It was the phrase "road kill on the information superhighway" that got me paying particular attention to the number and variety of highway metaphors that have appeared in print and conversation lately, inspired by the term "information highway." Although I guess now we're supposed to say "infobahn." It seems there's a new infobahn cliché everyday, until one columnist was driven to call for a motortorium_uh, moratorium, on such metaphors.
But this is just misguided turf protection. Professional writers don't own the language; at best, we have grazing rights. Granted, some of these figures of speech are as attractive as road kill, but there is a natural progression here. New language always passes through an annoying stage, in which it is widespread but not yet so familiar that we no longer notice it. Cliché is just a kitschy rest stop on the road from inventive to invisible.
In support of your right to neologize and metaphorm freely, I have compiled a list of road-oriented language. Note that this is not a collection of infobahn clichés; rather, it's an Infobahn Cliché Developer's Toolkit. Clichés that you develop with it can be used freely, with no royalty or license fee. Here 'tis:
The infobahn (and the various infostreets, inforoads, infodriveways, infotrails, infoblind alleys, and infogarden paths that lead to it) will doubtless have its tollbooths and tollgates; cloverleafs, overpasses, underpasses, bypasses, and business routes; stop lights, stop signs, direction signs, warning signs, under-construction signs, Burma-Shave signs, and billboards; truck stops (where Mrs. Gore is a big tipper), rest stops, pit stops; chuckholes, S curves, steep grades, curbs and berms and islands and soft shoulders.
We'll have our disparaging characterizations of our fellow drivers and passengers: He's just a backseat driver, hitchhiker, carjacker, Sunday driver, day tripper, joy rider, road warrior, road runner, crash-test dummy.
But what sort of vehicles will take us on our infodrives, spins, jaunts, and junkets? Sports cars, luxury cars, trucks, or buses? We'll want a Porsche, but will we settle for a Yugo? Will they have seatbelts and airbags, or running boards and rumble seats? Will we plaster them with "Honk if you love Jesus" and "Baby on board" stickers, next to those smileys? :-)
We'll watch the traffic reports, avoiding the bumper-to-bumper traffic, and cross the yellow line to get in the fast lane or the passing lane or (if we qualify) the car-pool lane, unless we're not in a hurry and decide to take the scenic route.
But you've got to keep on truckin', put the pedal to the metal on that old eight-lane, and get this show on the road. And if you miss your exit while folding up the map, well then all roads lead to Rome--even the yellow brick road, the road to Morocco, the road less taken, the back road, and off the beaten track where the streets have no name and I'm in a rut.
All this assumes that the highway construction proceeds apace, because somebody's got to pave the way, and you know the road to hell is paved with good intentions (or is it inventions), and the road is my middle name so I'll just have one for the road, I'm just along for the ride, we must explore every avenue, so why don't we do it in the road?
That's it. I'm out of gas.
Michael Swaine
editor-at-large
Copyright © 1994, Dr. Dobb's Journal