Isn't a superjumbo a hot dog?

As much as I dislike the look of the Airbus 380 (it's an ugly beast), I equally disdain the use of the word superjumbo when referring to the world's largest commercial airplane. I have a friend who has flown on the A380 and he spoke glowingly of the aircraft's passenger cabins. This may be so, but it lacks the grace and beautiful lines of the Boeing 747, previously the world's largest commercial aircraft.

I first saw the Airbus A380 in Hong Kong, while the aircraft was performing a number of proving flights. And earlier this year while in Toronto I saw an Emirates A380 preparing for its 13-hour non stop flight to Dubai. It was an eye-catcher to be sure, as people were fumbling for their cameras, but it still did little for me.

But back to unoriginal monikers. Before the launch of the Boeing 747 in the late 1960s, the term "jumbo jet" (a term I regard on par with superjumbo) had been coined by the media to describe a a new class of wide bodied aircraft being developed. To their credit, Boeing apparently tried to discourage the media and public from using the term for the 747. Unfortunately, their efforts were in vain, as the Boeing 747 and "jumbo jet" became synonymous.

The Boeing 747, a beautiful looking airplane. Photo by sirsteveincairns.smugmug.com

So, if it's necessary to provide a moniker for the Airbus A380, and personally I don't see the need, why then  have we chosen the most unoriginal, superjumbo? Because the A380 is bigger than the 747, therefore we shall call it the superjumbo?. Is that the best we could come up with? Reminds me how every little political scandal now ends with the word "gate", because of Watergate.

And how is it that two adjectives have now become a noun. And why does the media feel it necessary to populate every article on the A380 with the word superjumbo?

You may have heard that a Qantas Airbus A380 made an emergency landing shortly after taking off from Singapore the other day when an explosion in one of its engines caused that engine to fail. While the damage to the engine looked dramatic, it would probably have been a fairly routine landing, as its three other engines were apparently operating fine.

In one article on the incident, a reporter unnecessarily used the word superjumbo twice in the first paragraph:

Australia's Qantas Airways grounded all its Airbus A380 superjumbos Thursday after an engine failure forced one of the superjumbos to make an emergency landing in Singapore with more than 450 people on board. 

And here I thought a superjumbo was a hot dog sold on the streets of Manhattan.