Sober, Quirky

Controversy at the pump in Oregon

There is a minor controversy in the American state of Oregon, which is just now allowing motorists to pump their own gas in certain rural locations. Oregon is one of two states in the US that have traditionally required gas stations to have attendants fill up customers’ tanks; the other state is New Jersey.

These two states have for years been the last two holdouts from a previous era. In the other 48 states, and in most of the Western world, drivers who pull up to the gas station have to get out of their cars and fill their own tanks with gasoline, or petrol, as they say in some English-speaking countries. But in New Jersey and Oregon, by law, there has always been an attendant there to pump gas for motorists.

But that changed, just a little bit, this January 1, when a new law in Oregon came into effect saying that residents of rural counties can fuel up their own tanks. This might not sound like a big deal, but it is in Oregon, where this quirky law is part of state’s identity. There are a lot of opinions on both sides of the issue. Many Oregonians take pride in their full-service gas stations. They don’t want to smell like gasoline. They say it’s unsafe to have to get out of your car, when there might be all kinds of other people lurking around. They are concerned about the elderly or disabled, who can’t pump their own gas.

Some of the reaction is over-blown. Oregon’s new law only applies in rural counties, parts of the state that have a very small population. Oregon is a very rural state, with a lot of wide open areas, so it’s not always practical for gas stations to have attendants for so few customers. And the law just allows rural gas stations the option to have self-serve pumps; it doesn’t eliminate full service at all. Many gas station owners will continue to offer full service, regardless of the new law.

As the outrage from Oregonians spread on social media, the backlash from the whole rest of the country was pretty swift. One writer wrote from Wisconsin said she had just pumped gas in -17 degree weather; she didn’t have sympathy for people saying they didn’t want to get out of their cars in Oregon’s relatively moderate climate.

So that leaves New Jersey as the last US state that requires all gas stations to employ attendants to fill up their customers’ tanks—and it’s likely to stay that way. One recent poll said 75% of the state’s residents like their full-service law. A couple of recent attempts at changing the law went nowhere.

As strange as it seems today, full service at a gas station used to be the norm in the United States. Gas in the 1970s was actually dirtier and more dangerous, so there might have been some health or safety risks in consumers pumping their own gas. Credit cards were not as widely used at that time, so it made sense to have an attendant outside to collect payment.

Today, though, self-serve is the norm in most Western countries, though I know from traveling that Mexico and Brazil both require full-service gas stations and I think it’s uncommon in India. If you’re in a country with only full-service gas, let me know in the comments on the show or on Twitter, at PlainEnglishPod—I’d be curious to know where full service is still common.

Before we start the second half of the program, I wanted to encourage you to connect with the show on Twitter or Facebook. The show’s user name on both is PlainEnglishPod. I wanted to say hi to Nicola from Italy and Ekaterina from Russia for connecting on Twitter. PlainEnglishPod on Twitter or Facebook; you can also send me an email at [email protected].

In the second half of each program, we review two words or phrases that you should know in English. This week, those words are sober and quirky.

Sober

Let’s start with sober. There are two meanings of sober I want to tell you about. The first meaning, and the most common, is the way I used it during the story about Dry January. People will be sober for the month of January; it means they won’t drink alcohol during that time. Sober usually describes a person who has given up an addiction for good. Someone who was once addicted to alcohol might tell you, I’ve been sober for five years. It means he gave up his drinking five years ago. You can also use it for smoking or any other addiction, though I think it’s most common to describe an alcohol addiction. In the story about Dry January, I said that thousands of people will have a sober month. This is a more informal way of using sober: just means that for a month, they—actually I should say “we” since I’m doing it too—we won’t drink. We will be sober for one month. A related word is sobriety; that’s the noun. We are having a month of sobriety. We’ll see if keeping sober is easy for us, or if the sobriety is too hard to maintain.

Depending on the context, sober can also mean the opposite of drunk, regardless of whether a person is or ever was addicted. A friend might ask if you had been drinking the night you fell down a flight of stairs. And you might answer, “Nope, I was completely sober. I just slipped and fell.” Some people say that after drinking, they have some coffee or take a cold shower to sober up, meaning to reduce the effects of alcohol. That doesn’t work, by the way—it doesn’t actually reduce the effects of alcohol, but some people say that anyway.

Quirky

The second word to discuss this week is “quirky.” This is kind of a fun word meaning that someone or something is unusual or slightly strange. If something or someone is quirky, it’s not a bad thing; it means a person or a thing is weird, but in a good way. In the story about Oregon, I said the state is proud of its quirky law that requires all its gas stations to be full-service. This is a quirky law because it’s unusual; it’s unexpected, kind of in a good way. It’s a quirky law because it’s so unique and a little strange, but in a good way.

Here are a couple of other ways to use quirky. You might say a person has a quirky sense of humor, if that person’s jokes are funny, but a little unusual. You could say a store is quirky if it has a lot of things you don’t usually see when you’re out shopping, but that store is interesting nonetheless. There’s a store like that near me that has a lot of vintage things that used to be popular a long time ago, but that you never see anymore. It’s fun to walk through and see the quirky merchandise; it’s funny and definitely unusual.

That brings us to the end of today’s program. Thanks again for listening and being part of this growing audience. I’d really love to know what you think of Plain English so far, so please send me a note with your thoughts. I can be reached at [email protected] or on Facebook and Twitter under the username PlainEnglishPod. If anyone else out there is having a Dry January, let me know; I could use the encouragement of others in the same position. We’ll be back with a new episode next week. Thanks so much for listening