[Ads-l] surface roads/streets

[Dan Goncharoff]

When is a street ever a freeway??

On Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 12:55 PM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

> On the latest episode of "That's What They Say" from Michigan Public Radio
> (featuring Univ. of Michigan's Anne Curzan), they discuss a listener's
> question about the expression "surface roads" or "surface streets."
>
>
> https://www.michiganradio.org/podcast/thats-what-they-say/2022-09-11/twts-beneath-the-surface-road
>
> Anne notes that "surface road" started out with the meaning given in Random
> House Unabridged (and still on Dictionary.com): "a road or street level
> with its surroundings," as in "surface roads and elevated highways." OED
> defines "surface road" as "a road running along the surface of the ground,
> as distinct from one which is elevated or underground," with the note, "In
> early use applied to railroads; now more usually to roads for motor
> vehicles."
>
> As the listener observes, "surface roads" are now contrasted with
> "highways." Anne says the meaning is "out there" but "you won't find it in
> dictionaries yet." She cites an example from the US version of "The Office"
> where a character who is supposed to be driving to the hospital asks,
> "Highways or surface roads?"
>
> Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/surface_street) doesn't have an
> entry for "surface road" but it does have "surface street" with the newer
> meaning: "A street that is not a freeway and has at-grade intersections
> with other surface streets."
>
> I associate this meaning of "surface street" with Los Angeles especially,
> and sure enough, the databases take it way back in L.A. papers, with
> "surface streets" contrasting with "freeways." Here it is from 1941 when
> the freeway system was in its planning stages:
>
> ---
> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/109416009/surface-streets/
> Los Angeles Times, Aug. 19, 1941, p. 1, col. 8
> "Need to Build Freeways Stressed at Hearing"
> Members of the City Council's public works and State and county affairs
> committees yesterday opened their public hearing on the City Planning
> Commission's request for adoption of a system of 200 miles of freeways in
> the city as part of the master plan for Los Angeles... Glenn A. Rick,
> director of city planning, explained the program as one contemplating a
> modern parkway system to handle the needs of the growing city and declared
> the time had passed for handling city traffic by congested surface streets.
> ---
>
> It's possible that early freeway planners envisioned an elevated system,
> which would provide an obvious contrast to "surface" roads/streets. In any
> case, by the '60s, the "freeway"/"surface street" distinction was very
> common in SoCal, e.g.:
>
> ---
> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/109415852/surface-streets/
> Long Beach Press-Telegram, Oct. 25, 1968, p. 25, col. 5
> You may feel you’re taking your life in your hands every time you drive on
> the freeway, but your chances of being killed are actually much greater on
> surface streets.
> ---
>
> It's surprising that none of the major dictionaries have picked up on this
> now-established meaning of "surface road/street."
>
> --bgz
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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