{ Wednesday, May 4, 2005 }
Traffic
Good show on NPR about HOV lanes vs. people paying for access to traffic-free lanes. I hate cars, and am fascinated by traffic. From the most recent issue of Cabinet Magazine, Blocking All Lanes by Sean Dockray, Steve Rowell and Fiona Whitton:
The word "traffic" originally referred to the movement of commodities; only in the last two centuries did it explicitly take on vehicles and people. In the modern definition, we are traffic (which reminds us that it was once quite acceptable for one to be a "computer" or a "typewriter".) Of course, we don't talk that way: we say that we are "in traffic, " but we never admit to being traffic. This point was made into a German roadside ad campaign ("You're not stuck in a traffic jam. You are the traffic jam.") but it hasn't found traction in our speech.
LINK | 4:34 PM | TB