Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more
Fossils battle evolution
THE STRUGGLE to teach science wins a few rounds, sometimes it loses for a while 鈥� and sometimes it鈥檚 hard to tell the difference, at least in South Carolina. As we went to press the state鈥檚 provided for evolution, but approval of that section was being delayed by those who want to omit the crucial matter of natural selection.
Now the state Senate has 鈥� an idea, proposed by 8-year-old Olivia McConnell, that adds to the designation of the .
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Palaeontologists may, however, have a few bones to pick with the : 鈥淭he Columbian Mammoth鈥� is designated as the official State Fossil of South Carolina and must be officially referred to as the 鈥楥olumbian Mammoth鈥�, which was created on the Sixth Day with the other beasts of the field.鈥�
The above wording was passed on 2 April, not 1 April. The state House of Representatives rejected it 鈥� so it, too, remains in a sort of superposition of policy and not-policy.
Robert Scopes sends us a local newspaper advertisement for a plumber who promises to use 鈥淗igh Pressure Vacuums鈥� to clear blockages, and wonders: which way will the blockage go?
A name by any other name
REGULARLY, we announce that we are no longer taking submissions of instances of nominative determinism 鈥� the name given by Feedback reader C. R. Cavonius to the phenomenon of people鈥檚 names appearing to influence their occupation or publishing history (17 December 1994). Continuously, readers submit examples. Occasionally, we relent.
Matt Kitching reminds us of The Flint Report, on the mineral, by D. J. Flint, R. B. Flint and M. W. Flintoft 鈥� 15 years after its first mention here (31 October 1998).
Both William Bains and Liegh White report that the UK National Trust鈥檚 adviser on flood risk is Phil Dyke. And Andy Ball wonders whether the view expressed in UK newspaper The Guardian that the country is undermined by being voiced by Rob Duck.
Feedback, meanwhile, recently received an internal email about employee benefits, for which we thank Sally Perks.
Anti-names
NOMINATIVES that we hope are not determinist include the personnel director Alan Savage and his deputy Mike Butcher, in whose fiefdom Roger Mathews used to work. And Ian Moseley reports his invitation to take part in a diabetes research study, led by Professor Hitman and managed by Dr Hood. We鈥檙e not sure, though, what to call this phenomenon.
In the other culture
DELVING into our piling system we discover a note about ways in which our discussions of nominative determinism have entered the Other Culture, as the writer C. P. Snow didn鈥檛 put it in his notorious 1959 lecture . We find Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman in considering how appropriate it is that a banker be called Diamond. And we find of the same paper, though what the name 鈥淧hil Jones鈥� determines puzzles Feedback as much as does any other sport writing.
It鈥檚 a WikiFact
NOMINATIVE determinism of course has its own web page at . Sadly, the was deleted after someone credited that sceptical coinage to this column. And that is a WikiFact, if purely by its absence.
Metaphor miasma
DISCUSSING the above items with colleagues, we observed that 鈥渢he weight on the nominative determinism pressure cooker is rattling again.鈥� Then we wondered which readers had experienced the literal phenomenon used in that image.
In three years living in the US, Feedback never encountered an actual pressure cooker with a weight on top that regulates the steam pressure under which red beans, for example, can be cooked in 20 minutes 鈥� rather than all afternoon in an open pan. We asked another colleague, who never saw one while living in the US to young adulthood.
But people in the US know what is meant by 鈥減utting someone in a pressure cooker鈥�. Does that make it an example of a metaphor without foundation?
Hoist by a what?
ANOTHER example of a metaphor without foundation comes from Frank Cross, helpfully pointing out that we were 鈥渉oist by our own petard鈥� when our website momentarily claimed that a part of the Indian Ocean was 4500 kilometres deep. Feedback knows what a 辫茅迟补谤诲 is, but only because we once spent an idle morning hunting it down. As a result, as far as current usage goes we share secret knowledge with French-speaking railway workers who place small explosive charges on the rails as warnings behind broken-down trains: those would be 辫茅迟补谤诲s.
More metaphors, please
NOW the idea of a metaphor without foundation just needs a name. Translating the description into Greek seems to add gravitas: 鈥渁thelemic metaphors鈥�, we think. More, please.
Sporting suction
FINALLY, sports reporting may be a rich source of such athelemic metaphors. Alan Wells reports what is, on closer examination, merely a strange appliance of science. When Manchester City played Hull City last September, a commentator noted that footballer Sergio Aguero 鈥渟eems to go through people by osmosis!鈥�