Detroit is certainly an Avenue in the city of Cleveland proper, and a Road in Rocky River and further west. I’m just not sure whether Lakewood matches with Cleveland or with the other suburbs.
On checking Google Maps, it looks like the major east-west streets in Lakewood alternate between “Avenue” and “Boulevard”: You’ve got Lake Ave., Clifton Blvd. (which is also a boulevard in Cleveland), Detroit Ave., Franklin Blvd (which is an Avenue in Cleveland), Madison Ave., and Lakewood Heights Blvd.
Cleveland also has Ridge Road, which is a road even in the Cleveland city limits, and is one of the few north-south throughfares that has a name instead of a number.
In Melbourne, a street is a location. It’s modified to tell you which location: STATION street is the street at the (railway) station. A road isn’t a location: it’s a characteristic of location: High Street ROAD is the road that takes you to High Street.
I can deal with numbered streets crossing numbered avenues. What’s crazy about SF is that numbered streets cross numbered streets!
3rd Street crosses 16th Street and a bunch of others all the way down to like, 26th Street. What’s even weirder is that 15th Street* becomes *8th Street which then ends when it runs into 16th Street. :eek::smack:
In Indianapolis there’s a street named Boulevard. At least it’s not named Boulevard Boulevard; it’s Boulevard Place. Still, I think Boulevard is a dumb name for a street. What’s next, “Street”? Or maybe “Street Road”?
In NYC (Queens), I lived on 21st. Between 21st and 21st. Try giving someone directions to that… When friends visited, I’d just meet them on Astoria Blvd. or something and guide them in.
If you think you have a rule, and you see that the rule isn’t followed consistently, you don’t conclude there are no rules, you conclude the rules are more complicated than you first imagined.
My own address is of this form. Except it’s not really a “drive” at all (or a street or a road or whatever); it’s just a parking lot with a street sign.
I remember in an English class how empathising makes a difference:
[ul]
[li]A white house cat[/li][li]A white house cat[/li][li]A white house cat[/li][/ul]And personally, I say black board, not black board.
I wouldn’t say it’s unique. Broadway in St. Louis is handled the same.
Oh, and I agree on “blackboard”. I’ve never heard it any way but BLACKboard. And I’ve sat in front of many of them. (I know, now they’re all WHITEboards, but whatever.)[ol]
[/ol]
I was confused initially by the OP, as well, but the point is “a black board” vs “a blackboard.” That is, any ol’ board that is black vs. a board that is black that is intended to be written upon with chalk.
Now, for me, the stress might not be as exaggerated as “black BOARD” vs “BLACKboard,” but for “black board” it would be at least equal stress to both words, if not slightly more to the latter, while “blackboard” would be “BLACKboard” with a definite lesser stress on the latter.
There is no logic whatsoever in the naming of roads as street, avenue, road, boulevard, crescent, or any other descriptor that a planner can come up with. Milton Keynes is a planned City and any road with the descriptor ‘Way’ is roughly East/West; ‘Streets’ are N/S. Within the grid, however, there are numerous Closes, Courts, Places & Drives.
‘Road’, although the most common, seems to be a modern usurper as there is only one (Goswell Road) in The City of London. Technically an Avenue should be tree-lined and a boulevard should be wide and attractive, but this is far from a rule, as developers always want to make their boring rows of little boxes sound more attractive than they are.
Somewhat related, it’s interesting how people sometimes re-parse names, and I think stress was part of the issue in the following case. In the village I used to live in, New Hyde Park, one of the main drags was New Hyde Park Road, said with the stress on the first and last words. There is a large elementary school on this road, named the New Hyde Park Road School. That’s obviously too long to say regularly, so it got shortened – to the Road School, reparsing its name as if it were “the Road School in New Hyde Park” rather than “the school on New Hyde Park Road.” And that’s the apparent meaning if you say the full name with its natural stress on the word “Road.” It’s just unnatural (to this native English speaker) to stress (only) the first and last words in the full name, as that leaves too many unstressed words in a row.
I suspect things would have been rather different if the road were named “New Hyde Park Street,” as the emphasis would have fallen on “Park” instead of “Street,” as it usually does when people say “New Hyde Park.”
