Hecatomb

Hecatomb (pronounced hek-uh-tohm or hek-uh-toom)

(1) In ancient Greece and Rome, any great public sacrifice and feast, originally a public sacrifice to the gods of 100 oxen.

(2) In Medieval use, by extension, any great sacrifice; a great number of people, animals or things, especially as sacrificed or destroyed; a large amount.

(3) In modern use (loosely), any great slaughter.

1585–1595:  From the Latin hecatombē, from the Ancient Greek ἑκατόμβη (hekatómbē) (originally (and literally) “an offering of 100 oxen” and later “any great sacrifice”), from hekatombwā, the construct derived from the idea of ἑκατόν (hekatón) (one hundred) + -bwā, (a form which etymologists have always found curious an assumed to be a derivative of βοῦς (boûs) (ox), from the primitive Indo-European root gwou- (ox, bull, cow).  The origin of hékaton is also a mystery but the construct may be from hem-katon, with hen (a neuter of heis or eis (one)) + katon (hundred).  The first month of the Attic calendar (July-August) was Hekatombaion, the annual season of sacrifice.    Hecatomb is a noun; the noun plural is plural hecatombs.

Hecatomb remains rare and obscure except in historic use but can, in the correct context, be used as a linguistic flourish as an alternative to warfare, havoc, killing, slaughter, crime, butchery, bloodshed, homicide, murder, liquidation, rapine, blood, blitz, holocaust, extermination, annihilation, shambles etc but should not replace the specific forms genocide or the holocaust; opinion is divided on whether it’s a suitable substitute for events pre-dating World War II which were historically described as holocausts.  Holocaust was from the Middle English holocaust (burnt offering), from the Anglo-Norman holocauste, the Old French holocauste & olocauste (which exists in modern French as holocaust), from the Late Latin holocaustum, from the Ancient Greek ὁλόκαυστον (holókauston), the neuter form of ὁλόκαυστος (holókaustos) (wholly burnt), the construct being ὅλος (hólos) (entire, whole (ultimately from the primitive Indo-European solh- (whole)) + καυστός (kaustós) (burnt), from καίω (kaíō) (to burn, burn up), the source of which is uncertain although there may be some link with the primitive Indo-European kehw-.  The verb is derived from the noun

The word holocaust is regarded by some as problematic (in the modern way that word is now used).  Holocaust has since at least the 1960s been established as the descriptor of the industrialized mass murder of Jews by the Nazis, the decision to exterminate the Jews of Europe taken in 1941 and formalized in 1942.  Some Jewish scholars however criticize the use of the word because of the historical associations with voluntary sacrifices to God and don’t wish any to draw the inference there was any voluntary religious purpose in the Nazi crime, either from the perspective either of the perpetrators or the victims.  Their preferred term is Shoah, (from the Hebrew שׁוֹאָה‎ (catastrophe).  Other Jewish scholars note the technical point but argue the use of Holocaust (capitalized) uniquely as a descriptor for the events of 1942-1945 is didactically helpful in a way a wider adoption of Shoah would not serve.

The Pentelic marble sculpture of the procession of sacrificial bulls during Hekatombaion, from the Parthenon frieze.

According to a legend which appears in more than one source, when the Greek philosopher Pythagoras discovered what came to be called the Pythagorean theorem (the one about famous right-triangles), he celebrated by sacrificing a hecatomb (100 head) of oxen to the gods.  Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, 1832–1898) is remembered now mostly for Alice’s many adventures but he was also a prolific author of works in mathematics, a discipline in which he took a first at Oxford.  In A New Theory of Parallels (1895), he wrote his whimsical take on the legend of the Pythagoras’s sacrifice.  As an anecdote it probably wouldn’t get many laughs in a any of today’s stand-up comedy clubs but it’s a nice relic of gentlemanly Victorian humor by one who was once an Oxford under-graduate and never quite recovered:

But neither thirty years, nor thirty centuries, affect the clearness, or the charm, of Geometrical truths.  Such a theorem as “the square of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the sides” is as dazzlingly beautiful now as it was in the day when Pythagoras first discovered it, and celebrated its advent, it is said, by sacrificing a hecatomb of oxen — a method of doing honor to Science that has always seemed to me slightly exaggerated and uncalled-for.  One can imagine oneself, even in these degenerate days, marking the epoch of some brilliant scientific discovery by inviting a convivial friend or two, to join one in a beefsteak and a bottle of wine.  But a hecatomb of oxen!  It would produce a quite inconvenient supply of beef.

That in the German vernacular someone thought a dunce is called “an ox” allowed the penning of some Teutonic whimsy, the satirist Karl Ludwig Börne (1786–1837) observing: “After Pythagoras discovered his fundamental theorem he sacrificed a hecatomb of oxen. Since that time all dunces tremble whenever a new truth is discovered.”  The botanist and romantic poet Adelbert von Chamisso (1781–1838) also liked the pun which he used in a short verse:

Truth lasts throughout eternity,

When once the stupid world its light discerns:

The theorem, coupled with Pythagoras’ name,

Holds true today, as’t did in olden times.

A splendid sacrifice Pythagoras brought

The gods, who blessed him with this ray divine;

A great burnt offering of a hundred kine,

Proclaimed afar the sage’s gratitude.

Now since that day, all cattle [blockheads] when they scent

New truth about to see the light of day,

In frightful bellowing manifest their dismay;

Pythagoras fills them all with terror;

And powerless to shut out light by error,

In sheer despair, they shut their eyes and tremble.

Ovoid

Ovoid (pronounced oh-void)

(1) Egg-shaped (an oval, but more tapered at one end).

(2) In botany (of a fruit or similar part), egg-shaped with the broader end at the base.

1817: From the French ovoïde, from the New Latin ōvoīdēs, the construct being the Classical Latin ōvum (egg) + the Ancient Greek -oeidēs (like) (akin to -oid).  The Latin ōvum (egg) is thought derived from the primitive Indo-European awi (bird) which may be the source of wyo & yyo, the primitive Indo-European words for "egg" although this is speculative.  The hypothetical “evidence” for its existence is provided by the Sanskrit vih, the Avestan vish, the Latin avis (bird), the Ancient Greek aietos (eagle), the Old Church Slavonic aja, the Russian jajco, the Breton ui, the Welsh wy, the Old Norse egg, the Old High German ei and the Gothic ada, all meaning "egg."  The –oid suffix was from the Ancient Greek -ειδής (-eidḗs) & -οειδής (-oeidḗs) (the ο being the last vowel of the stem to which the suffix is attached) from εἶδος (eîdos) (form; like; likeness) and was added to indicate the meanings “tending towards”, “similar to” or “like”).  Ovoid is a noun & adjective and ovoidal is an adjective; the noun plural is ovoids.  The adjective ovoidish doesn't exist and never should because something "ovoidish" is actually an ovoid.  Subovoid (apparently never as sub-ovoid) is a technical word used in mathematics and some disciplines of engineering.

Headlights and Politics

Mercedes-Benz 300 SL roadster built for European sale (left) and one with the less elegant assembly (right) used in the US market to accommodate the sealed-beam headlights.

First seen two years earlier on the 300SL roadster (W198), the Lichteinheiten (light units) on the 1959 Mercedes-Benz 220 SE (W111) and the subsequent 1961 300SE (W112) were much admired, both for their elegance and quality of luminescence.  Ovoid in shape, they were first nicknamed “tombstone” but soon came to be called “European” because they were banned in the US, the saga illuminating how crony capitalism works in the West.  The US headlight manufacturers enjoyed a cosy relationship with the legislators who in the 1940s had passed laws decreeing cars sold in the US had to have two 7 inch sealed beam lights and a maximum of two auxiliary 5 ¾ inch units.  In 1957, the car and headlight manufacturers prevailed on the politicians additionally to permit four 5 ¾ inch sealed beam lights per vehicle, a profitable arrangement which pleased the industry but deprived US buyers of the much superior European lights which not only delivered better luminosity but, not being sealed units, required only the bulb to be replaced rather than the whole thing.  The US manufacturers had no interest in investing to re-tool their factories to produce something which would need to be replaced less often so arranged for the politicians to ban the newer product, thus for decades denying American drivers headlights of the quality enjoyed in Europe and much of the planet.  It wouldn't be until the 1970s when, needing a way to lower the hood (bonnet) lines to improve aerodynamic efficiency in the quest for lower fuel consumption to meet new standards, that the laws were changed.

Mercedes-Benz 280 SE 3.5 Coupés (W111), the "tombstone" or "European" headlight assemblies to the left, the version developed for the US market to the right.  Such was the international admiration for the "Californian" interpretation rapidly it became a global option.   

That is how politics in the US operates.  It’s in the congresses, state and federal, where things are actually hammered out and deals done.  Most of the world fixates on presidential politics because of the drama and the cults of personality but domestically, it’s in the legislatures that lobbyists do their work and that’s where they make "campaign contributions" in exchange for getting the legislation which most benefits the corporations employing them.  “The business of America is business” is how former president Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933; US president 1923-1929) summed it up.  It’s not wholly dissimilar to the development of the English constitution; it took centuries to evolve but essentially, in exchange for getting the money he needed to fight his wars, the King of England approved the laws the politicians wished to pass.  In the US, the dynamic relationship is between politicians & corporations, mediated by the lobbyists and between the two sides, there's much interchanging of personnel which is why the system is sometimes described by political scientists as "incestuous".

Unfortunately, US regulations proved disfiguring as well as dimming because the simple solution of integrating the turn-signal indicators (the "flashers" to many) and side-marker lamps into the assembly didn’t comply.  As explained by automotive lighting expert Daniel Stern, the lit area was probably compliant (the rules specified a minimum 3½ square inches (22.5 cm²) but the intensity and inboard visibility angles would have been inadequate.  A turn signal with its centre 4 inches (100 mm) or closer to the low-beam lamp had to provide at least 500 candela on-axis, which would be close to impossible for a lamp with this construction; turn signals more than 4 inches from the low-beam needed only to provide at least 200 candela.  The rest of the world (RoW) cars (left) were supplied with the original elegant design while for the US market some rather ugly after-market lamps were crudely added to the gaps next to the grill (centre).  Late in the 1960s, the aesthetics were improved somewhat by using a larger unit (right) which emulated the look of a fog-lamp, the US cars by then also suffering the addition of side-marker lights front & rear.

A variation on the ovoid theme was revealed when the 600 Grosser (W100) was announced in 1963 (left).  The solution, designed to comply with US legislation (right) was more unhappy even that that used on the 300 SL and called to mind a high-school project which deservedly would have been graded "F".

The design created for the US market W111s adopted a vertically stacked arrangement with four 5 ¾ inch sealed beams which, ironically, was much to influence US designers in the decade to come.  When the 300 SEL 6.3 was introduced in 1967, Europeans were offered the choice of either style, four of the newer quartz-halogen bulbs generating even more light than the ovoid system.  Europeans, who nicknamed the stacked lights “Californian” (California apparently the most American thing imaginable), came to admire the style, prompting Mercedes-Benz to offer buyers the option world-wide.  Unfortunately, this was Mercedes-Benz only ascetically successful adaption for the US market, most of the others being ghastly.  In the mid-1960s, the factory again used “California” when the W113 (the 230/250/280 SL "pagoda" (1963-1971)) was for some years offered with just a hard-top, presumably because, viewed from often gloomy Stuttgart, California must have seemed permanently sunny.  The W111’s headlamps spread to other models but the W113 hard-top only configuration remained a one-off.  It was one of only three occasions a production SL would be offered without a folding top and one of two with only a fixed roof.

Lindsay Lohan in sunglasses with lens in an irregular ovoid.  The irregular ovoid is a popular shape for the lens of spectacles of all kinds, simply because it conforms so well to the lacuna defined by the nose and eye socket.

The four common descriptors in diagnostic imaging (left to right), the round, the oval the ovoidesque irregular oval and the irregular.

Reflecting the frequency with which they occur, in radiology and other forms of diagnostic imaging, the three classic shapes of “masses of interest” are round, oval and irregular but a frequent descriptor of those which often resemble ovoids is the “irregular oval” used (a little misleadingly for non-clinicians) to describe everything which tends towards being an oval but is outside the defined tolerance.  The rationale in adding an adjectival “irregular” to “oval” seems to be to reflect the wide variation in the shapes, the only common characteristic being that to fit the description it must be vaguely ovoid in shape, distinguishing it not only from a round or oval but also from an irregular (ie everything else).

Afterburner

Afterburner (pronounced af-ter-bur-ner)

(1) In aviation, a device placed within, or attached to the exit of, a jet-engine exhaust pipe to produce afterburning.

(2) In engineering, a device in the exhaust system of an internal-combustion engine for removing or rendering harmless potentially dangerous components in the exhaust gases.

1948: A compound word, the construct being after + burn +-er.  The verb after developed from its use as an adverb and preposition, from the Middle English after-, efter- & æfter-, from the Old English æfter- (after, behind, against; later in time; in pursuit, following with intent to overtake), the idea being off + -ter (a comparative suffix), the original formation meant "more away, farther off”.  It was cognate with the Scots efter-, the Old Frisian & West Frisian efter-, the Dutch achter-, the German after-, the Swedish efter, the Old Norse eptir, the Old High German aftar, the Gothic aftra (behind), the Greek apotero (farther off) and the Old Persian apataram (further).  From circa 1300 it assumed the meaning "in imitation of; in the style of" while, as a conjunction in the sense of "subsequent to the time that" the use was inherited from the late Old English.  The phrase “after hours” (hours after regular working hours) dates from 1814 although the exact purpose has always proved elusive but it’s assumed by most to relate to retail commerce rather than terms of employment.  Afterwit was from circa 1500 and deconstructs literally as "wisdom that comes too late" but is familiar feeling of one for whom a perfect piece of repartee comes to mind only after the moment has passed; it’s perhaps surprising afterwit didn’t endure in the language.  The phrase “after you” an element in etiquette meaning “yielding precedence to another” dates from 1650.

Burn was from the Middle English bernen & birnen, from the Old English birnan (to burn), a metathesis from the Proto-West Germanic brinnan, from the Proto-Germanic brinnaną (to burn), from the primitive Indo-European bhrenw- and related to the Middle Irish brennim (drink up) & bruinnim (bubble up), the present stem from bhrewh- & bhru- (linked to the Middle Irish bréo (flame), the Albanian burth, the Cyclamen hederifolium (mouth burning) and the Sanskrit भुरति (bhurati) (moves quickly, twitches, fidgets).  The verb was from the early twelfth century brennen (be on fire, be consumed by fire; be inflamed with passion or desire, be ardent; destroy (something) with fire, expose to the action of fire, roast, broil, toast; burn (something) in cooking) which when applied to objects imparted the sense of “to shine, glitter, sparkle, glow like fire”, the form from both the Old Norse brenna (to burn, light) an two originally distinct Old English verbs: the transitive bærnan (to kindle) and the intransitive beornan (be on fire).  All of these were from the Proto-Germanic brennanan (causative brannjanan), source also of the Middle Dutch bernen, the Dutch branden, the Old High German brinnan, the German brennen, the Gothic brannjan (to set on fire); the ultimate etymology uncertain.  The noun burn dates from circa 1300 in the sense of "act or operation of burning” and was from the Old English bryne, the etymology identical to the verb and prior to the mid-sixteenth century, the usual spelling was brenne.

The Figurative use of burn (of passion, conflict etc.) was in Old English and survives to this day while the literal sense of "be hot, radiate heat" was from the later thirteenth century, the meaning "produce a burning sensation, sting" from a hundred years later.  A further figurative sense, that of "being cheated, swindled or victimized" emerged in the 1650s on the notion that whatever one lost “may as well have been burned”.  The slang use of burned from the late eighteenth century meaning "infected with venereal disease" referred to the sensation which was one of the symptoms.  To “burn one's bridges (behind one)” meant "behave so as to destroy any chance of returning to a status quo" and was used in the late nineteenth century, perhaps because of some of the reckless cavalry operations documented during the US Civil War although it’s a variation on the “burn the boats” (so one’s soldiers have no alternative but to fight, there being no chance of escape) approach known since Antiquity.  To have money “burn a hole in (one's) pocket” was a critique from the 1850s of those with an irresistible propensity to spend whatever money was in one’s possession; the modern expression of economists is of “expenditure rising to meet income”.  The meaning "mark or injury made by burning" is from 1520s while “slow burn” dates from 1938 and refers to a technique in acting.

The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought usually to have been borrowed from Latin –ārius and reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant was -our), from the Latin -(ā)tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  The –er suffix was added to verbs to create a person or thing that does an action indicated by the root verb; used to form an agent noun.  If added to a noun it usually denoted an occupation.

The afterburner

Attracted by theoretical work which hinted at improved thrust, Rolls-Royce began ground tests on one of their early jet engines in 1944 although the war ended before the technology was ready for production.  By the early 1950s, most advanced jet fighters had adopted afterburners and they continue generally to be used mostly in military aircraft although a few civilian applications have existed including the now defunct Tupolev Tu-144 and Concorde.

An afterburner’s purpose is to provide an increase in thrust, usually for supersonic flight, takeoff and in combat. Afterburning is achieved by injecting additional fuel downstream of the turbine and produces significantly increased thrust; the trade-off being very high fuel consumption and inefficiency, though this is considered acceptable for the short periods during which it is usually used.  The quantum of a jet-engine’s thrust is determined by the general principle of mass flow rate and thrust depends on two things: the velocity of the exhaust gas and the mass of that gas. A jet engine can produce more thrust by either accelerating the gas to a higher velocity or by having a greater mass of gas exit the engine.  Designing a basic turbojet engine around the second principle produces the turbofan engine, which creates slower gas but more of it. Turbofans are highly fuel efficient and can deliver high thrust for long periods, but the design trade-off is a large size relative to the power output. To generate increased power with a more compact engine for short periods, an engine requires an afterburner. The afterburner increases thrust primarily by accelerating the exhaust gas to a higher velocity.

Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird afterburning for additional thrust during take-off (left) and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark performing a dump-and-burn (right).

What many people think of as afterburners are actually displays of dump-and-burn at air shows, a procedure where dumped fuel is intentionally ignited using the plane's afterburner. A spectacular flame combined with high speed makes this an interesting sight but it’s just for entertainment.  Fuel dumping is used to reduce the mass of an aircraft about to undertake emergency landings and thus, for other than for safety reasons, dump and burn has no practical use.  In the slang of pilots who flew the early generation of fighters with afterburners the phrase was "lit up the burners" while the dump and burn is also called a "torching" or a "zippo".

Lighting up the burners: Lindsay Lohan in The Canyons (2013).

Corinthian

Corinthian (kuh-rin-thee-uhn)

(1) Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Corinth, the ancient Greek city-state.

(2) One of the five styles of classical architecture in Ancient Greece (the others being Doric, Composite, Tuscan & Ionic).

(3) Something ornate and elaborate

(4) In literacy criticism, an ornate style.

(5) Something luxurious or licentious.

(6) A native or inhabitant of Corinth.

(7) Someone given to living luxuriously; dissolute.

(8) An amateur sportsman (archaic).

(9) A phony descriptor of a type of leather used by Chrysler Corporation in the US during the 1970s.

1350–1400: From the Middle English Corinthi(es) (the men of Corinth) from the Latin Corinthiī from the Greek Korínthioi.  The sense “of or pertaining to Corinth" the ancient Greek city-state is from the 1590s, gradually replacing the mid-fifteenth adjective Corynthoise.  The sense as a classification in what was becoming a formalised architectural order is from the 1650s.  The noun meaning literally "inhabitant of Corinth" dates from the 1520s; Corinthies was attested from the late fourteenth century.

During Antiquity, other Greek cities regarded the inhabitants of Corinth as a bit gauche, noting their preference for ornate, almost ostentatious architecture and their notorious fondness for luxury and licentiousness.  There was intellectual snobbery among the Athenians too, the Corinthians thought too interested in commerce and profit and not sufficiently devoted to thought and learning.  Corinthian the noun and adjective thus, in various slang or colloquial senses in English, came to be associated with extravagance, sin and conspicuous consumption, especially in the decades after the 1820s.

In scripture, the implications of that association were later reflected in the New Testament, most memorably in Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 1).  The second letter is thought to have been written circa 56 AD, shortly after he penned the first and was addressed to the Christian community in city of Corinth, a major trading centre which, although by then noted for its rich artistic and philosophic traditions, was a place also of vice and depravity.  It was this last aspect that compelled Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church and in it he sharply rebuked them for permitting immoral practices in the community.  In response, the Corinthians had cracked-down on some of the worst excesses and Paul wrote his second letter to congratulate them on their reforms and even commended forgiving sinners and welcoming them back to the flock.  Harsh though his words could be, Paul’s preference is always restoration, not punishment.  The letter then discusses some sometimes neglected characteristics of the Christian church such as generosity to others and devotes some time to defending himself against attacks on his ministry, reminding the Corinthians both of his own poverty and the harsh reality of what it meant to be a minister of Christ in the Roman empire: beatings, imprisonment, hunger, and the constant threat of death.

The triangle tattoo Lindsay Lohan had inked in 2013 was inspired by 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.  In the King James Version (KJV; 1611) it read:

4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

Most quoted now are modern translations which are more accessible such as the International Bible Society's (now Biblica) New International Version (NIV; 1978):

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

In Paul’s prescriptive way, verses 4-7 details the workings of love in three steps.  There are firstly the positive aspects of love being patient and kind but then elaborated are the eight negatives love must never be: not jealous, boastful, arrogant, rude, irritable or resentful, nor does it insist upon its own way or glat at wrong.  Finally, Paul notes the five positive ways in which love reacts, joining in rejoicing at truth, supports, believes, hopes and endures all things.  Verse 8 returns to the theme of superiority of love but explicates the contrast between love and spiritual gifts as the contrast between permanence and transience; spiritual gifts which are incomplete will pass when wholeness comes whereas love will not.  The contrast is thus between the imperfect and the perfect.

United States Supreme Court, looking towards the West Pediment.

The Corinthian style of architecture was one of the five classical orders created in Ancient Greece.  Similar in many ways to the Ionic, the points of difference were (1) the unusually slender proportions, (2) the deep capital with its round bell, decorated with acanthus leaves and a square abacus with concave sides.  The Corinthian capital typically has two distinct rows of acanthus leaves above which appear eight fluted sheaths, from each of which spring two scrolls (helices), one of which curls beneath a corner of the abacus as half of a volute while the other curls beneath the centre of the abacus.  The marble pillars used on the east and west pediments of the United States Supreme Court building, constructed between 1932-1935, are a fine example of the Corinthian style.

United States Supreme Court, East Pediment.

Much less known than the more frequently photographed West Pediment, the East Pediment of the Supreme Court Building is at the rear of the structure and is much admired by architects because of the elegance of the thirteen symmetrically balanced allegorical figures in the sculptural group designed by Hermon A MacNeil (1866–1947).  The ornate details in the two rows of acanthus leaves are the defining characteristic of the Corinthian pillar.

1974 Imperial LeBaron four door hardtop.

Corinthian leather was a term coined by the Bozell advertising agency in 1974 to describe the tufted upholstery available as an alternative to the standard velour in the Imperial LeBaron.  Although merely a term of marketing, the Imperials trimmed with the same leather produced by the Radel Leather Manufacturing Company of New Jersey the corporation used in its other up-market offerings, the name successfully conveyed the association of something rich in quality, rare, and luxurious.  Religiosity in the US somewhat more entrenched than elsewhere in the West, it’s likely many were sufficiently well-acquainted with the New Testament to understand the reference but for those less pious, Corinthian was one of those words which somehow carried the desired connotations, even among those with no idea of its associations.  Perhaps it was because it sounded European that some thought the leather came from Spain or Italy.  Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) noted that linguistic phenomenon when he discussed the circumstances in which President Eisenhower (1890-1969; US president 1953-1961) had to dismiss his Chief of Staff, Sherman Adams (1899-1986), who had accepted as a gift, inter alia, a vicuña coat.  Nixon observed that while there was no doubt most Americans had no idea what vicuña was, just the perceived mystique of the word was enough to convince them it was something expensive and therefore corrupting.

Ricardo Montalbán in 1975 Chrysler Cordoba advertisement.  The word "small" in relative, the significance being the departure from Chrysler's long-standing policy of using the name-plate only for full-sized cars.

The 1974 Imperial marketing campaign was restricted to print advertising and whether the attraction of Corinthian leather generated may sales isn’t known but the the word seems barely to have been noticed amid the cacophony of exaggeration and puffery which had long sustained modern capitalism.  That changed the next year when Chrysler introduced the Cordoba, a down-sized model for consumers suddenly interested in fuel economy in the post oil-crisis world.  The manufacturers knew those who wanted smaller cars didn’t necessarily want them to be any less luxurious and that became the theme for the promotional campaign, switched this time to television and fronted by a celebrity spokesperson, the actor Ricardo Montalbán (1920-2009).  Born in Mexico of Spanish descent, Montalbán looked distinguished and spoke in cultivated English with just enough of a Spanish accent to make plausible the link of Corinthian leather to the cattle on the plains of Spain.

1975 Imperial LeBaron four door hardtop.

In the advertising, he spoke of “the thickly-cushioned luxury of seats, available even in fine Corinthian leather” and although sometimes he’d call it "soft" instead, all people seemed to remember was the leather was Corinthian.  So successful was the campaign that Chrysler decided to make the Corinthian label exclusive to the Cordoba and when Montalbán was later assigned to advertise other Chryslers, in the same mellifluous tone, he commended the “rich leather".  Later when interviewed on late night television, Montalbán cheerfully admitted that the term meant nothing but that wasn't quite true: it meant whatever people who heard it wanted it to mean and that made it a perfect word for advertising.

The Rolls-Royce Camargue

Although it’s never been confirmed by the factory, one source claims that a consequence of Chrysler in 1974 conjuring up “fine Corinthian leather” was that Rolls-Royce was force to abandon the idea of calling their new model the Corinthian, adopting instead Camargue, (a region on the Mediterranean coast in the south of France).  For Rolls-Royce, Camargue was probably a better choice, tying in with their existing Corniche two-door saloon and convertible (the factory had not yet abandoned the archaic designations fixed (FHC) and drophead coupé (DHC)).  The French word corniche has certain technical meanings in geology and architecture but Roll-Royce used it in the sense of “a coastal road, especially one cut into the face of a cliff”, specifically using the imagery of the Grande Corniche on the French Riviera, just north of the principality of Monaco.  The factory had first used the Corniche name in 1939 for a prototype light-weight, high-performance car which could match the pace of the big straight-eight Mercedes-Benz able to explore Germany’s newly built autobahns at sustained high speeds never before possible.  The car was damaged during testing in France and was abandoned there after the outbreak of hostilities, only to be destroyed in a bombing raid although whether the Luftwaffe or the Royal Air Force (RAF) was responsible isn’t known.

1968 Bentley T1 Coupe Speciale by Pininfarina (chassis CBH4033).  It wasn’t as if Rolls-Royce weren’t aware of how Italians thought a Rolls-Royce or Bentley coupé should look.  The Speciale should have been a warning heeded although, to be fair, it probably is better than the Camargue.

So whether as some minor ripple of chaos theory or the factory always intended to continue allusions to continental geography, in 1975 the Camargue was released with few technical innovations of interest other than the automatic split-level climate control system which was an industry first and said alone to cost about as much to produce as a middle-class buyer might spend on a whole vehicle.  Other footnotes included it being the first Rolls-Royce designed and produced (except of some shared components) using metric measurements and the first with the famous grill inclined at a rakish 7^o rather than the perfectly vertical aspect always before used (although the now noticeably lower grill was built still with the same trick of entasis used for thousands of years to make slightly curved Corinthian pillars appear perfectly perpendicular).  What attracted the most comment however was it being the world’s most expensive production car.  At that end of the market, the 30%-odd cost premium against the mechanically similar Corniche wasn’t going to produce the same effects in the elasticity of demand as would be noted lower in automotive pecking order and indeed, the Veblen effect can operate to make the more expensive product more desirable.

Lancia Florida II (1957, left), Fiat 130 Coupé (1971, centre) & Rolls-Royce Camargue (1975, right).  The origin of the shape is most discernible in Pininfarina’s Lancia Florida, a different approach to the big coupé than would be taken in the 1950s by the Americans.  The 130 coupé was one of those aesthetic triumphs which proved a commercial failure while the Camargue is thought a failure on all grounds although, for those who prize some degree of exclusivity, it remains a genuine rarity.

Unfortunately, the Camargue, while it did what it did no worse than a Corniche saloon, while doing it, it looked ungainly.  Styled by the revered Italian studio Pinninfarina, the look was derided as dated, derivative and clumsy and it’s this which has usually been thought to account for production barely topping 500 over the decade-odd it remained available.  In the years since, some tried to improve things and a number have been made into convertibles, an expensive exercise which actually made it worse, the roof-line one of the few pleasing aspects.  One buyer though was sufficiently impressed to commission a one-off Bentley version, one of the few instances of a model which genuinely can be claimed to be unique. The same designer at Carrozzeria Pininfarina who signed off on the Camargue was also responsible for the earlier Fiat 130 coupé, something in the same vein but on a smaller scale and the Fiat is a rectilineal masterpiece.

Platform by Mercedes-Benz, coachwork by Pininfarina.  1956 300 SC (left), 1963 230 SL (centre) & 1969 300 SEL 6.3 (right).

Whether the knife-edged severity of the 130 coupé could successfully have been up-scaled to the dimensions Rolls-Royce required is debatable but Pininfarina had lying around a styling exercise done years earlier, based on a Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL 6.3 and it was this which seems to have inspired the Camargue.  The Italian studio’s interest in Mercedes-Benz had in preceding decades produced some admired designs although the occasional plans for limited production runs were never realized.  In 1955, a coupé based on the 300b saloon had been shown, followed a year later by a 300 SC which most thought better executed, and certainly more contemporary, than the Germans' own effort.  The best though was probably the 1963 230 SL which lost both the distinctive pagoda roof and some of leanness for which the delicate lines are most remembered but it was thought a successful interpretation.  Mercedes-Benz should of course have produced a two-door 300 SE 6.3 because the W111/W112 body was their finest achievement but the planet lost nothing by Pininfarina's take on the idea being rightly ignored.  In retrospect Rolls-Royce probably wished they too had "failed to proceed" and when the time came to do another big coupé, the job was done in-house, the Bentley Continental (1991-2003) an outstanding design and neither Rolls-Royce nor Bentley have since matched the timeless lines.

Boulevard

Boulevard (pronounced bool-uh-vahrd or boo-luh-vahrd)

(1) A broad avenue in a city, usually with areas at the sides or in the center planted with trees, grass, or flowers, often used as a promenade.

(2) A strip of lawn between a sidewalk (footpath) and the curb (a regionalism from the upper Midwest US & Canada, also called a boulevard strip).

(3) As loosely applied in street names in many cities, usually for wide thoroughfares.

(4) The centre strip of a road dividing traffic travelling in different directions (rare and sometimes applied also to the landscaped sides).

1769: From the French boulevard (broad street or promenade planted with rows of trees), from the Middle French boulevard, bollevart, boulevars, bolevers & bollewerc (promenade, avenue, rampart), either from the Middle High German bolewerc & bolwerc (which endures in modern German as Bollwerk) or the Middle Dutch bolwerc & bollewerc (“bulwark, bastion”), the latter from the Picard, Walloon in the sense of “rampart, avenue built on the site of a razed rampart”, so called because the structures were originally often built on the ruins of old ramparts.  The apparently strange transition from the Middle Dutch bolwerc (wall of a fortification) to the French boulevard, originally (top surface of a military rampart, used as a thoroughfare) is explained by the linguistic tangle of translation, the French language at the time having no “w”, hence the early attempts including boloart, boulever, boloirque & bollvercq.

Lindsay Lohan leaving Boulevard3 nightclub, Los Angeles, 2009.

Although there’s now usually no direct relationship, the idea of boulevards being wider than most streets and with associated landscaping dates from the early promenades being laid out atop demolished city walls, structures which were much wider than the usually narrow urban streets.  The word was adopted in English because there was a frank admiration of the layout of Paris and the Americans picked it up as an obvious differentiation for some of the widest streets of their newer cities although there was sometimes also an element of a wish to emulate European style.  The word is used in many countries with the same French spelling adopted in English although there are variants including the Spanish bulevar and the Turkish bulvar and in Italian the word is sometimes used in the otherwise archaic sense of embankment (a direct inheritance of the sense of “rampart”).  The noun boulevardier dates from 1856 and deconstructed literally means “one who frequents the boulevard”, the implication being ”man-about-town, a city dweller, part of café society”.  Boulevardier was later adopted (also as boulevard cruiser & boulevard car) to describe cars which ape the style of high-speed machines but sacrifice performance for comfort and ease of operation.  In urban cartography & town planning the most common abbreviation is blvd. but bd. & bl. are also used.  Boulevard is a noun and boulevardier is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is boulevards.

The Boulevardier cocktail

Erskine Gwynne (1898-1948) between 1927-1932 was the publisher of Paris Boulevardier, an English-language magazine in the vein of the New Yorker, its market the then quite large colony of Anglo-American expats living in Paris.  While in Paris, Gwynne created a cocktail called the Boulevardier which he suggested was the ideal drink for his readership but it was after it was included in Harry MacElhone’s (1890-1958) book Barflies and Cocktails (1927), that it became popular on both sides of the Atlantic.

Made with whiskey, sweet vermouth and Campari, the Boulevardier is a variation of the classic Negroni, renowned when properly mixed for its deft balance of bitter, boozy and sweet (although some anthologies of cocktails asterisk a proviso that women often prefer them with more vermouth and thus sweeter).  However, while the gin-based Negroni is crisp and refreshing, the whiskey-rich Boulevardier is rich and warming, very much a drink for dark evenings.  Traditionally, it was made with bourbon but there are recipes which use the spicier rye whiskey and, unlike a Negroini where classically the ingredients are in equal parts, a Boulevardier mixes the whiskey in a slightly higher proportion.  It’s served on ice, stirred and garnished with an orange twist.

Ingredients

1 ¼ ounces bourbon whiskey

1 oz Campari

1 oz sweet vermouth

Garnish: orange twist

Instructions

Add bourbon, Campari and sweet vermouth into a mixing glass with ice and stir until well-chilled.  Strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice.  Garnish with an orange twist.

Boulevard cars

1961 Chevrolet Impala SS.

The idea of the “boulevard car” was concocted to describe cars which ape the style of high-speed machines but sacrifice performance for comfort and ease of operation, usually at a lower price; for show rather than go as it were.  Chevrolet actually institutionalized the concept in 1962 with their popular SS (Super Sport) option pack.  The option had first appeared in 1961 and was available for any Impala and although much admired, that Chevrolet that year built close to half a million Impalas and only 453 buyers opted for what was (at US$53.80) the bargain-priced SS package was an indication the marketing needed to be tweaked.  The problem was that Chevrolet had intended the 1961 SS lived up to its name and it was available only with the 348 & 409 cubic inch (5.7 & 6.7 litre) V8s coupled with a robust four-speed manual transmission, combinations which could be quite raucous and were notably thirstier than many were prepared to tolerate.  The dealers noted how buyers were drawn to the style but were put off by the specification which demanded much more from the driver that the smaller-engined models which wafted effortlessly along, automatic transmissions by now the default choice for most Impala buyers.

1967 Chevrolet SS427

Chevrolet’s solution was to become a template for the whole industry which would spend the next decade making, advertising (and, in relatively small numbers, selling) the so-called "muscle cars" which would become so storied.  The muscle-car ecosystem of those years is better documented and more celebrated than any other phase through which Detroit passed yet the numbers of the genuine high performance machines produced was tiny compared to total production of the models upon which they were based.  The experience of 1961 convinced Chevrolet that what most people wanted was not a tyre-melting muscle car (which came with a thirsty, noisy and sometimes cantankerous engine along with what would become prohibitively expensive insurance rates) but one which looked like one.  Thus after 1962 the SS option became widely available and consisted mostly of fancy trim and sporty accessories, able to be ordered with even the most modest engines.  Splitting the market between drag-strip monsters and boulevard cruisers which could be made to look much the same proved a great success.  For some reason though, late in the decade Chevrolet briefly offered the stand-alone SS427 in an Impala body but without the Impala badge while, confusingly, the actual Impala could be ordered with both the SS package and the 427 cubic inch (7.0 litre) V8.  Thus there was the SS427 and the Impala SS 427, the former rather more special and much sought after today.

1958 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster. 

Manufacturers had been pursuing the concept even before Chevrolet formalized it in the marketing manual.  Even in the interwar years the coincidently named SS cars (which after 1945 become Jaguar) offered essentially the same racy looking machines in a variety of configurations, some of which delivered the performance the lines promised and some did not, the former thought of as genuine sports cars, the latter we would now call boulevard cruisers.  Jaguar considered pursuing the strategy in the early post-war years before deciding sports cars really should all be sporty and although their saloons would come with engines small and large, the roadsters and coupés would be about both show and go.  Mercedes-Benz understood the attraction the 300SL gullwing (W198) had for buyers but knew also it, and the planned roadster version which would be its replacement, were always going to be too expensive for most and that few of them anyway needed a car which could hit what was in the 1950s a most impressive 150 mph (240 km/h).  What they wanted was a stylish machine which recalled the 300SL in which to cruise along wide boulevards.

1955 Mercedes Benz 190 SL.

Thus was crafted the 190 SL (W121; 1955-1963), built on the modest platform of the company’s small, four cylinder saloon rather than the exotic space-frame of the 300 SL.  Eschewed too were costly features like dry-sump lubrication and fuel-injection and the engine was barely more powerful than in the saloon but for a boulevard cruiser that was perfect and over an eight-year run, it out-sold the expensive 300 SL roadster a dozen-fold.  There were plans even for a 220 SL, using the 2.2 litre (134 cubic inch) six cylinder from the “pontoon” saloon and prototypes were built but the continuing success of the 190SL and capacity constraints first postponed and finally doomed the project.  Even this had been an attempt not to create a true sports car but instead make the little roadster cruise the boulevards more smoothly and, in the decades which followed, this indeed was the historic course subsequent generations of the SL would follow.  It would not be until the twenty-first century that the factory would again make an SL for which a racetrack would seem a native environment.