Another US/UK English question that I was asked today and couldn't answer.

What we call The Underground you call the subway.

What do you call the thing we call the subway - that is a set of steps down, a tunnel under the road and a set of steps up so that you can walk under the road without getting hit by a car ?

If anyone is looking at this I could really use an answer by six thirty (UK time) tonight (it's now 3:50)

Non curo ! Si metrum no habet, non est poema.

Read all about my travels around the world here.
Read even more of my travel writing and poems on my weblog.

I know I know the answer to this - it's occurred to me before and was answered when I went to New York. Unfortunately (of course) I can't recall what it is!

I seem to remember it's something rather unwieldy like pedestrian underpass...

Ros

This made me sing Under the Boardwalk to myself.

What is a boardwalk, and what do you get under them?

A boardwalk is a walkway - made of boards! They tend to use them in the states to make it easy to walk along beaches or other rough areas. They are usually raised (especially when used in swamp areas).

I imagine they are cheaper and quicker to instal than a proper pavement (sidewalk)

I have a nasty feeling that a pedestrian subway might be called something truly foul - a "Ped Xing"

Richard English

quote:

---

Originally posted by Graham Nice:
What is a boardwalk, and what do you get under them?

---

Umm. Yes.

In this context I do believe the Boardwalk is the place to walk along the beach without having to get your feet burnt on hot sand. If it's a reely reely big beach, the Boardwalk can be yards and yards across, have benches on the edge near the sand and wooden steps leading down to the beach at intervals, with various kinds of shops or amusements on the side nearer the street, maybe even lucrative hotels. (Is this starting to sound like a Monopoly game? That was named after the streets of Atlantic City (NJ, USA), winding up at the Boardwalk by the shore. Can't go any farther than that!)

Under the Boardwalk were usually shelter from the glare, relative darkness and cooler temperatures, and a whole structure of supporting woodens beams, providing some isolation from view and making it an inviting place for teenagers (and other people) to hide away and do what teenagers (and other people) do on hot and steamy summer days. Or nights. What you got under the Boardwalk depended on the degree of cooperation from your partner. And sometimes the degree of cleanliness...

quote:

---

This made me sing Under the Boardwalk to myself

---

Me too, Graham! "Under the Boardwalk"

But, don't you Brits call it the "tube"? Or is it the "underground"? My book about England refers to it as the "tube". Now, in Chicago, we have "subways" (sometimes called the "underground") or "elevated trains", more commonly called "the 'L'".

[This message was edited by Kalleh on Wed Aug 6th, 2003 at 21:43.]

Strictly speaking it's the Underground, but only people who don't live and/or work in London call it that. It's almost always called the Tube, apart from the bit of the network called the Drain (Waterloo to Bank) just to be confusing!

Other cities in the UK have similar (although not necessarily underground) rapid transport networks, such as the Newcastle Upon Tyne Metro.

Oh, and then there's the DLR, Docklands Light Railway, which is almost all above ground and elevated, which covers the London docks area, most of which is now desirable housing and flash offices!

Ros

Each time I see the title "What's it called?" I am reminded of a quaint and self-deprecating expression from the dialect of Rural Southern America: "Well, I don't know the right word for them, but down home we always called them polymorphonuclear leukocytes (or whatever)."

This is off the subject a bit, but I recall seeing a British term, "metalised road," and wondering what was meant by it. It was seen in a very old publication, so I don't know if the term is current. Help, anyone?

A metallised, or metalled, road is one that's been tarmacked (sp?). It's not in particularly common usage in the UK, since almost all of ours are tarmacked, but the term is still current in New Zealand, where a startling proportion of their roads are just gravelled.

The maps we bought to guide us round NZ on our honeymoon (last September) helpfully mark such stretches of road in white, while metalled roads are coloured. Silly me didn't bother reading the blurb at the front, and just dismissed the change of colour, assuming it meant the road narrowed, or some such thing. Imagine our shock when all of a sudden this lovely smooth tarmac over which we had been driving (at a fair clip) metamorphosed into a gravelled road we wouldn't have considered drivable if we'd had any option! I have to confess that my husband said a naughty word...

From thenceforth we avoided any road that wasn't coloured!

Good debates, interesting topics but... er... is any of this actually answering the question for me ?

I've told them it's called an underpass, I just wish I felt confident that I was right.

Non curo ! Si metrum no habet, non est poema.

Read all about my travels around the world here.
Read even more of my travel writing and poems on my weblog.

Underpass, I suppose, though I think of that word more in terms of one road dipping to pass under another road or under a railroad track. That is, as a road concept rather than a pedestrian concept.

A fair number of the buildings in downtown Chicago are connected by what we call the Pedway, where you can walk a fair distance underground. But it's not quite what you're asking about: the Pedway has numerous exit-points (rather than being a point-to-point tunnel), and when you exit you are most often in a building, not in the open air. It's not so much to avoid traffic as to avoid inclement weather.

I understand Minneapolis has a more extensive system of building-connection, using above-ground walkways, and calls it the Skywalk.

The basic concept of having two routes cross at separate vertical levels is call a grade-separation. But that's a term of the real estate trade, not a term laymen would use or even be aware of in everyday speech. Most of the railroads in our urban core were originally constructed on grade (that is, at ground level), but were later required to provide grade-separations for safety reasons.

In and around NYC they are clearly "underpasses," although more frequently the term refers to automobile non-intersections (because there are so many more of them).

At Jones Beach there is a long tunnel, from the parking lots to the beach, that crosses (under) the six-lane divided highway that parallels the shoreline - always referred to as the "underpass." Not the "pedestrian underpass," which would putatively have been less ambiguous. Nobody was misled, though.

At least that's how things were up to 1965 or so.

quote:

---

Originally posted by BobHale:
Good debates, interesting topics but... er... is any of this actually answering the question for me ?

I've told them it's called an underpass, I just wish I felt confident that I was right.

---

I would call it a "pedestrian underpass" or perhaps "pedestrian tunnel". Without the word "pedestrian" most people would just assume it was a vehicle underpass (or tunnel).

Tinman

quote:

---

Originally posted by jerry thomas:
"Well, I don't know the right word for them, but down home we always called them polymorphonuclear leukocytes ... ."

---

So that's what they are!

Tinman

Parts of the railroad I take to work are elevated upon embankments, and in a few places there are grade-level tunnels through the embankment, for pedestrian traffic.

Yesterday I drove past two of those tunnels. At one was a sign directing you to the "pedestrian subway;" at the other a sign directing that a restaurant could be entered "through the tunnel." I recall a third tunnel, not yet checked.

Curiouser and curiouser. Last summer, driving east, we stopped for directions in Ohio and were told to "go under the viaduct," meaning to follow the grade-level road where it passes under the super-highway. I was curious if this was a localism, and so, when we stopped about an hour and a half later, I asked some folks there what term they would use. They agreed that "viaduct" sounded odd. They opted for "underpass," but only after I'd suggested that word.

But I still hold out for "underpass."

You're both right.

The viaduct was the road above; the underpass or subway was what you used.

"You're both right," he says.

I'm impressed. Bear, did you ever consider a career in the diplomatic corp?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ros:
A metallised, or metalled, road is one that's been tarmacked (sp?). It's not in particularly common usage in the UK, since almost all of ours are tarmacked, but the term is still current in New Zealand, where a startling proportion of their roads are just gravelled.

---

Actually, you will seldom hear them called metalled or gravelled. We're lazy speakers, and normally just call them metal roads or gravel roads.

Never heard the term. Why "metal," given that a tarmac road has (I presume) no metal?

Here's a fun one. I read alot, I don't know if ya'll can tell.

I've always read books from different time periods and writers, and for years I was confused about the word 'gaol' when I'd read some books from the UK.

"Gaol?" I'd think, (pronouncing it gay-ol). "That's a strange word for prison." I figured out what the word meant from context.

I think it was when I read the word 'gaoler' and thought, "That's a strange name for a jailer----ohhhhhh, wait.... I get it" that I realized it was just a different spelling.

That would almost be cute, except that I was in my early twenties, and had been reading for about fifteen years. <sigh>

Now if one of you nice gentlemen could explain the difference between British and English, because I always mess that up.

quote:

---

Originally posted by WinterBranch:

Now if one of you nice gentlemen could explain the difference between British and English, because I always mess that up.

---

Britain is an island, on which there are (or were) three countries, England, Scotland and Wales. Anyone from the island is British, but only someoneone from the country of England is English. To further cofuse the matter, it is largely true that the only Britons left in Britain are the Welsh.

Thank you max and welcome--great explanation.

I'll still mess it up.

I know when to call someone English, etc. But when it come to writers?

My sweet Oscar is really Irish, isn't he? But he wrote in the English language. And lived in Britain while he did it.

For the most part, at least as far as I know (K). (Has never claimed to be a Wilde scholar.)

Then there's Robert Burns--wrote some poetry in the Scottish vernacular, and though I love 'To a Mouse' and 'Auld Lang Syne', I think 'To A Louse' is better.

But I loathe his "English poetry".

Quote "...Britain is an island, on which there are (or were) three countries, England, Scotland and Wales...."

Ten out of ten for effort, but more clarification is needed.

Great Britain (not Britain) is as you describe it and it does, indeed, comprise those three countries.

The British Isles, on the other hand, comprise several countries, of which England is the largest. There are many others including those you mention - Scotland and Wales. The Island group includes also Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.

Some of these countries are part of the United Kingdom, although Ireland is not. It has no more to do with the UK than does the USA. It happens to be an ex-colony where they speak English (rather like the USA, in fact).

The United Kingdom comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are not part of the United Kingdom (they even have their own currency) although they are each Crown dependencies (possessions of the Crown). They both have their own legislatures and the Manx Parliament is the oldest in the world (and has nothing to do with the English parliament).

To say that the only Britons left in Britain are the Welsh may have some technical accuracy but it is not helpful. It's rather like saying the only Americans in the USA are the Red Indians. The British Islands have been subject to massive influx over the years - influx that it still going on - and the mixture of the races often makes it quite difficult to tell who originally came from where.

It's important not to confuse the English (the race) with English (the language). English did originate in England, that's true. However, it is now the world's most important language by several orders of magnitude and is spoken in many countries other than England. Because a country uses English that doesn't mean its inhabitants are English - in the USA you will certainly appreciate this fact.

Strangely, in Europe, English is the native tongue only of the countries of the British Isles.

Both Rabbie Burns and Oscar Wilde wrote in English as this was their native tongue (as it was the native tongue of Ralph Waldo Emerson). None of them was English.

In addition to English there are several other languages spoken in the British Isles, including Welsh, plus Manx, Scots, and Irish Gaelics. All speakers of these languages, though, will also speak English.

Richard English

quote:

---

Originally posted by Richard English:
Quote "...Britain is an island, on which there are (or were) three countries, England, Scotland and Wales...."

Ten out of ten for effort, but more clarification is needed.

To say that the only Britons left in Britain are the Welsh may have some technical accuracy but it is not helpful.

Richard English

---

Ah, but it wasn't intended to be helpful. It was thrown in as a mostly light-hearted red-herring - I did, after all, preface it with, "to further confuse matters". The serious intent in it, however was to highlight the difference between "Briton" and "British" - very few who are British are Britons, but nearly all who are Britons are British. And of course, the phrase "Red Indian" is devoid of any semblance of accuracy, technical or otherwise, as has been exponded upon at length here.

quote:

---

Strangely, in Europe, English is the native tongue only of the countries of the British Isles

---

I suppose it's not really that strange in the historical context - those countries that speak English are the ones that the British Empire either owned or significantly colonised. We didn't colonise Europe, so none of them speak English as a native tongue.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ros:

quote:

---

Strangely, in Europe, English is the native tongue only of the countries of the British Isles

---

I suppose it's not really that strange in the historical context - those countries that speak English are the ones that the British Empire either owned or significantly colonised. We didn't colonise Europe, so none of them speak English as a native tongue.

---

It is also not strictly correct, in that English is not the native tongue of the countries of the British Isles. It is the native language of one country on one of the British Isles. It is not the native language of The Isle of Man, or of the island of Ireland, or of Scotland, or of Wales.

England is a different country to Scotland - would anybody care to argue?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Graham Nice:
England is a different country to Scotland - would anybody care to argue?

---

Well I'm not going to, you understand, but some people might try to make a case for

England is a different country from Scotland.



Glaubt es mir - das Geheimnis, um die größte Fruchtbarkeit und den größten Genuß vom Dasein einzuernten, heisst: gefährlich leben.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Read all about my travels around the world here.
Read even more of my travel writing and poems on my weblog.

With all due respect to Graham Nice ....

but "different to" is a lot better than the much more common "different than !

My suggestion to students is to remember that "it is different .." means "it differs from.... whatever"

quote:

---

Originally posted by maxqnz:
It is also not strictly correct, in that English is not the native tongue of the countries of the British Isles. It is the native language of one country on one of the British Isles. It is not the native language of The Isle of Man, or of the island of Ireland, or of Scotland, or of Wales.

---

Sorting out my own confusion, I found myself asking what is meant by the "native language" or "native tongue" of a place. (Surely not the "aboriginal language", for on that basis the aboriginal language of England is Celtic.) The definitions I find are essentially "the first language that somebody learns to speak," which defines the native tongue of a person, not of a place.

All I can think of is that a place's "native language" would be the first-learned tongue of the majority of babies born there. If so, on that basis, what are the native languages of Scotland, Ireland, Wales and the Isle of Mann? For example, as a factual matter does the typical Scots babe learn Scottish before English, or vice versa?

And by the way, are there other languages that are the "native tongues" of portions within the countries of the British Isles? (Such as the late lamented Cornish, for example.)

I used the expression to mean the language "learnt at a mother's knee" and English is that for most of those living in the British Isles. I don't know what you called the native tongue of those who learn two languages at their mother's knee (such as the Welsh and the Swiss).

The last Manxman to have learnt Manx at his mother's knee died in the 1980's but Manx Gaelic, like Cornish Gaelic, has been revived.

The only other significant language used in the British Isles (leaving aside the many languages brought in by immigrants in the past century) is Romany. There is a patois used in the Channel Islands but I don't know whether it could be called a language.

Incidentally, I used the expression "strangely enough" simply because I have learnt relatively recently that many in the USA seem to believe that Europe is just one "place", much like the USA. As I have said previously, there are far more differences between almost any pair of European countries than between any pair of US states - different languages being just one of the more obvious.

Richard English

All I can think of is that a place's "native language" would be the first-learned tongue
of the majority of babies born there.
-----------------------------------------
In that case, based on current population/birth rate trends, the native language of the USA is Spanish.

Asa. I don't think the Hispanic population is that high -- at least yet.

quote:

---

Originally posted by tinman:
I would call it a "pedestrian underpass" or perhaps "pedestrian tunnel". Without the word "pedestrian" most people would just assume it was a vehicle underpass (or tunnel).

---

To tie this back to the original question, allow me to add a belated "I agree" to the above and to pass along the following story:

One day, when my daughters were in grade school and always up for an adventure, I told them that I was going to take them somewhere where cars would run over their heads. Trusting me enough to know I wouldn't risk their lives in heavy traffic for no particular good reason but intrigued nonetheless, they eagerly jumped into the car.

I then drove us all to an extremely large and busy thoroughfare which had one of these underground pedestrian walkways, an absolute necessity if you were to get from one side of the highway to the other without the benefit of having been born there in the first place.

After parking the car and walking midway through this tunnel, they could hear cars "running over their heads" and were tickled at the wordplay. My grandsons are now 3 years and 9 months old and I can't wait to pull this stunt on them as well!

Speaking of native tongues in the British Isles, this today from the pen of Quentin Letts, parliamentary sketch writer for London's Daily Mail:

quote:

---

The British government last week announced that newcomers seeking citizenship will in the future ... be required to prove some ability in "English, Welsh or Scots Gallic," even though those last two tongues are almost extinct and are kept going only thanks to politically correct public subsidy. It is hard to envisage an asylum seeker from, say, Bosnia, going to the bother of learning Gallic, not English -- save perhaps as a valiant practical joke.

---