an English drawbridge over the moat

credit: www.squidoo.com

Writing about Oxford Street and Oxford Road instigated my brain to think about the ever so many names the English language provides for road names. Let's see how many I can dig up within 5 minutes time:

alley, approach, arcade, avenue,
bank, boulevard, brow, buildings,
causeway, chase, circus, close, corner, cottages, court, crescent, croft,
drive,
embankment, end, esplanade,
fields
gardens, garth, gate, green, grove,
heights, hill,
lane, lawn, link,
mead, mews, mount,
parade, park, passage, pavement, place, promenade,
quay,
rise, road, row,
side, square, street,
terrace,
vale, view, villas,
walk, wall, way,
yard, ...

As said - there must be a lot more.

Next question: Why do the English need so many of them?

credit: www.basicfamouspeople.com

George Mikes (Hungarian-born, pronounced /ˈmɪkeʃ/) wrote in How to be an Alien: "You must understand that an English town is a vast conspiracy to mislead foreigners". It could well have been a Tschörman writing this because the latter likes and values 'order'. Tschörman houses hef house numbers, and neither ze street names nor ze house numbers are camouflaged as they are in England. A camouflage par excellence consists in giving a house an individual name such as Park Cottage, Midford Castle, Meadow View, Squirrels Leap, Cricket House, Evesham Manor,South Pavilion, Old Friars, Moushill Manor, etc. - but don't forget to check with the local authorities and the Royal Mail Address Maintenance Unit if you plan to individualise your house.

credit: BBC

Giving streets and houses fancy names and concealing house numbers is the modern substitute for moats and drawbridges, isn't it?