BEACHCOMBER

103 YEARS OLD AND STILL NOT POSITIVE ABOUT NEGATIVES...

WHAT is the opposite of “lockdown”? “Lockup” is clearly inadequate as locking something up is similar to locking it down, but both “unlockdown” and “unlockup” are equally unsatisfactory. The former fails to explain the function of the “down” part, while the latter looks like a double negative when compared with “lockdown”, which could leave us back where we started.

This linguistic conundrum may lie at the heart of the problems faced around the world concerning relief from lockdown and evidence is growing that the matter will not be solved until a good opposite is found.

Not long ago, I heard on the news two items relating to air traffic which I think illustrates the difficulty. The first referred to government plans for the introduction of “a traffic light system” to indicate who may fly where and whether passengers have to quarantine on arrival.

I know little about cars and less about planes, so I may be wrong about this, but introducing traffic lights for air traffic seems to be fraught with difficulties. What is a pilot supposed to do when he sees a red traffic light? Helicopters can hover in mid-air and wait for the light to change, but for a jet airliner to slam on the brakes would surely put the passengers in unacceptable danger. Even slowing down for an amber light would run the risk of the plane stalling and plummeting to earth. There is also the question of how the mid-air traffic lights are kept in place. If they are suspended from geo-stationary satellites, they will be too high to be seen from the planes, while having them on poles rising from the earth would create hazards for planes flying at lower altitudes.

The traffic lights news was immediately followed by another item on the establishment of “air bridges” to indicate which countries are considered safe to fly to. This may seem a natural extension of the bridges that are in the air above rivers or railways, but they still have to be connected to the land by pillars or, in the case of suspension bridges, hung from towers. Of course, air bridges would be natural places on which to erect the traffic lights, but their support structures would pose an ever greater hazard to unwary pilots.

It is unclear whether a universally agreed opposite of “lockdown” will help solve such problems, but it would help quell my fears about mid-air traffic lights and bridges.