From Richard Honey
Feedback (24 July) gives an example of a truncated message from the 1970s, but we can go much further back. Vernon Watson was a music-hall comedian in the UK from the 1920s to the 1940s. At that time, railway stations had waiting rooms for passengers who smoked and separate rooms for those who did not. Large signs on the double doors showed which was which. The doors swung apart as people went in or out and Watson noticed the words that appeared: NOSMO on one and KING on the other. Thus was born his soon-to-be well-known stage name.
Port Hope, Ontario, Canada
