What do you call this?

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Re: What do you call this?

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by linguoboy »

Apparently the dictionary definition of breezeway is "a roofed passage open on two sides connecting two buildings or parts of a house". I've never used it that way. For me, the "breezeway" is a narrow passageway between two buildings which stand very close to one another but are not attached. (Very common in the urban areas where I've lived most of my life. The "breezeway" between our building and the one next door is probably about 6 foot wide.)

How do you use the term? And if you have a different term for what I'd call a "breezeway", what is it?

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Boşkoventi »

linguoboy wrote:Apparently the dictionary definition of breezeway is "a roofed passage open on two sides connecting two buildings or parts of a house". I've never used it that way.
Sounds right to me.
linguoboy wrote:For me, the "breezeway" is a narrow passageway between two buildings which stand very close to one another but are not attached. (Very common in the urban areas where I've lived most of my life.
That's called an "alley".
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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Travis B. »

Naeboşkoventi wrote:
linguoboy wrote:For me, the "breezeway" is a narrow passageway between two buildings which stand very close to one another but are not attached. (Very common in the urban areas where I've lived most of my life.
That's called an "alley".
An alley here is essentially like a long shared driveway behind a series of houses that connects with the street on each end and which is lined with garages, not what you speak of.
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by linguoboy »

Travis B. wrote:
Naeboşkoventi wrote:
linguoboy wrote:For me, the "breezeway" is a narrow passageway between two buildings which stand very close to one another but are not attached. (Very common in the urban areas where I've lived most of my life.
That's called an "alley".
An alley here is essentially like a long shared driveway behind a series of houses that connects with the street on each end and which is lined with garages, not what you speak of.
Yeah, if it's wide enough to drive a car through, it's no longer a "breezeway". Most "breezeways" in Chicago are just wide enough for a paved walk, perhaps with a planting strip to one side (as in our case).

ETA: Those gaps on either side of the house in this picture? Those are what I would call "breezeways".

Image

EATA: Apparently, traditional Chicago dialect for this may be "gangway". See: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/sho ... p?t=368930. (To me, "gangways" are something you only find on ships.)

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Gulliver »

If I was getting mega-dialecty, that's almost a twitten, but twittens don't exist outside of Lewes and environs.

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by linguoboy »

Gulliver wrote:If I was getting mega-dialecty, that's almost a twitten, but twittens don't exist outside of Lewes and environs.
From the Straight Dope link above: "In the UK it seems that every town has its own name for this space. Some examples are :- Alley , jitty, jennel, jetty,ginnel, twitchel, twitten, bacskie, wynd, close, entry, eight-foot and ten-foot."

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Gulliver »

linguoboy wrote:
Gulliver wrote:If I was getting mega-dialecty, that's almost a twitten, but twittens don't exist outside of Lewes and environs.
From the Straight Dope link above: "In the UK it seems that every town has its own name for this space. Some examples are :- Alley , jitty, jennel, jetty,ginnel, twitchel, twitten, bacskie, wynd, close, entry, eight-foot and ten-foot."
Yeah, it was mentioned in the beginning of my linguistics BA actually, in the "dialects exist" bit. Small lanes between houses vary hugely, as do bread rolls (aka baps, barms, barmcakes, breadcakes, cobs, buns... ) and that game where you catch someone and then they're it and then they have to chase someone else to make them it (which I call simply it but others call tig, tag, dob etc).

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Travis B. »

Gulliver wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
Gulliver wrote:If I was getting mega-dialecty, that's almost a twitten, but twittens don't exist outside of Lewes and environs.
From the Straight Dope link above: "In the UK it seems that every town has its own name for this space. Some examples are :- Alley , jitty, jennel, jetty,ginnel, twitchel, twitten, bacskie, wynd, close, entry, eight-foot and ten-foot."
Yeah, it was mentioned in the beginning of my linguistics BA actually, in the "dialects exist" bit. Small lanes between houses vary hugely, as do bread rolls (aka baps, barms, barmcakes, breadcakes, cobs, buns... ) and that game where you catch someone and then they're it and then they have to chase someone else to make them it (which I call simply it but others call tig, tag, dob etc).
Bread rolls are either buns, if they are soft, or rolls, if they are harder here, and that game is tag here.
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Gulliver »

Roll or bap. A bun is sweet unless it's a burger bun but that is really just a roll playing an elaborate ruse. A bap is flatter than a roll. A burger bap is a nice floury white thing with just the barest suggestion of a crust, whereas a burger bun is a moulded wheat-based sponge with sesame seeds on top.

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Travis B. »

Conversely, the only kind of bun which is sweet here is a cinnamon bun.
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by linguoboy »

Travis B. wrote:Conversely, the only kind of bun which is sweet here is a cinnamon bun.
Or a honey bun, which is essentially a cinnamon bun without the cinnamon.

Used to be you saw hot-crossed buns more frequently, but those seem to have largely disappeared.

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Dewrad »

Batch, entry and tag. Another good one is slang terms for playing truant (bunking off).
linguoboy wrote:
Travis B. wrote:Conversely, the only kind of bun which is sweet here is a cinnamon bun.
Or a honey bun, which is essentially a cinnamon bun without the cinnamon.

Used to be you saw hot-crossed buns more frequently, but those seem to have largely disappeared.
Hot-crossed buns? Not heard that one before.
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Re: What do you call this?

Post by linguoboy »

Dewrad wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
Travis B. wrote:Conversely, the only kind of bun which is sweet here is a cinnamon bun.
Used to be you saw hot-crossed buns more frequently, but those seem to have largely disappeared.
Hot-crossed buns? Not heard that one before.
I've got many similar hypercorrections in my speech, e.g. acrost for across.

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Re: What do you call this?

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linguoboy wrote:Apparently the dictionary definition of breezeway is "a roofed passage open on two sides connecting two buildings or parts of a house". I've never used it that way. For me, the "breezeway" is a narrow passageway between two buildings which stand very close to one another but are not attached. (Very common in the urban areas where I've lived most of my life. The "breezeway" between our building and the one next door is probably about 6 foot wide.)

How do you use the term? And if you have a different term for what I'd call a "breezeway", what is it?
I've never heard the term breezeway but my first impression was some kind of interbuilding not-on-the-ground catwalk. What you describe can be an alley, but I wouldn't call something that unless it was in a built up area. The area in the picture? I can't think of any specific term I have for it besides "space between the houses".
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Re: What do you call this?

Post by linguoboy »

Well, I posed the question on my FB and, to a person, every Chicagoan (and even non-Chicagoans who have lived here a while) replied "gangway". How have I never learned this even though I picked up "parkway" for the easement between sidewalk and curb?

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Drydic »

Wow, you guys have something between your sidewalks and your curbs? That must be nice. the easements here are into the actual properties, ie the lawn.
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Re: What do you call this?

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Drydic Guy wrote: I've never heard the term breezeway but my first impression was some kind of interbuilding not-on-the-ground catwalk. What you describe can be an alley, but I wouldn't call something that unless it was in a built up area. The area in the picture? I can't think of any specific term I have for it besides "space between the houses".
Same goes for me, mostly. I'm not sure I've ever heard "breezeway", but if I ever have, it was not knowing what it meant. On first impression it suggests to me some kind of open-air skybridge.

Alley: what Travis describes counts as one, and it is necessary that it be driveable on, but I tend to think of the prototype for an alley as the lane running down the center of a block in the more urban parts of town, where you aren't allowed to drive and all the businesses keep their dumpsters and it's basically a garbage truck access street, where hobos sleep in refrigerator boxes and you would expect to find shady drug dealer sorts if you were so stupid as to venture into one at night. (In Seattle it's not even legal to walk into them, not that you'd want to anyway; this is one of several legacies from we went through a phase a few years ago of trying to address the homelessness problem by banning it.)

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by linguoboy »

Radius Solis wrote:In Seattle it's not even legal to walk into them
That's sort of nuts. In Chicago, you're advised not to (as a friend told me when I first came to the city, "Never walk down alleys because you don't know which ones the heroin addicts hang out in"), but I do anyway. And in 20+ years, nary a problem.

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Re: What do you call this?

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linguoboy wrote:
Radius Solis wrote:In Seattle it's not even legal to walk into them
That's sort of nuts. In Chicago, you're advised not to (as a friend told me when I first came to the city, "Never walk down alleys because you don't know which ones the heroin addicts hang out in"), but I do anyway. And in 20+ years, nary a problem.
It's extremely stupid, but at least there's a logic to it (a flawed and ill-conceived logic, but one nonetheless.)
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Re: What do you call this?

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It. Although actually it-games are a whole family of things. We used to play It, with or without homes, and ____ (can't think of the name, damn it!), which is It usually without homes but where It remains It even when someone else has become also It (so the number of people who are It increases until only one person is not It), and bulldog, which is basically contagious It with two homes at opposite ends of a rectangle, and traditionally people run en masse, and traditionally it's exceptionally violent. Plus some versions of twenty-twenty and hide-and-seek have an It feature, where the caught join the hunt/watch. And there's stuck-in-the-mud, where when you're caught by It you have to stand still with your arms and legs akimbo and can't move until someone crawls through your legs.

Actually, these games formed a clear progression of maturity:

normal It > It with homes (because it enables children to not play if they don't want to) > stuck-in-the-mud (actually ends, has a winner) > contagious It, whatever the name for it is (maybe this was Tag? not sure) (because it has a winner but encourages paranoia and betrayal also) > "we're far too grown up for that" (football and hotbot) > twenty-twenty, which I still play with friends when the environment is conducive.

Why exactly twenty-twenty is perfectly respectable for a bunch of teachers and accountants and army officers to play, whereas plain contagious It is ridiculously childish, is just one of the mysteries of culture...
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Re: What do you call this?

Post by finlay »

you call that "it"? it's called tig in the uk and tag in america.

also we called "stuck in the mud" tunnel tig when i was growing up. we also had other variations like toilet tig (you stand with your arm out and wait for someone to flush you).

the other ones... you might want to actually explain them if you want anyone else to be able to give an answer to what they are called. you mentioned "twenty-twenty" but how are we supposed to know what this is if you don't explain it?

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by linguoboy »

finlay wrote:also we called "stuck in the mud" tunnel tig when i was growing up. we also had other variations like toilet tig (you stand with your arm out and wait for someone to flush you).
Sounds like what we called "freeze tag".

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Re: What do you call this?

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I think I called that frozen tag, but freeze tag sounds familiar too. Maybe both were common where and when I was growing up.

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Re: What do you call this?

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finlay wrote:you call that "it"? it's called tig in the uk and tag in america.
At least in america, the game is Tag and the designated outcast person is indeed called it.
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