http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dr-gridlock/post/alight-how-about-just-exit/2012/01/30/gIQA58iXwQ_blog.html
These were my initial thoughts when I read this:
I'm not going to try suggesting that this particular bus stop sign isn't a bit confusing, but here are my thoughts in response to this complaint:
1. "Alight" might not be used in every day language, but it is the kind of word I should expect nearly everyone to know the meaning of when they see it.
2. This woman had better not come to Jerusalem, I translated "????? ????" as "ALIGHTING ONLY" for the new bus stop signs here because that is the word I saw on WMATA's signs when I was growing up and riding the system there.
3. Are the various "journalists" on the Transit beat in the Washington area and all the "expert bloggers" who mostly hail from outside the DC area ever going to report on the real reasons WMATA is in its current state, or do they lack the institutional memory to do so?
I'd agree that the word alight doesn't seem to be commonly used, but I'm not sure I'd put it in the ranks of being obscure. I think the writer may be a wee-bit nitpicky.
I mean taking it from a contextual point of view, you can pretty take a guess and say Alight doesn't mean Board. Also, the "mistake" about the other routes having Only following them isn't. From the picture, that's the stop on 7th @ Constitution and it does have a reason for the Only since the 34 and V8 make that left on Constitution. I guess real journalism is just a dead as dead in this country and as for why this is an article is just asinine.
WMATAGMOAGH
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dr-gridlock/post/alight-how-about-just-exit/2012/01/30/gIQA58iXwQ_blog.html
These were my initial thoughts when I read this:
I'm not going to try suggesting that this particular bus stop sign isn't a bit confusing, but here are my thoughts in response to this complaint:
1. "Alight" might not be used in every day language, but it is the kind of word I should expect nearly everyone to know the meaning of when they see it.
2. This woman had better not come to Jerusalem, I translated "????? ????" as "ALIGHTING ONLY" for the new bus stop signs here because that is the word I saw on WMATA's signs when I was growing up and riding the system there.
As did I.
3. Are the various "journalists" on the Transit beat in the Washington area and all the "expert bloggers" who mostly hail from outside the DC area ever going to report on the real reasons WMATA is in its current state, or do they lack the institutional memory to do so?
I totally agree. I is see this individual as being a product of are dumbed down educational system. The word alight in the context that it is use has a price meaning.
Quote from: 79MetroExtraMD on February 15, 2012, 05:05:05 PM
I mean taking it from a contextual point of view, you can pretty take a guess and say Alight doesn't mean Board. Also, the "mistake" about the other routes having Only following them isn't. From the picture, that's the stop on 7th @ Constitution and it does have a reason for the Only since the 34 and V8 make that left on Constitution. I guess real journalism is just a dead as dead in this country and as for why this is an article is just asinine.
Not everyone is a bus fan who can immediately place the stop or figure out what "only" might refer to right off the bat. I wrote in my OP that I thought this sign was confusing, though I don't think it is impossible to figure out. I'm not a huge fan of the new flag design for WMATA personally, I've really come to like the larger signs that were in Rome when I was living there with a strip map of the entire route and I'm also a fan of the modular signs we are installing in Jerusalem and the signs that NYCT has up in New York. All of them have lots of information but don't overload the passengers, are easy to understand, and can be seen from a distance easily so you can see the stop location from far away.
I may be more familiar with WMATA than the average Washingtonian, but I think she referred to herself as a metro rider. Well as someone else pointed out that as a child metro rider I knew what alight meant although that could be because I often saw it in conjunction with boarding. (No boarding or alighting in DC)