12 FEBRUARY 2000, Page 29

Finnegans quark

From Mr Michael Smith Sir: Paul Johnson's speculation (And another thing, 5 February) that the word `quark' could have been invented by Edward Lear was close — but no banana. It was coined by the master of nonsense prose, not verse. James Joyce wrote 'three quarks for muster Mark' (Finnegans Wake, 1939) and Murray Gell-Mann recalled this when, in 1964, he proposed his triplet-state structure of the proton and neutron. Michael Smith

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