Star Wars stormtroopers are covered in armour. How can they die?
Like all pawns, they die, so their master’s dreams can live.
R De Braganza, Kilifi, Kenya
• In my experience, it has usually been the result of less than adequate coverage leading to hydraulic damage and a loss of vital fluids. But then again, I’m a heavy equipment mechanic and not a doctor.
Terence Rowell, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
• By being run over by a Ford.
Jim Dewar, Gosford, NSW, Australia
• They are wounded through the chinks in their armour.
Ursula Nixon, Bodalla, NSW, Australia
• Consult your nearest cockroach.
Philip Stigger, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
• Stormtroopers die with their boots on.
David Tucker, Halle, Germany
• Armourgeddon.
Jim Robinson, Bologna, Italy
• Ah, but Luke Skywalker has a weapon that can cut through armour like a hot knife through butter: a light sabre. Or, as my little nephew used to call it, a life-saver.
David Isaacs, Sydney, Australia
• Like the French nobility at Agincourt?
Warwick Ruse, Brunswick West, Victoria, Australia
• Heavy metal poisoning.
John Anderson, Pukekohe, New Zealand
• They fight for the bad guys and as we know from movie-time immemorial they have to die.
Margaret Wyeth, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
• It’s plastic.
James Carroll, Geneva, Switzerland
• Either from suffocation or heatstroke.
Larry Fotheringham, Chatham, Ontario, Canada
Being pulled both ways
Distraction: opposite of traction?
Not really. Traction is pulling; distraction is also pulling, away from what you should be doing. Similarly, extraction is pulling out, retraction is pulling back. What about simply pushing?
Joan Dawson, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
• Only when the distraction causes you to lose your grip.
Bill Britton, Vero Beach, Florida, US
• Ask the lovers. Disengaged: opposite of engaged? There are so many ways to get “dissed” – eight pages of it in my Webster’s Dictionary!
Doreen Forney, Pownal, Vermont, US
Malevolent misprision
Has the wrong use of words ever led to a serious conflict, such as war?
Yes – the Ems Telegram of 1870. Otto von Bismarck’s deliberate misinterpretation of Napoleon III’s telegram as insulting to King Wilhelm I of Prussia led to France’s declaration of war and subsequent defeat, resulting in the establishment of the German Kaiserreich.
Alaisdair Raynham, Truro, Cornwall, UK
• “I believe it is Peace for our time”: Neville Chamberlain, 1938.
Anthony Walter, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
• There is a Michael Leunig cartoon of two opposing battalions in trenches, separated by no man’s land. One side is holding up a sign aimed at the other, on which is written: “Your mother doesn’t love you.” The sergeant on the receiving side says: “This really means war.”
Gaynor McGrath, Armidale, NSW, Australia
• Weapons of mass destruction.
Reiner Jaakson, Oakville, Ontario, Canada
Any answers?
Is lettuce a waste of space?
Norman Coe, Sant Cugat de Vallès, Spain
Is a global mindset contrary to a national mindset?
Jonathan Vanderels, Shaftbury, Vermont, US
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