"drunk riding"

[Wilson Gray]

I share your confusion! A drunk riding alone on a motorcycle isn't
just *riding* drunk. He's also *driving* drunk on a motorcycle, (it)
seem like to me, (as we say in ETX BE; sometimes, it annoys me that I
have not the least idea of what the local white dialect is/was like,
thanks to the *rigid*, Deep-South-style segregation practiced in
Marshall in my day; sadly, according to the blog, _I'm from Marshall,
Texas_, written by a white woman, things really haven't changed much,
since she makes a point of calling Marshall "racist") just as a drunk
riding alone in a car is driving it. Why bleep with the language over
this triviality?

-Wilson

On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 8:30 PM, Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      "drunk riding"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I had to see a current public service ad warning against "drunk riding"
> three or four times before I oculd figure it out.  First I thought it meant
> that it was now unlawful even to ride as a vehicle's passenger if you were
> drunk.
>
> Stranger laws have been passed.
>
> But on my latest viewing I realized that the cop in the ad is busting a
> drunk who's riding a motorcycle.
>
> Get it? Get it?  "Riding" a motorcycle!
>
> What does it mean?  That law enforcement now believes (or, worse, knows)
> that there are people who think "riding drunk" (on a motorcycle)  is OK
> because they distinguish "driving" from that kind of "riding"?  (The biker
> in the ad isn't carrying a passenger, just a helmet full of beer.)
>
> What's the answer? Is this a SOTA?
>
> JL
>
> --
> "There You Go Again...Using Reason on the Planet of the Duck-Billed
> Platypus"
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
-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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