A Word with Laurie: Bottleneck



Southern-style Trees, Photo by L. Kolp

Today's word was borrowed from Peggy Goetz of On a Day Like Today. In her poem, Close of Summer, the word bottleneck just seemed to jump out at me. We are toads, you know. Anyway I thought there would be lots of possibilities with this word; literally, figuratively, and even visually.

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Here's the definition of bottleneck, according to Webster's New World College Dictionary (© 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio)-

(noun)

1. the neck of a bottle
2. any place, as a narrow road, where traffic is slowed up or halted
3. any point at which movement or progress is slowed up because much must be funneled through it: a bottleneck in production

(adjective)

designating or of a style of playing blues guitar in which notes and chords are formed by stopping a string or strings with a broken-off glass bottleneck, knife blade, etc. (read the interesting history behind this instrument/music here)

(transitive verb)

to act as a bottleneck in

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Variations might include bottlenecking, bottlenecked, bottlenecks.

Synonyms- constriction, narrowing, impasse

Bottlenecks in carpool lines~ L. Kolp

 

 

Here's a video of bottleneck, or slide, guitar. You will notice the bottleneck device on the musician's left hand.

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Other types of bottlenecks-

Bottleneck gourds



Bottle palm, courtesy Wikimedia commons

Bottle tree, courtesy Wikimedia commons

So please write a poem using bottleneck in whatever creative way you can, post it to Mr. Linky, and visit others who have participated. Have a great weekend!