Word: girders
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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More complicated words of Ruly English are meant to eliminate confusion caused by differing points of view. Both a watch spring and a heavy bridge girder are flexible in some degree. Both are also somewhat rigid. All objects, in fact, lie somewhere on the scale between extreme flexibility and extreme rigidity. So Newman has arbitrarily coined the Ruly word resilrig to cover the whole scale, and has added such prefixes as sli (slightly) and mb (substantially). In Ruly English, a bridge girder would be sliresilrig and a watch spring subresilrig. A properly trained computer would know the meaning exactly...
Suspended Purpose. In New York City, while a man perched high on a girder of the Manhattan Bridge, Patrolman Joseph Piotrowski climbed toward him, pleaded successfully with him to come down, later asked, "Why did you do it?", to which the man replied: "Because it's my job, damn it; I'm an inspector in the Department of Public Works...
Just off Michigan Avenue in Chicago, workmen fixed an American flag to a steel girder, then signaled to a crane operator atop a 41-story building skeleton. While thousands of sidewalk superintendents looked on, the girder swiftly rose to the top (see cut), where it was fastened into place, "topping out" the $40 million Prudential Building, biggest skyscraper to be built in the U.S. in 15 years...
...which his theories are given full expression. The new building, to be ready next summer, achieves Mies's "universal space" by having a 120-ft. by 220-ft. area completely free of supports or other encumbrances; he turned the trick by suspending the roof from four outside steel girders. Says Architect Mies: "It is a practical thing, because it leaves the ceiling completely free of interruption. There is an esthetic reason, too. The girders draw attention. A girder is nothing to be ashamed...
...Strauss spoke, the fog lifted and the sun shone, drawing an audible gasp from the crowd and changing the scene from monochrome to bunting-bright Technicolor. Mamie Eisenhower and her party walked out on the narrow christening platform. High overhead, perched on a girder, a yard worker sang out, "Be sure and hit it hard. Mrs. Eisenhower." Mamie did. The First Lady swung hard, smashed the chrome-sheathed bottle of champagne expertly against the bow and, as the big green and black boat began to move down the greased ways, she cried, "I christen thee Nautilus...