This is especially for the Americans, since it requires an American English word.

In informal American English, a _________ (9 letters) is someone who is not very intelligent or lucky and who makes a lot of mistakes.

On the other hand, I have a question about prepositions. Do you use "on" or "at" in this sentence :

"My uncle has a shop ____ Hawthorn Road"

I think it's "on", but my friend said "at"

Jess

>Do you use "on" or "at" in this sentence :
"My uncle has a shop ____ Hawthorn Road"

I'd say "on" Harthorn Road
or "in" London
or "at" the crossroads

if that makes any sense.

me too, as 'on' seems less definite as to exact location... for instance, I would say the shop was 'at the north end of X Street', which is quite specific, whereas 'somewhere on Madison Avenue' could be anywhere within those bounds.

tho' I also note this would not always occam the usage: I would say 'on the corner of X & Y', which ipso facto is specific.

While I would say My uncle has a shop in Hawthorn Road. On Hawthorn Road sounds USn to me.

Bingley

sounds USn to me

hmm, interesting Mr B - perhpas this is one of my usages that has been degra- er, subtly altered by my American contacts =) I look forward to hearing the other takes on this as they come in.

other takes on this

Slippery thangs them prepositions. I, too, would take on as being an Americanism vs. the Briticism in. As for at, I'd go with that if a specific location is being mentioned, as at the corner of Fifth and Elm or at 107 Madison St.

"on" seems less definite as to exact location... tho' I also note this would not always occam the usage: I would say "on the corner of X & Y", which ipso facto is specific.

My usage would be exactly the same, mav -- but your last part has made me feel a bit uncomfortable with my own usage.

If you asked me whether on the corner of State and Madison is specific, I'd have to say "no": do you mean the northeast corner, the southeast, the northwest or the southwest? (Perhaps as a real-estate lawyer I'm oversensitive on this.) But I'd nonethess use the phrase exactly as mav.

Complicating it further: I'd say at State and Madison but would say on the corner of State and Madison.

FWIW, I mention the A. A. Milne title The House at Pooh Corners.

I'm with Bingley - in the UK we would say:

in Hawthorn road
in London
at the crossroads, on the north east corner.

dxb

schlemiel

in the UK we would say:...

who's this "we", white man? hi, F!

I don't agree it's as straightforward as that. Surely you can recognise the range of legitimate variants like these:
1. "Two cars and a bus collided in the High Street today"
2. "Two cars and a bus collided on the M4 today"

Similarly we could find without surprise these sentences in any UK publication:
3. "Seventeen shops in central Croydon closed last year"
4. "Seventeen shops on Pembury Hill closed last year"

We might find these forms in daily speech:
5. “The car was standing at the corner outside Woolworths”
6. “The woman was standing on the corner outside Woolworths”

I don’t pretend to have any special powers of observation in these matters, but I can certainly observe quite a wide range of options being exercised by English mother-tongue speakers around me – and I am uncertain how dogmatic we can be about what (if any) discriminations are being made.

This is instinctive to most speakers, and we all have I think a range of styles, which have areas of confusion but some general sense of relationships. Personally, I travel in my car to the station, then go on the train into London - I disembark at the station, alighting on the platform.

To my ear, the use of in suggests a complete logical subset – the milk is in the jug. Conversely, the use of on suggests a less detailed relationship – the jug is on the shelf. The use of at suggests a clearly known point in space or time – the shelf is at worktop height.

Me and Vanna we like our words short, or I'm too tired to think straight, I can come up with lots of words for someone who is not so intelligent, but none over 5 letters.

As for the second question, I think I agree with Mav. In short, I would use on, because it's not a specific address.
My Uncle has a shop on Hawthorn Road.
My Uncle has a shop at 615 Hawthorn Road.

The more I think about this the less I understand it. Except that I would have used 'in' (suspect there is a British link here!) in the original sentence.

As for Mav's examples:

1. "Two cars and a bus collided in the High Street today"
2. "Two cars and a bus collided on the M4 today"
I can (just!) imagine "Two cars and a bus collided on the High Street today" but "Two cars and a bus collided in the M4 today" creates an alarming mental picture of all the vehicles ploughing into the road surface itself.
Why is one substitution possible and not the other? Is the M4 (and other motorways like it) a special case because it is so big it is not merely a road but a geographic feature? Possibly - I have the same reaction to "a crash in the Appian Way"...

3. "Seventeen shops in central Croydon closed last year"
4. "Seventeen shops on Pembury Hill closed last year"
in a town, on a hill (and if Pembury Hill is the name of the town, in can be substituted without problem.
Not sure these are really relevant to the initial problem which seems to be about location relevant to roads.

5. “The car was standing at the corner outside Woolworths”
6. “The woman was standing on the corner outside Woolworths”
"On the corner" seems to me to imply a location behind the kerb/curb (I was going to say on the pavement/sidewalk, but as a building can also be on a corner, it goes further back than that.)
"At the corner" is vaguer - could refer to vehicles on the roadway itself, people or things on the pavement or buildings set back from the pavement.

Which really messes up any theory I have as when I started this post my basic theory was 'on' for big roads that double as huge vague locations, 'on' or 'in' for smaller roads with more specific locations and 'at' for specific detailed locations such as where two roads meet. And now 'on' has snuck up in an evem more specific meaning...

..I remember why I stopped coming here. It does my head in...

My Uncle has a shop on Hawthorn Road.
My Uncle has a shop at 615 Hawthorn Road.

I was thinking the same thing too, but it gets confusing when everyone uses different prepositions in one sentence and deemed it as correct! I think on is for a place that is on a particular road but you're not certain where it is at exactly, and at is for a place that you already know where it is.

Is schlemiel correct?

Dictionary definition says it fits. I was surprised to find it is derived from a Biblical name.
I thought it was Yiddish slang.

Among Hoffmann's longer works are DIE ELIXIERE DES TEUFELS
(1816), which studied the theme of doppelgänger. Alternate personalities or
their shallow equivalents can be found in 'Die Abenteuer der Silvester-Nacht'
(1815), where a man meets both the shadowless Peter Schlemiel and
Erasmus Spikher, who has lost his reflection. LEBENS-ANSICHTEN DES
KATERS MURR (...), a fictional autobiography of a cat and a direct parody
of Goethe's The Apprenticeship of Wilhelm Meister, was published in two
volumes in 1820-21.

My Uncle has a shop on Hawthorn Road.
My Uncle has a shop at 615 Hawthorn Road

Absolutely ... use at when it preceeds a number "at 615"

Otherwise the shop is somewhere on Hawthorne.

in the UK we would say:...

who's this "we", white man?

OK maverick, I realise that I answered with too little thought and too glibly . I took the simple approach of looking at the examples given and no deeper. I agree with all your illustrations and am left only with the obvious conclusion that there is a difference in usage between the UK and the USA and maybe half a dozen other countries. Bridget's thoughts, with which I also agree, suggest that there are complex common usages that people are familiar with, but it is not clear, to me at least, (I am trying to be really cautious now ), that grammatical rules cover all these ramifications.

dxb

I think the distinction between "in High Street" and "on Main Street" is that in Europe the buildings were the primary concern and developed before cars. Streets became the gap between buildings. Thus one was in the space between the buildings. In the US, roads took a higher priority in city layout. They were either created before the buildings, or were just wider than their European counterparts. Thus someone is on the street, not in the space.

in the space between the buildings

That's an excellent point Jazzo - I'll buy that. It certainly fits my feel for UK usage that uses 'in' for reflecting a kind of immersion in a closed-in environment – as Bridget notes, saying “in the M4” or “in Route 206” hi W’ONderman! feels completely wrong for that reason.

I also found myself thinking today that it would feel most natural to say “on the Champs Elysees” and inconceivable to say ‘in’ – so I think you have correctly identified that the usage differences stem from a subconsciously different feel for the buildings and spaces and roads which comprise the whole reference.

BTW Bridget, if you think my refs #3&4 are an odd fit in this discussion, try imagining that Pembury Hill is the name of a road… try swopping the name a bit… Also, there is another legitimate UK version I think: “There is gloom on the High Street as retail sales take another dip in favour of the out of town stores…”

Oh, and BTW I also realised today that my aberrant usage of “on the high street” may have also been influenced by the patterns of Welsh I hear around me every day: their form is “ar y Pendre”, literally rendered as “on the Top of Town”. So I won’t blame all my American friends just yet.. ;)

great point, Jazzo! NYC has some laws about hi rise building creating street level plazas, and some plazas work, and are always in use, and others remain cold, sterile un-inviting spaces.. just wastes of urban space.
Keep thinking about the differences of being in a plaza.. or just on some pavement, and you'll be an award winning architect in no time!

someone is on the street, not in the space.

JazzO, this is great. Fits perfectly with what I was trying to say about 'important' roads taking 'on' and lesser roads taking 'in' as well as explaining across-the-water variation. Thank you!