the.com/traffic
The sound of everyone else's bad timing becoming your personal problem.
means The movement of vehicles, people, or goods along a route — or, by extension, the volume of activity or exchange flowing through any system.
from Traffic entered English in the 1500s from French trafique, from Italian traffico, tied to the verb trafficare, 'to trade or carry on commerce.' Its deeper roots are murky — some trace it possibly to Latin trans- ('across') plus a root related to 'touch' or 'fare,' as in moving goods across distance, but etymologists don't agree on the exact fusion. Originally it meant commercial trade and the passing of goods hand to hand; only later did it narrow to mean the literal crush of carts, then cars, moving through streets — and later still, the flow of data across digital networks.
- word shift
- Meant smuggling and trade before cars existed
- rush hour irony
- Average speed in gridlock beats walking by little
- data traffic
- Now means internet packets jammed, not just cars
- induced demand
- More lanes reliably invite more traffic, not less