Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!jarthur!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!reed!abosse
From: abosse@reed.UUCP ( )
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Webster entry error (James Joyce)
Keywords: Webster Joyce
Message-ID: <16374@reed.UUCP>
Date: 2 May 91 20:34:48 GMT
References: <18873@sdcc6.ucsd.edu>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Reed College, Portland OR
Lines: 15

In article <18873@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> ikoutsel@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (Ioannis Koutselas)  
writes:

> MOreover, I have heard that quark is not something that Gell_man
> has used for the particle, but rather that he has taken the word
> from Jame's Joyce books or whatever. I don't think that Joyce is
> mentioned if you look at the word quark.

That is correct. Its from Finnegan's Wake. I can't remember the reference  
exactly, but it goes something like this, "Three quarks for Mister < ? >" (now  
I feel embarrassed..) Well, at any rate, you're quite right about the Joyce  
reference as the source for Gell (the word was coined, according to Webster's, in 1929,
a few years after FW was published.

Arno Bosse