The Saturday briefing
IS THERE anything you are desperately yearning to know? Are there any pressing factual disputes you would like us to help resolve? This is the page where we shall do our best to answer any questions you throw at us, whatever the subject.
WHAT has happened to retired athlete Steve Ovett? Where has he gone? Most of the athletes of his time such as Steve Cram, Brendan Foster and Sebastian Coe were commentators at the recent World Championships in London but not Ovett.
Kathleen Stone, by email STEVE Ovett retired in 1991 and has commentated on athletics for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation since 1992. He now lives in Australia and was part of the BBC commentary team at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006.
Steve’s son Freddy Ovett, incidentally, was a promising middle-distance runner too but switched to cycling at which he has been very successful. He is based in France where he has even trained with Chris Froome.
ARE English people in the minority in their own country?
John Graham, Bury, Lancashire I’M not sure what you mean by “English people”. That could apply to people not born here or people with non-British nationality. It’s difficult getting figures specifically for English rather than British but in any case it looks very unlikely that they’re in a minority.
In 2015, 13.5 per cent of the UK population was foreign-born and 8.9 per cent were not British citizens. Either way the “British” were very much in the majority.
IF, as I have read many times, the body is constantly renewing itself so that we are almost completely regenerated several times during a lifetime why is it that tattoos don’t go away?
If our skin is constantly being
replaced then how can the tattoo be replaced? Alan Hollett, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (and similar questions from other readers) THE part of our skin that is constantly dying and being replaced is the epidermis but tattoos are in deeper layers of the skin which survive.
When you are tattooed, needles puncture your skin sending the dye to the dermis, the fibroelastic layer below the epidermis.
Your immune system then sends white blood cells called macrophages to the damaged area which they repair by eating up the foreign material.
Also skin cells called fibroblasts soak up the dye. These fibroblasts and microphages are what make the tattoo long-lasting though it is liable to fade over the years.
WHY do we say “first”, “second”, “third” instead of “one-th”, “two-th” “three-th” and when did this begin?
Ray Wood, by email IT began in Old English, around the 10th century, long before the modern English language began to be formed. The words “first” and “second” have no etymological connection with the numbers “one” and “two” but rather the Germanic “furista”, meaning “foremost” and the Latin “secundus” meaning “following”.
The -st at the end of “first” is much like the superlative ending -est, meaning ahead of all the others. “Second” follows close behind. As for “third” that is also very old but has a clear connection with “three”.
In its earliest form, “thridda”, it was very similar to “threeth”. While other numbers settled for just adding -th, three kept its individuality, bridging the gap between second (no relation to “two”) and fourth (from “four”).
I AM a huge fan of the late Roy Orbison and came across a cutting recently that said: “Enrico Caruso and Roy Orbison were the only recorded tenors in the last century capable of singing E over high C.”
Can you give me examples of this as I don’t know what it means.
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The real question is whether it can be sung while preserving the natural tenor voice and not entering a falsetto or countertenor range.
Orbison and Caruso could do it but they may not be the only ones.
A top E from Juan Diego Flórez has been recorded too.
The late Luciano Pavarotti has sung one as well but some say that was falsetto and not a real tenor note at all. Is there anything you can’t answer? Try us! You can ask a question:
By email: put “questions” in the subject line and send your question to william.hartston@express.co.uk
to Any Questions, c/o William Hartston, Daily Express, Number 10 Lower Thames Street, London EC3R 6EN
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