tree lawns; was Re: Off and on

[Jonathan Lighter]

Ohio, with its unique "devil's strip," went for Obama.

Alert the Tea Party.

JL

On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 10:01 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: tree lawns; was Re: Off and on
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sep 22, 2011, at 9:54 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
> > At 9/22/2011 01:33 AM, Paul Johnston wrote:
> >> ... As I say, in New Jersey, there was no term, though my
> >> neighborhood had sidewalks, and so, there was a tree lawn/parkway/berm.
> >
> > Nor do I, grown in NYC and living in New England, have a term.
>
> Right; I have a similar background and was disconcerted to see that Bert
> Vaux's otherwise very useful survey page doesn't have an entry for *my*
> favored term, i.e. "the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the curb".
>  I will concede that "tree lawn", "berm", et al. are a bit more concise.
>
> LH, recalling an abortive attempt to popularize the label "dog-turd strip"
> in the old pre-pooper-scooper era
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org