Besides the Use Ya Blinkah roadside sign seen in Massachusetts, seasonal messages on digital highway signs have included the Halloween-themed Hocus Pocus—Drive with Focus and the Fourth of July admonition Don’t Drive Star-Spangled Hammered. The U.S. federal government now discourages the use of such highway punnery, declaring that they are too distracting and unclear. This is part of a complete episode.
The so-called “lifestyle influencer accent” you hear in videos on TikTok and YouTube, where someone speaks with rising tones at the end of sentences and phrases, suggesting that they’re about to say something important, is a form of what linguists...
Meg in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, gets why the state highway department encourages drivers to use their blinkers when changing lanes, but placing a digital sign at the Sagamore Bridge that reads Use Ya Blinkah is, well, a lexical bridge too far. Meg’s...
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