From the soapbox to the stars
YOU may have heard of the UK Independence Party 鈥� whose members, we hear, long for a return to 1950s Britain, perhaps because of the abundance of fortified bunkers facing the English Channel. However, nobody could accuse South Suffolk UKIP candidate Aidan Powlesland of being isolationist.
His pamphlet informs voters in the constituency that Powlesland will work to slash the welfare budget, close the deficit and cancel plans for a local bypass, because by the time it is completed in 2030 we can expect self-driving, electric, flying cars. 鈥淢oreover,鈥� he adds cryptically, 鈥減opulation is likely to decline in the wake of Brexit鈥�.
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But what really catches our eye is Powlesland鈥檚 comprehensive plan for a 拢1.2 billion interstellar programme. This includes 拢40 million for a fleet of small scout craft, 拢60 million to build an interstellar communications array, 拢1 billion to mine the moons of Jupiter and Saturn for platinum and water, and 拢100 million for a colony ship to transport people beyond our solar system. Bold figures, given that the current budget for a planned railway connecting London to Birmingham (a mere distance of 220 kilometres, or 0.00000147 astronomical units) is an eye-watering 拢27 billion.
The importance of this plan to the constituency of South Suffolk? Powlesland says this mission is needed 鈥渇or all our profit and the chance to begin anew鈥�.
But given his party鈥檚 rabid opposition to immigration (which extends, we presume, to the interplanetary variety), we can鈥檛 help but wonder who he plans to put in this interstellar spaceship.
鈥淐osta coffee informs Natalie Emma Roberts that 鈥淥ur napkins have been cleaning happy faces since 1971鈥�. Natalie says 鈥淥n second thought, I鈥檒l use a wet wipe.鈥濃��
Zero sum game
officials may be nursing a monster headache after overspending by a cool $2 trillion in their latest budget. Officially titled 鈥淎 New Foundation For American Greatness鈥�, it projects a decade of ruddy-cheeked growth in GDP, delivering an extra $2 trillion to government coffers. The foundation of this new greatness? A $2 trillion tax cut.
Still, you have to speculate to accumulate, the saying goes. And the US president is a man who knows a thing or two about speculating with huge sums of other people鈥檚 money.
Feedback recalls that when visiting the US president in January, UK prime minister Theresa May gifted him a traditional Scottish cup of friendship. Touching, but perhaps a calculator would have been more useful for his treasurers.
B茅b茅 one more time
FEARING that our run on retronyms is coming to a close, Bryn Glover sends us a hasty note. 鈥淵ou introduced the concept of a nominative retronym,鈥� he writes, 鈥渁nd I felt that I had to slip in possibly a presidential example, namely Dubya, before the covers of the file finally slammed shut.鈥�
Hold the door! This angle may open new avenues to explore yet, Bryn, as Feedback counters with a famous little droid named Artoo. Meanwhile, in a moment of serendipitous synchronicity, Brian Reffin Smith writes in to offer 鈥淏茅b茅, or as many others knew her, Brigitte Bardot.鈥�
Measure of a woman
ALSO looking for names is Nina Baker, who says 鈥淚 am sure Feedback鈥檚 fan base is familiar with eponyms, where a thing or concept takes the name of its discoverer or inventor.鈥� She cites famous examples such as watts, joules and newtons. 鈥淏ut are there any reasonably well-known science or engineering eponyms relating to a woman鈥檚 name?鈥�
A quick search by Feedback uncovers just one: goeppert-mayer, a unit describing two-photon absorption cross section, named for physicist and Nobel laureate Maria Goeppert-Mayer.
Naturally, our thoughts turned immediately to curies, both the units and the couple, but it鈥檚 not clear which of the two the unit was named for 鈥� a grey area that seems to have been wholly intentional. Can you think of any others?
Misplaced city
PREVIOUSLY Stephen Jorgenson-Murray discovered trains running across Europe through a portal spanning ten longitudinal degrees (27 May). 鈥淕oogle may have moved Mikulczyce from Poland to Germany, but at 18掳 west, you have moved it into the sea off the south coast of Ireland,鈥� says John Woodgate.
There is, of course, an alternative explanation. 鈥淭his seems to be using a longitude calculation based on a zero meridian running through, or very close to, Addis Ababa,鈥� says Geoff Convery. 鈥淚f you鈥檙e taking the Greenwich meridian as zero then 18掳 west places the Mikulczyce bus stop in the Atlantic ocean.鈥� This, he says, could give travellers even more problems than locating it in Dornheim.
The nah in Nazi
鈥淪URELY John King is incorrect in his etymology of the word Nazi,鈥� says Stuart Tallack (27 May). 鈥淚t does not derive from the pronunciation in German of the letters N and Z, but is a contraction of a type common in German at the time.鈥� Stuart cites other examples such as 碍补辫颈迟盲苍濒别耻迟苍补苍迟 becoming Kaleut, and Geheime Staatspolizei becoming the more familiar Gestapo.
He wonders if there is a name for this kind of word formation. Feedback suspects that it鈥檚 a lesser sibling of acronym, but we do like Stuart鈥檚 suggestion that 鈥渋n view of the time it would have taken to type the full version, how about 鈥榮tenonym鈥�?鈥�.