Plus: accents in westerns, from Daniel Day-Lewis to Michael Gambon; Why do so many female names end in 'a'?
What advantages do trams have over buses?
Trams are simply so civilised. They run smoothly and predictably along steel rails, with three times the energy-efficiency of buses and without the lurching, swerving and vibration of vehicles that require a series of controlled explosions for movement. Visit Nottingham, Croydon or Sheffield to sample their unrivalled delights. Even better, go to Amsterdam, Brussels or Germany, where most large towns and cities run trams along routes where mass, speedy movement is needed. Trams are greener and last much longer than buses, and can cope better with crowds and bad weather.
Trams have one disadvantage for the British. With high start-up costs, they need a longish view to be taken to appreciate their advantages. Sadly, our politicians are rarely able to look further ahead than the next election.
Terry Cooper, Sheffield
Advantages? Their "push-me-pull-you", non-swerve, fume-free mode of travel; their aesthetically pleasing construction; and the fact that when I was a child, they provided a magical form of transport!
Gillian Howarth, Waterlooville, Hants
The main advantage in unfamiliar cities is that you can spot a tram route immediately. You know you can always get back to any street where there are rails.
leadballoon
Margaret Thatcher was widely quoted as saying that a man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself travelling on a bus can count himself a failure. So all those over-26 male strivers using buses should jump on a tram and become successful.
Chris Gent, Nottingham
Trams always get through. Once, in Frankfurt, a car parked too near the tram tracks. The driver accelerated and took the side off the car. The noise was frightful, but we never felt a thing.
Ken Baldry, London N1
Did cowboys have American accents? Seeing as they were only recently settled in America from Britain, should Hollywood think more Colin Firth than Clint Eastwood?
I agree with Geoff Clifton (N&Q, 25 October): many westerns reflect the immigrant mix. Michael Mann's The Last of the Mohicans featured some interesting accents, especially that of Daniel Day-Lewis – emergent American? Kevin Costner's Open Range (a great film) has Michael Gambon straight from Belfast.
dravot
Since a lot of cowboy films feature railways and are set in the mid-19th century at the earliest, what reason is there to think they were recent immigrants from England? They may have been Scottish, or more likely Irish. I would think it very unlikely that someone with an accent like Colin Firth's would be working as a cowboy. What's more interesting is that all the Hollywood cowboys are depicted as white, which was definitely not the case – many were black or Latino.
richardanthony
Why do so many female Christian names end in "a"?
In Latin the ending indicating a female is "a" – it was "e" in Greek. Many of our girls' names come from Latin sources, or latinised versions of names from other languages. Although Roman males had a first name personal to them, females did not; they had the female equivalent of their father's family name. For example Gaius Julius Caesar had one daughter, Julia, but if he'd had a dozen they would all have been Julia. As this is obviously a source of some confusion, numbers, nicknames or shortened forms were often used in the family to differentiate a girl from her sisters. Hence "Prima" etc. The official name would have been used in documentation, so we often do not know exactly how many daughters there were, or exactly which one was involved in any particular incident. Roman girls were only of significance in relation to whose daughter they were.
Alexandria
Not just Christian. Many Muslim female first names also end in "a".
Peter Nias, Bradford
Any questions?
Are there more questions than answers?
Joe Coulson, Manchester
Do cats suffer from insomnia?
Terence Oon, Burgess Hill, West Sussex
Why is it that as the hair on most men's heads disappears, it starts growing in abundance all over the rest of the body – back/nostrils/ears/eyebrows?
Graham Green, Southsea, Hants
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