What shall we call those drivers who take so much time when the left-turn light changes to green that you miss your chance to go and sit through another red light? Our conversation about that prompted a whole slew of emails from listeners who’ve clearly had time in traffic to think about it. Their suggestions include lane loafer, lane lingerer, lazy lefty, left-turn loiterer, lane loiterer, left-lane loiterer, laneygaggers, light laggers, light lingerers, and light malingerers. There were also punny offerings, such as phonehead and light-wait. Another suggestion, playing on the term rubbernecker, was bottlenecker. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Even More Names for People Who Don’t Turn When They Should”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
Remember the conversation we had about how irritating it is to be in the left lane, ready to make a turn at a traffic light, and you’re waiting for the person in front of you to go when the light turns green?
But they don’t.
And then they don’t.
They don’t.
Apparently, this is a universal complaint.
Oh, my goodness.
Everyone has noticed because our inbox went boom.
It went boom.
Yeah, our listeners really stepped up with terms for those turn lane slowpokes.
I think I had suggested the term lane squatters, and we heard a lot of other suggestions that were alliterative, like lane loafers, lane lingerers, lazy lefty, left turn loiterer, lane loiterer, left lane loiterer, laney gaggers, for those who are lollygagging in the left lane.
And clearly people have had a lot of time to sit there and think about this.
We heard from a fellow in Brooklyn who suggested light laggers and light lingerers or maybe light mullingerers.
And we also heard from somebody who suggested phone head, sort of a play on bone head.
And David Winkler in Del Mar, California, suggested a punny answer.
He wanted to describe those people as lightweights.
W-A-I-T.
Yes, which I thought was great.
And finally, we heard from Carrie Jensen, who suggested, how about dubbing this driver a bottlenecker?
It has the same sound as rubbernecker and could apply to similar traffic situations where forward progress for many is gummed up by a single vehicle or two.
Carrie lives, she writes, in Spring Valley, Wisconsin, a town that doesn’t actually have any traffic lights.
Right now, that’s sounding really good to me.
It sounds really good.
But you know what? Maybe we need more lights is where they have the light that’s right outside your window.
Then they have the one up above that everyone can see.
But there’s the one right there, eye height, just outside the driver’s window.
Like when they have these metered lanes for merging onto the freeway.
I don’t know if they have these in the whole country.
That’s what we need more of because that light changes.
You see it immediately, even from your peripheral vision.
Yeah, but if you’re in a phone fog.
Yeah, the best thing is to not have the phone on in the first place.
That’s exactly right.
It will give you a giant ticket if you’re even holding it in your hand.
That’s right.
No matter what you’re doing with it.
Yeah.
And I think our caller did have a great point about if we can find a term for this, if we can really define the problem that way, then we go a ways toward solving it.
Go a ways toward solving it.
Well, we know that you’ve got more ideas about what to call people who are in turn lanes and just don’t go when the light turns green.
Let us know.
Or call us and tell us.
