rubbernecking again

[Douglas G. Wilson]

At 10:36 AM 9/12/00 -0500, you wrote:
>         Many of the citations posted here recently for the word "rubberneck"
>show that people have lost sight of the image that made it such a
>glorious linguistic creation.  A true rubbernecker has an
>inordinately limber neck and is able to swivel the head like an owl
>and thus follow an interesting spectacle as it passes from in front
>to behind.  Thus tourists on a guided tour, twisting and stretching
>to keep an landmark in sight until the tour guide's spiel about it
>has ended; or someone turning to watch an attractive rump; or drivers
>looking for mangled bodies at a crash site, prudently slowing their
>cars while their eyes are diverted, are all showing a rubberneck.
>People who are mearly looking intently, perhaps impolitely, at
>something, but without undue physical contortion, are gawking, not
>rubbernecking.

Exactly correct, and well put.

By comparison, the gaper may not have a flexible neck but he has a lax
mouth which hangs open.

The goggler may maintain the tone of his facial muscles, but his eyes
protrude excessively.

A garden-variety gawker might lack all of these physical peculiarities; he
is however often distinguished by his mental limitations.

-- Doug Wilson