Fun Stuff > CHATTER
There oughta be a law!
Is it cold in here?:
--- Quote from: Akima on 21 Oct 2012, 18:01 ---Like some latter-day Eliza Doolittle, I went to what were called "accent reduction" lessons as part of my ESL education. How far a hypothetical Henry Higgins would be able to identify any remaining Chinese influence on my English speech, I do not know. I have travelled to a number of regions of the USA (though not Baltimore as yet :-)), and nobody seems to have any trouble understanding me, which is the main thing.
--- End quote ---
If you had a detectable non-Australian accent, doesn't that excuse the people who complimented you on your English, if they could tell it was ESL?
Papersatan:
--- Quote from: Bluesummers on 25 Oct 2012, 19:10 --- If there is a traffic jam and I am in the passing lane, stuck there, I do NOT want to see the far right lane cruising steadily along unless there was a goddamn car fire in the left lane up ahead. Normal hustle-bustle traffic is NOT supposed to fuck over the people who use the roads properly (I drive about 250 miles a day for work...it gets to me).
--- End quote ---
I have pontificated here before about the causes of traffic jams, but I will make a short point. First, traffic jams spread backwards, at a pretty predictable rate and take much longer to disperse than they take to form. When an accident has cleared up and all traces of it are gone, the traffic jam it caused will remain trailing backwards from that site for some time, leading people to be confused about what the cause was int he first place. Also the cause need not even be an accident, just something that caused everyone to suddenly slow way down or stop. Animals in the road, a single construction worker, one erratic driver.. things which will be even more undetectable to those suck a mile behind and 45 minutes later. Second, the main cause of spontaneous traffic jams, and a contributing factor to the spread and longevity of ones with clear causes, is impatient drivers driving poorly in traffic jams. If you hit your breaks, so do the 4 cars behind you, who don't know how hard they have to hit them and are likely to slow a little more and a little more suddenly than you, particularly if they were following too close, which it is likely in a high volume traffic situation they were. The best tactic in a traffic jam is to drive smoothly and slowly, to not keep changing lanes because "that one it moving a bit faster now, no wait the one I was in is better back to it" Changing lanes requires the people in your new lane to slow down/stop to let you in and that disruption to their flow will ripple back making their lane slower behind you. If the car in front of you speeds up suddenly, you speed up slowly, allowing a gap to form so that when they slam on their breaks, as they will, you can maintain your smooth slow speed, preventing, or at least minimizing their stop from chaining back. Also, it is better for your blood pressure and anxiety, to just let go and drive slow. Which rhymes so it ought to be in a bad PSA.
Akima:
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 25 Oct 2012, 20:46 ---If you had a detectable non-Australian accent, doesn't that excuse the people who complimented you on your English, if they could tell it was ESL?
--- End quote ---
It might, but I'd be more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt if I didn't suspect that their reaction had more to do with how I look than how I sound. I like to think that my English is good now, but I have sometimes wondered if it still projects otherness, at least at a subliminal level. No stranger has ever made such a remark after talking to me only on the phone as <my "English" name>, but someone who had never met me might feel it was not socially appropriate anyway, so that is hardly decisive. Short of wearing some Mission Impossible-style "white girl" disguise, it is difficult to separate people's reaction to my spoken English from their recognition of my ethnic appearance.
Is it cold in here?:
That's significant.
Traffic jams: it's impossible to maintain the recommended distance from the car in front, but the closer everyone comes to that, the more stable the traffic flow is.
Bluesummers:
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 26 Oct 2012, 20:42 ---Traffic jams: it's impossible to maintain the recommended distance from the car in front, but the closer everyone comes to that, the more stable the traffic flow is.
--- End quote ---
There have been closed-course tests on cars networked together, each keeping track of the distance from the one in front of it. They move as a beautiful synchronous convoy.
Now could we only tear up every road in America and put in RFID transmitters every 50 feet so that traffic jams would be a thing of the past? "Yes We Can!" (I'm looking at you, Congress. Get this on the budget. NOW.)
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