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Jonathan wrote<br>
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<blockquote cite="mid200611300500.kAU2QVwU007724@malibu.cc.uga.edu"
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<div class="headerdisplayname" style="display: inline;">Subject:
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"Travelin' shotgun"</td>
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<div class="headerdisplayname" style="display: inline;">From: </div>
Jonathan Lighter <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:wuxxmupp2000@YAHOO.COM"><wuxxmupp2000@YAHOO.COM></a></td>
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<div class="headerdisplayname" style="display: inline;">Date: </div>
Wed, 29 Nov 2006 05:57:01 -0800</td>
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<pre wrap="">Today's _N.Y. Post_ features a front-page photo of Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spiers, and Paris Hilton smiling together in the back seat of a limousine. Those given to suspicion that the picture does not really illustrate the day's most significant news story should think again: the headline clearly states "BIMBO SUMMIT !" And if that's not big news, I don't know what is.
All this by way of context. Commenting on the photo, Fox's Steve Doocy exclaimed in his folksy way, "And they're travelin' shotgun !"
What's that mean ? "Riding together," evidently. (I understand "riding shotgun"- sitting in the front passenger sea t- but it's nothing to get excited about.)
A rapid Google search reveals [<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/archive/index.php/t-51280.html">www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/archive/index.php/t-51280.html</a>]:
I was coming but Laz (won't lend me) the Supe (heehee) I was going to travel shotgun with Soo but think she may have other plans."
JL
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I'm taking an undergraduate acting class this semester, and hanging out
with freshmen and sophomores three hours a week. But they're theater
majors, so they're not prototypical. Still, as we jockeyed to decide
who would perform his or her term-project 'scene' one of the kids said
'I call shotgun'. The instructor (a PhD-student GA in his early
thirties) didn't know what that meant, nor did I. Turns out it means
'I get to go first'. At least I thought it did. So I did some
research (nice how we can call typing something into a search engine
counts as research) and found that 'Calling shotgun' is an institution
with its own website: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.shotgunguide.com/">http://www.shotgunguide.com/</a><br>
Who knew?<br>
<br>
Geoff<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Geoffrey S. Nathan <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:geoffnathan@wayne.edu"><geoffnathan@wayne.edu></a>
Faculty Liaison, Computing and Information Technology,<p>
and Associate Professor of English, Linguistics Program<p>
Phone Numbers (313) 577-1259 or (313) 577-8621<p>
Wayne State University<p>
Detroit, MI, 48202</pre>
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