spleenboggler
spleenboggler t1_jabcbqm wrote
Reply to comment by Vague_Disclosure in [Inquirer] Philadelphia collected $21 million in fees to improve pedestrian safety. Sidewalks are still treacherous. by Hoyarugby
I'll never forget when I was walking my then-infant daughter, we stopped near a building site, and then moments later watched those guys heave some debris out the third floor window and onto the sidewalk, where we would have been.
I started yelling at those guys, saying that we were right here, and they could have hurt us both. I couple of "sorry"s and "my fault"s from them, and then some guy started in about how it was a building site, and we should have known and shouldn't be near it, and man, let's just say it was good that my daughter was pre-verbal.
spleenboggler t1_j9q487j wrote
Reply to comment by tyleritis in TIL that in 1554 Elizabeth Crofts hid in a wall on Aldersgate Street, where she pretended to be a heavenly voice. Reputedly 17,000 people came to listen to her give out anti-Catholic propaganda. by Kurma-the-Turtle
Absolutely, considering that what worked as a rhymed couplet then, and doesn't work now, is a key clue in untangling how the pronunciations of words have changed over time.
spleenboggler t1_j553kf0 wrote
Reply to TIL that George "Washington" Carver never formally used Washington as a middle name. He originally chose the middle initial W at random to ensure accurate mail delivery. Someone once asked if the "W" stood for Washington and Carver said "Why not?" He signed his name as George or George W. Carver. by AspireAgain
Similarly, the middle name of Harry S Truman is literally the letter "S" and nothing more. The name is often written with a period after the S, as though it's an abbreviation, but that's just an old newspaper error, maintained for the sake of continuity.
spleenboggler t1_jabcuxj wrote
Reply to comment by electric_creamsicle in [Inquirer] Philadelphia collected $21 million in fees to improve pedestrian safety. Sidewalks are still treacherous. by Hoyarugby
She should have parked on an unregulated street.
When I lived in that neighborhood a few years ago, there was a car with NJ tags on the unregulated part of 20th Street, between Mt. Vernon and Wallace streets. I don't know why I noticed it, but sometime in the late winter I saw it was crusted over with leaves. And then I saw that the registration had expired about six months prior.
I wanted the parking space, so I called 611, nothing. I used the city web portal, nothing. And then one morning, I saw a PPA guy walking down the street and I stopped him and told him about this, and I'll never forget his response:
"That's not my responsibility."
I think the car finally moved when the city resurfaced the road later that year.