Obscure dictionary trivia
 

Mark Brader:
Which disaster that took place in what is now (and maybe was then,
I won't be specific) a part of the London Underground system is
mentioned in the Oxford English Dictionary?

Phil Deaves:
I look forward to the right answer!

It's Bethnal Green. Since that happened after the OED's first edition
was published, you won't find it in there. I have the Supplement that
was completed in 1986, and whose content has been incorporated into
the second edition OED and the newer online version (third edition in
progress). This includes, at the end of "tube", a subsidiary entry
for "tube shelter". And the second illustrative quotation, from a
contemporary entry in a diary published years later*, reads "There
was a terrible accident at a tube shelter last night after the sirens
had sounded in London." The date is given, so it's clear what's meant.

* "Mrs. Milburn's Diaries: An Englishwoman's day-to-day reflections,
1939-45", published in 1979.
--
Mark Brader | "... there is no such word as 'impossible' in
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My text in this article is in the public domain.

Obscure dictionary trivia
 

Tom Anderson writes:
Also, do you know for certain that there are no other mentions of tube
disasters in the OED?

No, I don't.
--
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| 'sdb /unix /dev/kmem'" -- Pontus Hedman

Obscure dictionary trivia
 

In message , Marcus Fox
writes

I thought of Harrow last night, and it is pretty far out on the edge of the
underground, so is unlikely to have been part of the underground as long as
the central parts. However, people were using harrows well before 1952 I
believe, so it is unlikely to be mentioned in the context of a disaster.

Well, the "harrowing of hell" was mentioned by Aelfric, c. 1000AD
(although the concept was said to be much older), and that's quite a
long time before the railway got to Harrow :)

--
Paul Terry

Obscure dictionary trivia
 

In message , Mark Brader
writes

It's Bethnal Green. Since that happened after the OED's first edition
was published, you won't find it in there. I have the Supplement that
was completed in 1986, and whose content has been incorporated into
the second edition OED and the newer online version (third edition in
progress). This includes, at the end of "tube", a subsidiary entry
for "tube shelter". And the second illustrative quotation, from a
contemporary entry in a diary published years later*, reads "There
was a terrible accident at a tube shelter last night after the sirens
had sounded in London." The date is given, so it's clear what's meant.

* "Mrs. Milburn's Diaries: An Englishwoman's day-to-day reflections,
1939-45", published in 1979.

What is the OED's first illustrative reference to "tube shelter"? The
expression was in use long before the Bethnal Green disaster.

--
Paul Terry

Obscure dictionary trivia
 

Mark Brader:
It's Bethnal Green. Since that happened after the OED's first edition
was published, you won't find it in there. I have the Supplement that
was completed in 1986, and whose content has been incorporated into
the second edition OED and the newer online version (third edition in
progress). This includes, at the end of "tube", a subsidiary entry
for "tube shelter". ..

Paul Terry:
What is the OED's first illustrative reference to "tube shelter"?

In the Supplement, it's from "Darkness Falls from the Air", a 1942 novel
by Nigel Balchin. "We went... by tube... I wanted to see how the tube
shelter business was working out."

The expression was in use long before the Bethnal Green disaster.

I don't know if the above has been "antedated", as they say, in the OED2
or the online edition.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "The walls have hearsay."
-- Fonseca & Carolino

My text in this article is in the public domain.

Obscure dictionary trivia
 

In message , Mark Brader
writes

Paul Terry:
What is the OED's first illustrative reference to "tube shelter"?

In the Supplement, it's from "Darkness Falls from the Air", a 1942 novel
by Nigel Balchin. "We went... by tube... I wanted to see how the tube
shelter business was working out."

The expression was in use long before the Bethnal Green disaster.

I don't know if the above has been "antedated", as they say, in the OED2
or the online edition.

Well, Henry Moore's famous "Grey tube shelter" dates from 1940 - I
*think* the title is contemporary, but am not su

http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2001/moore/fig04.htm

--
Paul Terry

Obscure dictionary trivia
 

In article , Marcus Fox
writes
I thought of Harrow last night, and it is pretty far out on the edge of the
underground, so is unlikely to have been part of the underground as long as
the central parts.

1837-07-20: Harrow & Wealdstone opened
1863-01-01: first Underground line
1880-08-02: Harrow-on-the-Hill opened (Underground services)
1890-12-18: first tube line part of LU [1]
1917-04-16: Harrow & Wealdstone first tube trains

[1] The Tower Subway was earlier but was never part of what we call the
Underground.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
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Obscure dictionary trivia
 

In article ,
Tom Anderson writes
I'll guess Moorgate; the term 'Moorgate control' is now used in describing
some sort of fail-safe signalling thingummajig,

Timed train-stops to ensure a train speed is reduced.

so you might expect it to
be in the dictionary.

No, it's railway jargon. I wouldn't expect "Welwyn Control", or the
railway use of "in advance", to be there either.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is:

Obscure dictionary trivia
 

(Troy Steadman) wrote in message . com...
(Nick Cooper) wrote in message ...

Bamden Town? Bambeth North??? Barble Arch???? Brafalgar square?????

On the Bakerloo? Methinks this link might provide a few clues:

http://www.cwgcuser.org.uk/personal/...ra/lu/tuaw.htm

My own web-site, you mean? Seriously, my comment was a humourous
observation that although Balham, Bank and Bounds Green got bombed, it
wasn't only stations beginnign with "B" that caught it.

Obscure dictionary trivia
 

Annabel Smyth wrote in message ...
Nick Cooper wrote to uk.transport.london on Sun, 3 Oct 2004:

The crush at Bethnal Green and the wartime bombing of the other "B"
stations...

Bamden Town? Bambeth North??? Barble Arch???? Brafalgar square?????

Bank, ITYF

Yes, I know, plus Balham & Bounds Green - I've only been maintaining a
web-page on the subject for the last 2½ years.... The point is that
although the "Bs" are quite well known, plenty of other stations got
bombed, many with loss of live. In fact, I've just had my attention
drawn to a bombing fatality at Kings Cross that hasn't previously been
documented in "the usual sources."