[toss1]

>>Because the Port of Baltimore is a very major port, and not allowing ships under it really isn't an option.

It is now a very large port that is completely closed off from the sea.

And two sides of the city no longer linked

The damage from this accident is only beginning.

Even if loss of control of a large container ship was considered in the design of the city, port, and that particular bridge, ships were not even close to the order of magnitude of mass of today's ships.

And, it lost power at almost exactly the worst moment. What are the odds?

[Diederich]

> And, it lost power at almost exactly the worst moment. What are the odds?

I don't know, but I suspect we don't hear much about all the times power is lost at moments that are less than the worst.

[toss1]

EXACTLY!! If it happens often, and they just restart because it's no big deal in the ocean, we wouldn't hear about it.

Of course, it seems that a high(er) frequency of failures should be taken into account for zones where it is critical, such as in port. I just saw a few days ago that a ship docking took out a couple of cargo cranes (sadly, badly injuring a crane operator); didn't seem like a power outage, more of a misjudged steering.

[shiroiushi]

>And two sides of the city no longer linked

Have you looked at a map of Baltimore? They're very much linked, you just have to drive a little farther. The only issue will be that all the traffic this bridge previously carried now has to reroute to the bridge farther north, so now traffic will be much heavier.

[toss1]

Yes, of course; I made the comment after looking at a map.

The direct or short link is now broken. Everyone must now go around the entire harbor, on roads that will now have 40k more cars every day, instead of directly across it. I wasn't saying that some area was a disconnected island, but that many trips will become more costly or non-viable for years until the bridge is rebuilt.

Perhaps I should have said "no longer directly linked", but thanks for the picked nit.

[shiroiushi]

It's not a nit-pick, you said "no longer linked". They are absolutely linked, you just have to drive around a few more kilometers. You said nothing about the traffic load, you wrote that it was absolutely impossible to cross! ("no longer linked")

[toss1]

Perhaps English is not your first language, or you are not recognizing the difference between casual conversation and formal scientific papers.

This is casual conversation. Writing quickly and colloquially, with the assumption that "no longer directly linked" or "no longer linked as they were 10min before" is inferred, certainly to anyone who has seen a map of the area. It should also be inferred from the sentence alone, as if the link had been to an island, then most writers would have made the much stronger point, saying "completely cutoff from the mainland" instead of the much weaker "no longer linked" (just because one link is broken does not imply that there are no others).

If you want to comment that "I was confused by your meaning and it could have been more clear if you said X" is a perfectly fair statement.

But deliberately taking absolutist definitions in a casual conversation where meanings can be implied / inferred, is an unfriendly, oppositional, if not hostile stance.

In any case, I apologize if you were offended that I didn't include all the qualifiers and assumed they would be apparent to the reader. Have a nice day.

[shiroiushi]

English is my first language, but you obviously speak it much worse than most ESL people I know. I even used to live close to Baltimore, so I know the area. You said "no longer linked", not "no longer directly linked". There's a world of difference, and now you're trying to paint your comment as something it was not.

[toss1]

Yes, I've already acknowledged the ambiguity in the original sentence, and I apologize again to you for any confusion it caused you.

However, please learn that ambiguity in informal speech/writing is substantially different from errors in formal edited speech/writing, and different responses are appropriate.

In the context of formal writing (e.g., an academic or industry paper, book, etc.) we should expect almost all ambiguity to be edited out, and not allow for inferences in either direction; i.e., your complaint would be valid.

However, in casual speech/writing (e.g., SMS, social media comments, non-formal emails, etc.) it is common and not serious to leave IMPLIED components in the conversation. It is certainly acceptable to ask for clarification such as "did you mean to imply that some area was made entirely inaccessible by that event?". But it is inappropriate to accuse someone of being dead wrong by leaving out the implication.

The request for clarification should result in the speaker/writer saying "ya, I did mean to imply XYZ, not PDQ, thx for pointing that out." — mutually and efficiently finding the truth. The accusation, especially continued insistence on the accusation being the one true correct way, is the way to start an argument trying to establish dominance.

It might also be worth noting that your class of people — those familiar with the Baltimore area — should have been MOST able to recognize that "not directly" was the inferred meaning, since you know it's not linking an island to the mainland. That you chose the hostile "j'accuse — you are wrong!" form of discussion rather than the collaborative friendly "btw, you did not mean to imply that the bridge linked to an island" (and continued to insist on the hostile approach) tells us all that this is more about your emotional state and/or approach to human interactions than about the ambiguity itself.

Have a great week