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#11
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Christina Websell wrote:
"Marina" wrote in message ... Christina Websell wrote: She sometimes confounds me though. What is the difference between a road and a street? I can answer this. ) dons linguist's cap Thank you, Marina. I hoped I could depend on one of our translators ;-) The word road comes from Proto-Germanic. It has the same root as the word ride. Street comes from Latin strata. English is a mish-mash of loans from different languages, but its core comes from the Germanic languages of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, so it shouldn't be too hard for Nüle to recognize the words. I think that road tends to be used more of country roads, while streets are in the city. That was the distinction that I told her, that a street tended have have houses lining it. But then I thought that the hard surface was always called a road, even if it was a street; like - warning to a child "keep off the road!" In the other languages I know well, Finnish and Swedish, there is the same distinction, so I suspect there are similar words in German as well. They're not all strasses, are they? Indeed they are not. Nüle lives right out in the wilds where roads tend to be single track, not a strasse to be seen! Her address is "Am Dorfplatz" which she tells me means something like "on the village green." It's an area called the Wendland, fairly remote between Hamburg and Hannover. The street would be a "Strasse", and the road a "Weg" (like the Swedish väg), but then there's the "Landstrasse", which is a country road... I'd translate the "Am Dorfplats" as something like 'at/on/by the village square' where the square would be (have been) used as a market square, but if Nüle herself sees the "Platz" as a green, then who am I to argue. and: When I say I have to move out of the sun into the shadow, why do you call it the shade? That one is still ongoing.. Any explanation appreciated. This I can't give a very exact answer to, but it seems that shade is the older form of the word, so I suppose the idiomatic 'move into the shade' has been established before shadow has come into use as a synonym for shade. The jury is still out on this, as N cannot accept yet that to move into the shadow of a tree, for example, does not mean *just* that, that she is "in the shadow". Trouble is, all her arguments about English use sound so logical! My take on the shadow/shade issue (please note, this is only my personal opinion) is that shadow is the actual shadow (the 'item'), whereas shade would be more like a place. But then there are the shades of colours messing things up... -- Christine in Vantaa, Finland christal63 (at) gmail (dot) com photos: http://photos.yahoo.com/christal63 photos: http://community.webshots.com/user/chkr63 |
#12
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On 2005-06-12 13:43:01 -0700, CK said:
My take on the shadow/shade issue (please note, this is only my personal opinion) is that shadow is the actual shadow (the 'item'), whereas shade would be more like a place. But then there are the shades of colours messing things up... Right... the shadow of the house, or the shadow of a tree are both kinds of shade... a shadow is related to a specific object, "shade" is more of a quality of light (that's why we use "shade" when referring to colors/colours.). Katrina |
#13
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When I grew up in Washington we had a road that kind of looped around the
north part of town. When I was little it was called University Lane. Then it got busier and wider and changed to University Avenue. More years and it became University Boulevard. Not sure what they call it now. Jo "Marina" wrote in message ... Christina Websell wrote: She sometimes confounds me though. What is the difference between a road and a street? I can answer this. ) dons linguist's cap The word road comes from Proto-Germanic. It has the same root as the word ride. Street comes from Latin strata. English is a mish-mash of loans from different languages, but its core comes from the Germanic languages of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, so it shouldn't be too hard for Nüle to recognize the words. I think that road tends to be used more of country roads, while streets are in the city. In the other languages I know well, Finnish and Swedish, there is the same distinction, so I suspect there are similar words in German as well. They're not all strasses, are they? and: When I say I have to move out of the sun into the shadow, why do you call it the shade? That one is still ongoing.. Any explanation appreciated. This I can't give a very exact answer to, but it seems that shade is the older form of the word, so I suppose the idiomatic 'move into the shade' has been established before shadow has come into use as a synonym for shade. doffs linguist's cap Phew, that was hot. -- Marina, Frank and Miranda. In loving memory of Nikki. marina (dot) kurten (at) pp (dot) inet (dot) fi Pics at http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/frankiennikki/ and http://community.webshots.com/user/frankiennikki |
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Jo Firey wrote:
When I grew up in Washington we had a road that kind of looped around the north part of town. When I was little it was called University Lane. Then it got busier and wider and changed to University Avenue. More years and it became University Boulevard. Not sure what they call it now. As I understand it, an avenue is lined with trees, -- Adrian (Owned by Snoopy & Bagheera) A house is not a home, without a cat. |
#15
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On Sun, 12 Jun 2005 20:43:01 GMT, CK
wrote: The street would be a "Strasse", and the road a "Weg" (like the Swedish väg), but then there's the "Landstrasse", which is a country road... Here in the USA, the usage varies by region. Here in Nashville, Tennessee, the various nouns (road, street, boulevard, etc.) are used more-or-less at random, except that if a road name ends in "Pike" it means that it used to be a turnpike, i.e. a toll road. In the 19th century the county government used to contract out road maintenance to various private individuals or companies, who were paid for their work by being allowed to charge tolls for the use of the road. In Richmond, Virginia, where my sister lives, the roadways within the city limits generally end in "Street", those in the county generally end with "Road". This leads to oddities such as Hull Street Road, which is the (formerly rural) extension of Hull Street. -- John F. Eldredge -- PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu "Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria |
#16
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On Sun, 12 Jun 2005 22:42:59 +0100, "Adrian" wrote:
Jo Firey wrote: When I grew up in Washington we had a road that kind of looped around the north part of town. When I was little it was called University Lane. Then it got busier and wider and changed to University Avenue. More years and it became University Boulevard. Not sure what they call it now. As I understand it, an avenue is lined with trees, One odd street name here in Nashville, Tennessee is "Harding Place". Place is the French cognate to the Spanish word plaza, meaning a city square, but Harding Place is a ring road extending about 1/4 of the way around Nashville. -- John F. Eldredge -- PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu "Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria |
#17
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On Sun, 12 Jun 2005 20:35:41 +0100, Christina Websell wrote:
"jmcquown" wrote in message . .. Christina Websell wrote: "Kreisleriana" wrote in message ... On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 20:26:41 +0100, "Christina Websell" yodeled: "Kreisleriana" wrote in message ... Ooop, another '80s earworm!!! Sorry everyone. :P Before the 80's Good Vibrations gives me an earworm for a while. Can't you just hear it? "Good, good, good vibrations.. Since you all seem to have adopted my German friend N's "earworm" phrase, I thought I had to tell you - in view of Helen hearing a nightingale, that Nuele reported to me a few weeks ago that she had heard a "daytingale" a nightingale singing in the daytime. She just has such lovely phrases. I had a German friend who always said "mouses." I loved that. I can hardly bear to correct her when she says lovely things. Like paving slabs are "stone plates" but she made me promise that I would. Sometimes I don't, because it's so sweet, but she often suspects and says "you are selfishly enjoying" and then I have to admit that I am and come clean with the correct translation. sigh She sometimes confounds me though. What is the difference between a road and a street? and: When I say I have to move out of the sun into the shadow, why do you call it the shade? That one is still ongoing.. Any explanation appreciated. Tweed I have a friend in Spain with similar tendencies. She has asked me to correct her English but then she asks those confounded questions like the shadow vs. the shade and the street vs. the road. Well heck, how can you explain English other than it's an odd language (and especially in the U.S. a LOT of slang)? Jill English is a *very* odd language, I have to admit. However, I did promise to help. We did the peculiarities in pronounciation quite early on, like comb, bomb, womb, tomb: bough, cough, rough. We did local slang from where I live, so she could understand my friends. "Mardy" fretful and bad tempered. Babies are mardy if they cry a lot for no reason, and so is a person who easily takes offence, just an example. I must have taught her well, because when we both visited a friend in Hamburg who had been born in England of a German mother and returned to Germany aged 16, when we were all speaking English she said to N "You have an accent, a Leicester one!" LOL! blush mine isn't that strong. Anyway, she was here for the past three weeks and her Leicester accent served her well while she travelled all over England. The remedies she prescribed both before and after my op I'm sure helped me too, although I don't feel so great today. I think I'm probably trying to do too much too soon. Tweed My advice: Take plenty of naps. MLB |
#18
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In message , Kreisleriana
writes I have a friend from Spain, too, and he has a thick accent. He pronounces "Hello" as "Khello." We used to work together, and it became very hard not to say "Khello, Emilio!" back to him. Some of us just gave up trying, and just always said "Khello, Emilio!" to him. He knew we meant it fondly, so he did not mind. He also would occasionally receive visits from his "uncles," by which he meant his uncle and aunt. In Spanish, the word "tios" covers both. I went as far as writing to one of those "Notes and Queries" columns you find in newspapers to see if there were collective nouns in English for "aunts and uncles" and "nieces and nephews". There aren't, as far as anyone reading the paper knew, but lovely suggestions were "auntles" and "niblings" PS: Thanks for the earworm - I've just come back from the Isle of Wight festival, and cannot get Travis "Flowers in the Window" out of my brain. I think a dose of Duran Duran might cure it! -- Cathi |
#19
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On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 14:02:08 +0100, Cathi
yodeled: In message , Kreisleriana writes I have a friend from Spain, too, and he has a thick accent. He pronounces "Hello" as "Khello." We used to work together, and it became very hard not to say "Khello, Emilio!" back to him. Some of us just gave up trying, and just always said "Khello, Emilio!" to him. He knew we meant it fondly, so he did not mind. He also would occasionally receive visits from his "uncles," by which he meant his uncle and aunt. In Spanish, the word "tios" covers both. I went as far as writing to one of those "Notes and Queries" columns you find in newspapers to see if there were collective nouns in English for "aunts and uncles" and "nieces and nephews". There aren't, as far as anyone reading the paper knew, but lovely suggestions were "auntles" and "niblings" PS: Thanks for the earworm - I've just come back from the Isle of Wight festival, and cannot get Travis "Flowers in the Window" out of my brain. I think a dose of Duran Duran might cure it! We are always ready to provide earworms! Theresa Stinky Pictures: http://community.webshots.com/album/125591586JWEFwh My Blog: http://www.humanitas.blogspot.com |
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