The English language is full of oddities such as, “Why do we drive on a parkway but park on a driveway?” It’s an old joke, but after you finish laughing it does make you scratch your head and ask, “Seriously though, why are those words seemingly reversed?” The short answer is that the words drive, driveway, park and parkway predate automobiles, and their definitions have evolved over time.

Drive, used here as verb, still fits within its original meaning, “to compel to move.” Driveway also still holds to its original definition, “a private road giving access from a public way to a building on abutting grounds.” Early driveways were much longer than they are today. They led from the public road to barns or other buildings on private properties. As suburban home ownership increased the driveway shrank from a private road to a bit of pavement just long enough to hold a car or two. Though the suburban version is what most people picture when they hear the word driveway, in more rural and mountainous areas you can still find driveways that are roads that must be driven to access a property.

Park as a noun (a thing) dates back to the 13th century referring to an enclosed tract of land for hunting. By the mid 17th century, a park was an, “enclosed lot in or near a town, set aside and maintained for public recreation.” Parkways were created in the 19th century amidst an effort to beautify urban areas. These were broad roads through parks intended for recreation or landscaped roads leading up to city parks.

Park as a verb (an action) came to mean leaving your horse or wagon (and later automobile) stationary in a park.

Parkway: As car ownership and recreational driving increased, the meaning of parkway expanded to include an ornamental street, an elongated park, an aesthetic thoroughfare between two parks or a combination of these definitions. The concept of parkways eventually expanded into rural areas giving us longer roads that twisted and turned with the landscape, passing through the most scenic areas with limited development along the road, essentially a park that you drive through. It was out of this concept that the Blue Ridge Parkway was created connecting Shenandoah to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

While we can still park in the park and drive on the drive, changes in society and advancements in transportation have also led us to parking on driveways and speeding through parkways. As summer approaches it’s worth taking the time to pull out of the driveway to go for a drive through one of our scenic parkways.

Crystal Kelly is a feature writer for Bizarre Bytes with those unusual facts that you only need to know for Trivial Pursuit or Jeopardy or to stump your in-laws.

Follow KnoxTNToday on Facebook and Instagram.   Get all KnoxTNToday articles in one place with our Free Newsletter.

Hero Kid: Have a nominee who has made a difference before they turned 18? Nominate here: https://www.formpl.us/form/6476116303675392.