Nonsense, it’s a snark
A snark is an QUESTION
animal in Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting Of The Snark and a term given to computer failure. Are there any other uses for this nonsense word? THE nonsense word snark was used in the Fifties as the name of the Northrop SM-62A surface-tosurface missile.
This missile resembled a tail-less aircraft, and was powered by a Pratt & Whitney J57 jet engine of 11,000lb thrust, giving it a cruising speed of 615 mph and a range of 5,500 miles. On reaching its target, the snark would go into a supersonic dive, during which the nose warhead would separate from the rest of the airframe.
Only 95 copies of the Snark were made, and it was never deployed operationally.
Pete Munro, Dunstable, Beds. ACCORDING to the Urban Dictionary, to be ‘snarkish’ is to be ‘snide or derisive’. A snark, therefore, is a ‘snide remark’.
Paul Yeats, Northampton. IN THE field of mathematics, a snark is a type of graph. It is described as a bridgeless cubic graph whose edges cannot be properly coloured by three colours.
It was named after the Lewis Carroll mythical creature because it is such an elusive form. A snark is also the name of a small bug-like species of alien used as a weapon by the animated character Gordon Freeman in the computer game Half-Life.
In the game, Gordon throws snarks at his enemies to whom they deliver a nasty bite. Three snark bites spell certain death.
Janine Wolfe, London, SW12. THE name snark has been used for several seafaring vehicles.
The snark was a 45ft yacht built to Jack London’s specifications on which he lived from 1906 to 1908. Its voyage across the Pacific is depicted in London’s book The Cruise Of The Snark in 1913.
Snark was the name of an experimental two-man submarine in the movie Gray Lady Down (1978).
In the film, the U.S.S. Neptune, a nuclear submarine commanded by Captain Paul Blanchard (Charlton Heston) is sunk off the coast of Connecticut after a collision with a Norwegian cargo ship.
The Navy must attempt a dangerous rescue. This is achieved using the snark under the able guidance of Captain Gates (David Carradine) and Mickey ( Ned Beatty). Stacy Keach also features in the film as Captain Bennett, head of rescue operations.
Finally, The Second Snark was built in 1938 as a shipyard tug. It is still in use as a cruise boat and passenger ferry on the Firth of Clyde. Ian Mackie, Stirling.
When I enlisted in QUESTION
the Royal Marines in 1951, I was given the King’s shilling. Can anyone tell me when this tradition started and does it still exist? I’M surprised that anyone took the King’s shilling as late as 1951. I have heard stories of it being used up to the mid- Forties but not later.
Taking the King’s shilling was like a ‘golden handshake’. Its acceptance by a recruit constituted a binding enlistment in the British Army. This incentive was necessary because the Army was unpopular.
Its origin is obscure, but it is believed to date from the advent of England’s first standing army. This was created shortly after the conclusion of the English Civil War ( 1642- 51), when Parliament assumed control of standing companies based on Cromwell’s New Model Army and formed the concept of the first regiments.
References to this payment date back to at least 1707: ‘He did take a shilling, but not with any intent of listing’ (anon: Webster’s English Dictionary). In 1852, the novelist William Thackeray told of ‘a fellow ( who) was jilted by his mistress, and took the shilling in despair’. The full term of King’s shilling is not recorded until the late 19th century. Officially, the practice ended in 1879.
John Greene, London W11.
Under what circumstances QUESTION is it grammatically correct to begin a sentence with ‘And’ or ‘But’? FURTHER to the earlier answer, I enjoyed reading The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night- Time by Mark Haddon. It tells the story of a 15-year-old boy with Asperger’s syndrome (a form of autism), who is exceptionally talented in maths — and is narrated by him.
I have counted a total of 2,969 sentences in that book (including letters but excluding footnotes, diagrams and the appendix, and counting speech in quotation marks as part of one sentence). Of these, an astonishing 1,347 (45 per cent) begin with ‘ And’ and 180 (6 per cent) begin with ‘But’.
Though the book is a work of fiction, I share many similarities with the boy in the story.
I am also called Christopher, have Asperger’s syndrome and became the first pupil at the special school I attend to pass an A-level.
Chris Bird, Cheltenham, Glos.
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