End of ADS-L Digest - 21 Mar 1996 to 22 Mar 1996 ************************************************ There are 8 messages totalling 214 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. gapers' block (5) 2. Defining Asia (2) 3. Pseudo-Imitatives / "Conventionalized" Exclamations / & "Semanticized" Utterances or Noises ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 00:14:01 -0500 From: ALICE FABER Subject: gapers' block | In Chicago, a traffic slowdown caused by drivers slowing to look at an | accident in the opposite lane, or some other sight (currently a portrait of | Dennis Rodman of the Chicago Bulls, changing hair color as Rodman does) - is | called a "gapers' block." Back a few years ago when the LSA met in LA, the woman driving my shuttle in from the airport to the hotel informed us, a propos of one of said delays, that this was a case of PCT, which she expanded as "persons causing traffic." I told her that in New York it would be called rubber-necking. She had never heard the term. On the subject of continental drift (as it were), when I was last in Israel (mid 70's), Israel still controlled Sinai. Reservists who were assigned to Sinai referred to this as being stationed in Africa. So, wherever Israel is, it's *not* in Africa, I guess. Alice Faber