• jballs@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    92·
    14 days ago

    Hey, this past week our funny photo went viral throughout the whole world. Thousands of shares and likes in many different countries! Once and for all: the picture was taken in Belgium, in a small village called Bornem.

    After a minor intervention, we had some time left near the railway to make this picture. Since there were no trains running at all for a week due to maintenance works, we can state that our joke was a real success! Thanks to our entire team, 2nd sqdn Firefighters Bornem!

    Well played, Belgian firefighters.

    • Jay@lemmy.caEnglish
      47·
      14 days ago

      You already found the answer but I was going to comment that the pic was a joke… a train wouldn’t even notice those things on the track.

      They do have derailers that are designed to specifically pop a train off the tracks though. They are made of steel and are usually put on the end of secondary lines just before they meet a normal line. In the event that if a train car rolls away it ensures that it can’t roll into an active line and cause an accident but will instead get derailed and popped off the tracks.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derail

    • Smee
      1·
      14 days ago

      Accelerationist here, full speed ahead and then the train just jumps over everybody. It’s the only way forward.

    • Etterra@discuss.onlineEnglish
      254·
      14 days ago

      A few things. Those are train tracks. Trolleys are something else that you have to go to San Francisco for. Second, “Tyre” is a city in Lebanon. “Tire” is a rubber wheel component. “Wheel” is the metal part which, in this case, goes on the tracks.

      And finally no, “tyre” is not correct because the US has the largest English speaking population of any country - more than the next 3 combined, none of which is England. England is 5th; they don’t get to be in charge of their own language anymore.

      • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafeEnglish
        32·
        14 days ago

        Except British English is spoken by, oh, I dunno, India, which easily outpaces the US by a factor of like 4.

        And let’s get down to it - both spellings are correct.

        And if you must claim one to be “correct”, then tyre wins by a huge margin, as it’s the original form and I would assume a result of the French/Middle English amalgamation starting on 1066, so predating “tire” By some 700+ years.

        So by age and number of speakers, "tyre* would handily be “more correct”.

        All this before even discussing the “synthetic” form created by Daniel Webster, whilst “tyre” would’ve developed organically. Let’s not be prescriptivist.

        In the end though, the greater import is there is no “correct” form - they’re both correct, in context. If you can’t handle that, maybe you should go back to school and take a linguistics class, along with some history, social skills, and respect for the cultures of others. That’s usually called Kindergarten (or do you misspell this too?).

        Respectfully

        A Fellow American who uses some British spellings because they make more fucking sense

      • FrederikNJS@lemm.ee
        41·
        13 days ago

        Besides being wrong about tire/tyre, I also really like how you are completely wrong about “Trolleys” being something you have too go to San Francisco for… And that the OP didn’t even talk about “Trolleys” , but “Trams”…

        First of all… There’s plenty of different types of Trolleys around the world, like:

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopping_trolley https://www.nationalclubgolfer.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Stewart-Golf-R1-S-Push-Trolley-3-2.png

        But now that we are specifically talking about Trams, they also exist in:

        • Melbourne (159 miles)
        • Kyiv (144 miles)
        • Saint Peter’s burg (127.7 miles)
        • Cologne (121 miles)
        • Berlin (119 miles)
        • Moscow (114 miles)
        • Milan (113 miles)
        • Budapest (107 miles)
        • Silesian Interurbans (106 miles)
        • Vienna (110 miles)

        Just to name a few of the 403 cities around the world that operates a tram network. And comically enough, the San Francisco doesn’t even get near any of the above with it’s measly 5.16 miles of track. Even Los Angeles (82.7 miles) and Dallas (96 miles) has San Francisco beat.