Now there's an even better way to describe a vessel-bridge interaction

It’s not often that I’m sent scurrying to the nearest dictionary for help. Or, not often that I’ll admit it. But the US Coastguard service caused me to do just that, while I was reading one of their recent press releases.

You may wonder why I spend my time reading the US Coastguard press releases but, of course, I’m not about to tell you. What I will tell you is that the press release referred to a tug and barge allision with a bridge.

Well, you and I might think they simply mis-spelled collision. Because that’s what happened. A barge, being towed from Rodeo, bumped pretty seriously into the east piling of the west span of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. Sounds like a collision to me.

Sounded like a collision to them, too. The barge was filled with more than 66,000 barrels-worth of heavy black oil. Not the fluid of choice for topping-up San Francisco Bay. Which is why they called out the CDFGOSPR (California Department of Fish and Game Office of Spill Prevention and Response), the Richmond Police Department HAZMAT, the California Office of Emergency Services and CAL TRANS – whoever they are. And, just for good measure, they called out the California Highway Patrol, too. Even in California, it’s CHIPS with everything.

But it wasn’t a collision. It really was an allision. A collision is an event that occurs when two moving objects meet, usually unexpectedly. An allision is what happens when one moving object meets another object that isn’t (or maybe won’t) move.

When an irresistible force meets and immovable object, that’s an allision.

It’s one of those words that was discovered by some under-employed trivia-hunter in the California Department of Trying To Impress People with Important-Sounding Words. You can just see them, blue-pencilling automobile accident reports from the traffic department ( except in California it’d be the Department of Traffic). ‘Officer Dibble. Your accident report refers to the ve-hicle colliding with a lamp-post. This event cannot have occurred unless the lamp-post was moving at the time. If the lamp-post was stationary, which we expect was the case, the vehicle allided with it, not collided with it. Please amend your report and resubmit it.’

I got quite excited by the discovery of this completely useless word. After all, what use is a word if everyone has to go and look up its meaning?

Chips officer: Ma’am – did you just allide with that lamp-post?

Driver: Why, officer, I don’t know. Did I?

Chips officer: Well, ma’am. If it was standing still, looks like you sure did allide with it. But, on the other hand, if it just jumped right out at you, then it looks like you co-llided with it…

It occurred to me that, in the light of this, the Giant Hadron Collider might be wrongly-named! I’d probably be the first person outside the US Coastguard service to point out that this huge scientific folly, this massive scientific hunt for the elusive Higgs boson (for that’s what they seek) just might ought be properly named the Giant Hadron Allider. What a lark!

But, it is not to be. Their particle beams of protons are both moving at 7TeV per particle in opposing directions. Which means they collide. Or, they will when they get the magnets working again.

The good news is, no oil leaked into San Francisco Bay, after all that.