London Banter - View Single Post

Nick Cooper 625 · October 5th 04, 11:24 AM posted to uk.transport.london

(Mark Brader) wrote in message ...
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.

In that case, technically it was part of the LU infrastructure - and
is now - but it wasn't part of the operating network at the time. I
take it that was why you were being vague on that point?!