I've had glasses since I was about 14, but I very rarely wear them. In fact, there are only 2 reasons I do have them – firstly, because I'm just below the legal level of eyesight for driving in the UK, and secondly ... well, actually, there isn't a secondly.
Or at least, there wasn't until I moved to Melbourne.
Melbourne has a rather excellent tram system. It's similar to the Tube in London, but there are many more lines (I count at least 40), it's quite a bit cheaper, and they run to a proper timetable, which means you can plan your stumbling out of bed in the morning to perfection.
What's not so great is when you're waiting for a specific tram. They don't stop at every stop – they only stop on request. If you're on the tram, that's fine – there's a button on the more modern ones, or a funny pull-cord thing on the old ones. Off the tram, and you need to make it obvious to the driver that you'd like to get on. That's also fine – step out of the shelter, or wave your hand, or pick up your bags and look intentful (which may be a word I've just invented – so sue me, I'm feeling inventful at the moment).
If you know it's your tram that's coming.
And that's where reason 2 comes in. I can't actually see the line number on the tram until it's too close for it to stop, so 2 sailed past me yesterday, and I'd have missed another one this lunchtime if it weren't for the pedestrian crossing 50m further down the road meaning I had time to run to the next stop up. As there are 6 different lines running through the stop outside work, this could start to become a problem.
I will probably soon be able to pick out the destinations more easily than the line numbers, but as I haven't got my head round all of those yet (some trams don't go all the way along the lines, so there are 2 different destinations that I've seen on the best homewards tram for me), I'm stuck for the time being with snubbing by the tram drivers.
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6 comments:
now i know you mean inventive but i think you might genuinely mean intentful
I don't think so - dictionary.com doesn't know about it, and there are only 623 Google hits for it (a usual number for a misspelling).
Rather amusingly, hit no. 10 is another blogger wondering whether he's just invented a new word...
so what is the word you're looking for?
Intentful! I've decided I know enough about grammar and the rules of English that I'm in a position to bend or break them as I see fit, and it's quite clear what the meaning of the word is, so I'm officially inventing it, retroactively as at the time of my original post.
So there.
That was point! i obviously didn;t explain it with enough clearness...
That probably shouldn't surprise you!
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