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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
STREET:
Noun: 1a. abbr. St. A public way or thoroughfare in a city or town, usually with a sidewalk or sidewalks. b. Such a public way considered apart from the sidewalks: Don't play in the street. c. A public way or road along with the houses or buildings abutting it: lives on a quiet street. 2. The people living, working, or habitually gathering in or along a street: The whole street protested the new parking regulations. 3. Street A district, such as Wall Street in New York City, that is identified with a specific profession. Often used with the. 4. The streets of a city viewed as the scene of crime, poverty, or dereliction.
Etymology:: Middle English strete, from Old English straet, stret, from Late Latin strata, paved road, from Latin, feminine past participle of sternere, to stretch, extend, pave. See ster-2 in Appendix I.
Appendix I: Indo-European Roots: ster-2 - To spread. Derivatives include destroy, industry, straw, street, and stratagem.
IV. Basic forms *ster-, *ster -. 1. Nasalized form *ster-n-e . estray, stratus, stray, street; consternate, prostrate, substratum, from Latin sternere (past participle stratus from zero-grade *stre-to-), to stretch, extend.
Continued from yesterday:
In original usage, a "road" was simply fit for riding ("road" is cognate with "ride", as in ships riding at anchor in roads). ‘Street’ was applied to roads that had been prepared to ease travel in some way. Some Roman roads have the word ‘street’ in their names (e.g. Watling Street), stemming from the latin ‘strata’, given before the usage changed).
However modern usage no longer follows this custom, and it is only important since place names often hold the earlier usage in them. It is worth noting however that today, in the UK at least, while a ‘street’ will usually be found in a built up area, ‘roads’ may be found anywhere and when outside built up areas often take the name of a town. For example, in Sussex where I live, there are many Lewes Roads each of which runs from somewhere to, or towards, Lewes.
The major Roman roads were viae publicae (public roads), funded by the state. Of secondary importance were viae militares (military roads), built by the army, who put up the capex; these became public roads; the actus (local roads), come next; and finally there were privatae (private roads), built and maintained by the owners
By Roman law the roads were open to everyone, but maintenance was a local responsibility. This worked only so long as there was a strong central authority to enforce it. As the Empire collapsed around 5th century AD, national road systems disappeared, although they took several centuries to vanish completely across Europe.
During the 17th century France built about 24,000 km of main roads using forced labour and in Britain, through a franchising system, turnpike companies starting road building and by the middle of the 19th century were maintaining 32,000 km of roads.
To be continued...
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
In some Western-Canadian cities, there is a technical distinction between Street and Avenue. Streets run North-South and Avenues run East-West. I think this is a fairly recent development, since I live in a rather old (by North American standards) city and I live at the intersection of two Streets - which would never be allowed to meet under the new system!
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
The major Roman roads were viae publicae (public roads), funded by the state. Of secondary importance were viae militares (military roads), built by the army, who put up the capex; these became public roads; the actus (local roads), come next; and finally there were privatae (private roads), built and maintained by the owners
"capex" apparently = capital expenditure
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
Re: finally there were privatae (private roads), built and maintained by the owners
NY had private roads; early in the previous century, one of the Vanderbuilts constructed a private road, throught Queens, to Westbury (a town on Long Islands North Shore)the road, the Vanderbuilt highway remained in use till the 1930's, when NY state build the parkways.. nowdays, most of the road is gone, but about 5 miles still remain inside of parkland, and the roadway is now a bike path and jogging trail.
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Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 171
member
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member
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 171 |
In the state of Hawaii, the legislature passed a law (I believe in the 1950s) which decreed that any new road or street created after the date of the act, must have a Hawaiian name. It is therefore easy to identify the older parts of Honolulu and its suburbs when names such as Hotel Street.King, Beretania, Pensacola, etc. show up on the street maps. This street-naming issue became the subject of recent controversy when the Federal government closed the Naval Air Station at Barbers Point, and the State set about renaming all of the streets previously named after famous WWII battles (e.g., Coral Sea) with barely pronounceable Hawaiian names. Keep in mind, the Hawaiian alphabet has only 13 letters, so permutations of those 13 letters into words that actually mean something in Hawaiian, results in a listing of street names almost indistinguishable from each other (lots of k,l and m combinations). I don't think the controversy has been resolved, as the opponents of having to learn all those new Hawaiian street names maintain that the old names should be grandfathered as part of the naval history of the islands.
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
When Charles Kettle was commissioned by the Otago Company to lay out the city of Dunedin, some four years before the Otago colony was settled, he had a set of strict instructions from Captain Cargill, the chairman of the Otago Company.
Regardless of any other factors, he was to lay the new "city" out using exactly the same street network as Edinburgh had.
When he got to Dunedin, he found this was totally impractical. However instead of completely antagonising his employer by telling him so, he proceeded to lay the new town out in "chunks" of the Edinburgh street layout. Nonetheless, it was still not a 100% practical solution. Half the streets, as laid out by Kettle, were actually underwater in the harbour or were theoretical concepts "laid out" on tidal mudflats.
Kettle, quite rightly, realised that by the time this became a problem, ie the population of the new town warranted expansion beyond those few streets which were actually laid out on dry land, his part in the deal would be largely forgotten. And, of course, he was right. The city as he laid it out extends from Carroll Street in the south to Albany Street in the north, and Canongate to the west. Anyone from Edinburgh would recognise the street names of the central city. If NOT the layout!
History hasn't recorded what Captain Cargill said to Kettle when he realised what Kettle had done, but it can't have been that strong - Kettle remained in Dunedin until his death in 1860!
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