A brief Friday delight, to which I was alerted by Gadi Niram on Facebook: a passive-only verbing based on a proper place name. In today’s CBS News from Boston, the story “3 trucks, including one from Trillium Brewing, get “storrowed” in one day on Storrow Drive”:
A Trillium Brewing truck had an ironic moment on Friday afternoon after one of their trucks got stuck under a bridge on Storrow Drive.
The Boston-based company has a beer named after the iconic Boston incident called “Storrowed.”
The seasonal beer from 2022 is a Double IPA and is no longer made. However, the beer description is still ironic in light of their truck getting “storrowed.”
The description on the site reads: “Our annual move-in season Double IPA serves as a PSA to warn against the Boston phenomenon of lodging a box truck under a low clearance overpass on Storrow Drive. “While it’s a sporadic episode that can snarl traffic for hours, most of these incidents occur during college move-in weekend, typically around Labor Day. Be sure to heed the low clearance warnings at the Storrow Drive entry points!”
But they did not heed their own message. Their truck got itself stuck at Longfellow Bridge on Storrow Drive, heading eastbound around 12 p.m. on Friday. The roof of the truck was damaged because of the incident.
… Trillium Brewing wasn’t the only truck that got stuck on Friday, though. Two other trucks got storrowed, causing serious traffic along the roadway.
Crews work to help a tractor-trailer that had gotten stuck during the morning commute on Friday. (photo: CBS Boston)
An analogue: passive-only verbs based on proper personal (rather than place) names. As in Paul Simon’s “A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamara’d into Submission)” — as performed by Simon and Garfunkel — which has plenty of passive eponymous verbs, referring to political, military, and artistic figures; the first of Simon’s verses:
I been Norman Mailered, Maxwell Taylored
I been John O’Hara’d, McNamara’d
I been Rolling Stoned and Beatled ’til I’m blind
I been Ayn Randed, nearly branded
Communist, ’cause I’m left-handed
That’s the hand I use, well, never mind
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