Word of the day: boulevard

We were away for a few days and came back to the aftermath of a wild storm. Branches, limbs, and trees down everywhere. We were lucky — a neighbor’s tree fell (in its own backyard) and took just the top of one of our spruces. Things might have been far worse.

The authorities sent out a message about a town-wide pickup of branches and limbs. Branches and limbs are to be left, we have been told, on “the boulevard.”

Which of course led to a flurry of queries about what that means. The main avenue through town, or what? The authorities clarified: on the grass between the street and the sidewalk. A foggy clarification, as many streets in this town have no sidewalks, and some streets are just roads.

It turns out that boulevard is one of at least fifty terms for the strip of grass between the street and the sidewalk. I applaud the effort to haul away branches and limbs at no cost to residents, but boulevard was bound to baffle many. Better: roadside, or streetside. Or “Leave your branches at the side of the road or street.”

The most unsettling term in Wikipedia’s list: central Indiana’s sidewalk taint. The unbearably cutest: besidewalk. The most amusing, for me: furniture zone, referring to what’s called street furniture — poles, hydrants, &c. But there might be household furniture there as well: a furniture zone is where I found, thirty-odd years ago, a nice easy chair, now long gone. It spent years in my office as a chair for students.

The mystery of boulevard reminds me of a weather forecast that referred to the amount of snow expected by supper time. Regionalisms abounding.