Riding vs Driving?

[Tim Kelley]

You ride a bicycle but drive a car? Isn’t it your legs doing the actually “driving” of a bicycle’s pedals? What about a motorcycle? You ride it, but you aren’t pedaling?

Shouldn’t you just be riding in a car? What about a train? Segway? Cattle?

Topic

[annoyedindc]

I think cabin fever may be setting in…

[TwoWheelsDC]

And why do you park in a driveway, but drive on a parkway?

[Riley Casey]

THIS is why we wear helmets.

[hozn]

This also came up on the ELF thread awhile back. Basically, the distinction on ride vs. drive is not a distinction based on locomotion, but more to do with the time of horses & carriages and relationship between the subject and those transport vehicles.

Here are a couple sources:
– http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Usage/faq0021.html
– http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv72.shtml

[Tim Kelley]

What about golf carts, ATV’s and snowmobiles?

[Vicegrip]

Are you On it or In it while controlling it? You ride in a car when not the driver but two people on a horse or motorcycle are both riding

[jrenaut]

It is long established that English is an absolutely ridiculous language. I’d say we should abolish it, but then we’d lose the works of Faulkner and Dr Seuss.

[hozn]

@Vicegrip 135046 wrote:

Are you On it or In it while controlling it? You ride in a car when not the driver but two people on a horse or motorcycle are both riding

I think there is also a meaningful distinction between the driver of a motorcycle and the rider (passenger). But that is a slightly different meaning and I think one that could equally be applied to bicycles when there are passengers on the bicycle. Though I think /this/ use of “driving” does have something to do with locomotion, so maybe we would be more inclined to describe who was pedaling and/or steering vs. who was riding on the back.

[lordofthemark]

A. Yeah, what folks said – we ride a bike cause we ride a horse. We ride a car when we are the passenger

B. Anyone who says they drove their bicycle immediately marks themselves as a VCer of the more argumentative variety. Like someone who says they do not eat dead cow.

[lordofthemark]

@Tim Kelley 135045 wrote:

What about golf carts, ATV’s and snowmobiles?

All signs of madness.

[hozn]

@jrenaut 135048 wrote:

It is long established that English is an absolutely ridiculous language.

I’m certainly glad I didn’t have to learn it later in life. And now that my kindergartner is trying to learn to read/spell, the confusion is very fresh.

But … I would suggest that it is actually a really fascinating window into history. Every sentence is like an archeological dig. I love, for example, how words get reimported over time into English giving us the same word source yielding slightly different meanings: fragile, fraile; chief, chef; etc. Or how cultural differences got encoded in word connotations: e.g. swine vs. pork, dish vs. plate.

And there are generally perfectly reasonable explanations for why things are they way they are, but they are not simple explanations. For example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift

Of course, one could point out that garbage pits are also an archeological gold mine.

[jrenaut]

Agreed, it is fascinating. I’ve always considered going back to school after I retire to get some sort of degree in linguistics.

[hozn]

@jrenaut 135053 wrote:

Agreed, it is fascinating. I’ve always considered going back to school after I retire to get some sort of degree in linguistics.

Yeah, that’s what I did (well, the first time around — practicality be damned) Historical linguistics is definitely an area I would like to study more.

[dkel]

@hozn 135054 wrote:

Yeah, that’s what I did (well, the first time around — practicality be damned)

Wait—how old are you??

[hozn]

@dkel 135055 wrote:

Wait—how old are you??

Sorry, I mean, I studied linguistics in undergrad. Not that I’ve gone back to school multiple times. I can’t summon up enough energy to even do that once

[Author]

Replies