SHORTLY after the launch in 1957 of the Soviet Sputnik satellite, the White House Science Advisory Committee prepared an Introduction to Outer Space to sell the idea of the space race to the American people. The document, with an enthusiastic introduction by President Eisenhower, described spaceflight as 鈥渢o try to go where no one has gone before鈥�.
Sounds familiar? Dwayne A. Day has an explanation. Writing in The Space Review, he is in no doubt that the Star Trek saying 鈥淭o boldly go where no man has gone before鈥� was based on this phrase from the pamphlet, which was widely distributed throughout the US.
Advertisement
The Star Trek line, Day suggests, is more polished 鈥� 鈥済oing boldly is more powerful than trying to go鈥�. But then, he says, 鈥淗ollywood gets better writers than the White House鈥�. Even so, he raises an eyebrow at the change from the gender-neutral 鈥渘o one鈥� to 鈥渘o man鈥� 鈥� a change that was reversed when Star Trek was resurrected 鈥渋n a more politically correct form鈥� in the 1980s.
Day鈥檚 article, which can be found at , goes on to discuss Star Trek鈥榮 links with the US aerospace community and its role in American politics during the cold war. It finishes with a biographical note: 鈥淒wayne A. Day used to be a Trekkie. He got better.鈥�
You can see a complete reproduction of the original Introduction to Outer Space pamphlet on the Federation of American 杏吧原创s website at .
UH-OH, what have we started? Our mention of No Name Street and Sans Nom Road (Feedback, 21 January) leads Hal Kouns to ask whether we have set off an international scavenger hunt. He feels sure Via Innominato must be out there somewhere. And indeed lists four in Italy. We leave the count of Rues Sans Nom as an exercise for the reader, having street maps of neither Mali nor Chad to hand. However, we did try 狈补尘别苍濒辞蝉蝉迟谤补脽别 in Germany and Austria, but without success 鈥� so that is apparently one part of the world where everything has a proper name.
Kouns also notes a medical quirk that perhaps underlies this phenomenon in some way: he cites the innominate artery and vein as the result of anatomists suffering denominator鈥檚 block, and wonders if this somehow spread to other areas of nomenclature.
Meanwhile Trevor Jones claims to live a stone鈥檚 throw from Nowhere, a small tract of land that lies neither in the English parish of Stoke Gifford nor its neighbouring parishes. Also in the UK, John Boothby claims that there鈥檚 a place called No Place in County Durham, while Bob Palfreman maintains that the Lake District contains a small lake called Innominate Tarn. None of these appears on the maps we have access to but we are sure they exist, just as we believe Kaij Karrus when he tells us of the No Name restaurant in Boston.
Paul Wormell, meanwhile, informs us of the composition Sine Nomine 鈥� a suitably ecclesiastical way of saying that the tune to which the hymn For All the Saints is commonly sung has no name. And a suitable way to end this theme. Please.
READER Mike Sands was driving along a narrow road with cars parked on either side when his cellphone flashed at him from its holder to say he had an urgent SMS. At the very moment he took his eye off the road to look at the phone, a bus pulled out coming the other way. Fortunately, he spotted it and, heart in mouth, aimed as close to the parked cars as he could. He got away with just a clipped wing mirror.
Breathing again, he looked at the message. It was from his cellphone service provider O2 and said: 鈥淐all O2 Trafficline. It鈥檚 the safest way to plan your journey.鈥�
READERS continue to be inspired by Paul Dove鈥檚 suggestion that we should use backward-spelled words for reverse actions (19 November 2005). Donald Ritson, for example, thinks it would be sensible to admit that the acceleration in the expansion of the universe is not caused by great dollops of unseen and unidentified dark energy but is actually caused by a force called 鈥測tivarg鈥�.
鈥淜eith Lascelles tells us that in Swansea, UK, there is a bar that became known as 鈥淣o sign bar鈥� because it didn鈥檛 have a sign. Now it does have one 鈥� saying 鈥淣o sign bar鈥濃��
Among the hobbies such as cooking and gardening that customers of clothes company Boden can declare at are 鈥済rafitti/casual vandalism鈥�. How could I not tick that, asks Martin Evans.
FINALLY, here is an example of what we shall call geo-nominative palindromy. Mo Foster typed her name into Google and up came a small town in Missouri 鈥� Foster, MO.
We hope, however, that in passing this on we don鈥檛 provoke any attacks of aibohphobia among our readers. This palindrome, as Alan Lane discovered, means 鈥渁n abnormal and persistent fear of palindromes鈥�.
And that鈥檚 not all. According to the Langmaker word website, it also means 鈥渁 fear of mechanical dogs鈥�. Make of that what you will.