OT:Answers to Q's and some other stuff.

[Kibitzer]

Because the only people who originally had driveways were rich and you had to drive from the main road a considerable distance to the front of their house to discharge your passengers at their front door before the coachman parked the vehicle in the stable yard. Then, after suitable refreshment and if the weather was fine, you might get back in a vehicle to tour around the beautifully landscaped park on the carriage path. It was not long before the park path that was large enough to accommodate a vehicle was identified as the park way, to distinguish it from the other foot paths. So you now had a drive way that was generally a pretty utilitarian and direct route from the main road to the front door, and the park way that lead nowhere in particular designed to give vistas across your parkland.

Move forward and distribute wealth to more and more people and the distance between the main road and the house of a person owning a vehicle became shorter and shorter, and the space around the house became smaller and could accommodate fewer out buildings but the original name for the road remained - driveway. Finally the motorized personal vehicles appeared and the need for a stable disappeared and the land requirement decreased further, and so people ended up parking not in stables or later garages, but right on the drive way.

Meanwhile increased leisure time and motoring as recreation became popular and top speeds increased - the main roads which were pretty direct routes from town to town increased in size and use. People decided to create additional roads designed to provide routes that missed all the congestion of each little town along the old routes which were generally located in the valleys. They created or expanded the longer distance routes that ran along the ridges or high ways. And a few people decided that the recreational as opposed to the utilitarian motorists would enjoy what their predecessors had enjoyed, a route designed to show off the scenery rather than to just get from point A to point B in the most expeditious manner - the park way was reborn for the masses.

So you end up with a parkway where you can't park, and a driveway where you generally cannot drive far.

I know it was joking and the history lesson is pretty long, but I enjoyed writing it.

[Now don't ask me about driving or navigating on a fairway, if you know what is good for you! )

Huh?

 

[Zorro]

But UConn's most effective offense is often its defense, so in that case the forwards are the back there too.

Well, remember Dobbsie, Yogi, or ol' Case or somebody said, supposedly; "The best offense is a good defense, and vice versa." Ponder that.

 

[terif831]

Don't forget, things are different FROM other things, not different THAN other things...

 

[j66kicker]

Because the only people who originally had driveways were rich and you had to drive from the main road a considerable distance to the front of their house to discharge your passengers at their front door before the coachman parked the vehicle in the stable yard. Then, after suitable refreshment and if the weather was fine, you might get back in a vehicle to tour around the beautifully landscaped park on the carriage path. It was not long before the park path that was large enough to accommodate a vehicle was identified as the park way, to distinguish it from the other foot paths. So you now had a drive way that was generally a pretty utilitarian and direct route from the main road to the front door, and the park way that lead nowhere in particular designed to give vistas across your parkland.

Move forward and distribute wealth to more and more people and the distance between the main road and the house of a person owning a vehicle became shorter and shorter, and the space around the house became smaller and could accommodate fewer out buildings but the original name for the road remained - driveway. Finally the motorized personal vehicles appeared and the need for a stable disappeared and the land requirement decreased further, and so people ended up parking not in stables or later garages, but right on the drive way.

Meanwhile increased leisure time and motoring as recreation became popular and top speeds increased - the main roads which were pretty direct routes from town to town increased in size and use. People decided to create additional roads designed to provide routes that missed all the congestion of each little town along the old routes which were generally located in the valleys. They created or expanded the longer distance routes that ran along the ridges or high ways. And a few people decided that the recreational as opposed to the utilitarian motorists would enjoy what their predecessors had enjoyed, a route designed to show off the scenery rather than to just get from point A to point B in the most expeditious manner - the park way was reborn for the masses.

So you end up with a parkway where you can't park, and a driveway where you generally cannot drive far.

I know it was joking and the history lesson is pretty long, but I enjoyed writing it.

[Now don't ask me about driving or navigating on a fairway, if you know what is good for you! )

Interesting. Love the Merritt Parkway and Sawmill River Parkway in late October (except in rush hour)

 

[Gus Mahler]

I think of less and fewer as being on par with good and well - a different type of error but so frequently used as to start changing the common usage of the language.
Gabby is a good player, and played particularly well in the last night game.
Adjective vs. adverb issues have become commonplace in discussions about sport. Real vs really, bad/badly, etc are additional examples often combined by a star athlete: I played real good today, not as good as last game, but I am putting together a real nice season! In fact, I have had less bad games this year than ever and the team seldom looses. In fact, I can't remember the last time I played bad. Our won/lose record is great!

[I blame UNCheat's educational standards for this! A joke, but not really if taken as a generalization. It, I think, is the amateur-ization of sports journalism and the need to fill 24 hrs of air time - including athletes as expert analysts who then become journalistic personalities.]

Yup. Good generalization. The jocks butcher the I versus me business so much it is laughable. But as you say, not really a joke.

 

[Zorro]

I don't really mind (much) the use of me in place of I, because that has become so ingrained in the language as she is spoke that it seems almost natural; "See you later. Me and Jennifer are going to the mall". Much worse, to me, is the use of "I" as an object, because it sounds stilted and affected. "It was a learning experience for the team and I.", "Coach was really tough on Suzie and I.", although even that seems to be gaining usage. One really can't be too hard-assed as to what is and is not acceptable; the Academie Francaise has tried that without apparent success. And, as has been discussed on this board before, there are situations in which "proper", prescriptive English just would not work effectively; "I can't get any satisfaction", "to go boldly where no man has gone before", "I am not misbehaving", "You aren't anything other than a hound dog" come to mind. Every generation since language was invented has deplored its deterioration. (I can't cite data, but I believe that this is probably true.)

The great linguist, Ted Higgs opined, correctly, I think, that the true purpose of grammar was NOT to help one to be understood, but rather to avoid misunderstanding. And no one is going to be misled into thinking that the Mick means that he is unable to obtain a zero level of satisfaction.

 

[UcMiami]

Zorro - nicely put. I might add specific to you that 'poetic license' was a phrase created to allow poets to mangle 'correct' usage and pronunciation in pursuit of their art, and what are song writers but musical poets!

I think English in particular has such complex varieties because it is such a mongrel language in origin being germanic overlaid with romance languages with a wide variety of other tribes contributing their own peculiarities.

And much of the policing of language comes with printing presses and a wide dissemination of a single version of a printed work. Shakespeare spelled his own name a number of different ways depending on the day of the week, and early scribes all used their own idioms, spellings, and words to the point that scholars can actually follow a single original source around from monastery to monastery in the same way we used to play telephone. And trace the scribe's travels as well based on when new regional usage appears in the books he is copying.

 

[Gus Mahler]

The jocks also butcher he and him. Irritating.

 

[Zorro]

I never got my poetic license. I had a limited learner's permit for a while, but it lapsed. Never could pass the rigorous poet's exams.

 

[j66kicker]

I never got my poetic license. I had a limited learner's permit for a while, but it lapsed. Never could pass the rigorous poet's exams.

But you got your Lariat

 

[Zorro]

The PL is my evil twin.