Suffrage

Suffrage (pronounced suhf-rij)

(1) The right to vote, especially in a publicly contested, democratic elections; the franchise.

(2) The exercise of such a right; casting a vote.

(3) In ecclesiastical use, a prayer, especially a short intercessory prayer (especially those offered for the faithful dead) or a short petition (such as those after the creed in matins and evensong.

(4) Aid, intercession (now rare).

(5) Testimony; attestation; witness; approval (now rare).

(6) The collective opinion of a body of persons (archaic and probably extinct).

1350–1400: From the Middle English suffrage (intercessory prayers or pleas on behalf of another), from the thirteenth century Old French sofrage (plea, intercession), from the from Medieval Latin, from the Latin suffragium (voting tablet, a vote cast in an assembly (for a law or candidate), an act of voting or the exercise of the right to vote, the decision reached by a vote, an expression of approval, influence or promotion on behalf of a candidate), the construct being suffrag(ari) (genitive suffrāgiī or suffrāgī) (to express public support, vote or canvass for, support) + -ium (the noun suffix).  The –ium suffix (used most often to form adjectives) was applied as (1) a nominal suffix (2) a substantivisation of its neuter forms and (3) as an adjectival suffix.  It was associated with the formation of abstract nouns, sometimes denoting offices and groups, a linguistic practice which has long fallen from fashion.  In the New Latin, as the neuter singular morphological suffix, it was the standard suffix to append when forming names for chemical elements.  The derived forms included nonsuffrage, presuffrage, prosuffrage & antisuffrage (the latter a once well-populated field).  Suffrage, suffragist, suffragette, suffragettism & suffragent are nouns and suffraged is an adjective; the noun plural is suffrages.

The sense in English of “vote” or “right to vote” was derived directly from the Classical Latin and it came by the late nineteenth century to be used with modifiers, chosen depending on the campaign being advocated (manhood suffrage, universal suffrage, women's suffrage, negro suffrage etc and the forms were sometimes combined (universal manhood suffrage).  Because the case for women became the most prominent of the political movements, “suffrage” became the verbal shorthand (ie technically a clipping of woman suffrage).The meaning “a vote for or against anything” was in use by the 1530s and by the turn of the century this had assume the specific sense “a vote or voice in deciding a question or in a contest for office”.  By the 1660s, widely it was held to mean “act of voting in a representative government” and this is the origin of the modern idea of the franchise: “the political right to vote as a member of a body” codified in 1787 in the US US Constitution (in reference to the states).

Exercising her suffrage: Wearing “I voted” sticker, Lindsay Lohan leaves polling station after casting her vote in the 2008 US presidential election, West Hollywood, 4 November 2008.  In California, the Democratic ticket (Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) & Joe Biden (b 1942; US president 2021-2025) took gained all 55 electors in the Electoral College with 8,274,473 votes (61.01%) against the 5,011,781 (36.95%) gained by the Republican ticket (John McCain (1936–2018) & Sarah Palin (b 1964).

In zoology the suffrago (as a learned borrowing from Latin suffrāgō (the pastern, or hock)) describes the joint between the tibia and tarsus, such as the hock of a horse's hind leg or the heel of a bird.  Always rare (and now probably extinct), the companion term in clinical use was suffraginous, from the Latin suffraginosus (diseased in the hock), from suffrāgō, used in the sense of “of or relating to the hock of an animal”.  So, there’s an etymological relationship between English noun “suffrage” (in zoology, the joint between the tibia and tarsus) and “suffrage” (an individual's right to vote) and while there are many strange linkages in the language, that one seems weirder than most.  The anatomical term describes what is essentially the hock in quadrupeds (although it was used also of birds) and that was from the Classical Latin, suffrāgō (ankle-bone, hock or the part of the leg just above the heel) and traditionally, etymologists analyzed this as related to sub- (under) + a base meaning “break, fracture” or “support” although there were scholars who connected it with frag- (to break) from frangere (to break).  The functionalists weren’t impressed by that, suggesting it was a transferred anatomical term.

The Suffragist, 7 July, 2017.

Printed originally in 1913 as a single-sheet pamphlet, in November that year The Suffragist was first issued as weekly, eight-page tabloid newspaper, noted for its cover art which was a kind of proto-agitprop.  A classic single-issue political movement, the pamphlets had been produced by the CU (Congressional Union), an affiliate of the NAWSA (National American Woman Suffrage Association) but The Suffragist was an imprint of the CUWS (Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage), created (with a unique legal personage to avoid corporate liability) as a publicity and activist organ; in 1917 it became the NWP (National Woman's Party).  After its aims were in 1918 realised, The Suffragist ceased publication and the activists shifted their attention to the promotion of the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment), some which, more than a century on, has still not been ratified and has thus never been interpolated into the constitution.

Suffrage came ultimately from the suffrāgium (which had a number of senses relating to “voting”) writers from Antiquity documented their takes on the etymology.  In De lingua latina libri XXV (On the Latin Language in 25 Books), the Roman scholar Varro (Marcus Terentius Varro, 116–27 BC) held it arose metaphorically from suffrāgō (ankle-bone), the rationale being that votes originally were cast pebbles, sherds (now more commonly called “shards”) or other small tokens, possibly with astragali (knuckle or ankle-bones typically from sheep or goats) used like dice or counters.  Animal bones widely were used for many purposes, Pliny the Elder (24-79) in his encyclopaedic Naturalis historia (Natural History (37 thematic books in ten conceptual volumes)) noted people re-purposing astragali for tasks as diverse as teaching arithmetic, gambling, divination, or decision-making.  The Roman statesman Cicero (106-43 BC) seems not directly to have commented on the etymology, in his De Legibus (On the Laws) using suffrāgium in the common sense of “voting” & “vote” applied it also as a rhetorical device to suggest “support” so while not supporting the link with bones, nor does he contradict the popular notion that as an ankle-bone supports the human structure, votes support a candidate.

The Suffragist, 15 September, 1917.

The medieval grammarians also took an interest, Isidore of Seville (circa 560-636) covering all bases by noting (1) suffrāgium’s link with fragor (breaking) implied the idea of “breaking one’s voice” in approval (voting then often done in town squares “by the voice” and (2) the role of the ankle-bone in supporting the as a vote cast supports a proposition or candidate in an election.  Because only fragments of texts from thousands of years ago remain extant, it’s impossible to be emphatic about how such things happened but the consensus among modern etymologists appears to favour the purely metaphorical “support” rather than any use of bones as electoral tokens or calculation devices.  Better documented is the migration of suffrāgium to ecclesiastical use, entering Church Latin to use used to mean “prayers of intercession”; it was from here the English suffrage first entered the language.  As the Roman world Christianized, many words were re-purposed in a religious context and suffrāgium was picked up in the sense of “spiritual support”, manifested in prayers of intercession which originally were those offered for the “faithful dead”: in Confessiones (Confessions, 397-400), Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430) wrote of suffragia sanctorum (the suffrages of the saints) by which he meant their intercessory prayers but, as was not uncommon, although the “masses for the dead” remained the standard, there was some theological mission creep and the prayers could assume a wider vista, extending also to the living.

Heartfelt advice in 1918 from a “suffragette wife” to young ladies contemplating marriage.

The Old French sofrage came directly from Church Latin, entering Middle English in the fourteenth century with suffrages being prayers of intercessions, often described as “petitions” to God or (in the case of specific topics) to the relevant saint or saints and “suffrage” seems to have entered the vernacular, Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1344-1400) using the word merely as a synonym for “prayers” of whatever type.  Having thus arrived in the Church, the use was extended to the ecclesiastical structure, the first suffragan bishops appointed in the late 1500s, their role being a “bishop who assists another bishop” and the role seems to have been envisaged as something of a clerical plateau, intended as an appointment for one either “unsuitable” for an ordinary jurisdiction or with no desire to ascend the hierarchy.  The use came directly from the thirteenth century Old French suffragan, from the Medieval Latin suffraganeus (an assistant) which was a noun use of the adjective, (assisting, supporting) from the Latin suffragium (support).  The title endures to this day although between denominations there can be variations in the role (ie job description) including some being appointed as assistants to bishops while others directly administer geographical regions within a supervising bishop’s diocese.  That means the title alone does not describe the nature of the office and although a priest may be styled Diocesan bishop, Titular bishop, Coadjutor bishop, Auxiliary bishop or Suffragan Bishop, not all of the same type necessarily fulfil the same duties and there may be overlap.  While engaged in wartime cryptographic work for the UK government, the troubled mathematician Dr Alan Turing (1912-1954) became well-acquainted with the organizational structure of the British Army and was struck by the similarities between that institution and the Church of England as described in Anthony Trollope’s (1815-1882) The Chronicles of Barsetshire (published in a series of six novels between 1855-1867).  Ever the mathematician, Dr Turing devised a table, having concluded a lieutenant-colonel was a dean while a major-general was a bishop.  A brigadier was a suffragan bishop, the rational for that being they were the “cheapest kind of bishop”.

The Suffragist, 3 October, 1917.

It was the “re-discovery” of the Classical world (ironically often through the archives or writings of Islamic scholars) during the Renaissance and Reformation that Western scholars and translators re-visited the Latin sources, reviving the political sense of suffrāgium into English, restoring “vote” and “right to vote” alongside what had become the standard (religious) sense.  Even then, although there was in most places rarely a wide franchise, voting did happen (among a chosen few) and by the seventeenth century “suffrage” (a vote in an election) was part of common English use and in the 1700s & 1800s, as various forces began to coalesce into democratic movements, it assumed the meaning “a right to vote” which evolved gradually (via manhood suffrage, woman suffrage, negro suffrage etc) into the now familiar “universal adult suffrage”. In English, suffrage has thus enjoyed a palimpsestic past, its ancestral roots anatomical, adapted in antiquity for matters electoral, taken up in Christendom as a form of prayer before returning again with a use in democratic politics.

The most famous derived from was of course the noun suffragette which seems first to have been appeared in print in the UK in 1906, used as a term of derision (by a man).  It was an opportunist coining which can be deconstructed as a (etymologically incorrect) feminine form of the noun suffragist (an advocate of the grant or extension of political suffrage) but it owed its existence to the women who in the UK began to take militant action.  Whereas a suffragist might have been someone (male or female) who wrote learned letters on the subject to the editor of The Times, the suffragette chained herself to the railings outside Parliament House and engaged in other forms of civil disobedience with at least one fatality recorded.

The end of civilization as men knew it: Postcard marking the granting of voting rights to women by the colonial government in New Zealand (1893), printed & published in England by the Artist's Suffrage League, Chelsea, London.

Only four countries: New Zealand, Australia, Finland & Norway (and 11 US states) extended the franchise to women prior to World War I.  France (birthplace of “Liberté, égalité, fraternité”) denied women the vote until after World War II (1939-1945), Charles de Gaulle's (1890-1970; President of France 1959-1969) provisional government in Algiers granting “full suffrage” on 21 April 1944 with the first exercise of the right in the municipal elections of 29 April, 1945.  Swiss women gained the right to vote (at the federal level) in 1971, following a national referendum in which a majority approved the idea.  At the cantonal (regional) level, some cantons had earlier granted women voting rights, Vaud the first in 1959.  The last was Appenzell Innerrhoden which did so only to comply with a ruling by the Swiss Federal Supreme Court.

As the campaign stepped up, techniques were borrowed from anarchists and revolutionaries including fire-bombings of institutions of “the establishment”; if imprisoned, the suffragettes would stage hunger strikes compelling the home secretary to order either their release or force-feeding (a practice previously most associated with lunatic asylums).  Although the suffragettes generated international publicity and encouraged similar movements in other places, despite New Zealand having in 1893 having granted the vote to women on the same basis as men without the country having descended into some kind of feminized Hell, little progress was made and it was only the social and economic disruptions brought about by World War I which induced change, women over 30 able to vote in elections and be elected to parliament in 1918.  In 1928, this was extended to all women over 21, thus aligning their franchise with that which men had since 1918 enjoyed.  The 1928 settlement remains the classic definition of “universal suffrage” in the sense of “all adults” and all that has changed is the threshold age has been lowered to 18 although the UK government has suggested it will seek further to lower this to 16.  If that’s enacted, it’ll still be less permissive that what the ayatollahs (not usually thought paragons of liberalism) in Iran permitted during the 1980s when 15 year olds got the vote.

"Love, honor and obey" was a bride's traditional wedding vow but in the nuclear weapons treaty business between the US & USSR the principle was: "trust but verify".  

As the meme-makers knew, even after women voting became a thing, some husbands knew they still had to check to make sure their wives got it right:  Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) verifying the vote of Melania Trump (b 1970, US First Lady 2017-2021 and since 2025) while exercising her “secret ballot” in the 2016 US presidential election, Polling Station 59 (a school), Manhattan, New York, 8 November 2016.

The –ette suffix was from the Middle English -ette, a borrowing from the Old French -ette, from the Latin -itta, the feminine form of -ittus.  It was used to form nouns meaning a smaller form of something and the use in English to create informal feminine forms has long upset some, including Henry Fowler (1858–1933) who in his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) condemned the formation of “suffragette”: “A more regrettable formation than others such as leaderette & flannelette, in that it does not even mean a sort of suffrage as they mean a sort of leader & of flannel, & therefore tends to vitiate the popular conception of the termination's meaning. The word itself may now be expected to die, having lost its importance; may its influence on word-making die with it!”  Whether one might read into that that damnation that Henry Fowler regretted women getting the vote can be pondered but to be fair, the old linguistic curmudgeon may have been a proto-feminist who approved.  There were anyway some reactionaries who became converted to the cause.  After a satisfactory election result, Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) was reminded by his wife Clementine Churchill (1885–1977) that he’d received more votes from women than from men, having apparently been forgiven for having once been in the vanguard of the opposition to woman suffrage.  “Quite right”, cheerfully he agreed; a practical democrat, he by then welcomed votes regardless of their origin.

Woman Suffrage Headquarters, Euclid Avenue, Cleveland Ohio, 1912.

The word “suffrage” came by the late 1860s to be attached to activists advocating extending the franchise to women, “woman suffragist” & “female suffragist” both used in US publications and the divergence in the movement was reflected in the UK by the adoption of terms “manhood suffragist” (by at least 1866) and “woman suffragist” (by 1871) although the first reference of the latter was to actions in the US, the existence of the breed in England not acknowledged for a further three years.  Historically, both “woman suffrage” & “women's suffrage” were used but the former overwhelmingly was the standard phrasing late in the 1800s and into the next century when the matter became a great political issue.  To modern eyes “woman suffrage” looks awkwardly wrong but is grammatically correct, “woman” used as a noun adjunct (ie a noun modifying a following noun).  Singular noun adjuncts are common such as “student union” even though the in institution has a membership of many students.  In English, a singular noun can function attributively (like an adjective) to describe a category or class (manpower, horse racing etc).  The possessive (women’s suffrage) emphasizes ownership: the notion of suffrage (in the linguistic sense) “belonging” to women and in modern use that that appears to be the common form and “woman suffrage” was a formal, abstract construction from more exacting times, reflected in uses like “manhood suffrage”, “child labor”, “slave trade” etc.  In structural linguistics, the shift to a preference for possessive forms (workers’ unions, children’s rights, women’s movement etc) is thought a marker of the increasingly fashionable concepts of agency and belonging.

“Kaiser Wilson” protest sign criticizing Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924; US president 1913-1921) for not keeping his 1916 election “promise” to fight for woman suffrage: “Have you forgotten your sympathy with the poor Germans because they were not self-governed?  20,000,000 American women are not self-governed.  Take the beam out of your own eye.”  The quote: “Take the beam out of your own eye” comes from Biblical scripture:

Matthew 7:3-5 (King James Version, (KJV, 1611))

3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

What’s discussed in Matthew 7:3-5 is hypocrisy, the metaphor being a speck of dust in one’s brother's eye and a plank in one's own and the teaching is one should first rectify their own significant flaws (the “plank”) before criticizing the minor flaws of others (the “speck”).  What reading the passage should do is encourage humility and self-reflection, persuading individuals to acknowledge their own shortcomings before judging others.  The passage was part of the Sermon on the Mount, regarded by Christians as a central element in Christ’s moral teachings and Woodrow Wilson, the son of a preacher and himself a noted (if selective) moralist would have well acquainted with the text.

Watched by an approving comrade Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986; Soviet foreign minister 1939-1949 & 1953-1956), comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) casts his vote in the 1937 election for the Supreme Soviet.  To the left, Comrade Marshal Kliment Voroshilov (1881–1969) watches Comrade Nikolai Yezhov (1895–1940, head of the NKVD 1936-1938).

Those voting in 1937 may have had high hopes for the future because, read literally, the 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union (adopted 5 December 1936) described a democratic utopia.  Unfortunately, within months, comrade Stalin embarked on his Great Purge and turned his country into a kind of combination of prison camp and abattoir, many of those involved in drafting the constitution either sent to the Gulag or shot.  In 1937 the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) was declared to have won 99% of the vote so it was not an exceptional result but the photograph is unusual in that it’s one of the few in which the usually dour comrade Molotov is smiling.  It was comrade Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924; head of government of Russia or Soviet Union 1917-1924) who dubbed Molotov “stone ass” because of his famous capacity (rare among the Bolsheviks) to sit for hours at his desk and process the flow of paperwork the CPSU’s bureaucracy generated.  Precise in every way, Molotov would correct those who suggested Lenin’s moniker had been “iron ass” but, disapproving of “shameful bureaucratism”, he may have used several variants in the same vein and in another nod to Molotov’s centrality in the administrative machinery of government, he was known also as “comrade paper-clip”.

On paper, between 1936-1991, the Supreme Soviet was the highest institution of state authority in the Soviet Union (1922-1991) but was in reality a “rubber stamp parliament” which existed only to ratify, adding a veneer of legality to laws sent down by the executive, controlled exclusively by the CPSU although it was valued for photo-opportunities, enthralled delegates always seen attentively listening to comrade Stalin’s speeches.  On election night comrade Stalin was quoted in the Soviet press as saying: “Never in the history of the world have there been such really free and really democratic elections -- never!  History knows no other example like it...our universal elections will be carried out as the freest elections and the most democratic compared with elections in any other country in the world.  Universal elections exist and are also held in some capitalist countries, so-called democratic countries.  But in what atmosphere are elections held there?… In an atmosphere of class conflicts, in an atmosphere of class enmity.”  The statement often attributed to comrade Stalin: “It's not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes” probably was apocryphal but indicative of how he did things and his psephological model has been an inspiration to figures such as Saddam Hussein (1937–2006; president of Iraq 1979-2003) and Kim Jong-Un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011).

Knob

Knob (pronounced nob)

(1) A projecting part, usually rounded, forming the handle of a door, drawer window-frame or the like.

(2) A (usually) ball-shaped part of a handle, lever etc, designed to be grasped by the hand.

(3) In machinery, an almost always rounded control switch that can be rotated on it axis (ie to turn on/off, raise/lower volume etc), designed to be operated by the fingers and visually also emulated in software on screens.

(4) A rounded lump or protuberance on the surface or at the end of something, as a knot on a tree trunk or a fleshy lump or caruncle.

(5) A rounded ornament on the hilt of an edged weapon (the pommel).

(6) In architecture, furniture design etc, an ornamental boss, as of carved work.

(7) In geography, a rounded hill, mountain, a knoll, an elevation on a ridge or morainic ridge.

(8) In botany, a bulb of the garlic plant consisting of multiple cloves in a chunky branch,

(9) In certain military and other institutions, a new recruit.

(10) In hunting & animal husbandry (as knobber), a hart in its second year; a young male deer.

(11) In cooking, a dollop, an amount just larger than a spoonful (used usually in reference to butter and in professional catering there are “butter curlers” which produce an attractive ribbed-curl of butter to be served with the bread-rolls, each curl said to be the equivalent of a “half dollop”.

(12) In slang, the head, thus a person with red hair being a “gainer knob”.

(13) In vulgar slang the head (glans (spongiosum)) of the penis but sometimes used of the whole organ, thus the slang “knobhead” (an unintelligent or contemptible person) and a “literal” synonym of “dickhead”), sometimes used in the forms “knobber” & “knobber”.

(14) In vulgar slang (by extension), to have sexual intercourse with (someone).

(15) In vulgar slang (usually in the plural), a woman's breasts (sometimes with a modifier thought appropriate to the anatomy specifically being referenced).

(16) In vulgar slang, the clitoris.

(17) To produce a knob on (an object).

(18) To furnish with a knob, typically for a functional purpose (adding one to a door, window frame etc) but also as an ornament.

(19) To turn an object into a knob (rare).

(20) In stone cutting, to knock off (excess stone) preparatory to dressing; to knobble; to skiffle.

1350–1400: From the Middle English knobe & knobbe, thought almost certainly from a Scandinavian or German source and probably at least influenced by the Middle Low German knubbe & knobbe (knob; knot in wood; bud), the Middle Dutch knobbe & cnoppe, the Dutch knop (knob, button, bud), the Old Frisian knopp & knapp, the Old High German knopf (bud, pommel of a sword, knot, loop), the Middle High German knospe, the German Knopf (button, knob) & Knospe (bud), the Danish knap (button) & knop (knob, button, bud) and the Old Norse knyfill (short horn).  Most etymologists seem most convinced by it being a variant of the Proto-Germanic knappô (knob, lump) & knuppô (lump, clod), both among the “kn-” words related to knudaną (to knead).  Probably related were the Middle English knap & knappe (small projection, knob (in the sense of “button, tassel, tuft etc”), hill, hilltop etc)), from the Old English cnæp & cnæpp (summit, top), which may in some way be linked with the Old Norse knappr (small projection, knob (in the sense of “button, head of a stick etc”)) (and from which English gained knop), the source again the Proto-Germanic knappô.  The meaning “knoll, isolated round hill” seems first to have appeared in the 1640s and, perhaps surprisingly, no instance of “doorknob” has been found prior to 1829 although the word may have been long in oral use (drawer-knob, window-knob etc all followed).  Knob is a noun & verb, knobless is a noun, knobbed & knobbing are verbs, knoblike & knobby are adjectives; the noun plural is knobs.

Yorkeys Knob, Cairns, Queensland, Australia.

In idiomatic use, the phrase “same to you with knobs (sometimes “brass knobs”) means “the same to you but even more so” (used typically in response to an insult or slight).  A “knob-twiddler” can be an informal term for a technician or console operator whose job entails adjusting electronic devices via knobs but it can also describe anyone whose role seems either unimportant or not particularly demanding.  As machinery and later electronics became an increasingly ubiquitous part of life, so did knobs and as early as the late nineteenth century the humorous “knobologist” had been coined to describe both those designing the system and the “knob-twiddlers” using them; the discipline of design was of course dubbed “knobology” and that remains a core component of ergonomics, exploring imperatives such as placement, size, tactility and labelling, all of which influence the functionality of controls on an instrument as relevant to their application.  The knobologists deeply were implicated in convenient physical switches, knobs and buttons disappearing from cars and re-imagined virtualizations on inconvenient touch-screens.  Such has been the reaction (including the realization the change made driving more accident prone) that the tactile controls are making a welcome comeback.  The now archaic “knob-thatcher” was an affectionate term for a maker of wigs while the more modern “surfer's knob” was slang from the sport, describing a hard bump or nodule on a surfer's knee, shin or ankle, resulting from recurrent contact with their surfboard.  In engineering and metallurgy, “to knobble” was (1) to render a surface with a knobbly finish and (2) to produce wrought iron by treating semi-refined puddled iron on a hearth before shingling, a specialized device in the business being the ominous sounding “knobbling furnace”.

Gay men supporting lesbians at the first “Dyke March”, Washington DC, April 1993.  The sign held by the protester at the far left uses the compound word for which the euphemisms “knob polisher” & “knob-gobbler” were coined.

Because knob was popular slang for penis, a number of derived terms predictably emerged.  A “knob polisher” or “knob-gobbler” was “one who gives fellatio”.  “Knob rot” was a reference to certain sexually transmitted diseases contracted by men, the acute condition “galloping knob rot” describing a rapidly progressing or uncontrollable variant of the condition.  A “knob job” was the act of fellatio.  “Knob cheese” (the terms “cock cheese”, “dick cheese” and (in context) even “cheese”) was vulgar slang for smegma (a whitish sebaceous secretion that collects between the glans penis and foreskin or in the vulva).  “Knob jockey” must however be used with care because it has variously been applied to (1) gay men, (2) promiscuous straight women and (3) promiscuous straight men; context thus matters.

Interior of Porsche 917K with cool (in both senses of the word) balsa-wood shift knob.  The obviously "fake" passenger bucket seat was installed to comply with the rules in sports car racing.

To this day, the myth persists the balsa-wood gear-shift knob used in the Porsche 917 was there as a “weight-saving measure”.  While it’s true the small knob was light, the difference between it and the aluminum or magnesium units the company had fitted to earlier race cars would have been so insignificant it’s doubtful it would have equalled a gulp of coffee the driver may or may not have enjoyed.  The stylish timber piece was however not a decorative flourish but a legitimate engineering solution to ameliorate one manifestation of “chronic heat soak”.  In 1969, the 917 was a radical advance which, Dreadnought-like, rendered all other cars in its class instantly obsolescent but the flat-12 engine (Porsche’s first in the configuration) radiated so much heat it was difficult to manage.  In a tradition it would not for decades abandon, Porsche continued to use air-cooling for the engine (which really means “oil cooled” about as much) and it ran hot; between that heat source and the gear level was a unbroken metal path, each component a most efficient conductor.  During endurance racing (some events conducted over 24 hours), cockpit temperatures could reach what doctors would rate as “extreme”.  The metal lever was just one of the sources of this heat and the knob (which sat next to the driver’s knee) needed to be grasped by the driver, often many times a minute; were it to become so hot it caused pain, it would have been safety issue.  Although in 1969 the space-age was at its zenith, the materials which could have made a driver’s gloves close to heat-proof were not then commercially available so they gained much of their protective quality from thickness but the problem was they could be only so thick because a driver needed still to handle a highly-geared steering wheel and operate the many knobs and switches within arm’s reach.  Balsa-wood, with its very low thermal conductivity was ideal because while not exactly cool to the touch after a few hours on the track, it never got so hot it felt unpleasant.  It also had adequate strength for its task; a gear-lever knob does not bear structural loads and, being Porsche, it received the same careful attention as every other component, each one precisely machined to exact dimensions before receiving two coats of clear lacquer.  Most variants of the 917 used the Balsa-wood part although when (as the “Turbo-panzers”) the most powerful of the breed appeared in the Can-Am (for Group 7, unlimited displacement sports cars) a metal knob was fitted, made possible because Group 7 was for open cars and significantly that reduced cabin temperatures.  By the late 1970s when the space age had made available materials (phenolic plastics, composites etc) with superior insulation qualities, the need to resort to a balsa-wood knob vanished but the visual appeal remained and in the aftermarket, 917-style knobs remain widely available.

1959 Ford Fairlane Galaxie 500 Sunliner with suicide knob (on steering wheel at 10 o'clock).

“Suicide knob” was the most popular name for the device attached to a vehicle’s steering wheel which facilitated easier “single arm steering”.  The idea dated from the days before the almost universal fitting of power-steering and the things became popular in the US in the US in the 1950s and 1960s as even low-priced cars became heavier; for some drivers, they were invaluable when manoeuvring at low speed, especially when reversing.  They were known also as the “necker knob”, “wheel spinner” and “granny knob” but the most correct term was “Brodie Knob”, the name in honor of Steve Brodie (1861–1901), an apparently rather raffish gentleman from New York City who, as a last resort in 1886 after losing everything gambling, staged a stunt in which he jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge (site of a good many suicides), the lure a sum of money he was bet although the details of that are murky.  Mr Brodie anyway survived to collect on the wager and, on the basis of the notoriety gained, began performing other dare-devil acts for even more money.  So the jump from the Brooklyn Bridge was a good career move although the consensus now is it was a cunning stunt (ie a scam), a weighted dummy the real diver with Mr Brodie entering the water from the safety of the shoreline.  In fairness, at least some of his subsequent dangerous stunts were verified by observation and he parlayed his fame into a successful career in business, becoming a noted philanthropist and dying a rich man.

The invention of the suicide knob generally is credited to Joel Thorp of Wisconsin but similar devices had for centuries been in use on land and water.  What Mr Thorpe described in the supporting documents for what was issued as US Patent 2,101,519 STEERING WHEEL SPINNER KNOB (Dec 7, 1937) was an “improvement” of the concept:

“The present invention relates generally to improvements in appliances for facilitating manipulation of the steering wheels of vehicles, and relates more specifically to improvements in the construction and operation of spinner knob attachments co-operable with the peripheral rims of steering wheels or the like in order to effect more convenient and rapid operation of such wheels under certain conditions of use.  Generally defined, an object of my present invention is to provide an improved steering wheel spinner knob which is simple in construction and highly efficient in use.”

A young lady wrapping practiced fingers around the timber shift knob in 1970 Maserati Indy (Tipo 116, 1969-1975).  In the era, it was fashionable in Italian exotica for the knob and steering wheel rim to match (ie in leather or wood).

Although widely used on tractors, heavy transport vehicles and such, it was in the 1950s as cars in the US became heavier the suicide knobs gained popularity and some of that was due to reasons Mr Thorp probably never envisaged.  One receptive market was males aged 17-25 (a crew infamous for many reasons) who found the combination of suicide knob and bench seat made an idea ecosystem, enabling one hand to be used steer the vehicle while the "free" arm could wrap around the girlfriend (or alternative) who affectionately was resting her head on the driver’s shoulder.  In this arrangement, a driver’s attention more easily could be divided between her and the road.  It was also males aged 17-25 who were the core of the hot-rod community which began as a West Coast phenomenon (induced by a critical mass of the right demographic, available disposable income and a good supply of cheap, used cars which easily could be modified as desired) and they found suicide knobs the best way to “do a half donut” (a spin of one’s hot rod through 180^o), the trick being to grip the knob and then suddenly turn the wheel while applying full throttle, resulting in a loud, spectacular maneuver, made the more pleasing for the driver by him having “left his mark” in strips of runner on the road.  This, the hot rodders called “spinning a brodie”, a variant on the earlier “doing a Brodie” (a dangerous or otherwise inadvisable act) which entered the language after the nation-wide publicity which followed Mr Brodie’s alleged leap from the Brooklyn Bridge.  In the era, a Brodie Knob was as essential a piece of equipment as one’s packet of unfiltered Camel cigarettes or pair of fluffy dice hanging from the rear-view mirror.

1962 Maserati 3500 GTi.  Some Maserati 3500 GTs (Tipo 101, 1957-1964) had the unusual feature of having front and rear quarter-vents fitted to the same door; they were opened and closed using knurled, stainless steel knobs.

The dark appellation “suicide knob” was bestowed because (1) the devices came to be associated with accident-prone drivers (the “males aged 17-25” cohort prominent in the statistics) who probably did use the things to engage in “risk-taking” and (2) by virtue of their location (by default affixed to the upper quadrant) on the wheel, they were a genuine danger in accidents and, in an era of non-collapsible steering columns, tales of them penetrating the eye socket, causing irreparable loss of vision and traumatic brain injury, were legion.  The crusading US lawyer Ralph Nadar (b 1934) is criticized for much but the contribution his book Unsafe at Any Speed (1965) made to reducing the death toll on the roads cannot be under-estimated and the effect was world-wide because the rest the industry eventually followed the lead of the US legislation which came in the book’s wake.  In the US and elsewhere, change was of course resisted but it came and while it’s not possible to estimate how many deaths and often gruesome injuries the reforms prevented, no one denies it’s a big number.  The suicide knob was one minor casualty of the movement and in road-registered vehicles, in most jurisdictions (although some US states remain permissive), such devices are permitted only for specialized (often low-speed) vehicles and if used by drivers with some disability which precludes the use of conventional controls.

A Hurst Jaws of Life used between 1977-2012 by the fire department in Carlsbad, New Mexico, now on display at the National Museum of American History.

Another to make a life-saving contribution to reducing the road told was George Hurst (1927-1986; founder of his eponymous company) whose great legacy to humanity was the “Jaws of Life”, a hydraulic cutter he first developed in 1961 after being shocked at how long it sometimes took to extract the driver from the crumpled wreck of a race car.  The great advantage of the “Jaws of Life” was that it worked like a very powerful pair of scissors, avoiding the showers of sparks produced by mechanical saws, always a risk to use in areas where fuel is likely to have been spilled.  The basic design came to be used in hydraulic rescue devices worldwide and quite how many lives have been saved by virtue of its use isn’t known but again, it would be a big number.

Two decades of progress: Shifter for the two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission in 1953 Chevrolet Corvette (left) and a classic spherical shift knob in 1972 Chevrolet Corvette LT1.  The delicate-looking shifter in the 1953 Corvette seems modest but the location was a world-first for an automatic and was efficient because the location (between the driver’s seat and transmission tunnel) provided the shortest possible path to the linkage.  As late as 1964, Chrysler used a similar apparatus in the 1964 300K.

However, before the Jaws of Life, Hurst was already famous in the vibrant sub-culture which was at the times also known for its propensity to purchase and install suicide knobs.  Hurst produced “shifters” which were the assemblies connected to a transmission, used by the driver to “change gears” and they proved instantly popular which may seem strange given every manufacturer at the time included a shifter with every vehicle.  However, beginning in the late 1930s, the US manufacturers had begun moving from centrally located, floor-mounted levers to units on the steering column because it made for better packaging efficiency in the cabins, then optimized for bench-seats with three-astride seating.  That move achieved the goal but with the linkage between lever and gear-changing mechanism now longer and making more turns, some precision in the shifting was lost and column shifting (the once almost universal “three on the tree”) was less conducive to an enthusiastic driving style (such as that of the “suicide knob equipped” crowd).  It was in the 1950s the taste for floor-shifts like those in European sports cars began to gain critical mass and even though the 1953 Chevrolet Corvette was hardly a sports car in the tradition of MGs, Fiats and such, it’s notable Chevrolet from the start installed a floor shift for the (two-speed!) Powerglide automatic transmission; it may not have been a sports car with a “four-on-the-floor” but it had a floor-shift so there was that.  Automatic transmissions in mass-produced cars was then something of a novelty barely a decade old and the Corvette’s floor shift was apparently a world-first.

A butter curler producing curls.  Generally, the curlers come in large and small, respectively producing a curl notionally equivalent to a dollop or a knob (half-dollop).  In the kitchen however, knobs and dollops are what the chef decides they are.

Four-speed manual transmissions began to appear in Detroit-made cars in the late 1950s and within half a decade George Hurst’s shifters were close to obligatory for any racer (authorized or not) seeking “street cred” and it wasn’t a confected image, the Hurst shifters demonstratively superior without being excessively expensive.  So stellar did their reputation become even GM (General Motors) relaxed their long-standing ban on other brand-names being associated with their products and made a feature of one being standard equipment of the 1964 Pontiac GTO, the car credited with being “the first muscle car” and such was the success in 1965 the shifter’s handle was even permitted to be embossed: HURST.  Soon, other manufacturers actively were seeking co-productions.  George Hurst’s path to market domination was shockingly simple and might have come from a textbook: (1) a perfected design, (2) skilful engineering in development, (3) high quality in production and (4) an attractive price, a combination of elements with great appeal for buyers and manufacturers alike.

Hurst’s dual-gate automatic transmission “His and Hers” shifter with conventional apparatus “for the automatic minded little lady” and a performance-oriented configuration offering manual control for the “man who really wanted a 4-speed standard stick but bought this extra just for her.”  Note the unfamiliar shift pattern, the now universal PRNDL not an industry standard until 1965, the year before it was demanded by regulations.  From the early days of automatic transmissions in the 1940s, reverse had been directly adjacent to Low, allowing drivers more easily to emulate what was done with manual transmissions when a “rocking” was being induced to try to free a vehicle from mud or snow.  It was a quirk of the age and, because reliability was not then what decades later came to be expected, the early transmissions included a second (rear) fluid pump to permit push/tow/hill starts.  Probably, not many much dwelt on the shape of the knob Hurst put atop the His and Hers” shifter but in geometry it would be described as an oblate spheroid with two parallel planar truncations.  Now easily modelled in software rendered with a 3D printer, perfecting a shape like this for production used to absorb much time on the drawing board and in the creation of prototypes.  A spheroid is an ellipsoid generated by rotating an ellipse about one of its principal axes which, if “stretched” along one axis becomes a prolate spheroid (ie elongated and something like a rugby ball).  If slightly flattened along the axis of rotation, it’s an oblate spheroid (like planet Earth which isn’t quite a pure sphere) but the His & Hers knob, having a slight elongation along the shifter’s axis, is closest to a prolate spheroid.  The planar-truncation (ie sliced by two parallel planes) created the (left & right) flat faces and the knob can thus be described as a “truncated ellipsoid” or “truncated prolate spheroid” but anyone wishing to out-nerd the rest would probably coin something like “biaxial ellipsoid with parallel planar truncations”.

It was early in the era of second-wave feminism (1960s-1980s) that George Hurst made his brief foray into marriage guidance counselling.  First-wave feminism (1895-1950s) is sometimes called the “de jure” or “structural” period because the focus was on legal issues such as women's suffrage, property rights and political candidacy but, in the West, an early victory was overcoming any opposition to women being granted driver’s licences.  Attitudes however evolved not wholly in parallel with legal rights and even today, among some, the view persists it’s men who are focused on performance and speed while women value vehicles using other criteria.  Impressionistically, that stereotype is not wholly without foundation but, since second wave feminism reset the rules, it’s no longer possible to run advertising perpetuating the notion.  The “His and Hers” shifter worked with a key-lock which enabled the husband to ensure only he could use the “manual override” feature and the idea in recent decades has been revived although this time the target of the lockout includes one’s (presumably male) children and any concierge or attendant who might be entrusted with parking one’s car.

Advertisement for Hurst's "custom knobs" (left) and the famous Hurst "pistol grip shifter" in 1970 Plymouth 'Cuda 440+6 (ie 3 x 2bbl carburetors) (right).

The magic of Hurst’s shifters was in the mechanism but, just as for computer users the mouse and keyboard assume great importance because it’s by touching these relatively simple pieces of hardware that use can be made of the machine’s more sophisticated internals, it was the shifter’s knob which was a driver’s most intimate connection with the transmission.  Although in the art deco era there had been some lovely detailing, it wasn’t until the 1960s most conceptually moved beyond beyond “variations on a theme of sphere” and Hurst was among the manufacturers to explore shapes and substances.  There were “T-Handles” (which, usually as "T-Bars", were for decades popular around the world for automatics) and “Horseshoes” which attracted admiring glances but didn’t catch on and any number of novelty items including billiard balls (the “8 ball” predictably a favourite of the V8 crowd) and scale models of this and that including human body parts such as the skull and mammary gland.  Knobs could be of plastic, wood or various metals and came in designer colors, velvet coatings a nice touch of the 1960s.  The most fetishized of the muscle car era however was Hurst’s “Pistol Grip Shifter” which did what it said on the tin: it gave the user the feeling of holding a handgun.  In the 1960s, gun culture in the US hadn’t yet become what it is today (as now defined, the first “mass-shooting” didn’t happen until 1966) but it was still a place with a lot of firearms.  However, despite the potential implications, when in 1970 Chrysler made one standard equipment on the 1970 Plymouth ‘Cuda, one brochure made mention of the device only with the bland: “...a convenient pistol grip”.  For a corporation which called the Cuda’s hood scoop the I.Q.E.C.A.G. (Incredible Quivering Exposed Cold Air Grabber), it seemed a missed opportunity though they didn’t have much linguistic luck with I.Q.E.C.A.G., customers and everybody else deciding it was a “shaker”.

Ginger knob Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap, approaching 23 Egerton Terrace (tagged 7 for the film), Knightsbridge, SW3, London (the front door with a knob, left) and standing next to a door with a handle (right), from a photo-shoot by Rebecca Lader.

Architecturally, the choice between specifying door levers or door knobs is often one of mere preference or aesthetic conformity but for public or commercial buildings, some regulatory authorities now mandate the use of levers because typically they are easier to use for those with disabilities (especially if hand-mobility is limited) as they demand less dexterity.  Additionally, being circular and often highly polished, knobs can be hard to use with wet hands so that’s a consideration in kitchens, bathrooms and such; nor do young children find them as convenient as a handle.  So, all that would seem to make a compelling case for the handle but for domestic use, there’s one quirky consideration some may wish to include when making the choice.  While there are verified cases of cats and dogs learning to open doors using a handle, no pet has yet been observed mastering the turning of a door knob; while a rare problem, the chance of one’s cat or dog opening door using a lever is not zero and, because houses tend to use the same style of lever throughout, once they have learned to open one door, they’ve really learned to open all.  If it’s a concern, the good news is most doors are adaptable for either so replacing a lever with a knob does not usually require the door being replaced.