What Do You Call It

[Torco]

I call it 'cuneta'. little cradle, sort of. It also refers to the edge of the level differential between road and sidewalk which you can hit with your car and fuck the wheel up.

in English, though, I dunno.

[clawgrip]

I call it 'cuneta'. little cradle, sort of. It also refers to the edge of the level differential between road and sidewalk which you can hit with your car and fuck the wheel up.

in English, though, I dunno.

This is called the curb (or kerb, depending on where you're from) in English.

[Torco]

and that doesn't include the grassy thing? cause you can sit on the 'cuneta', for example, or be lying in it, and stuff.

[clawgrip]

Curb generally doesn't refer to the grass. The curb still means the spot where the sidewalk meets the road. Sometimes people will put their garbage out "on the curb" but this just means right by the edge. You can also sit on the curb, but this would usually mean your feet were on the road itself.

[ol bofosh]

Maybe cuneta includes both verge and kerb?

[Torco]

Maybe cuneta includes both verge and kerb?

probably, its not the edge so much as it is the transition, the thing I call cuneta is probably like 40 cm wide.

[ol bofosh]

Maybe cuneta includes both verge and kerb?

probably, its not the edge so much as it is the transition, the thing I call cuneta is probably like 40 cm wide.

Yeah, that's a wee bit big for a kerb, which is a bit of brick (for want of a better word) without any grass, except in the little gaps.

[Skomakar'n]

What are you guys talking about? There is nothing between the sidewalk and the street in Sweden...

[Rui]

You have no sidewalks that look like this? They're talking about that patch in the lower right area that says "low shrubery" etc.
(I'm sure I could've found a better picture, but I don't really care...)

[Shrdlu]

Nope, it doesn't exist in Sweden.

In English I would probably call it a curb or a grass-walk. In Swedish it would be "vägkanten", the edge of the road.

^edit: for fun: In Piitish it would be something like "kanta borte veja".

[Rui]

"vägkanten"

In a Nortanean display of immaturity, this might be my favorite Swedish word. Combo of "vag" (short for vagina in English) and "kanten" (which sounds like "cunt")

[Skomakar'n]

You have no sidewalks that look like this? They're talking about that patch in the lower right area that says "low shrubery" etc.
(I'm sure I could've found a better picture, but I don't really care...)

http://www.neohouston.com/wp-content/up ... s-2222.jpg

Oh, we do have this, but that's not what it sounded like. The one to the right isn't between the sidewalk and the street and the second one is on the sidewalk, I'd say, and it doesn't follow all the way either; it keeps being split up. I thought you meant something like this (seen from the side):

_____
|.......|
|.......|////////__________
sid.w. - grass - street

Nothing suburban with this in Sweden, by the way. Central Gothenburg has it.

[finlay]

The sidewalk is specifically the bit you walk on, though. So something can be level with the sidewalk but not part of it. Same goes for the british version pavement, here referring to something made of paving slabs (ie, stone).

[Skomakar'n]

Ah. Not entirely compatible with the "Swedish" (French) trottoar, then.

[Yagia]

the photographic instruction reminded me that in Dutch one could very well just call this feature a "groenstrook"; which means 'green strip', plain and simple. A 'groenstrook' can be as wide or small as the urban architect would have it, I think (if there's enough space, or money to spend on, or both)

[garysk]

By way of responding to several different posts on this thread, without specifying them, I offer the following:

I've usually heard the grassy strip between the curb and the sidewalk called the "planting strip". Because that is what you are supposed to do with it. Often it is paved by the property owner, left to grow weeds, or planted with shrubbery and flowers. In older areas, it often contains the city's shade trees that overhang the roadway, and as one poster mentioned, doom upon those who touched one of these trees. In "modern" San Francisco, the City fathers just handed their care over to the adjacent (often clueless, and likely absentee) property owner, despite the City having performed this function for many many years.

A parking strip is like a planting strip, but there is no curb between the roadway and the strip, though there might be a shallow gutter instead of the curb. The point of the parking strip, usually between trees and/or driveways and/or street lamps, is for parking. Even if it grows anything, the cars can still park.

The evolution, at least in the Western US, is typically:
Dirt farm road, no sidewalk, no gutter, no planting strip, maybe with a drainage or irrigation ditch
Paved farm road, no sidewalk, no gutter, etc
[Upon development of the adjacent land, the private lots stop short of the road way, and the area between the two is often a utility or sewage or other easement, giving access to organizations that were providing services, even though the lot owners still retain formal title and are still taxed. Often the ditch was within an easement as well. As the neighborhood matures, the ditch becomes a storm sewer, often covered with a concrete sidewalk. If the easement is wide enough, the city may plant or encourage planting of grass. Without a curb, it would be called a verge, with the curb, it is often called "goddamned city hall" because the lot owners have to shoulder the cost of many of these improvements. Back to the chronological list of roadside infrastructure...]
Sidewalk
Verge
Gutters (between the road and verge, but not much more than a shallow indentation, often concrete lined often just asphalt, that does not interfere with vehicles using the verge).
Curbs, these then separate the roadway from what was the verge, but now is a planting strip.
Eventually, the city, disgusted with the weed lots in front of every property that the planting stips can become, will pave them in (often at property owner cost).
And in the end, the Urban Forest people come and cut holes in the concrete and plant a new generation of trees, which always wither and die unless lavished with care.

In most planned American cities, there are easements crisscrossing the landscape, and almost always the city will maintain an easement (which is simply a legally guaranteed space of access) along all streets. Any power lines, phone lines, cable TV, water main, sewage main, gas main amongst the houses and buildings are accompanied by easements benefiting the owners of such utilities. In some subdivisions there may be lots that do not have street frontage, and so, to guarantee the owners of those lots physical and utility access, the lot owners are beneficiaries of one or more easements, so they can lay a driveway or run utilities to their lot.

[Qwynegold]

Another one of these threads have been necroed??

[din]

the photographic instruction reminded me that in Dutch one could very well just call this feature a "groenstrook"; which means 'green strip', plain and simple. A 'groenstrook' can be as wide or small as the urban architect would have it, I think (if there's enough space, or money to spend on, or both)

Any type of grass or nature on the side of the road for me is a "berm" in Dutch (but apparently in some areas of the US as well?!).

Like "verge" to the Brits, a Dutch "berm", to me, is generally on the side of the road where there's no sidewalk (like on a highway or a main road where pedestrians and cyclists can't go). Though I have no issues with extending the word to any grassy area on the roadside. The thing in the picture wouldn't be a "berm", for me. I suppose I'd agree that "groenstrook" would work, if you really had to give it a name.

[Zontas]

All my friends (and I, as well as a bunch of other people I know) call them Islands, regardless of size. Occasionally, somebody will refer to them using Buffy Speak.

[JasonK]

I don't remember it ever being specifically referred to when I lived in England.
In Australia, everyone I've heard has called it a nature strip.

[linguoboy]

Okay, new item! What do y'all call this:



(Especially interested in US respondents.)

[Shrdlu]

Swedish,
Hoppborg
Lit. Jump-castle.

[HandsomeRob]

That's a bouncy-house.

[Zontas]

You're both wrong, it's actually called a Moonbounce.

N.B.: Apparently Spellcheck thinks it's called something else- ripoff artists.

[Qwynegold]

Bouncy castle.