Tittle-Tattle . . . or Spot the Overdot

An observant person might notice that this street name sign lacks a tittle:

(a tittle is the dot we usually see on lowercase “i” and “j”)

A thorough person might walk around to the other side of the sign & notice something else amiss:

There are three possibilities for what happened here:

1.  The same person(s) who continue to steal this street sign decided to be playful with the dots.

2.  The cunning linguists of the DPW sign shop are experimenting with the diacritic known as the overdot — maybe they know something about the pronunciation of Richardson that the rest of us don’t.  But it’s a bit off-centered over the “o”, so maybe it’s one-half of a diaeresis.

3.  The missing tittle from the other side was probably left behind on the release paper [used with vinyl adhesive plotter-cut lettering] & transferred erroneously when the second side was affixed.

But I welcome other suggestions!

A trip down (and up) memory lane

Today is the first the anniversary of the closing of Putnam Lane, so I thought you might enjoy one last round-trip excursion along the doomed street as it would have appeared had you been tied to the hood of my car last May:

I’d like to dedicate this video to the late Jeff Barnard, who, like me, wasn’t especially enamored of Putnam Lane, but who harbored a very healthy skepticism about what the deal with CSX would mean for Worcester (though he was ultimately supportive of it and much more positive than I was).

For a different sort of trip down memory lane, here are some links to some of Jeff’s posts about CSX’s rail yard expansion in Worcester:

CSX Expansion in Worcester

CSX Expansion in Worcester, Continued

CSX Expansion in Worcester, Part 3

CSX and Lower Grafton Street

CSX and Putnam Lane

CSX Expansion in Worcester, Part 4

CSX Expansion in Worcester, Part 5

Quote of the Day

CSX Expansion in Worcester, Part 6

CSX Expansion in Worcester, Part 7

CSX Expansion in Worcester, Part 8

CSX Expansion in Worcester, Part 9

CSX Expansion in Worcester, Part 10

CSX Expansion in Worcester, Part 11

Is it Really Over

CSX Expansion in Worcester, Part 12

CSX Expansion in Worcester, Part 13

Curtis Apartments Putnam Lane

CSX Expansion in Worcester, Part 14

CSX Expansion in Worcester, Part 15

Reading through some of those reminds me that Jeff’s voice in this community has still not been replaced.  When I post random photos on this blog from around central Massachusetts, I think of Jeff & include the “Wormtown Fleet” logo as below, but my contribution to the Worcester dialogue pales compared to Jeff’s.