msb@vex.net (Mark Brader) wrote in news:111s3blpreo6g34@corp.supernews.com:
>>>> I remember when the term "freeway" really meant something
>
>>> The meaning hasn't changed: A way free of cross traffic.
>
>> Actually, the name relates to "free" as in no toll. That was the big
>> "selling point" when they started building them....
>>
>> http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_speech/v076/76.2geyer.html
>
> However, if you look in the big Oxford English Dictionary, you'll
> find actual early uses cited, where the meaning is explained, and
> there's nothing about tolls. That beats one writer's idea of what
> he thinks the word "clearly" meant.
>
> This is off-topic for the newsgroup, so let's stop now, okay?
1. it is about traveling the California highway system and what to expect.
2. it is about whether one can anticipate tolls based uponthe nomenclature
of the highway.
3. For many of us in the 50's Freeway certainly meant as opposed to the
tollways that one encountered in NewYork New jersey and elsewhere in the
east. The west was a whole new place where the fast limited access ways
were not only superhighways, but FREE! |