I was walking in a New York suburb when I came across a sign saying “Traffic Calming Ahead.” The sign, which means that the street has speed bumps to slow traffic, struck me as odd for two reasons. First, one or two speed bumps won’t cause “traffic calming.” Drivers will slow down for a few seconds, then speed back up. Second, I think of calm as a word that describes the sea or one’s state of mind—not traffic.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first English poet to speak of a calm sea was John Gower in “Confessio Amantis” . Roughly 450 years later, Alfred, Lord Tennyson in the 11th canto of “In Memoriam,” refers to “calm on the seas.” Tennyson’s poem, though, is about the poet’s psyche. Suffering from the death of a close friend, he says: “And in my heart, if calm at all, / If any calm, a calm despair.
opinion How to become extinct - ignore the climate crisis.
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opinion And avoid the News. Depressing.
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opinion Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone. Richard Stallman