You're listening to a way with words, the show about language and how we use it, I'm Grant Barrett.

And I'm Martha Barnett. You've probably had this experience. You're waiting for a bus,

and you keep waiting, and you keep waiting, and other buses go past that aren't going to the

destination that you want, and you keep waiting, and then three buses show up, and they're all going

to the same place you were planning to go. Yes, thank you, New York City, and TA. I

always seem to be the problem there. Well, did you know that there's a term for this?

It's bunching, or something, isn't it? I figured it out. That's it. I should have known that you

would know the transportation jargon. Yes, it's called bus bunching, or banana bus. Banana bus?

What? Why is it called banana bus? Because it's a bunch. Yeah, and other terms for this are

clumping, or convoying, or piggybacking, or platooning, but it refers to a group of two or more

vehicles, like buses or trains that are running along the same route, and they're supposed to be

evenly spaced, but then one of them gets delayed, and it messes up everything. And it's just,

I've been spending a little time, of course, looking at how transportation analysts try to figure

out how to make that not happen. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, so do you have the second and the third

bus is pass the first, because the first one picks up more passengers, so it's going to be slower

loading and unloading, right? Right. Or if it's slowed down by picking up, say, someone in a wheelchair,

or just doesn't make it through a light in time, too many times, yeah. That's a big question.

Yeah, and then more people show up and hop on that bus, and that means that for the next bus,

there are fewer people, so it's going even faster. Right. It can just sail by some stops, because

there's nobody waiting, and nobody wants to get off. So shout out to all of you who are working

to prevent bus bunching. And shout out to our lingua bunch. We're a show about language, and we like

to talk about anything related to language, whether it's grammar, new words, slang, old words,

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