Thread: Obscurity
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Unread 09-15-2017, 06:10 PM
Erik Olson Erik Olson is offline
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Location: Portland, OR
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt Q View Post
I asked because it seemed pretty straightforward to me, pretty clear what was going on. I guess some of the references might be more obscure to non-Brits...
I was not wholly ignorant as to the MI5 being some highway or motorway in the UK. But supposing I was, it certainly sounds a lot like the major highways I have heard frequently referenced. Like the I-5, the main Interstate main artery that parallels the Pacific from the base of California to Canada. There is an M-I5 in Michigan, for instance. But above all, it is the context that enforces that this is a highway or motorway, when we consider it in the list of other apparently landmark constructions with capital letters
architect of... rampart and ditch, the citadel... Welsh Bridge and the Iron Bridge: contractor to the desirable new estates...’
To say nothing of what Google could tell one.
In short, I did not find this one either difficult or obscure myself. At least not obscure in that I knew a Motorway was being referenced, though I have never driven on it; or a prominent Bridge, though I had never been there myself. That be as it may, I agreed with Offa at the end
‘I liked that,’ said Offa, ‘sing it again.’
Erik

Last edited by Erik Olson; 09-15-2017 at 06:43 PM.
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