From "I felt wheelie awful in Amsterdam; no wonder they want British tourists to stay away" (The Guardian).
I haven't seen "infra dig" in a long time, long enough to need to look it up to be sure I got it. Here's something from William Safire, in the NYT, from 2006, when — It's almost hard to believe — "infrastructure" was a word worth writing a column about:
Infra is Latin for "below; inferior to"; it is best known for its use in infra dig, which means "beneath one's dignity." Infrastructure was introduced into wonkish political jargon by Emanuel Shinwell, Labor's minister of defense, in the House of Commons in 1950. The Conservative Winston Churchill rose to give warning: "As to this new word with which he has dignified our language" - a subtle play on infra dig - "we must have full opportunity to consider it and to consult the dictionary."
When the word was used again in Commons, Churchill sallied forth in relentless ridicule: "In this debate we have had the usual jargon about 'the infrastructure of a supranational authority.' ... It may well be that these words infra and supra have been introduced into our current political parlance by the band of intellectual highbrows who are naturally anxious to impress British Labor with the fact that they learned Latin at Winchester."
Bill Clinton picked up the wonkism in his 1992 campaign, urging "investment in our infrastructure." But no Churchill rose in the Republican ranks to be witheringly critical.
Anyway... are wheels on luggage beneath your dignity?
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46 comments:
Your joints will thank you some day for those wheels, even if foreigners won't appreciate them now.
If I'm not mistaken, Eton (and Churchill's Harrow) looked down on Winchester as too wonkish, or whatever the British equivalent is. "Smarter" academically, but not so "smart" socially. Too inclined to take themselves too seriously and to wear their learning heavily.
I've had this discussion for a long long time with my sister. If you are rolling your suitcase on to a plane, it's not a carry-on. I can't stand wheelie suitcases. (She does not share my antipathy). I was recently in a city, and the sound of wheelies was everywhere. Ugh. Right up there with back-up warning beeps as nails-on-a-chalkboard.
"Anyway... are wheels on luggage beneath your dignity?"
No. But I wouldn't dare disturb the peace of other peoples neighborhoods by rolling them there.
I can say that wheeled suitcases are an asinine choice for many European or other old cities. Old cities have narrow and lumpy cobblestone roads, small cars, and a million other tourists trying to fit full-sized 26" or 29" suitcases in the shared luggage areas of train cars.
Venice with a roller bag...prepare to carry it up and down two staircases every block as you cross the many canals. The Alps are mountains and mountains often have steep/rough unpaved trails and staircases. The wheeled experience is far worse than carrying a pair of smaller bags in each hand or using an urban backpack-suitcase such as these:
https://www.ebags.com/backpacks-bags/travel-backpacks/
You'll be fine if the backpack looks more like a suitcase than an outdoor product and can hide the shoulder straps. Alternatively, use a commercial porter service to forward large bags between hotels (if available).
...the ubiquitous valise à roulettes (wheelie suitcase), without which no self-respecting weekender would even consider travelling in the 21st century.
A distinction needs to be made between the four rotating casters at the bottom of most suitcases associated with contemporary weekend travelers, and the two wheels on one side at the base of older suitcases.
The newer suitcase's four casters rotate while holding the suitcase 90-degrees vertical, allowing you to push it along in any direction with zero support needed to hold it up.
Meanwhile, the older two wheel suitcase needs to be tilted and supported by the person pulling the extendable handle. Consequently, you do not have the same hands-free, immediate push in any direction 360 degree turning radius.
There are a few hidden advantages of the old suitcase, however.
First, you can daisy chain the set with a connecting strap(s) that leverages the smaller bag(s) off the ground with the larger suitcase. I've never seen the new suitcases do that: they are too random and directionless to daisy chain.
Second, the two wheelers are more resilient and forgiving of surfaces like cobblestone, and emit a periodic thump of two even wheels in tandem rather than a cacophony of four random wheels bouncing around.
While the new four wheel suitcases are well suited for semi-hands-free pushing a single suitcase across even airport floor, I like my old two tandem two-wheelers.
I would assume the older suitcases are better received in more traditional societies.
I have a second home in a coastal community in Florida. Just about everybody hates airbnb. The airbnb rentals seriously degrade the community and our city is not doing an adequate job regulating short term rentals.
The problem? Same as always. A couple of buttheads are Ayn Rand disciples. You know the obnoxious, stupid type: "Oh, if I want to film pornos in my garage, it's none of your business." Really? Or if "I want to run a disco tech in my basement, you can deal with it." I don't think so!
But I was tempted to host an airbnb family when the Super Bowl was in town though. So I'm something of a hypocrite...
urbane travelers
I don't use wheeled suitcases.
My carryon is a Vocier F35
I think the best way to travel is to take no luggage at all, just a tote bag I can put over my shoulder and then buy whatever I need once I get where I'm going. This works best for travel to a place that has stores, not so much if it's out in the wilderness but in a remote locale there is no one to hear the wheels on my suitcase so it's all good.
Improvise, overcome, adapt. I am amused, however, that Europeans can get away with discriminating against others. We Americans would be accused of xenophobia, of being too provincial and hateful, tourismphobia to go with all the other phobes we're guilty of.
Considering the revenue that tourists bring into cities like Barcelona, Lisbon, and Venice, perhaps the locals might want to shut up? Just sayin’
You’d think I’d be more sympathetic, having lived around Washington, DC, this time of the year (cherry blossoms!). But I’m not.
So, I don't know what reality you're posting from, Wince, but in this universe, the four-rotating-caster suitcase is the older design, invented by Bernard Sadow in 1972, while the tilting two-wheel suitcase is the newer design, invented in 1987 by Robert Plath.
There are some two wheel suitcases with fairly large, solid, wheels, which makes them a good fit for rough or cobbled streets. One with the little casters is just going to get caught in a crack somewhere, as well as, I suppose, make that rattling noise. I somewhat prefer hand-carry canvas bags for short trips, but mostly because it makes it easier to navigate stairs. Less extra hardware/weight to pick up.
What utterly pretentious word puking, perhaps a new Guardian standard! Besides, the reason Amsterdam is so much more befouled by English ruffians is because of Amsterdam's eager accommodation of stoners, prostitutes and Johns in the public square while in pursuit of Brit Stirling. Other Dutch and European cities don't suffer through this type of plague because they don't try to attract the same trash. This has less to do with AirBNBs or wheeled luggage and everything to do with vomit pools in the street and the ubiquitous, acrid smell of burning pot leaves hanging over the tourist areas. Unbearable Brit snots like Rachel Cooke probably don't help either.
"Wait only for my boot heels to be wanderin’
I’m ready to go anywhere...."
Marseilles was a shithole city when I visited in the early '80s.
Incredibly dangerous place then.
I've heard from friends who live nearby that it hasn't improved much.
The best way to travel is to buy much of what you need when you get there, but most people can't afford to do that.
In about ten years (if I last that long) that will be my philosophy...
Opposition to wheeled luggage strikes me as sexist. I generally have no problem carrying my luggage and prefer to. But women’s bags are usually bigger and heavier and, unless the women are actually trans women, they will struggle more than men with the bulk and weight. If my wife and daughter had to carry their luggage, I’d be carrying theirs as well as mine. They’d try, but in the end, it would be easier for everyone if I just do it.
On the language points, I’d never heard of an infra dig. I could have gotten in the ballpark of meaning from the word “dig,” but I never would have guessed it meant “beneath my dignity.”
I’m surprised infrastructure is such a recent term. I would have guessed it had been used for as long as cities had infrastructure. It’s a perfect word for public works—streets, sewers, etc., that form the foundation of a functioning city.
Yes, and what would happen to the economies of all these lovely cities if all those boorish tourists stayed away?
"But in Amsterdam the other day – we were there to see the Rijksmuseum’s sold-out Vermeer exhibition – I felt things shift."
You got over worrying about your carbon footprint (I presume you didn't swim there with your luggage on your backs) and now have something new to virtue signal your concern over?
It's always something.
Othering people who use roller bags is one of the steps to genocide,if I understand correctly the mewling from one of your other posts.
Tourists bring in lots of money to the local economy. Maybe clacking suitcase wheels is worth it?
Rule #31 when traveling abroad. Do not take your 'spinner' along with you to sightsee the town, and in particular do not bring your 'roller' into the museums. Do not take it to cafes, or clubs. Do not take it to the town square. Duh.
I tend to bring my suitcase to my Airbnb or hotel first off and leave it there for the duration of the trip. That said, I've read multiple articles on how Amsterdam is tired of being overrun with tourists. At the same time I've been seeing Portugal as the go-to place for everybody who is anybody over the last handful of years so maybe in a short time, Lisbon will become the new Amsterdam, complete with noisy spinners rolling right behind you as you walk into the Museum of Art, Architecture, and Technology.
I look for the lists of 'hottest places' and pick something on the other side of the world. Like San Francisco. No one wants to go there anymore.
PS- wheeled my spinner through the cobblestone streets of Jerusalem on the way to grab our ride out of town. It echoed in the streets. I heard that sound all week while there. Day and night. People coming and going into and out of the city. I think it's the sound you hear in any well-traveled city and that's just how it is.
It's not British tourists with wheeled luggage they don't want. It's the weekend yobs who fly over from the UK to get drunk, get stoned and visit the girls down in Die Wallen that are the problem.
I’ve heard Marseille is a dump. They should be grateful for any visitors.
Wheelie suitcases? Don't care.
Airbnb? They ruin neighborhoods and should be illegal everywhere. Stay in a damn hotel.
Out: Wheeled luggage
In: Tote bags.
How absurd.
I love how you had people like Churchill fighting back against "Americanism" and "Jargon" and trying to protect the English language. My impression from reading he British press and current books, is not only are their "Churchills" long gone, they're even more jargon happy than the Yanks. It seems to have preceeded their by-passing the USA in poltical correctness and hatred of "racism/homophobia/xenophobia/misogony/antismemitism/etc/etc".
Spiros,
In my development, in our title deeds we have a prohibition on short term rentals less than 6 months. This is in the deed, which can't be changed, not just in the bylaws, which can.
My daughter's condo has the same clause in the deed.
Do you have an hoa? Do you have prohibitions against short term rental? Can you get the hoa to enforce it?
I love the concept of hoa's. Much more protection than political zoning. As close to perfect democracy as can be imagined.
John Henry
Wince said...
A distinction needs to be made between the four rotating casters at the bottom of most suitcases associated with contemporary weekend travelers, and the two wheels on one side at the base of older suitcases.
Steven said...
So, I don't know what reality you're posting from, Wince, but in this universe, the four-rotating-caster suitcase is the older design, invented by Bernard Sadow in 1972, while the tilting two-wheel suitcase is the newer design, invented in 1987 by Robert Plath.
I was speaking to contemporary usage and replacement rates, not design dates. For all we know, one or the other was used to build the pyramids.
Simply go to any airport or luggage display in a store, and the spinners more than dominate.
Look at this Macy's luggage link.
ALL spinners. Whatever their origin story, it seems apparent that two wheelers are being phased out.
I travel a lot. I've had suitcases, shoulder bags, backpack, hangup bags, 2 wheelers and 4 wheelers. All in various sizes.
I'd never heard am objection to wheelie bags before other than from skycaps. Their union once tried to ban them from San Juan airport.
It sounds like the objection is mainly "not cool" but nobody seems to articulate a non - style reason.
Infra-dig is not only a style reason but a douchy style reason.
Someone said you can't daisy chain 4 wheelers. Ever tried? I often travel with 3,sometimes 4 if you count my wife's. No problem moving all together.
4 wheels is the easiest I've found so far. If something better comes along, I'll switch
Nobody I care about sees me when I travel. I don't give even half a shot about looking cool. Comfy baggy pants oversize t shirt, unbuttoned long sleeve shirt, 20 pocket travel vest* and a jacket. Comfy, not cool is the look.
*not ScottE. Love his stuff but he thinks I'm deplorable. Amazon has plenty of other choices.
John Henry
Are people with their wheelie bags more or less annoying than those huge metal rental carts in airports?
I vote less.
John Henry
Hubby and I went to Amsterdam years ago, and had to leave our Airbnb at 4:30 am to catch the train to the airport. Whilst waiting....A guy on roller skates with goggles and a gold speedo skated by us. Talk about clacking on cobblestones!!
I switched from shoulder bag to backpack a few years ago. For laptop, notebook, and anything else I might need with a client.
It weighs about 20#. I'd long thought of a wheelie backpack/briefcase but never found anything I liked.
Last year I found this one. https://amzn.to/3ZzkotE (I think tha links to the portal)
It is a nice laptop backpack on its own. It comes with a separate aluminum frame 4 wheels, that clips and straps together very nicely to make a wheelie.
Best business bag I've ever had.
John Henry
My HOA (in AZ) recently banned short-term rentals (STRs, by a 75% vote of residents) because of the problems they cause. I used to be a supporter of the concept, but now I'm not so sure. I like the idea that people can use their house for some income when they're not around, but eventually they all became full-time businesses with people (or investors) buying properties for the sole purpose of STRs. Some portion of the renters are just nice people who would like to stay in a house instead of a hotel for a week or so, but enough of them just use it as a party house and neighbors be damned. Up in Sedona I hear tell that schools are closing because 40% of the houses are STRs and there aren't enough kids anymore.
I certainly wouldn't want to live next to a Motel 6.
I'm old enough to remember the times before wheeled luggage existed. When they first appeared, I scoffed, thinking that unless you're old or infirm you should not pack more than you can carry comfortably. I also did not travel much back then. I abandoned that attitude many years ago.
I also have no idea what this has to do with AirBnB.
Mason G said...
You got over worrying about your carbon footprint
Carbon footprint or carbon dioxide footprint?
You seem smart enough to know the difference between carbon (a flammable solid, usually) and (carbon dioxide an inflammable gas, usually)
Why do this?
John Henry
"The problem? Same as always. A couple of buttheads are Ayn Rand disciples. You know the obnoxious, stupid type: "Oh, if I want to film pornos in my garage, it's none of your business." Really? Or if "I want to run a disco tech in my basement, you can deal with it." I don't think so!"
My rights are not up for your fucking vote.
I read a lot in these comments that say "I don't actually travel very much". I bought my first roller bag after my second business trip to England (1984) traveling by train. Yes, you have to carry it up or down stairs, but you have to carry any bag up and down stairs. The problem is most people don't know how to pack, or size their luggage according to their trip. I have a small roller that will easily fit in an international overhead, that's good for 3 or 4 days on the ground. I have a big roller, I check (frequent flier privilege, I don't pay) for long trips or if I have to carry a computer in my small roller. I can overnight in a valise.
". The problem is most people don't know how to pack, or size their luggage according to their trip. I have a small roller that will easily fit in an international overhead, that's good for 3 or 4 days on the ground. I have a big roller, I check (frequent flier privilege, I don't pay) for long trips or if I have to carry a computer in my small roller. I can overnight in a valise.
4/2/23, 1:20 PM"
We only pack a small roller bag each when we travel, and try to bring color coordinated clothes. If we are going for more than a week, we drop off laundry half way through...and bring home dirty clothes. Works for us, and we never have to wait in baggage claims!!
We drop off laundry at one of those places that wash, dry and fold for you. No laundry doing for me on vacation!!
Strange, just days ago I rolled my wheeled suitcase up the steep cobbled streets of Lisbon to stay in an Airbnb and people there were universally gracious.
"Why do this?"
Because it's a comment in the comment section of an internet blog, not a technical research report?
Amen, grw. Unless my wife is with me, I can go out indefinitely with a single carry on (wheelie!) suitcase and my backpack computer bag. (Also wheeled)
7 skivvies & socks, 3 pants, 5 dress shirts, t shirt and shorts for lounging, extra shirt for dinner etc dopp kit and I'm good for 7 days. Longer trip, I do a load of wash in the hotel Laundromat Sunday morning.
Everything else including medecins and BP monitor in the backpack.
I do carry a fold flat duffel in case I need more room coming home. Seldom use it.
I don't understand why people need to check bags.
Other than my wife. I don't understand why. I do understand that I shall not question it.
John Henry
As a student and fan of Rand, I find hoa's the perfect Randian solution.
You signed a legally binding contract with me not to run a disco or any business (or keep animals other than dogs and cats and a couple of pages more)
Nothing at all to do with your rights.
You voluntarily signed a contract with me. I am simply holding you to your promise.
Very Randian. She was pretty firm that consenting adults could agree to anything. She was equally firm that both sides could hold the other to it.
In pr covenants are in the deed and run with the property in perpetuity. Can only be changed by unanimous (not majority) consent. May be different elsewhere,
John Henry
Suitcases on wheels? So simple, so brilliant. It's a stupid idea to be sure, but this is one case where something turned out to be so crazy it just might work. When you first saw or heard about this, did you say, "Damn, I wish I'd thought of that!" I did.
Before this became a plague, there was a movie where a young marketing executive, or saleswoman, or motivational speaker rolled her suitcases on a two-wheeler behind her wherever she went, like she was glued to them. There was something very comical about that. Chaplinesque or Keatonesque. If I took a class in comedy theory I might be able to come up with a reason why it was so funny.
Why would you sightsee with your luggage? Leave at your hotel (or AirBnB) or check it at your departure point. Even if you want to keep your computer and valuables with you, there are plenty of nice shoulder bags and backpacks for that.
We stick with the 2-wheel type. Those 4-wheels sticking out look too fragile to survive airline baggage handling.
We're just returning from 7 weeks in Australia. Did a lot of Airbnbs; we love having access to a kitchen.
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