Words: jet, n.

THE ATLANTIC disaster reminds us that a useful word is also lost. Jets were once "aeroplanes", a Croydon luxury .

In 1920 Blackwood's Magazine asserted that "the perfected aeroplane is the obvious instrument to suppress war", but in 1896 Invention asked "why not call it airplane?" In 1928 the BBC did so - ahead of the US Forces Dictionary which, in 1951, said that this had long been American usage.

That same year, John Wyndham referred confusingly to a jet aeroplane. With some new word for ungainly 747s, let us revive jet: a large ladle, to parade, to bray, to revel, even to loosen sand and to assume a pompous gait - or, of a bird, to move the tail up and down - the fate, alas, of many a jet, especially Aeroflot's.