XPost: alt.usage.english, alt.english.usage   
   From: office@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk   
      
   On 30 Aug 2025, Peter Moylan wrote   
      
   -snip-   
   >   
   > The "big town" in the area is Rushworth, population a little over   
   > 1,000. ( went to school there for a short while. A single room,   
   > six grades and one teacher. We didn't have books, only slates and   
   > slate pencils.) It has the widest main street I've ever seen. You   
   > need a packed lunch to cross it. The town was founded in the gold   
   > rush era, and they allowed for growth. These days there's a centre   
   > divider with trees, separating two wide one-way streets, but I   
   > remember when it was just a huge expanse of road, big enough to   
   > contain a football oval.   
   >   
   Many prairie towns in Canada have unnaturally wide streets, which we   
   were told were surveyed to allow a standard farm wagon hauled by four   
   horses to make a U-turn in the street.   
      
   I don't know whether that's true or a popular myth, but it seemed a   
   reasonable metric for laying out rural towns in the 19th and early   
   20th centuries.   
      
   --   
   Cheers, Harvey   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)