"cjcampbell" wrote:
Saw this question on "The Straight Dope" and I thought it was amusing.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/060203.html

Seems Cecil Adams is compounding the confusion by having the page's title
begin:

"An airplane taxies in one direction...."

So is the plane attempting to taxi or take off? The page's title says one
thing, the person posing the question is stating another. The hypothetical
pilot of the taxing plane would presumably not let the the airspeed go to
takeoff speed, while the pilot of the plane taking off would want to
accelerate to rotation speed. So on that basis alone, we can say a taxing
plane isn't going to take off!

;-)