question of the day...
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From: Miami, Florida
Originally Posted by myculito,Jun 15 2005, 06:18 PM
A classic one...and here's the explanation:
One of the classic illustrations of the supposed illogic of English is the fact that we park on a driveway but drive on a parkway. There are two explanations for this particular conundrum: (1) the meanings of words change over the years, and (2) the same word can have more than one meaning.
A driveway originally did refer to a road you drive on: a driveway was a private road leading from a main road to a house. (Imagine the stereotyped long winding driveway leading up to a huge manor house and you get the idea.) But nowadays, when driveways are thirty feet long and lead only to a garage--if anything--their purpose is just to store cars next to a house. That's why we park on driveways.
A parkway, in contrast, was (and still is) a thoroughfare meant to suggest a park: rather than just being a plain road, it has trees planted on the sides or on a median divider, it's usually smaller than other highways, it twists and turns--a scenic road, in short. So the park part of parkway is the word meaning 'a nice-looking part of land in a natural state', not the word meaning 'to leave (a vehicle) in a place'. And that's why we drive on parkways.
One of the classic illustrations of the supposed illogic of English is the fact that we park on a driveway but drive on a parkway. There are two explanations for this particular conundrum: (1) the meanings of words change over the years, and (2) the same word can have more than one meaning.
A driveway originally did refer to a road you drive on: a driveway was a private road leading from a main road to a house. (Imagine the stereotyped long winding driveway leading up to a huge manor house and you get the idea.) But nowadays, when driveways are thirty feet long and lead only to a garage--if anything--their purpose is just to store cars next to a house. That's why we park on driveways.
A parkway, in contrast, was (and still is) a thoroughfare meant to suggest a park: rather than just being a plain road, it has trees planted on the sides or on a median divider, it's usually smaller than other highways, it twists and turns--a scenic road, in short. So the park part of parkway is the word meaning 'a nice-looking part of land in a natural state', not the word meaning 'to leave (a vehicle) in a place'. And that's why we drive on parkways.
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