Jeepers creepers...

As a demonstration of its powers, a Jeep was driven up the steps of the Capitol building on 20 February 1941

The weekly dose of Michael Quinion's online World Wide Words popped into the Republic's inbox this morning, and I thought that the discussion on the origin of the word 'Jeep' might be of interest to citizens of this Republic, so here it is:

Questions & Answers: Jeep
[Q] From Patrick Neylan: “I was just about to chide someone for believing Jeep to be an acronym of ‘Just Enough Essential Parts’ and was about to point out, with just a trace of smug superiority, that Jeep is, of course, a corruption of the initials GP, short for General Purpose (Vehicle). Then I thought, ‘Hang on, how do I know that?’ It seems there’s a lot of dispute, with some very credible arguments against General Purpose. You don’t seem to have tackled this one. Might I suggest an investigation?”

And here is the discussion which ensued:

http://www.worldwidewords.org/nl/vhki.htm

Of course for many, the Land Rover is the far superior vehicle, but that's a whole other discussion.

Pic: Wiki (GNU Commons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Landrover_Serie_I_von_1952.jpg

More on those here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Rover

Don't miss the video posted by Caius Plinius on his latest blog:

http://caiusplinius.blogspot.com/

viral it may be but fun!

Also - for those who enjoyed the links in me blog from Thursday re the c20th Soc, here's an unofficial group on flickr, whose pictures you may also enjoy:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/385574@N25/

I particularly enjoyed this set, as I was a keen follower of the efforts to have it listed:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mondoagogo/sets/72157605335117792/

and that site led me to this slideshow about Le Corbusier:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7894000/7894066.stm

Nem

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