Tony Mountifield wrote:
> In article <1193155236.692724.205580@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> Mitch <maharri@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> On Oct 22, 5:18 am, Matthew Huntbach <m...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>> The "alley" question was the only one I couldn't find my preferred
>>> answer listed - the classic Sus*** dialect word for this,
>>> "twitten", was not given.
>>
>> Hm...I have a semantic distinction here... the thing that cars can go
>> on and dumpsters are in can be called an 'alley', but if a car can't
>> go there, then it's -not- an alley...it's a ... I don't know. It's
>> not a walkway or a sidewalk (even though I might say ' you know, the
>> place between too buildings, the walkway that you take to get to the
>> back' (i.e. I might -refer- to it as a walkway but I don't -call- it
>> a walkway). It might even have a gate/not easily opened barrier, and
>> might not even be walkable, but is nevertheless a gap between two
>> buildings, wide enough for a person to walk through. What is -that-
>> called (pick your dialect)?
>
> A passage or passageway?
>
> In the UK, we would probably call it an alley or alleyway. Over here,
> alleys are usually too narrow for cars.
That's because they were built before cars were invented...
--
John Briggs
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