titanic [E17th] In Greek mythology the Titans were gigantic gods who were the children of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaia (Earth). Zeus, son of their leader Cronus, rose up against his father and defeated them to became chief god. They were the source of titanic, ‘of exceptional strength, size, or power’. The most immediate association of the word nowadays is with the Titanic, the British passenger liner that was the largest ship in the world at her launch and supposedly unsinkable. She struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic on her maiden voyage in April 1912 and sank with the loss of 1,490 lives. In 1976 Rogers Morton, President Ford’s campaign manager said, after losing five of the last six primaries ‘I’m not going to rearrange the furniture on the deck of the Titanic’. Although references similar to rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic have been recorded from the 1960s, this comment popularized the concept.