Joanna Carr, of London, writes, "I often wish I had a word (to mutter under my breath) for people with absolutely no horse sense when using public transport or in crowds. You know, the ones who get off the top of the escalator and stop dead, people who swerve into your path, people who walk four abreast. Surely a good descriptive noun is long overdue in busy cities everywhere?"Suggestions in the form of comments are more than welcome. Or e-mail them to me.
« Your questions answered | Main | Walking the walk = talking the talk » November Word Fugitive17 Oct 2008 05:44 am
Joanna Carr's "busy cities" are certainly where this problem is most noticeable, but I've experienced versions of it even on hiking trails in the wilderness:
Comments (126)
mobstacles? 
Citiots?
In Washington DC the Metro did a whole ad campaign telling people not to do stuff like this. People who stood at the top of escalators were "escalumps" and people who stood on the left, rather than walking, were called "escalefters".
Morons, idiots, dirtier versions of same. Take your pick.
Pedestrocentric
Amblerrhoids
Mobstacles is more descriptive, but I think I like impedestrians better.
Skiers use "Gaper", I guess it could cross over to widespread acceptance.
In London, aren't those people called tourists? (ba-dum-bump!)
Encumperson/encumpersome or a brothacade.
Okay, I'll try again, then. How about "mallipsists"?
I often travel through airports and have taken to labelling those that block passages as urban cholesterol.
I like the term clot as it caries the same ambiance of clod and at the same time the connotation of an obstructing pain.
"Obliviots."
They are "faux King Cnuts" for trying to demonstrate (inappropriately, in this case) that you cannot, in fact, impede the tide of humanity.
amblocks and/or walktards
periplegic, from peripatetic and paraplegic...
Oblivians
"MEdestrians."
Metroblivious
Having thought of metroblivious I realized that between Chris and I we'd come up with a great one "metrobliviots" please share credit.
Urblivious
I think of them as "anti-personnel mimes" as most are silent at the moment of their ineptitude.
They're "blockbodies" and their condition is known as "impedimentia."
The guy is an oafambulator!
Since these people are usually out-of-towners, one expression used in touristy areas of the US is "touron."
People from Shanghai?
Tourroids works for the out of towners. Obfusculators for the locals.
I think thoase are all called "Trourists"
Chinese
Such people have a bad case of wanderlost.
How about agorafoppic?
I think this actually appeared in the Atlantic (or maybe the New Yorker) in response to a similar question: Meanderthals. However, Walktard is my new favorite.
transagressors
In Barcelona they're called Catalans.
motherflankers
rowogs (right of way hogs)
These are people with ambivalsense.
detourist
Speed bumpkin.
"Walktard" slightly edges out "meanderthal" in my book. I'll surely be muttering one or the other to myself on a regular basis.
How about "Pestdestrian."
"Why cumbereth he (or she or they) the earth?" is what my grandmother's best friend's mother used to say about people with no horse sense.
Meh. With a few exceptions, y'inz are the oblivious self-centered retards. I wonder if you fume just as haughtily at the MS guy - the disoriented junkie - the mom with groceries and a stroller, when they cost you four precious seconds getting the #$%^* out of your busy busy terribly important way. Or just the ones you've decided, on sight, don't have any valid excuse? Urban living means allowing for people who have wildly different priorities than yours, and doing it "Civil"-ly.
Nonambulists? Contrambulists?
How about Irksomenavigator
I see I was beaten with 'impedestrians' - I just got my copy of Atlantic today - how about 'blockerheads'?
My suggestion: vialators, combining violators and viatores (Latin for tourists). That said, I think Meanderthal is so much better.
How about hominidrances (hominoid hindrances).
I think "oblivious" is really all you need to describe such people, but I'll give it a shot: obliviousholes. I hope that's not too obscene for young ears. But my vote goes to meanderthals. That's genius right there.
We all know these people!
Tourists. Or "my mother."
"Incite-seers" "Oblivion-ing it up on vacation"
Also, a person behaving in this way is a Toto. Why? Because they're not in Kansas anymore...
I see phb beat me out in suggesting meanderthal. I my experience, these people ate too clueless to hear or understand the reference, so when my wife and I find ourselves hemmed in by these clods, we start bleating like sheep; this seems to resonate with something in their primitive brains, and when they turn to see what's going on, we do an end-run behind them. Incidentally, this isn't just an urban phenomenon; I live in a town of 2,000 that is thick with these dolts.
I'm with "angry new yorker" (#5): such people don't deserve a clever appellation. One should treat them linguistically as one does on the streets and sidewalks: as obstacles to be avoided and bypassed as quickly and with as little thought as possible.
Well they're obviously pedestri-in-the-way.
With all due respect to Jim Fallows, I have long used the word "French" to describe this kind of action. I have also been to China and I think the French have much more talent for being clueless.
situational Aspergians. my son is one, does it all the time. Annoying of course. But then I realize I do, too, from time to time. So does each of us.
dysperipheral What I am trying to capture is I think this is a function of how one reacts to personal space, how large is one's own bubble, how impervious to others.
Locommotion engineer
Joanna Carr wants a word for those Here-I-Ambulatory stoppelgangers who need to be hit up the side of the head with a clue-by-four. I favor geoff webb's suggestion "detourist," or Hank Horsey's "speed bumpkin."
I really like meanderthals. I would suggest, however, "blunderbutts." The term "meanderthals" might hint that they may one day become extinct; but blunderbutts, sadly, will be always roam the earth.
pedestalls.
A friend introduced me to "oblivion" several years to use for those people driving 10 miles slower than the speed limit in the left lane instead of the right lane. Such people never seem to see the line of people behind them nor the upset drivers whizzing by them in the right lane when they are finally able. At the time, he said he heard from someone on the radio. In any case, my friends and I now use it a LOT.
First, for Eric and Chris - if you wish to provide input to a verbally and grammatically intense crowd, please drop the "between Chris and I." It should be "between Chris and me." As to tourists (and others) behaving obstructively - I grew up in a tourist-destination city in a mostly agricultural country. The economic news after WWII was the potato blight caused by a beetle ("stonka ziemniaczana", in Wikipedia). It was an imported insect traveling through Europe from west to east. And so all of us locals called the gaping hordes potato beetles. Hard to adapt to an indusrialized present, but now that I'm living again in a tourist city, that's exactly how I think of them, and have always tried to avoid that behavior when visiting a new place myself. city girl
mineiverse
Publivious
People who block up the movement of pedestrian traffic? Constipacers.
Malaped (short for malapedestrian) fits Joanna Carr's wish for something to mutter under breath.
The great walk of China ?
pedidense
In the spirit of the season: the person who stops cold at the top of the escalator is a hanging cad; the person who swerves into your path on a busy sidewalk is a swing floater; the persons who walk four abreast, blocking pedestrian traffic on a busy street, are unbesideds. May the best candidates win.
Viadolts
transidense? Turbulumps?
gab-stoppers
Jayblockers
Such people are urbinepts.
stupidestrian
walkie balkies
In London, they are Tube Boobs, or Undergroundhogs.
Impediphiles?
Several imprecations come to mind...urban sprawlers, gaitcrashers, thwrong steppers and best of all, (uttered through clenched teeth) "Inertians!"
Urban bumpkins?
How about a super(anti)hero name? Oblivio and his female colleague, Oblivia.
grrrambulators?
Spatially challenged
Pestrians. My grandfather used to refer to pedestrians in Boston as Deadpestrians, not so much out of bias against ambulating, as the realization that anyone on foot in Beantown has a target on their back. So in salute of him, I offer pestrians. I do notice that I am only slightly different than previous entries. But family loyalty as it is, I'm obligated to nominate pestrians.
This is patently pathological behavior, and its practitioners should be called by the position in which one so frustratingly finds them: ineopaths!
Those that attempt to board the subway before letting others off are the worst. I can't understand how New Yorkers that commute every single day remain oblivious to this simple etiquette. Let's call them "transignorants."
Hmmm... something to be muttered under the breath for those who fail to travel well in a group? Grit our teeth and say it with me now: "dumbflock"
Failed to notice Hank Horsey's excellent suggestion last time I posted. To make up for it, how about "nincimpedes"? Or "bumbling blocks"?
How about: sociopathfinders or narcistrollers?
pestestrian
Got the mag too late...I saw my entry above was taken...my first was taken... impedestrian...but how about "an obstacle source"...
Pedarrests!
Such a person is an obliviast. Please note that the 't' is silent.
in-the-wayfarers?
In America: Flowbertigibbet In several countries: Dunderblocker And, for our British complainant:
Inconsideratii
How about walkstacles? Or oblivirhoids?
I suggest:
How about "agoroblivians"
Peripathetics
I always called them "uncognito."
"Illogisticals" But it is more PC not to label people, so I prefer the adjective "illogistical"
Let's keep it simple: Stupeds
The people coming at you four abreast on the sidewalk may be impedestrians, but the ones who stop to stare but pretend not to be tourists are impassetors. That's versus the ones who endanger you by venturing onto public transportation where they clearly don't belong, the treachpassers. The people who ruin your commute are clearly commuterclysms, although when they lurk in subway mobs they could be considered crowdmines or crowdastrophes waiting to happen. The ones who can't walk straight are simply pedasterous pedystrians. But all in all, these folks who are oblivious to others or to their surroundings (hence the need always to stop and see what's around them to the detriment of everyone's progress) are oblivstacles.
And you can mutter beneath your breath, "Pedastard."
Since it's meant to be a word muttered to oneself, I think it needs to be brusque and/or a little bit mean, just like a curse word, but with a touch of humor. So how about Stiffcow, Mobhobble, or the very simple, Clog.
Similar to Chris: Oblividiots = Oblivious + idiots.
Pedestrians of Mass Obstruction (PMOs)?
This is a failure of proprioception, so how about: They suffer mala-proprioception. They are human malaprops - absurb failures of awareness. But actually, it's serious: Mala-proprioception is responsible for the slaughter of the aged on the highways of Florida.
Synonyms of the noun demagogue include agitator and troublemaker, so I suggest... Pedigogue
Malambulant, or malambulator.
How about "trajectory challenged"?
The well-dressed but clueless suburbanite in the city? A "metroperplexual"
As I am coming so very late to the game, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had thought of none of the several very excellent suggestions submitted earlier -- Bravo to you all! -- nor had anyone yet submitted mine, so may I please suggest "circumaccidentalist" and "stumblebumper"?
They are abhordent.
Darn - supidestrian was taken! how about "bipediments"?
A Briton behaving so might be called a "churlambulator," perhaps shortened to "chram." In the States, a "stroldup."
I agree. These agorablivious types drive me nuts.
My wife always refers to them as "crowd cholesterol" for which I believe the medical term to be agorasterol.
Such oblivious idiots might well be called "obliviots."
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How about "impedestrian?"
Posted by William Wright | October 17, 2008 8:44 AM