What's the Word?

It all began, as so many things in Britain do, with a letter to the London Times. Sir Alfred Hurst, chairman of the London Builders' Conference, had a question: "Is this new word of the scientists, 'fissionable,' admissionable?" With that, the debate was on.

Both scientists and laymen had ideas, and all week long they aired them to their hearts' content. "In my opinion, even though I am a scientist." wrote Chemist A. L. Bacharach, "fissionable (an Americanism, I believe), is not admissible, though fissile is." Nonsense, cried a gentleman from Churchfields. Woodford, "it is unquestionable that 'fissionable' is objectionable to the impressionable; but to the knowledgeable it is unexceptionable." Added someone from Harrow, Middlesex: "Fissionable is fashionable, and surely reasonably admissible. Fissible is risible."

There was also, of course, an opinion from Oxford. "The real problem in the terminology of fissility or fissileness," wrote one learned fellow, "is to distinguish between materials with natural or artificial nuclear splits. Possibly the former might be called 'fissive.' "

But that seemed to leave Britons just about where they started. A correspondent from Timberscombe, Somerset began all over again: "Is fissive admissive?"

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