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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
>Why can't they drive on the same side of the road as us?
Note: This was a rhetorical question and does not need responding to ...
and I respond only to ask (rhetorically): would this not be an appropriate instance for use of the interrobang?!
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
the economist report some year ago, that NY was the only city in the America's to experience "pedestrian traffic jams"
A certain amount of foot traffic is required to have effect.. it is (according to the Economist) quite common in old world cities, like hong kong, or bombay, but not general found in new world cities, since it takes a large populations and a certain attitude..
i think it is one of the pleasant endearing charms of "small towns" like chicago or LA that they do yield to pedestrians. i have also heard, that LA cops will ask for ID, and give NY'ers a warning for jaywalking... but natives they actually fine!
Jaywalking is very rare in Japan, and my sisters kids have learned two languages, and two sets of rules.. at home you speak japanese, and when in NY, you can sometimes jaywalk.
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
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'elen said: Jaywalking is very rare in Japan, and my sisters kids have learned two languages, and two sets of rules.. at home you speak japanese, and when in NY, you can sometimes jaywalk.Let's hope they never get them mixed up. In Japan they'd be arrested and in NY they'd wind up as involuntary residents at Bellevue. 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
In reply to:
Poster: TEd Remington
Subject: Re: In a crowd scene
> Rhubarb, Rhubarb, Rhubarb, Rhubarb
I chortled when I saw this. Many years ago, my sister, an amateur thespian, told me that when a director wants background crowd noises it is customary to tell those extras producing said noise to say rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb to one another.
This, of course, part of the provenance for my soubriquet. The term "Rhubarb", when applied to someone else's speech,has come to denote that they are talking rubbish (i.e., making "crowd noises").
The other reason is that the village where I lived at the time when I joined the board is known, locally, as "Rhubarb City."
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
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"What," I said to myself, "is that dog doing driving that car?"
Had it been anywhere but Ireland, I would have said that you were joking! But there is no doubt that the animals of Ireland are particularly sagacious.
A friend of mine, touring by car over there, came to a grinding halt on a lonely country road not far from Sneem, Co Kerry. He raised the bonnet (hood) of the car and gazed at the motor, hopelessly.
He heard a voice say, "To be sure, I t'ink your distributor lead has fallen off." He looked round, and could see no one at all. The countryside was empty, except for a couple of horses in the field next to where he had stopped. One of these horses was leaning over the hedge, looking very interested.
So my friend asks the world in general, "Did you say the distributor lead?"
"To be sure, t'at's what it is." said the voice - it was very obviously the horse who was speaking. My friend, somewhat freaked out by this, investigated the electrics and found that, indeed, the lead from coil to distributor had worked loose. He replaced, it, tried the starter, and the engine roared into life. Feeling a little foolish, he thanked the horse, who acknowledged with a bow of his head and a casual, "'Tis no problem."
A little later, in conversation with the local Inn keeper as my friend had his lunch, he related this incident.
"Sure," said the man, "Was it a black horse?"
"Yes, it was," said my friend, amazed, "How did you know?"
"Ah, well," said the Inn-keeper, "the white horse in the self-same field, he knows nothin' at all about engines."
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
But there is no doubt that the animals of Ireland are particularly sagacious.
This is because the tree of wisdom and understanding (represented in its earthly form as a Oak) grows at the headwaters of the shannon. the acorns are eaten by all manner of creatures, but especially the salmon, and so it is they that are wisest of all--
the horses in question no doubt has eaten some acorns from the tree... its a sad fact, but must humans avoid eating acorns, the taste is sharp--and acorns from the tree of wisdom and understanding are sharper even than a regualar acorns. its a sad thing that wisdom can be had so easily, but it is passed by, in favor of something more immediately pleasant.
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Joined: Jul 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467 |
>
But there is no doubt that the animals of Ireland are particularly sagacious.
But in this case the dog was merely sitting quite calmly in the passenger seat. It took me more than a moment to realize the drive (and the steering wheel) were on the other side of the car.
The question about why we in the US (and in most of the world) drive on the wrong side is one that has interested me for a long time.
Almost certainly, the first rule of the road is about which side of the road to take when meeting another vehicle (or pedestrian for that matter.) Certainly the rule had been etched in the mud of the moors for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years when the first colonists left for the "New World." Someone, somewhere, had to have made a conscious decision to follow the Continental rule rather than the Insular rule. Was it a matter of throwing away a rule just to be able to do so? Or was there another equally good reason? Since the American aborigines didn't have the wheel they would have had to deal only with one walker meeting another. Did our first "invaders" adopt the existing convention? Did the existing convention change from place to place?
TEd
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Joined: Aug 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
In reply to:
Someone, somewhere, had to have made a conscious decision to follow the Continental rule rather than the Insular rule. Was it a matter of throwing away a rule just to be able to do so? Or was there another equally good reason? Since the American aborigines didn't have the wheel they would have had to deal only with one walker meeting another. Did our first "invaders" adopt the existing convention? Did the existing convention change from place to place?
The Canadian columnist Gwynne Dyer (author of the excellent War) wrote a column on this very issue once. I tried finding it on the Web the last time this came up here, but failed. The gist of his column was this:
Archaeological evidence strongly suggests that driving on the left was the norm for millennia. It was definitely the Roman tradition. The evidence consists of things like wheel ruts and other indicators of traffic flow. Also, as most people are right-handed, driving on the left made sense for purposes of defending oneself from oncoming traffic, should it prove hostile. Dwyer wrote that everybody's favourite Corsican deliberately changed the rule from left to right, in order to leave his mark on Europe. That is the extent of my clear recall of the article. However, I have a vague and uncertain recollection of reading in it that the then nascent US adopted Napoléon's change for the same sort of reasons that Webster arbitrarily imposed his very "non-u" orthography. It was another opportunity to demonstrate how xompletely the ties with the former colonial oppresor had been broken. That, and the large influx of immigrants from Continental Europe.
I am determined to try to track down the article in question, if only for my own peace of mind.
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
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my own peace of mindIf the aluminium allows, which piece of mind exactly Max? 
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
If the aluminium allows, which piece of mind exactly Max?
I have all of them numbered, so, perhaps piece #42?
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