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28 jun 06 "Why do we drive on parkways and park in drive ways?" because you drive up your driveway (consider a really long driveway), and the "park" in parkway refers to a park, as in trees and grass (parkways used to cut through the countryside, before urban sprawl metastasized all over creation), rather than the verb "to park." i really can't think of anything else to say here -- this might be the shortest answer yet. the question explores an instance of outdated semantics imitating a logical inconsistency (parkway and driveway). another example is to "have your cake and eat it too." i've heard a few people incredulously remark that of course they can have their cake and eat it too -- if they're eating it, then they obviously have it in their possession. "to have" is being used here as "to save." one cannot save one's cake for later as well as eat it now. so many things we think of as philosophical problems are really language problems, with this question being a trivial example. wittgenstein tells us that seemingly difficult or unsolvable problems in philosophy would vanish if it weren't for the knot of language holding them together. same thing with parking on a driveway. |
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