Hits that pass in the night
QUESTION I love the Ian Hunter song Ships That Pass In The Night. What is the origin of this phrase? ShipS that pass in the night is often said of people who meet for a brief, but intense, moment and then part, never to see each other again.
The idiom was taken from henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Tales Of A Wayside inn in 1863. This collection of stories in verse was supposedly related by a group of travellers staying at the Red Lion inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts.
The storytellers include the landlord, a musician, a Spanish Jew, poet, Sicilian, theologian and student.
The poem in question is the tale of Elizabeth haddon, a Quaker farm girl who falls in love after a brief encounter with an Englishman called John Estaugh, and is related by the theologian:
‘Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.’
ian hunter was the former lead singer of the glam rock group Mott the hoople. he left in 1974 and teamed up with David Bowie’s Spiders From Mars guitarist Mick Ronson. in 1979, the pair released hunter’s brilliant album, You’re Never Alone With A Schizophrenic.
As well as the rollicking numbers Just Another Night and Cleveland Rocks, hunter wrote Ships, a beautiful hymn to his father: ‘
We walked to the sea, just my father and me / And the dogs played around on the sand . . . I said, “Love’s easier when it’s far away” / We sat and watched a distant light / We’re two ships that pass in the night.’
hunter never had the success he deserved. however, the song was a surprise hit for Barry Manilow, whose version reached No. 9 in the U.S. charts in 1979. hunter recalled to Mojo magazine: ‘That whole Manilow thing was quite amusing. That guy’s no slouch when it comes to arranging.’
Raymond Finkel, London N11.
QUESTION Does the word Istanbul have Greek origins?
The name istanbul is known as early as the 15th century as a corruption of the Greek phrase eis tan polin (‘in — or to — the city’), which is how the local Greek population referred to it.
The Republic of Turkey declared istanbul the official name of its capital in 1923. Many cities in modern Turkey had Greek origins and their names reflect this, including Ankara, Bursa and izmir.
Because of animosity between the two countries, a false etymology has been created, tracing the name to ‘islam bol’ (‘plenty of islam’).
Given istanbul’s importance geographically — it straddles two continents, Europe and Asia — to trade and history, the city has had many names over the years.
According to pliny the Elder, there was once a Tracian settlement there called Lygos, though its location is disputed.
The Greek trading town of Byzantium was founded in 667 BC by traders from the Greek city state Megara. The name is probably derived from Byzas, a legendary Greek king. The Roman Emperor Septimius Severus renamed it Augusta Antonina after his son, Antoninus.
On May 11, 330 BC, the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great made the city the new eastern capital of the Roman Empire. he rebuilt it on a monumental scale and called it Nova Roma (New Rome) and Alma Roma (Eastern Rome). it became Roma Con st anti no po lit an a and Constantinopolis (the City of Constantine) after his death.
Other appellations included Queen Of Cities and simply The City — he Polis — presaging its modern usage.
After the Ottoman conquest of 1453, Constantinople became the official name in Ottoman Turkish until the fall of the Empire in 1923, when the colloquial name for ‘the city’ was formally adopted.
Arabella White, Skipton, N. Yorks.
QUESTION Why do so many cyclists seem to suffer from asthma?
ONE in 11 children and one in 12 adults in Britain have asthma, an allergy-triggered constriction of the bronchial tubes that tends to begin in childhood.
Elite athletes have a different form of the illness called exercise- induced asthma ( EiA). Rapid inhalation of cold, dry air has been identified as a trigger. This results in coughing, tightening of the chest, wheezing, fatigue and shortness of breath.
Research from 2004 indicates that EiA may be up to five times more common in Olympians than the general population.
in 2016, John Dickinson from Kent University’s School of Sport and Exercise Sciences tested all 33 UK-based members of the British swimming squad and found 70 per cent had some form of asthma.
he tested cyclists from Team Sky and a third had the condition. Around half of elite cross-country skiers have it, as does marathon runner paula Radcliffe.
The treatment for mild attacks is salbutamol, the most common form of bronchodilator drug, taken via an inhaler.
in professional sport, its use (within certain limits) does not need a doctor’s therapeutic use exemption (TUE) certificate. EiA sufferer and multiple Tour de France winner Chris Froome fell foul of this when he was deemed to have taken more than eight puffs on the inhaler in a single day. he was eventually exonerated. There is little evidence that salbutamol confers any advantage to the cyclist.
More serious cases of asthma can be treated with corticosteroids, which can increase energy and improve recovery. professional athletes require a TUE to use them, and it’s the job of the World Anti- Doping Agency to ensure the request is genuine.
Dr Ian Smith, Cambridge.
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