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You and I know that, but it's not important or useful to a non-French speaker learning English. To those people, those are merely English words. And indeed, the
by mkingston 3y ago
You and I know that, but it's not important or useful to a non-French speaker learning English. To those people, those are merely English words. And indeed, they are English, even if they're French imports. I think even a lot of English speakers don't realise the depth of this: "cul de sac" is a fun example that a lot of people I ask don't realise comes from French (or another language, for that matter).
- dfawcus 3y agoI always preferred "Dead End", but "Cul-de-sac" seems to have taken over with the road sign planning departments since the 70s.
- dragonwriter 3y agoI've seen both, with an apparent fairly-consistent consistent semantic distinction: a “cul-de-sac” has a rounded turnaround at the end which is convenient for reversing direction without entering any driveway off the road, a “dead end” has a straight end which doesn't provide that affordance.
- Scoundreller 3y agoMeanwhile in France they generally don’t call it a “cul de sac” anymore but rather an “impasse”. You’ll see a mix of the two in Quebec. That red octagon sign in France will say “STOP”, but in Quebec, “Arrête”.
- Izkata 3y agoIn English (or at least the US), a cul-de-sac doesn't end with the red stop signs. Those are dead ends. Cul-de-sacs are where a street ends in a pseudo-roundabout like the image here: https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/cul-de-sac-pros-cons-36972433 https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/cul-de-sac-pros-cons-369724...