He says "overpass", I say ...

[Joel S. Berson]

At 7/12/2010 12:12 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>"Viaduct"?

Surely not -- a viaduct, like an overpass, is elevated.

Unless the writers were thinking of viaducts that
carried water  ("aqueducts" of course), which
might have overflowed onto the motorways below in
a torrential rain.  But no such structures have
been uncovered around Boston.  :-)

Joel


>-Wilson
>
>On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 11:41 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the
> mail header -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      He says "overpass", I say ...
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > John M Guilfoil and Sean Teehan, describing heavy rain Saturday that
> > caused flash floods in the Boston area, write:
> >
> > "As rain fell, areas like Storrow Drive and low overpasses in Boston,
> > Cambridge, and Somerville turned into dangerous makeshift rivers; and
> > drivers were not ready."
> >
> > Boston Globe, Sunday July 11, page B7.  Same still on the web site
> > (boston.com).
> >
> > I too would have been unready at the overpasses.  And just think how
> > submerged the underpasses would have been!  (Storrow Drive is
> > notorious for the latter at least.)
> >
> > Joel
> >
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> >
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>
>
>--
>-Wilson
>­­­
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"­­a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>­Mark Twain
>
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