Thread: Mac Cadam

So he invented a way of laying roads that became macaddaming and then they coated the top layer of stone in tar and that became tarmacadam and then that got shortened to tarmac and then that became a verb meaning to lay tarmac the noun, so how would you spell the past of the verb? tarmaced, tarmacced?
I have reached a point where every possibility looks wrong.

I think it's John McAdam you're referring to, Olly.

tar·mac (tär'māk')
n. A tarmacadam road or surface, especially an airport runway.
v. tar·macked , tar·mack·ing , tar·macs

v. tr.
To cause (an aircraft) to sit on a taxiway.
v. intr.
To sit on a taxiway. Used of an aircraft.

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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Olly, I got all that from the Dictonary.com website, which might help you with future enquiries of a similar nature. http://dictionary.reference.com/ You could create a shortcut on your screen.

It may be worth noting that the same principle - of just adding a 'k' to create the verb - also applies to picnic, medivac, bivouac, panic and almanac, although I have yet to see a verbal form of nymphomaniac. That said, some goose here will prolly try it.

We could of course have saved all this if you'd simply said "tarred." Banjo Paterson liked that word - in his Tar And Feathers, he wrote of the circus proprietor who objected to a kid crawling in under the tent and thereby thinking to gain free admission:

"But the showman astute
On that wily galoot
Soon dropped -- you'll be thinking he leathered him --
Not he; with a grim
Sort of humourous whim,
He took him and tarred him and feathered him."


Oh, and you have a PM.

You are right Baron,

Thanks Ox, it only occurred briefly to me that Mac ( or Mc) could transmute into Mack, then I dismissed it as silly.

Tarring and tarmacking are not the same thing, tarring is covering in tar, tarmacking is covering in small stones which have been tarred and then rolling it. Besides I had reasons for wanting tarmac.

A thin skim was attempting to contain the gravel drive, which, refusing to be contained, was flashing through its tarmac in slow motion volcanoes. Originally the drive had passed across the front of the house from one road to the other. But now one end of the drive had been cut off, to stop opportunists from taking short cuts, and a turning circle added. Everything done with “The best possible motives”, and all combining “In the worst possible taste” to mar something “of its time”.
“It was some cowboy tarmaced that drive.” Terry paused, for a second and pictured in his head the way it had once been.

If you're looking for correctness in your story you might care to do some research at Wikipedia about present-day road surfacing.

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

If you're looking for correctness in your story you might care to do some research at Wikipedia about present-day road surfacing.

Right. It comes with its own ready made pot holes these days.

Originally Posted by Baron

Right. It comes with its own ready made pot holes these days.

Out here in the colonies the local authorities save money by patching them with a mixture known as egg and breadcrumbs.

Ah yes, I remember being nymphomaniacked when I was about 13. Lovely lass. Lived next door. Her mother and my mother used to spend a couple of mornings a week shopping together.