I live in the south of the UK; the terms ‘garden’ to me, means the area of land belonging to a property - regardless of how it is cultivated "I’m going into the garden’ means nothing much more than “I’m going outside, but I’m staying on the property”. However, the term ‘garden’ can also mean something quite specific, when used with a qualifier; it could be said that within my ‘garden’(property), I have a vegetable garden, a rose garden, an alpine garden, etc - so it can mean an area specifically cultivated in some way, but this is nearly always qualified.
My mother, who is a northerner, would sometimes refer to the back garden (that is, the enclosed piece of land at the rear of the house) as ‘the yard’, and I believe that usage may be more common at least in the locality where she grew up, but there may be a reason for that; we’re talking about terraced residences with a walled, fully paved enclosed area at the back (a ‘yard’).
Interesting, really, I was pondering this particular UK/US difference just yesterday, along with another one; ‘pavement’ - in the UK, this is the bit the pedestrians walk on (USA:Sidewalk), in the USA, pavement just means a hard surface.
I was walking down a very old and narrow lane in Norwich and it suddenly struck me - the pavement was paved (laid with flat pieces of stone), the road was cobbled (set with fist-sized rounded stones) - there would have been a time when the only pavement was the bit where the pedestrians walked.
I have a “front garden” and a “back garden”. These are the generic terms. In the back garden I have a “lawn”, I have “flower beds”, and I have a “patio”, which is the area that has concrete slabs between the weeds, instead of soil
I don’t know that anyone calls their garden a “yard” over here. If the front is paved over, it normally becomes a “drive”, as the reason people often pave their (small) front gardens is to provide car parking space.
Even if the back garden was paved, and just had a few plants in containers, you’d probably still call it a garden, or possible a patio, or “terrace” if you wanted it to sound posh.
Decking has become very popular over the past few years, too, so you might have a “deck” as part of your garden, or even instead of a garden.
This was probably true in the larger cities in the older neighborhoods, where houses prior to 1910 or so were built as close as a couple of feet apart and the only access for wagons (and, later, cars) was through an alley that paralleled the streets behind the houses. They would tend to have back yards similar to English gardens–including fences. It may be true of houses in larger cities from the period from 1910 to around 1930-1935, when builders began wedging 10- or 12-foot-wide driveways for cars between the houses, leaving very shallow lawns before the houses with the backyards fenced in.
(It should be noted that in smaller towns and villages, houses have nearly always had lawn area extending all the way around the house–a trait extending back to colonial times. When this surround began to be called “yard” I am not able to state exactly.)
However, with the explosion of the automobile-pressured suburbs, houses were more frequently built with substantial (in relative terms) areas of lawn surrounding the houses, zoning laws with minimum setbacks were written, and the “typical” American house began to emulate the much larger houses of the rich, with lawn surrounding the entire structure known as “front yard” and “side yard,” and “back yard” (or “backyard”). In fact, in many neighborhoods, there are rules prohibiting the fencing in of any significant portion of any yard.
I think the point regarding a common origin of these words has merit.
I dispute the notion that yard continues to imply enclosed in American English aside from some older words that probably do not convey the notion of enclosure to their speakers or hearers, e.g., stock yard, rail yard.
It comes from the Latin pavimentum, and so I’m afriad it predates any street layout of medieval cities.
Slightly responding to tomndebb’s post - the 20th-century British affinity for gardens if anything is copying America. Victorians had little interest in their own gardens (except for the very wealthy, who could create cast expanses of ornamental stuff).
Well, sure, but that just refers to a flat foundation (oddly enough, for roads); what I’m talking about is a situation where the pedestrian area is paved flat, but the road isn’t paved at all, regardless of the origin of the term ‘paved’. Of course this still might not be the origin of the usage pavement=sidewalk, it just fits, that’s all.
They don’t? Gosh, what was all that grass I spent so much time mowing in Scandinavia, then? I seem to recall that we, and our neighbors, all had large lawns of single-species grass. Many Germans seemed to go in for it, too.
Now, I know that lawns aren’t a universal practice by any means. But to say that Americans are the only ones who have lawns is not very accurate.
I have a backyard, which contains a raised garden bed for veggies. There are also some theoretical flowers. If I were to have a flower garden, it would have to be a little more purposeful than it is now!
My understanding is that here in Ireland, the word “yard” implies an area that is paved or cemented over, and used for general storage or nothing at all, while the part of your garden that has grass, trees, flower-beds or vegetables would not be called a yard. Taken as a whole, the area (possibly excluding the driveway) would be referred to as “the garden” as long as any part of it has grass or other plants.
Just to introduce a new word to the mix, Kiwis have sections. We go out to the garden or have a BBQ in the garden and we may wander out on the lawn but the whole “yard” is called a section.
If you buy an empty bit of land to build a house then you just bought a section, I believe Yanks call it a plot and I have no idea what Poms call it. Kiwis will often have to “do some work at the back of the section”.
The garden still refers to more then the bit where the veggies are though.
We’d call it a plot in the UK, too. Land id divided into plots for building, and on a new estate you might buy “Plot 35” or whatever, before the road names and house numbers are finalised.
Similarly, but less commonly, an estate agent might describe a house as being “set in an extensive plot of approximately half an acre” or whatever.
But you wouldn’t talk of doing work in your plot. You “do the gardening”, or “get out in the garden” for a barbecue if you are feeling less active.
Agreeing with calm kiwi, but adding that those “sections” that are still big enough to be part of the quarter-acre fading dream have “backyards” behind the dwelling, the term probably taken from watching all the American TV shows over the years.
“Section” is defined here (U.S.) as a specific measure: a one-square-mile (640 acre) piece of land. Not too terribly many people own sections any more.
In the rural midwest, “yard” is usually used only to refer to the maintained recreational part of the property. My paddock, corral, pasture, and alfalfa fields are not considered part of my yard. Only the lawn and graveled drive/parking area are the “yard.”
Tell me about it. I get 5 weeks holiday per year, work a 35 hour week but have to put up with being able to knock 4 people out cold if I want to stretch my limbs
Hmm, according to Keith Thomas “Man and the Natural World” gardening in England has been a widespread habit of all classes since the seventeenth century, he quotes John Worlidge from 1677:
Thomas himself:
Sadly for me Thomas’s book stops at 1800 but AFAIK the gardening tradition has been continuous, I certainly recall plently of examples of working folks’ gardens in Victorian literature and the allotment system has been going on since the 18th century. A quick web search has thrown up a few comments on Victorian cottage gardens but most sites are concerned with gardening on a grand scale.
As to the garden/yard dichotomy, to my Southern English mind the only area pertaining to a house that could be called a “yard” would be something so bare and bleak as not to deserve the name of garden! Consequently I’ve always been puzzled by the US concept of “yardwork” – as if work were to be done it would surely become a “garden”.
(Warning: mature subject matter.) It may be worth mentioning that yard is an old term for the membrum virilis, which might possibly (though this is only speculation) be why the term was avoided in British English. While the old term was still current, you can imagine blushing and giggles at statements like ‘tending one’s yard on a hot summer day’. Again, it’s just speculation, but note that Americans at least tend to avoid using terms with such double meanings (consider ‘rooster’).
I know the term was current at least in the 19th century, when people began to have yards. And it seems to be used in Shakespearean innuendo at least once:
(At least, I think this is innuendo; I don’t know how it fits into the plot. Falstaff means ‘false staff’, and is certainly innuendo.)
Stone Soup was the Lafayette, Indiana band Carrie Newcomer sang in before she launched her solo career.
Generally, in the US, a piece of land you buy to build a house is a lot, not a plot. If you have a really big vegetable garden, that’s a plot. The piece of a cemetary where your body will be buried is also a plot. A conspiracy is also a plot, but I’m not goin’ there. :eek:
