street work

[Laurence Horn]

At 5:09 PM -0400 7/17/08, Mark Mandel wrote:
>If you wouldn't mind, please read this paragraph and then answer the
>question below.
>
>----
>JPC construction will be doing work at a manhole location on 34th
>Street just north of Spruce Street. Therefore, the east traffic lane
>will be closed for approximately 4 weeks during the hours of 7:00am -
>3:30 pm M-F.
>----
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>Did you read that as referring to
>  1. the eastbound lane, or
>  2. the lane on the east side of the street?
>
>The intended reading is #2: 34th St. in Philadelphia runs N-S, so
>there is no eastbound lane. But I first read it as #1. Then I realized
>that that was impossible and it must refer to the eastbound lane of
>Spruce Street. But the text says 34th north of Spruce, not in the
>intersection, and I wound up writing for clarification. The reply was
>
>----
>You are correct. 34th runs North to South. Therefore there is an east
>side and a west side of the street. In the case of the construction
>location, the lane on the east side of the street will be blocked off.
>----
>
>I grew up in NYC, where the numbered streets run E-W,

And you can figure out which are which by remembering the ditty I
learned at my father's knee:

The even streets are the eastbound streets
And the westbound streets are odd.

(With the E-E mnemonic in the first line.)
Doesn't work for all of them, of course--besides the major two-way
thoroughfares (generally deducible from the location of subway
stops*) there are a few one-way outliers, around the south end of
Central Park (motivated, I always assumed, by the needs of the 59th
St. Bridge traffic).


*which in turn reminds me of the old arithmetical puzzle, to which
I've now revealed the answer:

Q:  What's the next integer in the arithmetical sequence  <4, 14, 23, 34, ...>?

A:  42, of course.

LH

>  and after almost
>six years in Philadelphia I still stumble over the difference
>sometimes. Now I can't tell whether my misunderstanding was wholly due
>to that, or whether the sentence really is confusing.
>
>Mark, facing .....  East
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org