Quoth Cecil:
If you’ll permit me to wax philosophical for a moment, this is the very essence of drivewayness–to enable you to drive from the street to your garage. Moreover, you can park on the parkway, if you’re willing to risk the wrath of the law. I don’t know that this
clarifies things much, but it seemed like a point worth making…I think the crux of the issue, however–I love using words like crux–is the dual meaning of “park.” www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_080.html
Damn right it was a point worth making! You see, though the homonymy explanation does work, it mightn’t be the best solution. I think what we’re looking for here is an answer that involves metonymy. Ahh metonymy, the forgotten trope.
Let’s think of metonymy as the thing that takes the deep philosophical bits of our tinker and puts them into everyday language. Here’s the skinny. We have images, or models, about those things we encounter in life. Though some of those things are real simple, others are more complex. Now, when we’re trying to remember or think about the more complex issues in life (driving or parking) we select a single aspect of that model and allow it to stand for the whole thing (less taxing on memory and cognition).
By way of example, think about the phrase ‘mother tongue’ Obviously speaking a language involves much more than just you’re tongue (there’s also grammar, vocabulary, etc). However, if we can refer to all those bits and pieces with just two words, communication is going to be a helluva lot more efficient.
“Where’s the yay-hoo newbie going with this thing” you ask?
Ah, thanks for getting me back on track
Anyhoo, the reason why we drive on a parkway and park in a driveway is because our mind makes a big picture out of the event and selects the most salient aspect to represent the whole thing. The reason why we call it a parkway, and call it a drive way is an elaboration of the same principle. If you think about it the right way a parkway, driveway, highway, bi-way, motorway etc. are all in essence the same thing–an otherwise non-descript large patch of tar that allows us to get from A to B. About the only that really distinguishing feature is length (and in some cases width). But who’s kidding who here, if were to go around calling these things ‘short way,’ ‘not so short way,’ and ‘damn long way’ we’d look like a bunch o’ freakin eedjits.
So here’s the scenario as I like to envision it. As the early contractors finish up their first project one says to the other:
“What they hell we gonna call this thing?”
“What, you mean this not too short road that encompasses, and was designed to provide access to, this lovely park?”
“Yep, I drawing a big blank here.”
“I say we call it a parkway.”
And history was made.
Thus we have more elaborate treatment of the whole driveway/parkway issue. But here’s the good bit. With a touch of tweaking, our good friend metonymy can account for a bunch of those annoying “Questions we refuse to answer” in one fell swoop. www.straightdope.com/faq/lamequestions.html
The parkway example is based on a metonymy prototype that would read: substitute the most SAILENT ASPECT OF THE MODEL FOR THE WHOLE MODEL. Now think of the dumbass “why do we call them buildings” question. The same principle applies here. When the building was first coming together it was just that, a building. The people see the building (whilst under construction), this is the bit that sticks out in their mind, and this is how they refer to it. Couple this with Coileán’s law of mental inertia and bingo! That’s why we call em’ that, and that’s why the name ain’t changing.
As for the hot water heater. If the metonymic relationship was something like: substitute the INTERACTIONAL OVER THE NON-INTERACTIONAL we’d have damn fine reason for calling not calling it a cold water heater. (If the plumbers pick nits on this, I’ll concede. But only to the plumbers.)
Feet smell? Sure, substitute PERCEPTION FOR THING PERCIEVED. That’s to say a bad smell for the entire perceptive experience. The interesting thing here is the nose running shtick more metaphor than metonymy. That’s to say we have two mental models; one dealing with schnozzes, the other with fast moving slippery wet things. These two models blend together (the difference in metonymy is that you only have one model which you abstract from) and somehow, we come up with running noses. (I should mention that there’s a competing, and equally valid, etymological explanation for runny noses).
Though I could go on, I think we all have the gist of it.
My beef with the big guy’s etymological explanation was that it only provides an answer to one specific question. The above treatment is a touch more elegant in that it can take care of loads o’ stupid questions using the same principle. Why bother? Next time a would-be comic poses the driveway question, you answer metonymy. S/He doesn’t understand and your explanation makes the world a smarter place. For those with less than noble motives, you also make the would-be joker feel pretty dumb. But most importantly the ‘Questions we refuse to answer’ page can be renamed ‘Questions not worth our time: progress in fight against ignorance.’
Any problems?
Kovecses, Z. and Radden, G. Metonymy: a cognitive linguistic view. Cog Ling. 9 (1998) 37-77.
Croft, W. Domains in the Interpretation of metaphor an metonymy. Cog Ling. 4 (1993) 335-370.
