Use of mobile phones in cars is being prohibited all over the place, but they haven’t banned tin whistles yet to my knowledge (unless maybe somewhere in the home of the free?).
So seize the opportunity. I always carry a spare whistle on the dashboard of my car, and whenever I come to a red traffic light, I whip it out and play a tune. It’s a win-win situation, because you get some practice in and the delay is never too long for comfort.
You can also (with caution) use the same approach in tailbacks: in fact I am inclined to believe that it has a voodoo anti-thrombotic effect on traffic, as the tailback always melts away no later than halfway through the second part of the tune. Now that’s real win-win territory.
I’m constantly seeing people talking on phones while they’re driving - or at least supposed to be driving. If people can’t just drive without doing something, I’d like to see more people playing the whistle than talking on a cell phone - PEDESTRIANS LOOK OUT!
On 2002-04-12 12:06, susnfx wrote:
Clarify, please - what’s a “tailback?” (I admit to having played a whistle at a red light.)
Susan
I thought I was making it easier for y’all by using the expression “tailback”, which I thought was the recognised American term for what I would normally call a traffic jam - cue avalanche of OT cookery contributions on fruit preserves.
(And apologies for the double-posting, sometimes my fingers are as fast on the keyboard as I would like them to be on the whistle - but just as uncontrolled!)
[ This Message was edited by: Roger O’Keeffe on 2002-04-15 13:05 ]
On 2002-04-12 12:06, susnfx wrote:
Clarify, please - what’s a “tailback?” (I admit to having played a whistle at a red light.)
Susan
I thought I was making it easire for y’all by using the expression “tailback”, which I thought was the recognised American term for what I would normally call a traffic jam - cue avalanche of OT cookery contributions on fruit preserves.
“Tailback”, “bumper to bumper”, “nose to tail” all = car park (parking lot?) when it should be moving traffic. So what’s the American equivalent (polite version!)? Actually, I thought “tailback” was American…
I live in America (Western Rocky Mountain Region) and have never heard of the term “tailback”. It’s always been “traffic jam” or just “jam” or on the radio I will hear “traffic is backed up…” and there’s me in the car wishing I had heard that BEFORE I got on the freeway. Maybe they call a traffic jam something else in other parts of the country?
“We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.”
– Robert Frost
[ This Message was edited by: Sunnywindo on 2002-04-18 14:45 ]
tailback! yep I thought it was US expression too, you live you learn!!
One drawback to tailback whistling though. If you rear ended (in a vehicular sense) whilst on the mobile phone, I think the most you would suffer is a sore neck and a broken phone. Imagine a large chrysler running into you when you have a large copey low D between your lips!! MESSY
I thought he was talking about tailgating, which, for non-Yankees, is having a party or picnic or barbeque off the tailgate of your car, usually just before a sport event or music concert.
I’m New England, lived in Midwest, Northwest and Texas, and never heard of tailbacking as a synonym for a traffic jam (which I think of as traffic at a dead stop) or “stop and go”.
I must point out that there is a risk of getting that whistle jammed in places it really shouldn’t go, even when you’re at at stop light, but the danger is FAR worse in stop and go traffic. Think of how many rear enders happen in this sort of situation, and think about that whistle and the back of your throat. Don’t.
I’m in the middle of the Midwest (which is supposedly ‘Standard American English’ and I’ve lived in the Deep South. Never heard that term before relating to traffic. To us, the tailback is the ball carrier standing behind the quarterback in standard American Football formations.
I think the only universally recognized term is ‘traffic jam’ or ‘bumper-to-bumper traffic’, though the radio traffic reporters sometimes try to get creative.
For me, tailgating is driving too close to the car in front - usually with the intention of intimidating the driver into pulling over and letting the tailgating roadhog pass.
And again, I thought it was a standard American term.
Well, here is the heartland of the US of A, a “tailgate” is the back wall of the cargo area of a pickup truck – the one that drops down to make it easier to load your hogs and stuff. A “tailgate party” is where you drop down the tailgate, put a beer keg and picnic stuff on it and have a party, usually near a football stadium on game day. Hopefully, this occurs after having cleaned out the truck. “To tailgate” means to follow to closely, often causing the driver of the tailgated vehicle to make rude gestures in the direction of the tailgating driver.
I never heard a traffic jam called anything but a traffic jam. (Well, not anything suitable for a family messageboard.)
I’m from California and our definitions of the terms in question are exactly as Jay described. I’m actually kinda suprised though, that these terms actually appear standard across the U.S.