speed humps

[Jonathan Lighter]

Darwin would have approved.

JL

On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 9:33 AM, Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: speed humps
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> There's a sort of folk game, known to American teenagers during the past
> few years, called "Speed Bump."  The challenge is to lie in the middle of
> the road until a car gets very close, then jump or roll out of the way.  The
> winner is the participant who allows the oncoming car to approach the
> closest.
>
> It's probably one of those games that exist more in the telling than in the
> performance--at least as a serious competition.  Sometimes teenagers will
> boldly lie in a deserted suburban street for a few seconds and call it
> playing speed bump.
>
> Have we mentioned "play speed bump" as a slang term for 'comit
> suicide-by-oncoming-car'?
>
> --Charlie
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Ben
> Zimmer [bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU]
> Sent: Monday, May 02, 2011 8:56 AM
>
>
> On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 8:00 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >
> > On Sun, May 1, 2011 at 11:31 PM, paul johnson wrote:
> >
> > > Doesn't anyone else remember deadmen?
> > > Or sleeping policemen
> >
> > I can recall hearing the designation "sleeping policeman" only once in my
> > life, in NYC in the early 1970s.  It sounded very affected and
> cumbersome.
>
> For more on the history of "sleeping policemen" (and international
> equivalents), see my Language Log post:
>
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004303.html
>
> --bgz
>
>  ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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