300,000 WILL WATCH BIG BALL DROP.Byline: Boston Boston, town, England Boston, town (1991 pop. 26,495), E central England, on the Witham River. Boston's fame as a port dates from the 13th cent., when it was a Hanseatic port trading wool and wine. Having recovered from a decline in the 18th and 19th cent. Globe It happens every Dec. 31: A giant, shiny ball is dropped at midnight in New York's Times Square, signifying Signifyin' (slang) is an African-American rhetorical device featuring indirect communication or persuasion and the creating of new meanings for old words and signs. Signifying, in this sense, includes repetition and difference, implication and association, combining words and the start of a new year. That doesn't sound as if it would be a big deal, but it is. Here's how big: Three hundred thousand people will gather in the streets of Times Square for the festivities fes·tiv·i·ty n. pl. fes·tiv·i·ties 1. A joyous feast, holiday, or celebration; a festival. 2. The pleasure, joy, and gaiety of a festival or celebration. 3. . Those revelers will spend nearly $16 million in the square before the night is over. Eighty-five percent of those in Times Square are expected to be from outside New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of . Twenty-three percent will be foreign visitors. Some 2,500 will go to parties at hotels and restaurants in the Times Square area. Not all will get a good view, or any view, of the festivities. Now here's the really big number: 300 million people around the world will watch the ball drop on television. Of those viewers, 92 million will be Americans. |
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