"Clinching" a road - WhereTF did *that* term come from?

[ixnay]

Inquiring minds want to know.  This inquiring mind fairly demands to know. 

ixnay

[Pete from Boston]

Inquiring minds want to know.  This inquiring mind fairly demands to know. 

ixnay

It's been a term in sports for at least several decades for having some title or accomplishment sewn up, guaranteed. 

[sammi]

clinch v
     To make certain; to finalize.

(EDIT: this was previously on a succeeding post)

I would say clinching a road means finalizing having taken that road, i.e. having driven it completely from end to end.

How it came to be used in this context, I don't really know either.

[pianocello]

I'd be interested to know how that term made it from sports to road culture, though, especially since they have slightly different meanings. In sports, a team can clinch a spot in the playoffs several games before the end of the season (depending on the sport), but obviously to most roadgeeks, a road isn't clinched until it has been completely driven by a person.

EDIT: Sammi's post clears that up

[Scott5114]

Some early roadgeek probably saw the need for such a term and applied it from sports, despite the fact that they don't match quite exactly. Outside of roadgeekdom the term is better off avoided because it's homonymous with "clench".

I have heard some roadgeeks in the Midwest refer to clinching a road twice–once in each direction–as "certifying" it, but outside of that little pocket of roadgeeks I haven't seen this term catch on at all.

[bulldog1979]

I have heard some roadgeeks in the Midwest refer to clinching a road twice–once in each direction–as "certifying" it, but outside of that little pocket of roadgeeks I haven't seen this term catch on at all.

I've heard of "certifying" as having a witness, or witnesses, for a roadgeek's full travels on a highway. For example, I could ask a friend to verify that I've been the full length of M-185. Under either version, I haven't hear "certifying" catching on very widely, and it's not a term I really use.

[Alex]

Some early roadgeek probably saw the need for such a term and applied it from sports, despite the fact that they don't match quite exactly.

I was introduced in 12th grade to fellow road enthusiast Cary Todd in 1991. We started routinely using the term clinch to reference riding on every mile of an Interstate. Wrote about it more on a previous thread about the concept of "clinched highways":

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=12631.msg305774#msg305774

[jeffandnicole]

How did the pound or number sign # become known as the hashtag?

Why did Spam, the mystery meat, catch on so well to signify spam, the junkmail of the internet?

Words and terms just happen sometimes.  Clinching is just a term that someone used and it became *the* word to use when traveling an entire roadway.  But the definition isn't absolute - I'm sure someone could say they clinched every interstate in the US by simply driving a portion of it.  Who would be the word police to argue?  There's many people that have clinched every state, but it's not as if they drove and walked the entire state - they simply entered the state.

[english si]

How did the pound or number sign # become known as the hashtag?

Outside of North America the symbol is called hash and the corresponding telephone key is called the "hash key" (and the term "pound sign" usually describes the British currency symbol "£").

And this hash sign is used to tag posts as belonging to a particular topic.

[jeffandnicole]

How did the pound or number sign # become known as the hashtag?

Outside of North America the symbol is called hash and the corresponding telephone key is called the "hash key" (and the term "pound sign" usually describes the British currency symbol "£").

And this hash sign is used to tag posts as belonging to a particular topic.

#itcanbeirritatingwheneveryonedoesitfornoreason.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

I call the # 'sharp' due to musical reasons .

[formulanone]

I have heard...clinching a road twice–once in each direction–as "certifying" it, but outside of that little pocket of roadgeeks I haven't seen this term catch on at all.

I've heard "conquered" a few times around here, but usually "clinch in both directions" seems to avoid the ambiguity.

[ixnay]

Now that I've had time to think about it, "clinch" isn't bad.  I just have to get used to its use in roadgeek context.  And it *is* slightly less verbose (one less syllable) than "collect" (in any context).  My apologies for "clinch" bashing, roadgeeks.

ixnay

[Scott5114]

Why did Spam, the mystery meat, catch on so well to signify spam, the junkmail of the internet?

This comes from a Monty Python sketch, where one of the characters yells "Spam! Spam! Spam!" repeatedly and obnoxiously. This caught on as a term for unsolicited bulk email because it, too, arrives repeatedly and obnoxiously.

[briantroutman]

I call the # 'sharp' due to musical reasons .

Typographically, there is a difference between the pound or hash sign (#) and the musical notation for sharp (♯).

Note that the pound/hash has level horizontal lines with slanted verticals and the sharp has slanted horizontals and perfect verticals.

[Scott5114]

This is not necessarily true of all typefaces, however. I have seen a sharp-like glyph used for the hash mark in embedded fonts used by thermal printers.

[signalman]

I picked the term up from seeing other roadgeeks use it.  It seems to fit well though.  I honestly don't know what other terminology would fit.  I also don't see it being used in this context outside the roadgeeking community.  It's not like I brag to non-roadgeek friends that I clinched some highway. 

[Jim]

I suppose I've helped expand awareness of the term "clinched highway" just a bit by using it in some academic work (http://courses.teresco.org/chm) and referring to the CHM project in a conference paper (http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2157136.2157295&coll=DL) and a few other presentations.

[bugo]

I think Poolog (Adam Prince) came up with "certify". 

[hbelkins]

I thought that was your name for Jason Pawlowski.

[adventurernumber1]

I picked the term up from seeing other roadgeeks use it.  It seems to fit well though.  I honestly don't know what other terminology would fit.  I also don't see it being used in this context outside the roadgeeking community.  It's not like I brag to non-roadgeek friends that I clinched some highway.

Same here.

[GaryV]

I call the # 'sharp' due to musical reasons .

My wife' is a piano teacher.  She's acquiesced when teaching the kids about sharps.  She used to say the thing that looks like a tic-tac-toe board.  Now she says the thing that looks like a hashtag.

[bugo]

I thought that was your name for Jason Pawlowski.

No, that's "Poologski".  Minor difference.