  I discuss the effect of physical distortion on the velocities of close binary
components and how we may use the resulting distortion of velocity curves to
constrain some properties of binary systems, such as inclination and mass
ratio. Precise new velocities for 5 Cet convincingly detect these distortions
with their theoretically predicted phase dependence. We can even use such
distortions of velocity curves to test Lucy's theory of convective gravity
darkening. The observed distortions for TT Hya and 5 Cet require the contact
components of those systems to be gravity darkened, probably somewhat more than
predicted by Lucy's theory but clearly not as much as expected for a radiative
star. These results imply there is no credible evidence for eccentric orbits in
binaries with contact components. I also present some speculative analyses of
the observed properties of a binary encased in a non-rotating common envelope,
if such an object could actually exist, and discuss how the limb darkening of
some recently calculated model atmospheres for giant stars may bias my resuts
for velocity-curve distortions, as well as other results from a wide range of
analyses of binary stars.
