of each section is passed over to the other, the process repeated until the braid assumes its shape; in the nineteenth century this was known as the "Grecian braid".  The fishtail braid appears intricate because it's built with small strands but hairdressers say it's a simple, and essentially repetitive, nine-step process.  On great advantage of the fishtail is it lends itself well to a looser braid, one which over a couple of days will tend usually (and gradually) to deconstruct into a deliberately messy look, the attraction is technical as well as aesthetic: the messy fishtail is uniquely suited to act as a framework for hair extensions.

(1) Split the hair into two equal strands

(2) Pick up a small section of hair on the right side of the right strand

(3) Cross the small section over and add it to the left strand

(4) Pick up a small section of hair on the left side of the left strand

(5) Cross the small section over and add it to the right strand

(6) Pick up a small section of hair on the right side of the right strand

(7) Cross the small section over and add it to the left strand

(8) Pick up a small section of hair on the left side of the left strand

(9) Cross the small section over and add it to the right strand

(10) Repeat steps 2-9 until the end is reached.

Blowout

Blowout (pronounced bloh-out)

(1) A sudden puncturing of a pneumatic tyre.

(2) A sudden release of oil and gas from a well.

(3) In geology, a sandy depression in a sand dune ecosystem caused by the removal of sediments by wind.

(4) An extreme and unexpected increase in costs, such as in government estimates for a project (a popular Australian use although the budgetary outcomes are familiar just about everywhere).

(5) In medical slang, an act of defecation in which an incontinent person (usually an infant or toddler) produces a large amount of excrement that causes their diaper to overflow and leak (the companion slang the “poonami”).

(6) In engineering, the cleaning of the flues of a boiler from scale etc by blasting the surfaces with steam.

(7) In body-piercing, an unsightly flap of skin caused by an ear piercing that is too large.

(8) An instance of having one's hair blow-dried and styled.

(9) In tattooing, the blurring of a tattoo due to ink penetrating too far into the skin and dispersing.

(10) In woodworking, the damage done to the exit side of a drilled hole or sawn edge when no sacrificial backer-board is used during the drilling or sawing: the drill bit's or saw blade's exit on the far side causes chips of wood to be broken from the edge (sometimes called a “tearout”).

(11) In slang, a social function, especially one with extravagant catering.

(12) In slang, a large or extravagant meal.

(13) In slang, a sporting contest in which one side wins by an untypically wide margin; an overwhelming victory.

(14) In slang, an argument; an altercation.

(15) In Filipino slang, a party or social gathering.

1825: A creation of US colloquial English (the construct being blow + out) in the sense of “outburst, brouhaha” (and in a subtle linguistic shift such events would now, inter alia, be called a “blow-up”), from the verbal phrase, the reference being to pressure in a steam engine.  The elements “blow” and “out” both have many senses and the compound blowout is formed from the verb “blow” in the sense of “burst” or “explosion” plus the verb “out” in the sense of “eject or expel; discharge; oust”.  The verb blow was a pre-1000 form from the Middle English verb blowen, from the Old English blāwan (to blow, breathe, make a current of air, inflate, sound), from the Proto-West Germanic blāan, from the Proto-Germanic blēaną (to blow), from primitive Indo-European bhleh- (to swell, blow up) and may be compared with the Old High German blāen, the Latin flō (to blow) and the Old Armenian բեղուն (bełun) (fertile).  The verb out was from the pre-900 Middle English adverb out, from the Old English ūt (out, without, outside).  It was cognate with the Dutch uit, the German aus, the Old Norse & Gothic ūt and was akin to the Sanskrit ud-.  The Middle English verb was outen, from the Old English ūtian (to put out) and cognate with the Old Frisian ūtia.  Blowout is a noun; the noun plural is blowouts and the use as a verb non-standard.

The blowout as a source of irony.

Blowout is used as a modifier.  In retail commerce, a “blowout sale” is an event advertised as offering greater than usual discounts, with a real or notional intent to deplete the inventory.  Unlike the various uses in hairdressing, blowouts can be undesirable events and devices have been devised which prevent their unwanted occurrence: In electrical engineering a blowout coil (carrying an electric current) serves to deflect and thus extinguish an arc formed when the contacts of a switch part to turn off the current and in the messy business of drilling for oil, a “blowout preventer” is placed at the surface interface of an oil well to prevent blowouts by closing the orifice, allowing material to flow from the oil reservoir out through the shaft.  By contrast, in hairdressing, variants of the blowout deliberately are part of the process and in one use blowout is a generic descriptor of the taper fade (of which there are several variants.  There’s also the Brazilian blowout, a method temporarily to achieve straightening the hair by sealing a liquid keratin and preservative solution into the hair with a styling wand (hair iron).

1969 Ford Falcon GTHO #60 (Fred Gibson (b 1941) & Barry “Bo” Seton (b 1936)) on its roof after a blowout of the right-rear tyre, Mount Panorama, Bathurst, Australia. 

In motorsport there have been some famous tyre blowouts and in Australia, in 1969, it was exactly that which doomed the first appearance at Bathurst of the Falcon GTHO, a car purpose-built for the event with “a relief map of the Mount Panorama circuit in one hand and a bucket of Ford’s money in the other”.  As it would prove in subsequent years, the GTHO was ideal for the purpose but in 1969 the choice of some then exotic US-made Goodyear racing tyres proved an innovation too far, one of several blowouts resulting in a Ford works car ending on its roof.  Being an anti-clockwise circuit, it was the right-had tyres which were subject to the highest loads and, built for racing, the Phase I GTHOs were set-up to oversteer, further increasing the wear.  For next year, Ford doubled down, the Phase II GTHOs famous for their prodigious oversteer but this time the suspension was tuned to suit the tyres.

As a routine procedure, a “steam blowout” is carried out to remove the debris from superheaters and re-heaters that accumulate during manufacturing and installation, the purpose being to prevent damage to turbine blades and valves.  In the usual course of operation, a “blowout” is the release of excessive steam (ie pressure) via a “blow-off valve”.  The meaning “abundant feast” dates from 1824 while that of “the bursting of an automobile tire” was in use by at least 1908.  The alternative forms blow-out & blow out are also in use, especially when applied to tyres and the un-hyphenated from was chosen for the title of Blow Out (1981), a movie by US director Brian De Palma (b 1940)in which the plot hinged on whether it was a gunshot which caused a tyre to blow out.

Manfred von Brauchitsch in Mercedes-Benz W25B (#7) in front of the pits at the end of 1935 German Grand Prix, Nürbugring, 28 July 1935.  The left-rear tyre which suffered a last-lap blowout has disintegrated, the car driven to fourth place on the rim for the final 7 km (4.4 miles).

The most famous blowout however was that which happened on the last lap of the 1935 German Grand Prix, run before 220,000 spectators in treacherously wet conditions on the Nürbugring circuit in the Eifel mountains, then in its classic and challenging pre-war configuration of 22.7 km (14.1 miles).  The pre-race favourites were the then dominant straight-8 Mercedes-Benz W25s and V16 Auto Union Type Bs (both generously subsidized by the Nazi state) but, powerful, heavy and difficult to handle in wet conditions, their advantages substantially were negated, allowing what should have been the delicate but out-classed straight-8 Alfa Romeo P3s to be competitive and in the gifted hands of the Italian Tazio Nuvolari (1892–1953), one won the race.  The last lap was among the most dramatic in grand prix history, the Mercedes-Benz W25B of Manfred von Brauchitsch (1905–2003) holding a winning lead until a rear-tyre blowout, the car limping to the finish-line on a bare rim to secure fourth place.  Von Brauchitsch was the nephew of Generalfeldmarschall Walther von Brauchitsch (1881–1948), the imposing but ineffectual Oberbefehlshaber (Commander-in-Chief) of OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres (the German army's high command)) between 1938-1941.

Lindsay Lohan on the cover of Vogue Czechoslovakia, May 2025, photographed by the Morelli Brothers.

That there should be a Vogue Czechoslovakia despite the state of Czechoslovakia ceasing to be after 31 December 1992 may seem strange but the publication does exist and is sold in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia.  Launched in 2018, it was the first edition of Vogue published in either country and the title was an obvious choice for Condé Nast because in addition to the shared cultural heritage, there were no negative associations with the name “Czechoslovakia”; so amicable was the 1992 separation of the two states it was styled the “Velvet Divorce”.  Other attractions included branding & recognition (“Czechoslovakia” still enjoying strong international recognition because the component elements of the name have been retained by the new states so it has not passed into history like “Yugoslavia” when it broke up amidst war and slaughter) and the economies of scale gained by producing a single edition for two markets.  That reflects a general industry trend, the Czech Republic & Slovakia often treated as a single media market because of their (1) linguistic similarity, (2) cultural overlap and shared (though often troubled) history.  It worked out well for Conde Nast because they got a retro-modern identity evocative of a culturally rich past with a contemporary twist.

Lindsay Lohan’s Almond Milk Upper East Blowout hairstyle, Vogue Czechoslovakia, May 2025.

Czechoslovakia was created in 1918 when the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the Hapsburgs was dissolved and in this form it existed until dismembered progressively, beginning with the well-intentioned but shameful Munich Agreement in 1938.  After World War II (1939-1945), Czechoslovakia was re-established under its pre-1938 borders (with the exception of Carpathian Ruthenia, which became part of Soviet Union) but its fate was sealed when in 1948 the Communist Party (approved by comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) staged a coup and seized power, integrating the country behind the Iron Curtain into the Moscow-centric Eastern Bloc joining Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, a kind of “Marshall Plan by rubles”) in 1955 and the Warsaw Pact (the Soviet’s counterpoint to NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in 1955.  An uprising in 1968 (the so called “Prague Spring”) seeking political & economic liberalization ruthlessly was crushed by Russian tank formations sent by Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982; Soviet leader 1964-1982) and it wasn’t until 1989, following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the people peacefully overthrew Communist Party rule in what was labelled the “Velvet Revolution”, thus the adoption of “Velvet Divorce” to describe the unusually quiet (and not at all bloody) constitutional separation of the two sovereign states.

Lindsay Lohan in halter neck black dress with white bodice and stylized bow, her Upper East Blowout under an outrageously extravagant tulle hat, Vogue Czechoslovakia, May, 2025.

The Hairstyle used for Lindsay Lohan’s Vogue cover shoot is known as the “Upper East Blowout”, designed deliberately to evoke the glamour of the stars from the golden age of Hollywood (essentially the 1930s-1950s) and the particular one worn by Ms Lohan specifically was called an “Almond Milk Upper East Blowout”, a construct which seems an intriguing piece of subliminal marketing.  “Almond Milk” was a obviously an allusion to the color but the fluid is also a pleasingly expensive (an important association in product-positioning) and trendy alternative to the mainstream dairy offerings with obvious appeal to vegetarians, vegans and animal rights activists.  For some it can be a wise choice, nutritionists noting (unsweetened) almond milk is a good source of vitamin-E and is lower in calories, protein, sugar and saturated fat while cow’s milk is more nutrient-dense and higher in protein, naturally containing lactose and saturated fats.  Because of that, fortification is essential for almond milk to match dairy milk’s micro-nutrient content but for those choosing on the basis of their dietary regime (vegans, the lactose intolerant etc), unsweetened, fortified almond can be a healthy option.  The “Upper East Side” element is a reference to the neighborhood in the borough of New York City’s (NYC) Manhattan.  Because of the vagueness in NYC’s neighborhood boundaries (they’re not officially gazetted), opinions vary as to where the place begins and ends but in the popular (and certainly the international) imagination, “Upper East Side” is most associated with places such as Fifth Avenue and Central Park which lie to the west.  While New Yorkers may not always know exactly what the Upper East Side is, they have no doubts about which parts definitely are NOT UES.  Long regarded as the richest and thus most prestigious of the New York boroughs, by the late nineteenth century informally it was known as the “silk stocking district”, the idea reflected still in the desirable real estate, expensive shops along Madison Avenue and its cluster of cultural institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frick Collection and the Guggenheim Museum.

Jessica Rabbit in characteristic pose (left) and Lindsay Lohan with "almond milk Upper East Blowout" hairstyle in black leather corset with silk laces and stainless steel eyelets.

Technically, the hairstyle is a “blowout” because historically the look was achieved with a combination of product & blow dryer; that’s still how most are done.  Because the really dramatic blowouts demand significant volume (ideally of “thick” hair), it can’t be achieved by everyone in their natural state and for Ms Lohan’s cover shot celebrity hairstylist Dimitris Giannetos (b 1983, Instagram: @dimitrishair) engineered things using a wig by Noah Scott (b 1998, Instagram: @whatwigs) of What Wigs, the industry’s go-to source for extravagant hair-pieces.  The use of “almond milk” to describe a shade of blonde was a bit opportunistic and would seem very similar to hues known variously as “light cool”, “light golden”, “champagne”, “golden honey” & “light ombre” but product differentiation is there to be grabbed and it seems to have caught on so it’ll be interesting to see if it gains industry support and endures to become one of the “standard blondes”.  So the linguistic effect is intended to be accumulative, Mr Giannetos calling his “Upper East blowout” “an homage” to the New York of the popular imagination and some of the hairstyles which appeared in the publicity shots of golden age Hollywood stars, memorably captured by the depiction of Jessica Rabbit in Robert Zemeckis’s (b 1952) live/animated toon hybrid movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988).  Think luxuriant waves meet old money.

However, a Vogue cover shot in a well-lit studio and created using a custom-made wig, styled by an expert hairdresser is one thing but to replicate the look IRL (in real life) is another because, despite what shampoo advertisements would have us believe, “high-gloss” rarely just happens and even with a wig, to achieve the required fullness and visual volume usually demands what needs to be understood as structural engineering.  Usually, this will necessitate “…extensions set in pin curls, then brushed out meticulously…” before being shaped with the appropriate product as a device.  Expectations need to be realistic because with each change in camera angle, it can be necessary to “re-blow and re-style”; while it’s not quite that each strand needs to be massages into place for each shot, that can be true of each wave and just because the hair looks soft and bouncy in the images on a magazine’s glossy pages, the use of fudge or moose to achieve the look can render locks IRL remarkable rigid.

Probe

Probe (pronounced prohb)

(1) To search into or examine thoroughly; question closely; an investigation, especially by a legislative committee, of suspected illegal activity.

(2) To examine or explore with or as if with a probe; the act of probing.

(3) A slender surgical instrument for exploring the depth or direction of a wound, sinus, or the like.

(4) In aerospace, an unmanned exploration spacecraft.

(5) A projecting, pipe-like device on a receiving aircraft used to make connection with and receive fuel from a tanker aircraft during refuelling in flight.

(6) A device, attached by cord to an oven that can be inserted into food so the oven shuts off when the desired internal temperature of the food is reached.

(7) In biochemistry, any identifiable substance that is used to detect, isolate, or identify another substance, as a labelled strand of DNA that hybridizes with its complementary RNA or a monoclonal antibody that combines with a specific protein.

(8) In electronics, a lead connecting to or containing a measuring or monitoring circuit used for testing; a conductor inserted into a waveguide or cavity resonator to provide coupling to an external circuit

1555–1565: From the Medieval Latin proba (examination (“test” in Late Latin)), derivative of probāre (to test, examine, prove), from probus (good).  The Spanish tienta (a surgeon's probe) came from tentar (try, test).  The dual meanings in Latin ((1) instrument for exploring wounds etc and (2) an examination) persist in English.  The sense "act of probing" is from 1890, from the verb; the figurative sense of "penetrating investigation" is from 1903.  The use to describe a "small, unmanned exploratory spacecraft" is attested from 1953; unrelated to this is the curious popularity of aliens subjecting humans to examinations with anal probes in stories of alien abduction.  Probe is a noun & verb, probing & probed are verbs, probeable is an adjective and probingly is an adverb; the noun plural is probes.

The Voyager 1 space probe launched by NASA in 1977.

Originally (with companion probe Voyager 2) a twelve-year mission, it’s expected to remain a functional scientific instrument until 2025 and is now some 24 billion km (15 billion miles) away, the most distant human-made object from Earth (only our radio waves have travelled further).  There are some who claim the probes have already reached inter-stellar space while other astronomers  maintain the edge of our solar system extends much further than was once thought and they're travelling still through a sort of cosmic limbo.  The Voyager probes, even after they're long inert, may continue their journeys for thousands or millions of years because, although the universe is a violent, destructive swirl, there is vast distance between threatening stuff.

Of the many inconsistencies in English spelling, none must be seem more mystifying to anyone learning the language than those words affected by the “mute e rule”: the inflections and derivatives formed from words ending in a “silent e”.  The question always is: to e or not to e?  Deciding whether to retain or omit the last letter is easier than once it was because dictionaries seem now to be more consistent in their approach, presumably one of the benefits of their shift to becoming on-line resources although, for historic reasons, we seem stuck with what seem ancient, arbitrary decisions such as ageing and icing continuing in peaceful co-existence.  So, there are words where centuries of particular spellings have become entrenched that to suggest a change would be absurd and that means any rule would have both examples which conform and those which defy.  Henry Fowler (1858–1933) in his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) acknowledged the impossibility of constructing a rule of absolute validity but as a guide offered (1) an indicative rule and (2) a guide to the exceptions.  The (1) rule was “when a suffix is added to a word ending in a mute e, the mute e should be dropped before a vowel but not before a consonant”.  The condition for (2) an exception was “the mute e should be kept even before a vowel if it is needed to indicate the soft sound of a preceding g or c or to distinguish a word from another with the same spelling”.  Probe is such an exception because if one has a probe, it’s helpful to know if something (or someone according to those who have been abducted by aliens) is probeable and that adjective can’t be spelled “probable” because that has another meaning.

The Mazda MX-6-based Ford Probe (1988-1997, left) and the car it was once mooted to replace, the long-serving “Fox” Mustang (1978-1993).

A competent, inoffensive coupé, the Ford Probe would probably have existed for a decade as a moderate success and then, having been discontinued without a direct replacement, been soon forgotten, had it not been for the furore which ensued when the idea surfaced it might be the company’s replacement for the Mustang.  In 1987, by means of a “controlled leak” the pro-Mustang faction (the beer drinkers) within the corporation let it be known Ford was planning to replace the Mustang with a modified version of a Mazda (championed by the chardonnay faction).  The reaction was vociferous & voluminous, Ford’s mailbox (and in 1987 mail came in envelopes with stamps attached) soon overflowing with complaints, the idea of a front-wheel-drive (FWD) Mustang anathematic, the absence of a V8 apparently beyond comprehension (although the Mustang II had suffered that fate in 1973-1975).  They also put their money where their poison pens were because the previously moribund sales of Mustangs suddenly spiked, the thought that this might be the last chance to buy a “proper” rear-wheel-drive (RWD), V8 powered Mustang enough to push the thing back up the sales chart.  The flow of letters and cash proved enough to persuade Ford and the platform was reprieved, the Mustang surviving to this day as a unique and highly profitable niche.  The Mazda co-project however was well advanced so the decision was taken to proceed and offer both and, badged as the Ford Probe, the modified Mazda lasted a decade-odd and it’s doubtful it cannibalized much of the Mustang’s market, its competition the other mid-sized, FWD Japanese coupés which had become popular.  A typical Japanese product, well engineered with a high build-quality, the Probe was a success (though it never realised Ford’s hopes in overseas markets) and when production ended, the only reason it wasn’t replaced was because the demographic buying the things had shifted to other segments, notably the sports utility vehicles (SUV) which would soon dominate.

1969 M-505 Adams Brothers Probe 16 (Durango 95)

The still controversial film A Clockwork Orange (1971) was based on the dystopian 1962 novel of the same name by Anthony Burgess (1917–1993).  At the time shocking in its depiction of violence, it's set some time in the future and as part of the verisimilitude the car used in the "driving scene" was a M-505 Adams Brothers Probe 16, one of three built.  Only 34 inches (864 mm) high (the prototype was 5 inches (125 mm) lower!), it emerged from the studios of the designers of the quirky Marcos sports cars which were idiosyncratic even by the standards of the cottage industry of low-volume sports cars which flourished in the UK until the early 1970s.  Although utterly impractical (passengers entered and exited through a sliding glass roof) it certainly looked futuristic but performance was disappointing because of the limited power. To create the mid-engined Probe, the designers used the engine and gearbox from the modest Austin 1800, moving the FWD package amidships, an approach later adopted by a number of manufacturers.  Had it been built using the mechanicals from the contemporary Cadillac Eldorado (which improbably had a 472 cubic inch (7.7 litre) V8 driving the front wheels through a chain-drive transaxle), assuming such a thing could be made to fit, it would have offered performance to match the promise of the looks.  In the film, the Probe was given the name “Durango 95” a name which seems to have chosen for no particular reason although the “95” may have been an allusion to 1995, decades away when the book was written.  Although A Clockwork Orange is perhaps not something with which manufacturers would like their products to be associated, many have since used the Durango name for a variety of purposes.

Newspaper headline writers like the word “probe”.  Within the industry, short, punchy words like “probe”, “jab”, “fix”, “bid” etc are part of a subset of English called “headline language”.

Driving scene in A Clockwork Orange (1971): 1969 M-505 Adams Brothers Probe 16 (Durango 95).