{"id":17488,"date":"2017-02-23T19:34:24","date_gmt":"2017-02-24T00:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/?p=17488"},"modified":"2021-10-28T16:28:52","modified_gmt":"2021-10-28T21:28:52","slug":"what-cove","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/what-cove\/","title":{"rendered":"What the Cove?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What does someone call a short street with only a single outlet to a larger street? I wondered because I found different terms that varied geographically. There seemed to be a cultural dimension to it as well. Certain suffixes seemed to be more prevalent in the United Kingdom and others in the United States, with Canada displaying elements of both. I’ve fixated on such suffixes before, notably in What the Drung<\/a> and What the Stravenue<\/a>. This time I focused on the humble cul-de-sac.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cul-de-sac<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Sprawling<\/a>
Suburban Sprawl With Cul-de-sac<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cul-de-sacs don’t get much respect in recent years. They became a favored symbol of unbridled construction and suburban sprawl. All those dead end streets allowed developers to stuff more homes onto lots at the expense of traffic efficiency. I couldn’t do anything about that — some things were way beyond the abilities of Twelve Mile Circle — although I could examine some etymology. From the Online Etymology Dictionary<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“1738, as an anatomical term, from French cul-de-sac, literally ‘bottom of a sack,’ from Latin culus ‘bottom, backside, fundament.’ …Application to streets and alleys is from 1800.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I guess it made sense. The cluster of homes at the end of a road resembled the bottom of a sack. Cars going into the sac could only exit the same way. No other choices existed. Actually I didn’t intend to beat up on the Cul-de-sac (or any generic dead-end street) as a design element. The point today was to examine the designation of such roads, specifically the suffixes appended to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Close<\/h2>\n\n\n\n