[TR] UK Cottages & Villages (was Re: A milestone)

[Dave1massey at cs.com]

In a message dated 6/14/2010 11:14:51 AM Central Daylight Time, 
macartney.john at yahoo.co.uk writes: 
> We Brits don't
> drive *on* a lane - like on a highway. You drive *up* it or *down* it. 
> There's
> even more confusion here too. You can drive *down the lane* when it's 
> going
> uphill, or *up the lane* when it's going downhill. 

We're not so much different, you and we.  We use "down" in a similar vein 
as in:

Traveler: "Can you tell me where I can find the Smith's farm?"
Local: "Yep.  It's down the road a fur piece."

And it doesn't matter whether the road goes up, down, north, south or 
nowhere, it's down the road.

We also talk about going DOWN town.  And we talk about going UP town.  
Neither one refers to the relative elevation of the designated venue.

So the concept of driving up or down a lane is not so foreign to us.  But 
thank you for the explanation as to which term refers to the coming and going 
of the situation.

Just my tuppence worth.

Cheers

Dave