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THE FUN OF IT

planes. I learned later that none had been there for years. Scarcely had my wheels come to rest, when a boy on a bicycle arrived. He eyed my little Avian. “Huh, you haven’t got slots, have you?” he inquired. The child had had no opportunity to become acquainted with this development except through reading, yet he not only recognized my plane as one often equipped with slots, but knew what these gadgets looked like.

Aviation chatter is routine. The modern vocab­ulary is studded with “ailerons”, “r.p.m.’s”, “slips”, “stalls”, “dead sticks”, and the like. Among other things, aviation is making its contribution to the language. Some of its uncommon phrases of to­day will be common enough tomorrow. And con­versely, certain landlubber words of now may be seldom heard in the future.