The American Language: A Preliminary Inquiry into the Development of English in the United StatesMencken, H. L. (Henry Louis)
General
The American Language: A Preliminary Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States
Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis)
Americanisms; English language; Names -- United States; Names, Personal -- United States
/Street Names/--"Such a locality as 'the /corner/ of /Avenue H/ and
/Twenty-third/ street,'" says W. W. Crane, "is about as distinctively
American as Algonquin and Iroquois names like /Mississippi/ and
/Saratoga/."[49] Kipling, in his "American Notes,"[50] gives testimony
to the strangeness with which the [Pg299] number-names, the phrase
"the corner of," and the custom of omitting /street/ fall upon the ear
of a Britisher. He quotes with amazement certain directions given to
him on his arrival in San Francisco from India: "Go six blocks north
to [the] corner of /Geary/ and /Markey/ [/Market?/]; then walk around
till you strike [the] corner of /Gutter/ and /Sixteenth/." The English
always add the word /street/ (or /road/ or /place/ or /avenue/) when
speaking of a thoroughfare; such a phrase as "/Oxford/ and /New Bond/"
would strike them as incongruous. The American custom of numbering and
lettering streets is almost always ascribed by English writers who
discuss it, not to a desire to make finding them easy, but to sheer
poverty of invention. The English apparently have an inexhaustible
fund of names for streets; they often give one street more than one
name. Thus, /Oxford/ street, London, becomes the /Bayswater/ road,
/High/ street, /Holland Park/ avenue, /Goldhawke/ road and finally the
/Oxford/ road to the westward, and /High Holborn/, /Holborn/ viaduct,
/Newgate/ street, /Cheapside/, the /Poultry/, /Cornhill/ and
/Leadenhall/ street to the eastward. The Strand, in the same way,
becomes /Fleet/ street, /Ludgate/ hill and /Cannon/ street.
Nevertheless, there is a /First/ avenue in /Queen's Park/, and
parallel to it are /Second/, /Third/, /Fourth/, /Fifth/ and /Sixth/
avenues--all small streets leading northward from the Harrow road,
just east of Kensal Green cemetery. I have observed that few Londoners
have ever heard of them. There is also a /First/ street in Chelsea--a
very modest thoroughfare near Lennox gardens and not far from the
Brompton Oratory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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