Re: Italo-English translation

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I replied to Beatle off-digest but was going to stay out of the on-digest
discussion of this topic (which has been covered here many times) but Wille R
ended his post with a "Thanks John Hertzman" for some information which I
believe he got from another source in one of those prior discussions. I
appreciate Wille's intent, but must decline that credit.

And a big tip of the hat to Alexander Swaim, who took the unusual step of
consulting and citing a generally reputable reference book. His email address
(@domain.elided) partially explains that, but there are many ".edu" people here who
don't care that much. Thanks.

I would place the origins of the Italian "spider" and generally German
"spyder" in the late eighteenth century rather than the nineteenth century
date which several cite, and in London rather than the Dublin which has also
been offered. The eighteenth century books of coachbuilders' colored
lithographs (with titles) on which I base my memories of the fashionable
styles and fanciful names of various carriage types are all far away (in Ann
Arbor), so this is old memories un-factchecked. Discount them all you wish.

The short story is that the term (with either spelling) first applied to a
light open carriage favored by sporting youths of the English upper classes.
Britain was roughly a century ahead of the continental countries in technology
(the Industrial Revolution) and wealth (mercantile colonization) while Italy,
with a great cultural heritage, was a collection of impoverished agricultural
dukedoms and principalities, (Germany ditto, with fewer cultural attractions)
and the British milords toured the continent largely for the arts and
incidentally established fashions to be emulated with English appearances and
English-sounding names. Some of the English carriage names had been culled
from the continent (Berline, Limousine, Sedanca de Ville, cabriolet) but it is
likely that the Italian Berlina came through Britain rather than directly from
Prussia.

"Torpedo", which Italian coachbuilders used for our touring cars or phaetons,
is an odd case; I've never seen it used outside of Italy. The O.E.D. has
"torpedo-body" way down the list of combined forms, as a motor-car body
pointed at the ends, but Italy generally used torpedo for blunt open
four-seaters, "siluro" (the more usual Italian word for torpedo) for pointy
ones. Fusi shows one Castagna Torpedo and one Zagato Torpedino, both of which
are two-seat roadsters which we would generally call Spiders.

Lest we think the lifted English name is entirely a thing of the past,
consider the Twin Spark, a car built primarily for the Italian domestic
market. A spark is 'scintilla', twin is conveyed by doppio or gemella, a
spark-plug is a candela d'accensione, but Alfa and Fiat build "Twin Sparks".
Other countries build engines with more than one plug per cylinder, but none
that I know of call them "Twin Sparks". Hard to explain without a cultural
history dating back a few hundred years. If you have other and/or better
opinions, fine. Enjoy them and, if you wish, share them.

Cheers

John H.
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