Content-Type: text/shitpost

Yesterday I wrote a post that used the word “abutment” seven times. I love this word, and I don't get as many opportunities as I would like.

My love of this word goes back to 1991, when I received email from my (then) girlfriend, who was in graduate school studying urban planning. It said, in part:

    Today, I finished Seattle. And continued Denver. In denver they have a
    bonus for something called a "low level light area". Now, the first
    time I saw this, I was wondering if maybe they were trying to
    encourage the development of romantic hideaways, or increase urban
    anonymity by preventing people from seeing each other clearly. It
    turns out, that they mean an area on a building, not too hight up, but
    not on the ground either, that is exposed to sunlight. so...

    ---------
            |
            |
            |
            |
            |
            |
            |
            |--------  <--- if you let people hang out on this abutting doo-flotchy,
                    |       it would qualify as a low level light area.
                    |
    -----------------


    That is not a letter L. that is a building. In denver. 
    I dyed my hair again.

And so the abutting doo-flotchy entered my vocabulary permanently.

Google searching for “low level light area” finds exactly one relevant document, clearly a copy of a portion of some zoning code. I could find no direct internal evidence of when or where it was from. But it does mention “Ord. No. 361-03”, presumably a municipal ordinance, and this I could identify; it is indeed a Denver ordinance, passed in May 2003; the floor space bonus for abutting doo-flotchies persisted at least that long.

Research is a thousand times easier than it was thirty years ago. Truly, we are living in an age of marvels, and the Internet is one of the chief marvels. I hope I never start taking this for granted.