Re: at vs. in

[SoothingDave]

Re: at vs. in

[Not a teacher]

Of course, on the sidewalk.

No, not on the sidewalk. The sidewalk is on the side of the street/road, where people walk. If you are on the sidewalk you are not in the street. In AmE, anyway.

 

[José Manuel Rosón Bravo]

Re: at vs. in

So "in the road" is not correct, isn't it? I should use "on" in this case. But I do not understand exactly why. Why not "in the road" as "in the street"?

[Not a teacher]

In this case, "on" is used to describe a position on something like a line.

The same as "on the river".

Or something/somebody touching a flat surface (regardless of whether it is horizontal, vertical or diagonal):

On the ground.
On the floor.
On the ceiling.
On the door.
On the wall.
Etc.

 

[José Manuel Rosón Bravo]

Re: at vs. in

[Not a teacher]

No, not on the sidewalk. The sidewalk is on the side of the street/road, where people walk. If you are on the sidewalk you are not in the street. In AmE, anyway.

Yes, I understand the meaning. "In the street" refers to the middle of the street.

 

[MikeNewYork]

Re: at vs. in

He is sure. The sidewalk is parallel to the street, but not adjacent. It is separated from the street by a strip of grass.

 

[José Manuel Rosón Bravo]

Re: at vs. in

[Not a teacher]

He is sure. The sidewalk is parallel to the street, but not adjacent. It is separated from the street by a strip of grass.

Aren't we wandering off the point?

 

[MikeNewYork]

Re: at vs. in

I was responding to your post before you edited it. Let's not play games.

 

[José Manuel Rosón Bravo]

Re: at vs. in

[Not a teacher]

Yes, I edited it, and removed the information about the distinction between street and sidewalk because I think it was useless in this discussion. Don't you think the same?

I told that "in the street" means in the middle of it, obviously the road between buildings.

"The bank is in Lane Street" (BrE).
"The bank is on Lane Street" (AmE, and sometimes BrE if Lane Street is a long street - or at least that is what I understood from an English grammar).

"The bank is on Park Road" (AmE).
"The bank is in/on Park Road (BrE).

Is it correct or not?

 

[MikeNewYork]

Re: at vs. in

Your question was "are you sure?". That is what I answered.

 

[José Manuel Rosón Bravo]

Re: at vs. in

Yes, I got confused after #19. I looked upon the term and found all those articles and references that defined (or not) the sidewalk as a part of the street. And decided to remove them from the post.

What about the examples in #27?. Are they right or not?

 

[MikeNewYork]

Re: at vs. in

Jose, In AmE, "in the street" means between the curbs, not necessarily the middle. The rest is OK for AmE. I cannot speak for BrE.

 

[SoothingDave]

Re: at vs. in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXA6CLTDekw

I always found these lyrics amusing. Why would you have a house in the middle of the street?

(It's madness, I say.)

 

[MikeNewYork]

Re: at vs. in

Death Wish. :shock:

 

[José Manuel Rosón Bravo]

Re: at vs. in

[Not a teacher]

Jose, In AmE, "in the street" means between the curbs, not necessarily the middle.

Yes, between the curbs, the edges or whatever other delimitation. I am not meaning just over the road line. If "in the middle" conveys that meaning, then where the cars drive, as stated by SoothingDave.

 

[José Manuel Rosón Bravo]

Re: at vs. in

[Not a teacher]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXA6CLTDekw

The video wasn't available (at least from Spain).

Here --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwIe_sjKeAY

 

[José Manuel Rosón Bravo]

Re: at vs. in

[Not a teacher]]

Why would you have a house in the middle of the street?

(It's madness, I say.)

There so many situations and reason: http://www.urdesign.it/wp-content/u...ouse-in-the-middle-of-the-street-in-china.jpg

 

[emsr2d2]

Re: at vs. in

In BrE, "in the middle of our street" makes perfect sense. The street includes the tarmac area, the pavements (sidewalks) and the houses and gardens. So the house Madness refers to is about halfway down the row of houses, making it "in the middle of the street". If the house had been built, dangerously, on the tarmac somewhere near the white line dividing the two directions of car travel, it would have been described as "in the middle of the road".

Confused yet, everyone? ;-)

 

[José Manuel Rosón Bravo]

Re: at vs. in

[Not a teacher]

I referred to the pavement (as a part of the street) in #19, but it seems that sidewalk and pavement are not the same thing, and the term "street" has different meanings in AmE and BrE. But I got the point.

Thanks for your comments.

 

[emsr2d2]

Re: at vs. in

As far as I'm aware, what we call the pavement (BrE), is the sidewalk (AmE). If not, I have had it wrong for many years!

In the UK, this is a pavement.

 

[José Manuel Rosón Bravo]

Re: at vs. in

[Not a teacher]

Yes, that is a pavement. In Spanish we say "pavimento", which is more or less the same.

But I think that there is a slight difference between these terms. Mike defined in #24 (see). And there are many people asking for the difference out there.

And there was a discussion about this supposed difference in this same forum here (by the way, can you see this page properly or I have a problem with my computer?).

 

[emsr2d2]

Re: at vs. in

I was surprised by Mike's assertion that a sidewalk is separated from the road by a strip of grass. Some pavements in the UK have that strip of grass but not all of them.