Thomas Edison, how could you?

[Mark A Mandel]

On Thu, 22 Aug 2002, James A. Landau wrote:

#>  Driving down to Philadelphia the other week from Massachusetts, I was
#>  massively confused and led astray by a road sign on the Garden State
#>  that indicated a turn for <icon that looked like a diagram of the human
#>  bowels>, with no text attached. It could be a stylized "M" with an
#>  outline map of NJ inside it in white. I thought it was for the NJTP, but
#>  it wasn't.
#
#New Jersey highway markers are a herald's nightmare, but I cannot identify
#the sign you describe.  If you were "on the Garden State" (which locally
#means "on the Garden State Parkway") then you were already lost, since the
#Garden State Parkway does not get within 80 km of Philadelphia.

No, I was on course, avoiding NYC by using, from near Boston:
        Mass Pike (I-90)
        I-84
        I-684
        I-287 (Cross Westchester Expwy), over the Tappan Zee Bridge
        Garden State Parkway
 (Then, as I learned to do <xref>this past weekend</xref>, stay on the
G.S.P. until the signs say "New Jersey Turnpike".)
        N.J. Turnpike to exit 6
        Penna Turnpike, etc., into appropriate part of metro Phila.

#Now for a serious question.  English has a number of nouns that consist of
#verb+direct object, e.g. turnpike (the toll collector, once you have paid,
#turns the pike barring the road so that you may proceed), cutthroat,
#pickpocket, turncoat, turnkey, pinchpenny, cutpurse or snatchpurse.  This
#seems a very productive means of generating new nouns, but all the ones I
#listed go back to Georgian times or earlier.  Does anyone know why this
#particular means of word formation has been abandoned in English?

#Joanne "J. K." Rowlings used this technique in "The Prisoner of Azkaban" to
#generate the name for a bus driver: "Stan Shunpike".  The name was effective
#at least partly because of its very archaism.  (It was also descriptive: Mr.
#Shunpike avoided the main roads and drove cross-country.)

That's not her invention. I learned it from my dad, another logophile.
It means a route used to avoid paying toll, such as taking the exit just
before the tollbooth (given an appropriate toll structure). ... Ah. OED
doesn't know it, but AHD4 does, so it's probably an Americanism:

N. A side road taken to avoid the tolls or traffic of a turnpike.
Intr.v. To travel on side roads, avoiding turnpikes. [shun + (turn)pike]

-- Mark A. Mandel