"down train"

[Dan Goncharoff]

In the US, many cities and towns have grown over the decades and
centuries -- a street may have been the main street of the community
when it was named, even if it no longer is.

In NYC, there is a Main St. -- in Flushing, Queens, where it still
serves as the main drag of Flushing Chinatown.
DanG


On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 5:03 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "down train"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Jan 13, 2013, at 4:46 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
>> At 1/13/2013 04:30 PM, Spanbock/Svoboda-Spanbock wrote:
>>> Is this related to High Street?
>>
>> My guess is no, that "high street" means simply "the main
>> street".  The OED defines it as " ... A highway, a main road, whether
>> in country or town; now, very generally, the proper name (High
>> Street) of that street of a town which is built upon a *great
>> highway*, and is (or was originally) the *principal one* in the
>> town."  (Emphasis added)
>
> There's also a difference in usage at least in U.K. sources (esp. novels) I'm familiar with:  it's (almost?) always "*the* High Street", but in the U.S. "Main Street" is a name, "the main street" would just refer to a principal thoroughfare of whatever name.  For example, the main street in Cambridge MA is Mass(achusetts) Ave(nue).  In Hartford CT, Main St. is a fairly important thoroughfare, but is not really the main street of the city.  But in Britain, it seems that the main street is *called* "the High Street".  Unless I've misinterpreted.
>
> LH
>>
>> What I see in the OED is that the "down" or central part of town was
>> "lower" and the outer areas "higher".  Its definition of "downtown,
>> A. adv." is "Into the town (from a more elevated suburb); down in the
>> town."  Why that should be the association for a word that seems to
>> have entered the language as late as the 1830s is a mystery to
>> me.  Perhaps because in Olde England towns were first sited at places
>> with access to water transportation-- oceanside or river -- and thus
>> would commonly be lower than the surrounding territory.
>>
>> Joel
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Jan 13, 2013, at 12:33 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>>
>>> > C1.  Which way is "down" in England?
>>> >
>>> > Answer:  Away from the center (of population, business,
>>> > transportation, learning, etc.)
>>> >
>>> > C2:  Which way is "downtown"?
>>> >
>>> > Answer:  Toward (or at) the central part of the city.  See OED, "downtown".
>>>
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