@ sixes & sevens

New York doctor (blue base variant)

New York doctor (blue base variant)
 

Some of my plate collecting friends think me some kind of expert on New York State license plates. And I'll admit I know a fair amount about them, still far short of being an expert. The plate above proves the point.

Among the many types of plates handed out in New York State to professional employees is the doctor or 'MD' plate. New York has issued plates for doctors officially since 1939 and probably unofficially for a few years before that. The 'blue base' like the one above was issued between 1966 and 1973. By 1966 there a lot of doctor plates being issued. Until 1966 most base plates were valid for one or two years. The blue base was the first to stay on the road for seven years.

In order to accommodate the demand of the multi-year plate, several numbering systems were used:

• MD prefix (MD-1234)
• MD suffix (1234-MD)
• MD infix (2MD-345, 12MD-34 and 123MD-4)

We know this to be the types issued because the New York Department of Motor Vehicles published lists of all plates issued and their county of issue. The last known list issued during this period, dated 1971, has the registration 825MD-9 as the highest issued in the MD sequence. It would be easy to assume that this sequence would continue to its natural end, 999MD-9 and still provide enough plates. What's more, all the plates from 100MD-1 up are identified in the list simply as "Albany Surplus".

That would be the end of the story, a fairly dull one at that, were it not for the plate that came up on eBay and that I nabbed (for a penny, by the way: there are still 'bargains' to be had).

MTA-Creole Kreyol-MTA

311 vwazwen ou ki fè twòp bwi.

The MTA has been posting public service announcements for the city's 311 information line in various 'foreign' languages heard in New York. (I took a photograph of the Arabic-language version.) On the way home tonight I caught up with the Creole version.

Creole has always been frustrating for me. After years and years of French instruction and on-the-job refreshers, I can't quite master this close-but-no-cigar derivative. Totally anecdotally I have figured out some of the grammar and recognized a word or two.

Tonight I decided to give it another go. It helped that I'd seen the English-language version already. Some of the phrases were pretty easy, such as those for learning how to learn English or to license your dog. But the one above on first glance gave up nothing about its meaning. Strangely it was the unfamiliar first word that began to open the door. Sounding it out I made the connection between vwazwen and voisin, "neighbor".

I had seen ou before, and it struck me as a personal adjective even in the postposition. (What had confused me was that both ou and où have French meanings that make no sense in this context.) Here ou was akin to the French tu or as an adjective, ton.

So: "your neighbor." I think I know where this is going.

ki fè.Ah, of course: qui fait, "who makes": "Your neighbor who makes ...."

That leaves only the mysterious twòp bwi. Getting the hang of this, it was a short step from bwi to bruit, "noise". That leaves only twòp, which was certainly both in context and phonetically trop, "too much".

311 your noisy neighbor.

A little street surrealism

I was standing at the bus stop waiting for a bus that never came, when I noticed the reflection in the glass-walled kiosk of the rotating advertising behind me. With the commuters emerging from the nearby subway entrance and into my reflection, and then hustling to and fro, it made for a video moment I couldn't pass up.

Another reason why I live here

The number before I thought to pull out my camera was "Carol of the Bells", which was lovelier than "Deck the Halls." But it gets the holiday message across anyway.