Heard on [adult swim]: "street" to "alley"?

[David A. Daniel]

"Up/Down your alley" is mainly US and Australian usage, and "up your street"
is almost exclusively UK. More and more, however, US usage is infiltrating
Britspeak so you're likely to hear just about anything from that side of the
pond.

DAD





____________________________________________

I only got one rule and that's never bet money you don't have on a dog race
with your ex-girlfriend who happens to be a stripper.









-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Arnold Zwicky
Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 10:09 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Heard on [adult swim]: "street" to "alley"?







On May 19, 2009, at 11:03 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:



>

> Among the *very* few people from the various branches of the past and

> present kingdom that I've known, I've heard, "right up your _street_"

> and "right up your _road_," but, never before, "right up your alley,"

> except from Canadians.



"right up your alley" is my only usage.  goggling gets 431k raw hits

for "alley", 64k for "street", none for "road".



some sites on slang suggest that "alley" is mostly american, "street"

mostly british, and that might be so, though it looks like both are

found in both places.



at least one site offers "right down your alley" as an alternative to

"right up your alley", and that sounds right to me.



arnold



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