WE described Gus McNaughtonâs interest in word pairings at the top of the pages of dictionaries as âunusualâ (2 September). It seems we were wrong. Colum Clarke writes to confess that he too has an interest in what he calls âapposite adjacentsâ. He offers a list of his own favourites from the paperback Oxford English Dictionary (2002). These include âOnline Open-heart surgeryâ, âMetropolis Microclimateâ, âJohnny-come-lately Jonesâ, âMonster Monumentâ and âHeedless Hellbentâ.
Then thereâs David Scott, who claims that the 1960s Penguin English Dictionary âhas long been renowned for the page-heading entries carried under Hâ. He offers two examples: âthe âHat Hawkâ, now almost extinct due to the scarcity of its habitat, and that dastardly villain âHeart-rending Hectorâ.â
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Doug Nichols, meanwhile, mines his local Yellow Pages, which he says throws up such concepts as âCorporate Desiccantsâ, âOil Patrolmenâ and âAbrasive Accountantsâ.
Donna Holmes takes it all a step further. She uses dictionary pairings to make up stories and has sent us an example, gleaned from her New Lexicon Websterâs Encyclopedic Dictionary (1988), which begins: âI went to a âTattoo Teaâ social and spoke with a âSouth Pole Spacemanâ who drank only âWizened Wood alcoholââŠâ Her story ends with the spaceman being consigned to âUnited States Unlistedâ.
âThe can of shaving foam James Hadfield bought carried the message âNo animal testing or ingredientsâ. Happily, he says it seems to function perfectly well without themâ
Gus McNaughton, we apologise. Your field of interest is clearly entirely normal.
THE member of parliament for Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, is Charles Walker, who writes a regular column in the Hoddesdon and Broxbourne Mercury. A couple of weeks ago he dismissed the idea that people in the UK should change their lifestyles to avert global warming â because, he said, it is too late to make a difference, it would put the UK at a competitive disadvantage with respect to other nations, and scientists will come up with a solution anyway.
âAcross the UK some of our cleverest people are developing technologies to harness the power of the tide, waves and wind,â he wrote. âTheyâve cleaned up coal by inventing a way of turning it into gas.â
Itâs good to see British scientists putting themselves at the forefront of 19th-century technology.
THE subject line on one of the weekly mailings of the Boston Area Physics Calendar gave pause for thought. âLate Notice: A. Boozer at MIT,â it said. Are drinkers so unusual at the prestigious institution?
The rest of the notice provides the explanation: â15 September, 3 pm: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Plasma Science and Fusion Center Seminar âReconnection and the Response of Toroidal Plasmas to Perturbationsâ â Allen Boozer, Columbia University.â
FOLLOWING our item about a âsolar system controllerâ (2 September), Jude van Konkelenberg tells us that the Australian tax office recently appeared to have gone one better with a request for tenders for the services of a âUniverse Developerâ. On reflection, he thinks this is someone who designs online communications networks. We hope he is right.
Onomatopoeic nominative determinism
BACK to the subject of names: âIs this a case of onomatopoeic nominative determinism?â asks Gary Humble of 51¶ŻÂțâs story on the European Space Agency orbiterâs crash landing on the moon (2 September, p 5). There, chief mission scientist Bernard Foing is quoted as saying, âItâs likely to ricochet off the surface.â
THERE was an unusually dense mist when Ăscar Martin was driving along the A6 freeway near Madrid in Spain one morning, compelling him to drive slowly and give his fullest attention to the road. Then he realised that ahead of him there was a message on an electronic display above the road. He thought it could well be something important, but couldnât read it because of the mist. For some seconds he did his best to see the road ahead and the display above at the same time. Finally, he was close enough to be able to read the display. It said: âBeware, dense mist.â
THE swimming pool thermometer that Jon Gregory bought at a specialist south of England retailer set him wondering. The photo he has sent us shows that it is marked with a scale that runs from -30 °C to 60 °C. Gregory suspects that swimming in water with a temperature anywhere near either end of that range could prove exceedingly difficult. Is this perhaps an example of what has become known as âextremeâ sport?
FINALLY, a light strip offered in the Maplin online catalogue has 30 LEDs which are described as being âHigh brightness: 14kmcd per LEDâ. Chris Robbins translates for us: â14 kilo-milli-candelas â so thatâll be 14 candelas then.â Congratulations to Maplin. The kilo-milli-candela is the most pointless unit of measurement we have yet discovered.
