A verbed noun

Carolyn S Lieberg clieberg at COMCAST.NET
Sun Mar 26 00:47:46 UTC 2006


HOV - High Occupancy Vehicle

not exactly intuitive



Carolyn S Lieberg
503-284-4972
www.carolynlieberg.com




On Mar 25, 2006, at 4:36 PM, sagehen wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Re: A verbed noun
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> ---------
>
>> The signs may have been there a while, but I just noticed
>> them.  Along the interstate highways near Atlanta, motorists
>> are advised, "Enter and exit the HOV lane only at dashed
>> stripes."
>>
>> I wonder what percentage of the public will even know what a
>> dash IS, much less derive from the posted instruction (with
>> its odd participle) the image of a broken line, since solid
>> dashes are the default on current word-processing programs,
>> and they are what appear in print (the "broken" double-
>> hyphen dash being relegated to wherever all the typewriters
>> now live in retirement).
>>
>> --Charlie
>
> ~~~~~~~~~
> Huh?  Dunno about the rest of the public, but "dashed" is no
> problem for
> me,  "HOV," OTOH, is a total mystery!
> AM
>
>
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