Word of the day - trabant , or should that be sputnik?

Dr B has been writing over on Holy Disorder about the return of the Trabbi and he's also written some notes about the medieaval meaning of trabant which was a foot soldier or personal guard. These days when Trabant doesn't refer to a piece of ostalgie it means a satelite. Not surprising really as the GDR Trabant car was launched at around the same time as the success of the Soviet Sputnik programme - another word for satelite.

(Meanwhile I am left wondering how and why Dr B even manages to get footnotes onto his blog - surely we have too many footnotes in our lives as it is?)