Avenue Vs Street

[adullstudent]

HI.is there any difference between avenue and street? and what are the prepositions used with them?


thanks

[matilda]

of course there are some differences.
street is narrower than avenue.
an avenue is a wide road that many cars pass fron it.
avenue is a little smaller than highway

[river]

Originally Posted by adullstudent

HI.is there any difference between avenue and street? and what are the prepositions used with them?
thanks

There is no standard definition of street and avenue in the U.S.

In Manhattan north-south streets are avenues and east-west streets are streets. North Carolina is the opposite: north-south are avenues and east-west are streets.

Either can be long or short, narrow or wide depending on where you live.

[Coffa]

Originally Posted by river

There is no standard definition of street and avenue in the U.S.
In Manhattan north-south streets are avenues and east-west streets are streets. North Carolina is the opposite: north-south are avenues and east-west are streets.
Either can be long or short, narrow or wide depending on where you live.

What you say is true up to a point, but there is an element of truth in what Matilda says. In British English at least, an 'avenue' generally means a wide tree-lined road, whereas a 'street' generally means a small road lined with houses. There are many exceptions, but that is the general 'sense' of the words.

I would be surprised to find there wasn't a similar correlation in the US. I have never been to North Carolina, but are not the avenues in Manhattan longer and generally wider than the cross-streets? Also, saying that avenues are north-south in one location and east-west in another conveys no information about how wide or long they are.

[Philly]

Hi Coffa
If anything, I'd tend to associate the word avenue more exclusively with a residential area than the word street. So in that respect, you might be able to say that a street is sometimes longer and wider than an avenue in the US.

But as River said, there really isn't any absolute difference between the two words in US English. Sometimes the difference is only which direction an avenue/street runs in. But probably most of the time there isn't even that difference. Any differences that might exist tend to be locally defined.

Also, saying that avenues are north-south in one location and east-west in another conveys no information about how wide or long they are.

That's exactly the point, Coffa. N-S vs E-W is sometimes the only difference in the US --- if there's any difference at all, that is.
.

[Coffa]

Originally Posted by Philly

Hi Coffa
If anything, I'd tend to associate the word avenue more exclusively with a residential area than the word street. So in that respect, you might be able to say that a street is sometimes longer and wider than an avenue in the US.
But as River said, there really isn't any absolute difference between the two words in US English. Sometimes the difference is only which direction an avenue/street runs in. But probably most of the time there isn't even that difference. Any differences that might exist tend to be locally defined.
That's exactly the point, Coffa. N-S vs E-W is sometimes the only difference in the US --- if there's any difference at all, that is.
.

Vive la difference

[matero]

It seems to me that "avenue" does have an esthetic or emotional component that is missing in "street." I guess that would mean that an avenue is a kind of street. It would be nice, though, to have an agreed upon "northish/southish vs eastish/westish" distinction.