2026-07-09 18:59 UTC
Replies (40)
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@teledyn@mstdn.ca 2026-07-09 19:40
@amcooper@toot.cat back in Manitoba, my father called it "the Appeasement" but I think he was being sarcastic 🙄
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@Sharksonaplane@mastodon.sandwich.net 2026-07-09 22:28
@amcooper@toot.cat gonna make the situation worse by calling it "sidewalk pubes" henceforth
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@VE2UWY@mastodon.radio 2026-07-09 19:05
@amcooper@toot.cat I think it was “the parkway” when we lived in #Chicagoland.
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@Oldfartrant@mstdn.ca 2026-07-10 02:57
@amcooper@toot.cat It's called a Boulevard. There's one in front of my house.
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@ducky@mstdn.ca 2026-07-09 22:42
@amcooper@toot.cat I grew up with mostly central Illinois and central Indiana linguistic influences, and my mother called it a "park strip". I'm not sure if I've ever heard anyone else use the term.
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@ducky@mstdn.ca 2026-07-10 04:32
@amcooper@toot.cat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_verge
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@stuartyeates@cloudisland.nz 2026-07-10 22:40
@amcooper@toot.cat in .nz it's called the "berm"
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@amcooper@toot.cat 2026-07-09 19:19
Why do people... gardeners ... call it "hellstrip"? @redcrew@mstdn.social @ClimateJenny@biodiversity.social @meganL@mas.to
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@amcooper@toot.cat 2026-07-09 19:05
I should answer my own question. I grew up in Philadelphia, and don't have a word for this. The one in front of our house was interesting, as it had been paved over with asphalt around its three majestic trees by previous owners. I have been calling it "verge" since moving to the Midwest, but that's a British word I probably got from a tv show, er, telly programme.
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@somcak@beige.party 2026-07-09 19:02
@amcooper@toot.cat I grew up in Southern California, USA and I don't have a special word for this.
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@meganL@mas.to 2026-07-09 19:04
@amcooper@toot.cat I was raised in Southern California by parents not from there. I was raised to call it "the parkway", but have since adopted "hell strip" since after hearing it from garden bloggers. I thought it was more descriptive and less easy to confuse for "parkway" as a car driving thing.
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@carrideen@c18.masto.host 2026-07-09 19:04
@amcooper@toot.cat Many names exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_verge
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@Bette@mstdn.social 2026-07-09 19:05
@amcooper@toot.cat Terrace, at least in my small city in Wisconsin, USA
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@abetterjulie@wandering.shop 2026-07-09 19:05
@amcooper@toot.cat do you mean, like, the verge? edit: mid-eastern US.
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@snacktraces@hachyderm.io 2026-07-09 19:06
@amcooper@toot.cat Where I grew up it was usually referred to as "township grass". Which I learned later meant that it was part of your property that the township (most local government entity) had aome "right" to do something with. i.e. they could plant a tree, grass, etc and you had to leave it there. That of course is now a "legal-ish" term, but that is what we called it. Now I have heard others refer to it as a "median". (HTH)
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@ldottxt@kind.social 2026-07-09 19:06
@amcooper@toot.cat there are many terms for it in US English and they vary based on region. I'm from Great Lakes region and my word for it is tree lawn
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@plock@mas.to 2026-07-09 19:07
@amcooper@toot.cat I'm English. Here, it's known as a grass verge.
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@Bikil@mastoart.social 2026-07-09 19:11
@amcooper@toot.cat I grew up in Utah, US and called it the "government strip" as did most people around me
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@Shanmonster@c.im 2026-07-09 19:15
@amcooper@toot.cat I made up my own term: taint. Taint the road. Taint the yard.
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@ClimateJenny@biodiversity.social 2026-07-09 19:16
@amcooper@toot.cat I don’t think “hell strip” was in usage when I was younger, but that seems to be the default around here now.
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@SpiritLady@mas.to 2026-07-09 19:25
@amcooper@toot.cat It’s called a curb lawn here in West Michigan.
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@topher1kenobe@fosstodon.org 2026-07-09 19:29
@amcooper@toot.cat My family has always called it the outlawn, Michigan, USA
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@MCDuncanLab@mstdn.social 2026-07-09 19:30
@amcooper@toot.cat West coast PNW & Cali, now midwest, I have no word for it.
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@_maleficentgirl@troet.cafe 2026-07-09 19:30
@amcooper@toot.cat German: Grünstreifen = literally "green strip/stripe"
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@TheVoidTLMB@social.vivaldi.net 2026-07-09 19:39
@amcooper@toot.cat UK: berm, though I think of it as more canal- or riverside than roadside.
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@Canageek@wandering.shop 2026-07-09 19:45
@amcooper@toot.cat I grew up in Ontario and we didn't have a special name for it, I think we sometimes just called it the small lawn as opposed to the large lawn?
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@fedward@distraction.party 2026-07-09 19:53
@amcooper@toot.cat the District of Columbia agencies that regulate them call them “tree boxes.” Also in DC your property line is probably just outside your front door, and the entire thing you think of as your front yard (including the tree box) is considered “public parking.” https://trees.dc.gov/pages/permitting
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@ElwoodCity@thecanadian.social 2026-07-09 19:56
@amcooper@toot.cat Western Canada - I called it the boulevard.
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@Simon_M@mastodonapp.uk 2026-07-09 20:11
@amcooper@toot.cat It's a verge. Grew up in Bedfordshire.
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@trib@aus.social 2026-07-09 20:29
@amcooper@toot.cat @davej@dice.camp in Australia it's a nature strip. In terms of land ownership, it is often, though not always, the case that a residential block of land ends where the footpath passes and the nature strip is council land where things like street trees are planted.
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@pete@mastodon.ie 2026-07-09 20:30
@amcooper@toot.cat The verge. My wife calls it that too, so domestic bliss still reigns supreme.
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@manu@hachyderm.io 2026-07-09 20:32
@amcooper@toot.cat in German there is a very bureaucratic expression (as there tends to be): Straßenbegleitgrün or Verkehrsbegleitgrün ( https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verkehrsbegleitgrün ) Translated directly it would be something like street accompaniment green or traffic accompaniment green Though this is not used very often in day to day speech. Don‘t know of any more common German word for it…
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@TammySue@stranger.social 2026-07-09 20:41
@amcooper@toot.cat I have no word for this
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@NickSchwanck@aus.social 2026-07-09 20:41
@amcooper@toot.cat South east Australia. "Nature strip".
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@greem@cyberplace.social 2026-07-09 20:44
@amcooper@toot.cat UK, England, East Midlands. From the middle to the outside: Road - Kerb - Verge/Grass Verge - Footpath/Path/Pavement.
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@ian@mastodon.radio 2026-07-09 20:50
@amcooper@toot.cat "grass verge", probably. But that applies to any bit of grass at the side of any road, not just between a road and a pavement/sidewalk. (Dorset, UK)
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@IMGoph@thepit.social 2026-07-09 20:54
@amcooper@toot.cat treebox. DC.
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@rothko@beige.party 2026-07-09 21:19
@amcooper@toot.cat i've never quite known that either. i've heard some people call it the "boulevard" which is completely inaccurate, it would seem...... but if i refer to it i usually just call it "you know, the grassy part between the curb and the sidewalk..." 😆 (US, minnesota.)
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@emma_cogdev@fediscience.org 2026-07-09 22:47
@amcooper@toot.cat Where I live there's no strip between the pavement and the road, but I lived in Florida for a while and there it was called the swale.
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@ancientsounds@mastodonapp.uk 2026-07-09 23:26
@amcooper@toot.cat In the UK such a thing rarely exists: there is either grass+wildflowers beside the road, or a path, not both. If grass+wildflowers, it's a *verge*. If it's a paved path, it's the *pavement* (yes I know that means the roadway in the US, but 2 countries divided by a common language and all that). Very interested to read in the other replies the many names given to that thing in various places, especially the Floridean word.