6 ms·
This is the infamous Wuppertaler Schwebebahn. What's with people calling cities and towns in foreign countries villages? Being unbeknownst to you doesn't mean i
by azepoi 6y ago
This is the infamous Wuppertaler Schwebebahn. What's with people calling cities and towns in foreign countries villages? Being unbeknownst to you doesn't mean it's a village. Wuppertal is home to 350 thousands inhabitants an counting. Wuppertal is the result of th fusion of several existing cities including Ebersfeld which had over 100 thousand people in 1895 and considered then a Großstadt.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago>What's with people calling cities and towns in foreign countries villages? I dunno. Why do we call them neighborhoods when hardly anyone knows their neighbors?
- eugeniub 6y agoBecause even if you don't know them they're still your neighbors.
- matt-attack 6y agoWhy do we call them “drive ways” when we park in them? Why do we call them “parkways” when we drive on them?
- yareally 6y agoThe amount of traffic on some parkways can make one feel as if they park there though.
- donkeyd 6y agoOften people who are non-native speakers of English don't know the difference between town and village. I hear plenty Dutch people say that they're from a village, while town would probably be a better word.
- Aeolun 6y agoOnly because once you leave the Netherlands, the true size of things suddenly becomes clear.
- ghaff 6y agoI doubt town and village are used consistently in the Anglosphere either. They tend to be used fairly consistently in New England (though I can think of exceptions) where it's not so much about absolute size but whether they have a town government or are part of a larger entity.
- dhosek 6y agoIn Illinois, the distinction is one based on how the municipality was incorporated: The town of Cicero, the village of Winnetka, the city of Evanston—though some of these designations seem quainter than others, they have nothing to do with population or size. “It really all depends on which statute under state law the municipality incorporated under,” says David Bennett, executive director of the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, an association of 272 area leaders who convene to collaborate and converse about the health of the metro area. Towns are municipalities that were created prior to the 1872 passing of the Cities and Villages Act, which set out standards and guidelines for incorporation. Established in 1867, Cicero happens to be the only town in the Chicago area. The distinctions between the terms city and village are more ambiguous. In states such as New York, “cities and villages can differ according to how the state defines them, in terms of the procedures for setting them up, the governance structures and the powers allotted to them automatically by the municipal code,” says Joshua Drucker, assistant professor of urban planning and policy at DePaul University, who researched the topic when he moved to Illinois four years ago. “But in Illinois, there’s very little difference. The largest remaining difference is that villages must have exactly six trustees, whereas cities may have six or more aldermen.” https://www.timeout.com/chicago/things-to-do/city-village-townwhats-the-difference https://www.timeout.com/chicago/things-to-do/city-village-to... I live in a village (Oak Park) with population 52,381 adjacent to a city (Berwyn) with population 54,391 and a town (Cicero) with population 80,796
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoTownships in New York are county subdivisions that are large enough to encompass multiple villages. Not what is conventionally considered a town.
- 6y ago
- sailfast 6y agoThat's because "tuin" which sounds exactly like Town means something totally different in Dutch (garden)
- biztos 6y agoI come from a town of (then) about 350 people in California. After living in Europe for a while I started calling it a village. Americans always look at me funny... but there's a town of 3,000 nearby that calls itself a "small town" and the town next to that, with 13,000, also calls itself a "small town," so how are we supposed to differentiate? So hunch is that some people think of "town" as covering anything from 1-250,000 people (arbitrary upper bound mine) and think "village" is something foreigners have instead of towns. That said, it's absurd to call Wuppertal a village, the pictures are obviously not of a village, and Schweben is not Fliegen! :-)
- fatnoah 6y agoWhere I'm from, Northeast US, town vs. city is a matter of how the government is organized. I grew up in a city of 10k people, and later lived in a town of 50k. Here, at least, a village is a designation often used to indicate the "town center" or more densely developed areas of otherwise fairly spread out towns.
- Semaphor 6y agoIt’s legislated in Germany ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_town_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_town_law https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadtrecht https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadtrecht
- Freak_NL 6y agoThe Stadtrecht phenomenon is what makes people call Dutch cities cities too. Legally, the term 'city' ('stad') doesn't even exist nowadays here, so it mostly a term used intuitively and according to historical legacy. Interestingly, the Dutch province of Frisia famously features eleven cities (all historically holders of Dutch stadsrechten) of which the smallest has just over 700 inhabitants, whilst the biggest 'village' in the province boasts over 45,000.
- brendoelfrendo 6y agoIt's worth noting that, if you're in New England, "town" carries a different meaning than in much of the rest of the country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_town
- insidepgsmind 6y agoSince we're on the grammar train. Infamous means: well known for some bad quality or deed, such as "an infamous war criminal". What is the Wuppertaler Schwebebahn infamous for?
- probably_wrong 6y agoIt is infamous for the 1950 publicity stunt in which they put an elephant on board. The elephant got scared and jumped out. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuffi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuffi
- cortesoft 6y agoNo, no, no... infamous just means you are so famous you are IN famous.
- ghaff 6y agoMerriam Webster disagrees: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/infamous https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/infamous Definition of infamous 1: having a reputation of the worst kind : notoriously evil an infamous traitor 2: causing or bringing infamy : DISGRACEFUL an infamous crime 3: convicted of an offense bringing infamy
- kmill 6y agoI think that was a reference to the movie The Three Amigos. The characters misunderstanding the word sent them off on their unintentionally heroic adventure.
- ghaff 6y agoAhh. I had actually wondered if it could also just mean "famous" (but not necessarily in a bad way) like notorious can but apparently not. I had to look it up to be sure.
- 6y ago
- dang 6y agoOk, we've de-villaged and Wuppertaled the title above.