From: "Jerry Friedman, Northern N. M. Community College"
<jfriedman@nnm.cc.nm.us>

At 11:08 AM 12/13/98 -0800, you wrote:
>This week I read a news article about a Russian man who walked from
>England to France through the Chunnel without being detected by security
>or being sucked under the wheels of the speeding trains. Shortly after
>reading that, I was amused when I started Chapter 30 of _Ada_ and read
>about several members of a circus defecting from France to England
>through the "Chunnel." Does anyone know if this was a bit of prescience
>on VN's part, or was the plan for the tunnel in the news while _Ada_ was
>being written?
>
I believe various plans for a Chunnel were "floated" for a long time
before one was finally adopted. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary gives
the first use of the word as "early 20th century", that is, before 1930.
Jerry Friedman