Question for American flisters, please?

[thismaz]

I am going through ice cream, making the little corrections to grammar and stuff that I missed when I was first posting and I came across something in my first chapter that brought me up short.

There is a passage that goes like this:

You just didn't shout in the streets of Sunnydale after dark. It was something kids grew up knowing, in the same way that they knew not to step on the cracks in the pavement, and it was talked about in the same way - 'watch out for the monsters if you go out at night'. And just like the cracks in the pavement, there came a time when it was no longer spoken of out loud, except to ridicule, but being cautious had become natural.

The question: Is 'pavement' an okay word to use here, when I am in a young American boy's POV?
Or should it be 'Sidewalk'? Or something else entirely?

Any assistance gratefully received.

Comments

[smwright.livejournal.com]

I would say sidewalk, but that's just me. :)

Of course, when writing Sylvie, it's pavement. :P

[sunnyd-lite.livejournal.com]

The kids would call it cracks on the sidewalk. In North America, the pavement is the tar on the roadway.

Got to love the Cross Atlantic translation!

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

Thanks, hon. Sidewalk it is then. It's funny how these things get passed you, even when you're trying to be careful. I guess it's because it's a saying, so I didn't think about it.
Sylvie, being British, would say 'pavement' without thinking about it too. *g*

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I'd better go change that then.
I love the way the language is different in so many small but significant ways (not that this is very significant *g*).
Thanks again.

[sevendeadlyfun.livejournal.com]

For the record, there are places in America that use pavement. Not California (that I'm aware of), but I know that native Philadelphians do say pavement rather than sidewalk.

Yanno, just in case you should ever set a story in Philadelphia. Crazy America! We have no hard and fast word usage. So much of it is regional which must be absolutely crazy-making when writing our speech...

[mistress-tien.livejournal.com]

A boy from California would most likely say "sidewalk". Word choices between California, the Midwest part of the US, the Southern parts of the US, and the New England areas can be significantly different.

Example: California would say "soda", midwest says "pop", and southern says "coke" as a generic word for carbonated soft drinks.

I'm an amateur linguist . . . I grew up on California (about two hours away from "Sunnydale", half my family is Southern, my DH is a midwesterner and I currently live in New England. I love to discover words used in new ways and variations according to location.

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

native Philadelphians do say pavement rather than sidewalk.
I didn't know that, thank you. I'll bear it in mind, in case Xander ever goes there *g*
So much of it is regional
I imagine that's true of all countries, hell, where I come from we have Scandinavian words in our dialect. Although you'd only need to know that if you started writing 'When the Boat comes in' fanfic *g*
Thank you very much for the info.

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Isn't language great fun? 'Soda' is one of those things I picked up from reading fanfic and it still sounds funny to me, but I didn't know about 'pop and 'coke'.
Thank you very much.

Edited because I can't type. *g*

[missus-grace.livejournal.com]

What do you say for soda pop, then?

[sparrow2000.livejournal.com]

I got very confused to start with over here when our driving instructor was talking about driving on the 'pavement'. I was thinking - wow, isn't that dangerous for pedestrians. Then I discovered that 'pavement' is the road surface here! So yeah, sidewalk it is...:)

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

You know, I had to think about that for a moment, just to check. I don't have a single word. I might talk about lemonade, coke, tonic, limeade, orangeade, ice cream soda, etc, but I don't think I have a single word to encompass them all. If I wanted to be generic, I'd call them 'fizzy drinks' and I think that's pretty common.
There is the phrase, 'a bottle of pop', but it sounds pretty old-fashioned to me. Makes me think of books and comics set in the fifties, although it probably still is used in places and by some people.
Interesting.

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I can just see you, careering down the sidewalk, pedestrians jumping out of the way, like extras in an action movie.
Ummm, you still do have your license, don't you? *g*

[tabaqui]

And here's a bit of trivia for you.... People say 'pavement' because you pave a road, but concrete - what sidewalks are made from - is poured, so 'pavement' doesn't work.

Of course, we *should* say pouredment, but we don't.
*la*

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Huh? That's true? Your roads are paved, not poured and your sidewalks are poured, not paved?

Or am I misunderstanding you?

[tabaqui]

Yup. You pour concrete, you pave a road. :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

Interesting that the superstition is universal but the words to describe it aren't. I wonder just how far back it dates.

[grneyedwoman.livejournal.com]

In many cities in California the streets and roads are paved with asphalt.The freeways are a combination of poured concrete and asphalt. The sidewalks are poured with concrete. As a kid it was "step on a crack and break your mother's back" So the walk home from school was spent avoiding every little crack in the sidewalk.
Hugs

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I get that, but our sidewalks are paved with blocks or slabs of concrete and our roads are poured and rolled tarmac.

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

Good question. *goes off to play with google*

*comes back* This
http://www.csicop.org/superstition/library/cracks.html says it dates from the late 19th - early 20th Century.

Not as long as mirrors and ladders, but then, pavements aren't as old as mirrors or ladders. The thing that gets me though is that there are logical explanations for ladders (and mirrors if you think that they were expensive at one time) but not for cracks.

Has all the hallmarks of a children's story/rhyme/superstition, doesn't it?

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

step on a crack and break your mother's back
I've heard that one before. There is also the story about stepping on the cracks leading to being eaten by a bear, which I read in a A.A.Milne poem as a kid.

I hadn't heard of "Step on a crick and you'll marry a brick and a spider will come to your wedding." I got that from here http://www.csicop.org/superstition/library/cracks.html

Hee, Isn't it fun how a simple question leads to learning even more. *g* Even if I haven't managed to find an original source yet.

Thank you.

[meredevachon]

My first thought was either was possible, but that sidewalk would be more common. Again with the variations in language use. Isn't it fun? (and maddening?)

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

Isn't it? *is gleeful* I love it!

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

Yep, with a children's superstition the search for any meaningful origin is probably pointless. It could easily have started as just a fad and only gained the superstition element ('you mustn't do this because...') after the fact.

Iona and Peter Opie: The Lore and Language of School Childen gives dozens of different superstitions about what will happen if you step on the cracks, ranging from being chased by snakes to breaking your mother's best teapot. Their earliest date is 1910 but it also notes that according to Lord Elton, General Gordon would zigzag to avoid the cracks - and we all know what happened to him!

I guess the fact that it is a kids' superstition explains why it is found both sides of the Atlantic - there are numerous instances of the games and lore of children travelling around the globe at an amazing rate. In the 1950s the Opies traced a particular rhyme (a corruption of the Davy Crocket song) as it travelled across England and then discovered it had turned up in Australia, all of this incidentally in just three months and before the launch of the radio show the song originated with. We wouldn't blink at that these days - but in the 50s!

[tabaqui]

Our sidewalks are the same, and it's maybe even the same sort of machine that puts down the material, but it's just...that way. Heh. 'Poured concrete foundation' or whatever, and 'paved over the park to make a parking lot'. We're just funny that way.
:)

[sparrow2000.livejournal.com]

You've seen me drive!!

Yes, thank you, I still have my licence - at the moment!!! Sticks tongue out at you in a very mature manner. *g*

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

And there is always A.A.Milne's poem about stepping on the cracks means the bears will get you. I still remember the drawing in my puffin book, of bears standing just around the street corner, waiting. *g*

Iona and Peter Opie, where they the couple who wrote the article about how 'Ring a ring o' rosies' was about the plague, which he said was an April Fool's joke that went wrong, because it got taken seriously?

We tend to forget, nowadays, how quickly word travelled before the internet, don't we? It just takes a few kids to cross a continent, for a story or a game to spread, not counting the word of mouth movement. I remember moving to a new place and teaching the kids in my new school a game which became a standard mass occupation every break time. I also remember reading about how blue tits learnt to peck through the tops on milk bottles on the door step, to steal the cream of the milk. That was tracked from a single point across whole counties in a matter of months. If blue tits can do it, I reckon children can too. And as you say, kids have fads.

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

Heee, yeah, one of the things I love about words is the way we still use words now in ways that don't strictly apply, because when we started using them they made sense. When most roads were dirt tracks, a road like the Romans built, or a cobbled street, would be paved. So we still talk about paved roads now, when they don't have a paving stone in sight.
Gotta love the way the language evolves. It's what makes it such fun.

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

You are so impressive when you are being mature *g*
*hides*

[smwright.livejournal.com]

We do that! (The not thinking.) It's so easy to make assumptions, be casual, when we share a common language, but you and I have had this conversation before. :)

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

See, and I still call it pop. My kids at school sometimes still look at me weird when I say that.

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

We have indeed. This conversation has been fun and has reminded me how we all enjoy it.

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

Because they would say 'soda'? You have big distances in your country, which would possibly create and perpetuate different phrases for the same thing. But I wonder if the date and origin of the original migrant population wouldn't have an even more significant influence. Hmmm, yet another thing to ponder.
Thanks.

[willayork.livejournal.com]

i wouldnt say that 'pavement' is wrong for the american lexicon but if your speaker is supposed to be a *young* boy- and since you're talking about parents warning children from the childs pov (at least thats what it seems to me) -then yes, i think sidewalk is probably the better/more realistic choice but...well, pavement flows quite nicely, doesn´t it?

i dont know that the difference is really that important, honestly

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

At this point Xander is 16 but I am describing the kind of myths and superstitions that grow up between young children and are passed around their community, without the parents ever knowing, like skipping games, or rhymes, or riddles.
I like to be correct in my language. If I am in a character's thoughts, I like to give them the right word to think. So, Spike or Giles may say pavement or bonnet, but Xander or Buffy would say sidewalk and hood. While Angel hovers in the middle, except he probably wouldn't know enough about cars to know they had a bonnet or a hood. *g* Kidding.
I have heard there are fandoms where writers are expected to change their spelling to that of the country of origin, and I don't do that, but when you are using a character's voice, I think it is necessary to make sure you use the right words for them.

pavement flows quite nicely, doesn't it?
*laughs* It does for me, being British, which is why I only noticed it now.

Thanks for the input.