The electric train that runs between the different parts of Terminal 5 at London's Heathrow Airport insists on referring to itself as a "transit".
What's more, the remarkably annoying female voice that tells you needlessly that the doors are closing and that the train is about to start moving says "Transit is departing."
I have written about this sort of thing before: Why on earth would they not program the speech synthesizer (or record the voiceover) to say (using the definite article rather than leaving it in its present strange anarthrous headlinese) "Please hold on; the train is now leaving." Why do they not make it speak the way a normal human would speak?
I wish I understood the strange compulsion that makes people in the transportation industry reach for technical words that nobody uses in ordinary conversation: board for "get on" is one example, since very few people say "I boarded the bus" for "I got on the bus," but clearer examples include depart for "leave", and disembark or deplane or alight for "get off". These are really very rare in conversation. Why does the transportation industry feel they must be used nonetheless?
It really is in need of explanation. There seems to be no possible purpose served by programming a speech synthesizer to use a rarefied technical stratum of the vocabulary for simple things like telling people that a train is about to start moving or that it's the end of the line and they should get off.
It's weird enough already being addressed by a robot on a train with no driver zooming underground from one airport gate concourse to another. Why do they exploit linguistic means to make it even weirder?
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