I guess I should try to make up my own. Along with such American terminology such as
bling and
truthiness, the newest rage is
hypermiling, in light of $4 gallon of gas that has hit the nation swiftly, with no chance of decelerating.
Granted, maybe I've started a few hypermiling ways of my own. I usually don't go out more than three days during the week, and I try to combine my errands so I don't have to run out piecemeal every day. I moved from California to avoid the idling process of stop and go traffic (ok, that's not really a tip, but I do a lot less idling). And since I've started driving my husband's sporty little manual transmission car when I get the chance, I started shifting my automatic transmission into neutral every time I approach a red light or stop sign. Slow acceleration and braking are apparently gas savers, too.
The one that bothers me the most, however, is the fact that on the thruway, there are folks who take advantage of the drag that cars create in front of them, and coast along on their bumpers. Taking advantage of someone's drag is fuel saving for the hypermiler, yes, but you are causing the dragee (made-up word) to lose much more fuel. It's a selfish move, effectively; not only are you making the person in front of you pay more for their gas, but you're also not cutting back on the pollution you create, which is honestly the REAL reason why we should be hypermiling.
Anywho. These people drive me nuts. I frequently drive between parents' home and my home town now, so I get plenty of thruway driving, and I hate the action of drifting. These people make my blood pressure rise, and I tend to get anxious, angry, and I can usually effectively shake them by slowing down or weaving between traffic (neither good options on a thruway).
Unfortunately, this hypermiling craze is not going to fix the real problem, which is that energy costs will rise regardless of how many times we shut off our engines while driving on the road (no matter how illegal it is in many states). We drive gas-guzzling SUVs that, we're just realizing now, are hard to sell in favor of a smaller car. People are purposefully running out of gas on the road to get a free gallon of gas. An article newly minted on CNN says that GM is closing four pickup and SUV plants, build smaller and more efficient cars, and even dispose the Hummer brand.
Which I say: ABOUT TIME. I never really bought into the SUV craze. I love my little zippy cars. In fact, I'm actually considering purchasing a manual transmission vehicle for my next car, when my winter beater bites the dust (bites the snow? Bites the salt? For Nor'easters, it's all the same!) because I've learned to effectively watch my RPMs and learn how to upshift from a low RPM to save gas. My husband does a great job in teaching me how to get my miles to stretch, especially since he has to drive an hour to work (this translates into $500 of gas per month right now, which will inevitably rise as the months go on).
For GM to make this move is smart and beneficial to the American consumer market. Our European counterparts are probably doing the point-and-laugh right now, because not only is public transportation a fact of life there, but $9 gas is as well. We've got it made with $4 gas! Furthermore, this is the precise response that a large employer of working-class citizens needed to make in order to keep their appeal to the American consumer, instead of watching them walk off their lots in favor of the more fuel-efficient Japanese brands. Maybe this will also get the annoying tailgaiters off my bumper too.
In order to keep this fresh and on topic of how the media figures into this whole brouhaha, I just like the fact that Americans can come up with terminology and let it slip into mainstream talk. In fact, most civilized countries these days are keen on making up their own vocabulary that separates it from the established language of the land (look up "cosplay"; also see "bloody," "bugger," "cheesed off," etc. in British colloquialisms). The evolution of language has forever been changed by media - once the written word became printed word, the media could reach legions of people in ways no one ever dreamed. Then the printed word became the electronic word, and the term "globalization" seems ever present in our vocabulary now. Not only do adults make up their own terms, but so do the teenage population.
When you think about it, who doesn't make up their own language once in a while? Parents do it with their kids. Pet owners do it with their dogs. In fact, the beauty of language is that it's all made up by us. While there's a standard to help us understand each other, there's also the fact that humans at some point made it up in the first place. When you hear English and Mandarin spoke in tandem, you really understand how language evolution seems so easy to do.
