On a practical note, I think the key is whether or not people have actually stepped off the curb. I hate it when people stop while I'm still five feet from the stepping off the curb (speaking someone who is not using a cane, at least not yet) and then I have to run to cross the street while they sit there and traffic piles up. "Just follow the rules of the road, you moron," I think to myself. Somehow when one has actually stepped off the curb, though, one feels as though the crossing has been embarked upon and therefore as though one deserves a break from drivers.
It should be noted that, among all American cities, Boston has a real problem with this concept.
the key is whether or not people have actually stepped off the curb
This is a pretty good rule, but a lot of people won't step off the curb unless they think you're going to stop.
a lot of people won't step off the curb unless...
Jesus Christ, not in New York. Or Berkeley.
See, this is the problem with being too considerate. You end up second-guessing what pedestrians are thinking. If they step off the curb, stop. If they don't, that's their problem.
Berkeley is hilarious about this. The crosswalk politics there are the perfect microcosm of everything that's wrong with liberals: make a rule about what's kind and courteous, and then hate with a burning passion anyone who transgresses.
Upon consideration, there are also other things wrong with liberals.
You do understand that you just broke a CA traffic law? Toes in the road = cars must stop dead.
Not of course that anyone pays attention to traffic laws these days.
Bakc when I was a girl, a gentleman pulled his horse up when a lady indicated she wished to cross the street.
I hope you had a seven year old kid in the car and sent him out to flip her off.
Somehow when one has actually stepped off the curb, though, one feels as though the crossing has been embarked upon and therefore as though one deserves a break from drivers.
In many localities this feeling is backed up by traffic laws.
My favorite part about Berkeley traffic is when they hire homeless guys to make sure the pedestrians let the cars through every once in a while during the street fairs.
Yes, I broke the fucking law people, but it seemed like the thing to do at the time. The cane-waving was truly unnecessary.
I agree with 2, entirely. I still remember being freaked out in Geneva by how considerate the Swiss drivers were. If you merely strayed too close to the edge of the sidewalk, they'd stop in case you felt like crossing the street. They didn't even seem to mind when you waved that it was a mistake and they could keep driving. This was an entirely new experience for someone raised with crossing streets in Chicago and NYC, plus third-world countries with even laxer road ettiquette.
I had to fight the urge to run wild with my newfound power, popping to and from the curb and instigating a block-long game of "Red Light, Green Light". Those people were just too polite.
The cane-waving was her way of pointing out that you had misinterpreted what would be considerate in that situation.
15: Did you stop to explain that to her?
A portrait of the overanalytic liberal as a young man.
old ladies' eyes aren't sharp enough to see through your beemer's tinted windows, O-man.
make a rule about what's kind and courteous, and then hate with a burning passion anyone who transgresses.
This explains so much.
Ogged, look on the bright side: you're in the company of Denise Richards.
My favorite part of Berkeley crosswalk politics are the flags.
I was about to say that that doesn't stop people from getting hit. I don't know if they still use the flags; I think they kept getting stolen.
If you could find some way of exporting this culture of respect for pedestrians to London, I'd be grateful.
My year at a mid-western university was memorable in many ways. Finding that drivers would stop at intersections to which you were proximate, just in case you might decide to cross: that was memorable. But for the last few years of my life it's been more like this: drivers mounting the pavement and accelerating towards oneself (there are only two kinds of car in London: black Range Rovers with tinted windows, and black cabs); motorcycle couriers pursuing random vectors; deadly silent bicycle couriers going the wrong way down one way streets, at night. They are all cunts and I have had many near misses. I wish that they would stop.
I hate the people who stop in the road and wave for me to cross as if they were an Asiatic potentate or something. They get really mad if you gesture at them to continue on. It's as if you were insulting them by not accepting their generous gift of passage.
I have taken to making eye contact with the driver and then pointedly looking away, so they are forced to go on or sit there forever.
I can't wait until I'm an old lady with a cane. Or a purse.
I hate the people who stop in the road and wave for me to cross as if they were an Asiatic potentate or something.
See, this is what I was trying to avoid, though for all you know, I am an Asiatic potentate.
I get ticked off when people don't follow traffic laws out of politeness, or because they think it will make things run more smoothly. Like at 4-way stop signs when people don't proceed strictly in the order in which they arrived at the intersection, but rather wave somebody else on. Predictability is the goal, and being nice undermines that.
The same holds true about stopping for pedestrians who aren't crossing in crosswalks (that is, don't) out here, where they don't have absolute right of way everywhere. However, as California has different laws, ogged should have tempered his hatred of the elderly.
I hate the people who stop in the road and wave for me to cross as if they were an Asiatic potentate or something. They get really mad if you gesture at them to continue on.
The worst of this is when they graciously wave you across while cars are speeding past in other lanes. No, thank you.
Asiatic potentates are kind of dastardly that way.
See, it's easy to tell the Asiatic potentates, because they have camels and apes bearing rare spices, incense and gold in the car and also they have 'I BRAKE FOR CIRCASSIANS' bumper stickers.
29: I was so pleased that my CA driver's test actually had that as a question. Something about yielding your right of way, and whether that's polite, "defensive driving," or just snarls up traffic for everyone else.
Something about yielding your right of way, and whether that's polite, "defensive driving," or just snarls up traffic for everyone else.
Ooh, can you cite that? That is my Pet-est Pet Peeve, the people who WILL be passive-aggressively polite to you, somehow don't realize that they're making a COMPLETE MISHEGOSS of the vicinity because they WILL NOT JUST DRIVE. Ack.
So I would love to have chapter and verse to brandish, at least mentally -- EVEN THE CA DMV KNOWS THIS, I would say, perhaps to myself.
As it happens, Mr. B. failed his driving test (!!) and has a couple of different versions of the DMV manual around the house. I shall look it up for you.
I want an "I BRAKE FOR CIRCASSIANS" bumper sticker.
Of course, there's a politico-philosophical/semantic ambiguity here. "Right of way" implies an option, like right of free speech, say. When really, it's obligation of way. Go when it's your turn. GO! Oh for God's sake, can't anybody in this town DRIVE....
an "I BRAKE FOR CIRCASSIANS" bumper sticker
Clearly, an incredibly clever comment, but one I don't get. Say, have you read Anna Karenina?
Here you go, slol. CA Drivers Handbook 2006, p. 15:
"Never insist on taking the right of way. If another driver does not yield to you when he or she should, forget it. Let the other driver go first. You will help prevent accidents and make driving more pleasant.
However, if another driver expects you to take your legal turn, take it. If you don't, you may delay traffic or cause an accident."
The cane-waving was truly unnecessary.
Of course it was. What the hell else is there to do when one is old and falling apart? You're lucky it was a little old lady with a cane; I'm gonna use a .45 and if I'm caught I'll then spend the rest of my life playing checkers with mafia dons.
Ever so many thanks, B. I notice they try to avoid saying "right of way" -- "take your legal turn" seems much more prescriptive.
'In 1856 The New York Daily Times reported that a consequence of the Russian conquest of the Caucasus was an excess of beautiful Circassian women on the Constantinople slave market, and that this was causing prices of slaves in general to plummet. At the time, this region was reputed by less reliable sources to be the source of the purest Caucasian stock, producing the most beautiful white women, prized in Turkish harems. '
I suppose one could quibble about whether Turks are Asiatic. I believe it's a question of some importance to the EU right now.
Cafepress for all your bumper sticker needs, b dub.
Well, this just deepens my confusion. I mean, I had an idea what a "Circassian" was/is; I didn't know why b-dub should be braking for them. Does he live near a slave market in 1856?
What I really want is a license plate holder that says "I'd rather be contemplating the eternal".
44: I don't know jack about Circassians, but I am Proudly Pretentious.
I'm doubting the whole notion of Circassian beauties.
Now, there's a fine blog-post-topic: argue the relative hottness of antiquated racist classifications of humanity. Guaranteed fun!
I've heard that the Circassians in Jordan and Syria are famed for their beauty to this day. I've never seen one, though.
Maybe on your blog, slol, but not here.
That woman had some cool hair.
I can't believe you all didn't know about Circassians. They're mentioned in Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad, which is not exactly pretentious reading material.
Those biscuit conditionals you're all always talking about are far more mysterious than Circassians.
We can explain biscuit conditionals, if you're interested.
Please do! Maybe this time I'll understand it.
I would send you grapes and gold and myrrh if I understand it this time, but being an Asiatic potentate you're probably well supplied.
You are not always a nice person, ogged.
she had her cane in the air, shaking it at me.
So you're living in a Chuck Jones cartoon! Awesome.
I agree with 2. I hate when they stop way too soon and then you feel like you have to hurry up, when they could've just gone. This happens with door-holding too.
If you would have had a kid with you you could have pulled over and had him run around the back to give her the finger with both hands.
You are not always a nice person, ogged.
The kids pronounce this "lol".
But I fully intend to honor my biscuit.
57, meet 12. Also:
If you would have had a kid with you
RAT TAT TAT TAT TAT PEDANT MACHINE GUN
Sorry.
I believe my lack of comprehension of biscuit conditionals has been adequately demonstrated.
Winna, a biscuit conditional is a sentence that takes the form of my 53, and the paradigmatic example is "There are biscuits in the cupboard, if you want some." Philosophers like these sentences because they can try to figure out what's going on behind the puzzle: whether there are biscuits in the cupboard doesn't depend on whether you want some, but that's what the sentence implies, if read literally.
Oh damn, 57 apologizes to 12!
I don't understand about pedant machine gun? (I'm not very smart.)
Here's the thing you all seem to be missing: the pedestrian has absolute moral superiority. The pedestrian who knows this fact, as many of us do, will not feel bad at all taking however long it takes to exercise this absolute moral superiority while you drivers sit and wait in your sin-mobile.
Which is why "run them over" is the title. Do they want 63 that written on their tombstones?
I'll write 63 on my tort ligitation.
I used to have this discussion with exbeforelast pretty much every day, as she bounded off the curb:
"Look out!"
"If they hit me, I'll sue."
"Your estate will sue."
Then she's go on about how in her family they were all just financial instruments anyway.
66: Funny, my boyfriend and I have that exact same conversation every time *I* bound off the curb.
Sometimes as I cross the street I pointedly stare at oncoming cares, stopping them with my gaze alone.
That's not a typo. I'm trying to keep my Frankfurtian identity unadulterated, so I have to watch against cares and loves sneaking up on me.
I don't understand about pedant machine gun?
Some old people think that construction is ungrammatical. Pay them no mind.
You know, I was talking to a linguist last night, who maintained that it's not actually required in the Big Book of Being a Linguist that you be reflexively permissive about just any ol' thing people say.
I don't understand about pedant machine gun? (I'm not very smart.)
In Pedant English, instead of "If you would have had a kid with you" you'd write "If you had had a kid with you". It's just a dialectal difference of no importance—except, of course, to pedants.
The answer that will inform Stroll as to SB's likely thinking is that "if you would have had a kid with you" is {better,more concisely,more clearly,properly,by old-fashioned pedants} expressed "if you had had a kid with you".
If you're somewhere where drivers do not understand their fallen state, you need that glare to remind them. A cane will sometimes do.
72: This is true, but we see so many people going so far in the other direction that descriptivism is generally our first impulse.
77: I made precisely the opposite point long ago.
77 is right. The problem with having a professional interest in language is that everyone assumes that means you're constantly judging them.
Which is true, of course, but not because of how they talk. If the pedants would lay off a little bit, we could make people paranoid about other stuff for a change.
Pedants are just as much language-users with respectable intuitions as anyone else.
True, and I regret my hostility in the first thread where we went over this; I really just didn't understand what was going on. Nonetheless, the fact that a given construction doesn't exist in one's own dialect is not evidence that it's "wrong" in someone else's.
The question is, which is to be master, that's all.
"Look out!"
"If they hit me, I'll sue."
"Your estate will sue."
I don't think the people bounding into traffic have spent enough time in countries where doing this will get you killed. I sure as well wouldn't think of doing in Mexico, and my dad says he saw guys get hit by cars in Pakistan.
I'm confused (not for the first time). There seems to be a consensus that the little old lady actually had legal right of way, simply by virtue of having stepped off the curb. But ogged's post doesn't seem to suggest she was in a crosswalk or intersection, so surely he was under no obligation to stop. (I should say I don't know where ogged lives, so I couldn't actually check the rules of the road, but I don't think any state in which I have lived has had such a law.)
I don't think any state in which I have lived has had such a law.
Lots of states do, including the one where ogged lives (and the one where I live).
Really? There has been reference made to CA and NY, for example, but the CA rules of the road don't seem to say that, nor do the NY State rules of the road. Am I missing something? Or am I just checking the wrong states?
No, those are the right states. I don't know about the published rules of the road, but there are signs all over the place here saying pedestrians always have the right of way.
Some of these laws may be at the local level.
Peds have the right of way at intersections. However, given that the Ca Driver's Handbook specifically says to yield right of way if someone takes it, even if it's properly yours, one infers that this means that a pedestrian stepping off a curb at the wrong place should be yielded to.
Dude.
21954. (a) Every pedestrian upon a roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles upon the roadway so near as to constitute an immediate hazard. (b) The provisions of this section shall not relieve the driver of a vehicle from the duty to exercise due care for the safety of any pedestrian upon a roadway.
21955. Between adjacent intersections controlled by traffic control signal devices or by police officers, pedestrians shall not cross the roadway at any place except in a crosswalk.
There certainly might well be local laws, yes. As for the CA Driver Handbook, it says
Never insist on taking the right of way. If another driver does not yield to you when he or she should, forget it. Let the other driver go first. You will help prevent accidents and make driving more pleasant.
Even if he did make eye contact as he did so.
In Maine, the cars stop if you even think about crossing the street. It's kind of unnerving.
61: If by biscuits you mean the carbohydrate-laden obesity-bringers, the cholesterolic precursors to heart attack and stroke; if you mean the bland, unwholesome product of bleached, heavily processed white flour, the sweated product of thousands of over-worked and under-paid agribusiness serfs; if you mean the cloying, oleaginous emblem of sloth and gluttony, then there are no biscuits in the cupboard.
But,
If by biscuits you mean the pleasant, small reward for a day of toil or academic study; if you mean the companion to a plethora of other victuals and beverages which may pique the appetite or prove the satiating culmination of a repast; if you mean the product which provides gainful, honest employment for farmers, merchants and union workers; if you mean the major commodity which nets a fortune in revenue to fund the great works of our civilization, then yes, there are biscuits in the cupboard.
96: I was hit by a car on Maine St. in Brunswick, scene of many fatal car-pedestrian accidents, luckily by a truck that was just lurching forward from the stoplight.
Also, I like to wait until the lights have stopped flashing to cross the light rail tracks (like I need a $180 ticket!), and last night some foolish busybody harangued me for a minute about how I ought to cross because there was no train coming.
What doth it profit a man to gain a whole ten seconds if he lose the smug satisfaction of telling off a busybody?
Didn't Stephen King's accident a few years ago, when he got hit by a car while walking on the side of the road, happen in Maine?
It's amazing what you can learn on the Internet. I was under the impression that in America cars always had the right of way, and that if you dared to step off the kerb anywhere but at a crossing you would instantly be given a ticket.
I just learned something too: kerb=curb.
Nah, we loves our cars but we also loves our right to cross anywhere we damn well please without the gummint butting in. And we call 'em "curbs."
101: I don't think we can pin this one on Family Circus.
Guess there's some crazy drivers Down East.
re: 73
See, 'if you had had a ...' is how I'd say it. In ordinary non-pedantic English. What's with the 'would'?
re: "curb"/"kerby" -- a Scottish kids' street game is called 'kerby' and involves throwing a football at the kerb on the opposite side of the road. If you hit it just right and the ball bounces back to you, you get a point and get to shoot again from half-way. In olden days it was played with the heads of pedants ....
'In 1856 The New York Daily Times reported that a consequence of the Russian conquest of the Caucasus was an excess of beautiful Circassian women on the Constantinople slave market, and that this was causing prices of slaves in general to plummet...'
I find this difficult to follow. Surely if the Russians had conquered the Caucasus (from, presumably, the Turks), the supply of Circassians to Constantinople would be restricted and prices would rise? Or were these second-hand Circassians, out of fashion because of their sudden association with the hated Russians (cf. freedom fries)?
When I think about how I used to cross the street in California I get goosebumps (and especially when I look at that flag article). I was giving way too much credit to those same drivers who would reliably cause two wrecks a day for me to rubberneck at on my 40-mile highway commute.
Here in Chile I got pulled over for not stopping at every crosswalk while it was raining. Good law, I thought.
had had had had had had had. Also, hereabouts pedestrians can be more or less expected to step out off of the kerb at any time, and from any direction.
109: The first time one of them popped out of a manhole cover it really surprised me. But I learned to adapt.
107: No one calls the "slaves" any more. They're "Freedom Circassians"
What's with the 'would'?
It's a relatively recent innovation, probably just in American English, that makes "would have" grammatical in place of subjunctive "had" in pretty much all contexts. It's nowhere near universal, though, and many people find it ungrammatical.
Maybe the big market for Circassians was in the areas conquered by the Russians. Perhaps the people of Istanbul preferred Yezedi or Lur slaves. I've heard that Lur women are Teh Hott.
I'm mildly tempted to begin tracking Emerson's invocation of obscure ethnic (aside: is ethnic the correct word?) groups over time. Lur suddenly popped up in his comments with regards to ogged's photos, and have since then been everywhere.
I confess I find it ungrammatical because I cannot puzzle any meaning out of it. What exactly is the "would have" in "If you would have had" supposed to be doing?
It indicates subjunctivity, the same as "had"; presumably the reason for the change is that the subjunctive is pretty marginal, and "had" has a bunch of other uses while "would" doesn't really.
I suspect it of being a backformation from a contracted 'had', as follows:
"If you had done it." (Conventional subjunctive.)
"If you'd done it." (Same, with contraction.)
*"If you would done it." (Attempted reexpansion of the contraction by someone who doesn't use the subjunctive much, rejected because the tense sounds wrong.)
"If you would have done it." (Same, with the 'have' inserted to make the 'would' sound appropriate for the past tense.)
I should say that I really don't know what I'm talking about here.
No mystery. Ogged confessed to actually being a Lur.
Want to know some obscure but unique ethnic groups? The Burushaski, the Nivkh, and the Yukagir.
117-8: I thought these same two things.
"But unique"? I suppose some of them are all the Same.
(and, sure, the Norwegians spell it "Sami")
117 is probably pretty much right about the exact mechanism, although I'm not quite sure about the third step. In any case, it's clearly a further step in the gradual loss of the English subjunctive.
No! Subjunctive, I love you! Let it not be so, for if it disappear … it's too horrible to contemplate.
Don't worry, Ben, it'll always live on in books.