February 28th

The Moorgate tube disaster

In 1975 a tube train inexplicably sped through a station at the end of the line and smashed into a blank tunnel wall, killing 30 people including the driver. Fingers were pointed at this poor chap and as usual the tabloid press had the sharpest nails. It’s a feature of British disasters that some individual, usually an ordinary working man, has to be blamed. The Marchioness riverboat disaster, the Zeebrugge ferry disaster, the Paddington rail crash – they were all followed immediately by anger and outrage at the blunders of one person, whereas in almost every case, there were major corporate failings of penny-pinching and bad management. Here is an insider’s view of how badly the dead driver was treated.

So today, I will cheer myself up with this:

‘Dord’ briefly enters the language

In the 1934 edition of Webster’s New International Dictionary, the word ‘Dord’ appeared as another word for “density”. You can read how it happened here and here.

It existed for five years before someone at Webster’s spotted it had no etymology. For me it’s a heartening example of how language can and should grow. I much prefer for a new word to enter the language through simple error than because of the workings of a publisher’s PR department. How many times have we read that the new Oxford English Dictionary has included the word “bling” or “minger” in an attempt to gain newspaper column inches and more sales at the expense of credibility?

Comments

[will]

This feed don't work for me but I love it - can u check feed properties? I have MS 2008?