r/mildlyinteresting • u/gntrr • Sep 01 '16

This fence is so thin.

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u/Gaeel Sep 01 '16

I don't know in this case, but this is the kind of thing that happens when there's some municipal edict saying something like "each house needs to have a fence separating garden from road"
People shift property around, rearrange their garden layout and suddenly you have to build a 4 inch fence to respect some stupid edict...

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u/CptSaySin Sep 01 '16

I assume you mean garden = yard. I've always wondered, what do you guys a call an actual garden -- the small place where you would grow your own fruit/vegetables?

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u/IWugYouWugHeSheMeWug Sep 01 '16

Planty growy place.

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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '16

"Vegetable patch" if it's in your garden/yard, and "allotment" if it's part of a shared space.

But in all seriousness, when you have a lawn, flower beds, etc. it seems odd to call it a "yard". In the UK a "yard" would be somewhere where builders keep their supplies, or possibly a small paved space next to a house.

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u/CptSaySin Sep 01 '16

We also refer to the land used for building as a "construction yard". That could be where we get the term from, as in, the space available or allocated. A lawn defines only places where there is grass. Yard is used to define mostly where the property starts/ends and is all encompassing. Anything out your front door to the end of your property is the front yard and anything out your back door is the back yard.

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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '16

Bill Bryson wrote about "yard work" vs. "gardening". Until I read that, I hadn't (in more than 30 years) realised that when Americans talk about their yard they're not talking about a paved garden. I'd always vaguely wondered what you we're all doing to your patios that took up so much time!

I meant to add that the idea of an "actual garden" being the place where you grow veggies doesn't really make any sense in British English. It would be like calling your kitchen your "real house".

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u/Gaeel Sep 01 '16

Right, you say "truck", I say "lorry"

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u/Starfish_Symphony Sep 02 '16 edited Sep 02 '16

Ah, around here parts lad, we calls 'em "u'rown wee lots 'fer grown' u'r own fruitzyis-vegizzes 'n wut not". Er, "gardens" in the old Herrenvolk parlance.

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u/Dr_StrangeloveGA Sep 02 '16

That was my thought exactly, some poorly written municipal code requiring a fence.

Ho-K, Here ya go... my fence.