The CTA is so bad that there’s a website dedicated to the only thing we can do about it, which is snark. Yes, elections are tomorrow. Daley’s going to win, and the CTA will continue to be unreliable. I get to vote against him, though, assuming that some incompetent government type didn’t lose my voter registration, like they lost the check for my parking ticket, or the box of books that I shipped out from Berkeley.

Today the conductor came on the speaker to explain why the train was going so slow. This is what you’d expect, except that they implemented the slow zone two weeks ago. We were told, “We do apologize for any inconvenience.” Oh, you DO apologize? That makes it sound so much more sincere. It’s like when someone’s secretary tells you that he’s “actually” out of the office.

Also, what is the deal with the transportation industry and their inability to use “momentarily” correctly? It does NOT mean “in a moment” any more than “presently” means “at present”. I’m sure all those poor jetblue passengers were told they’d be taking off momentarily.

There’s a fine line between social lies and what Harry Frankfurt calls “bullshit”, i.e. between what someone says when the other person doesn’t need to know the details, and what someone says when he thinks the other person doesn’t deserve to know the truth. Something about the way the CTA talks smells funny to me.

(cdm | VerbalIncompetude)