Date:  Fri, 6 Oct 1995 09:17:11 -0700

From:  Dan Alford <dalford[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]S1.CSUHAYWARD.EDU>

Subject: Re: Another Lexical Item



That's a GOOD one, Natalie! "Walkway" has been peripheral for this CA

guy, with both types being 'sidewalks' for me. But I think people walk

'down' or 'along' a parallel-to-street type but 'up' the one that goes to

the door. Let's not get too hung up on the semantics of side -- as many a

comic has pointed out, we park on a driveway but drive on a parkway. But

back to the major point -- which were you told and which do you tell very

young children at Halloween (when did we lose the apostrophe?) to go 'up'

(?) in order to knock at doors and yell "Trick or Treat!"?



On Thu, 5 Oct 1995, Natalie Maynor wrote:



> Do any of you have any idea how common it is to use the word "sidewalk"

> to refer to the strip of concrete that runs from the street to the front

> door of a house? I had always assumed it was the standard term, but a

> a recent discussion on Words-L got confusing for a few minutes because

> I was using "sidewalk" to mean the sidewalk that comes to my door, while

> other people thought that a "sidewalk" had to be parallel to the street.

> When I asked what they called the strip of concrete that comes to the

> front door, they said "walkway." I've never heard anybody say "walkway"

> for what I call a "sidewalk." (I also use "sidewalk" for one that runs

> parallel to the street, of course.)

>  --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu)

>