CATO -- acronym?

[Randy Alexander]

I'm in Hong Kong away from my reliable sources, but I'm sure I have books
and magazines that document this: catastrophe on takeoff, in the field of
model rocketry.  I even had a model rocket called CATO, produced by Estes.
I'll try to remember to follow up on this, but if you don't hear from me in
a couple of days, please remind me.

Randy

On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 11:02 PM, wordmall <wordmall at aol.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       wordmall <wordmall at AOL.COM>
> Subject:      CATO  -- acronym?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Model airplane clubs announce CATO! when a plane crashes. Some say it
> is an acronym (crash on takeoff, catastrophe on takeoff, etc.). Others
> say it is an abbreviation of CATastrOphe. Can anyone document a
> reliable source?
>
> Michael J. Sheehan
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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--
Randy Alexander
Jilin City, China
Blogs:
Manchu studies: http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu
Chinese characters: http://www.bjshengr.com/yuwen

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