Talk:Cul-de-sac
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When chased after, entering a cul-du-sac is disadvantageous, except when one is on foot or has a narrower vehicle than the chasing party, and there is a narrow exit.
Is this something that should be in an encyclopedia or "Hollywood 101"? --Lucky13pjn 20:06, Jun 13, 2004 (UTC)
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[edit] Accidentally
Why is the cul-de-sac on this image so accidental?
--Abdull 03:43, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
- (moved image to right so as to not upset alignment of replies)
[edit] Dialect
I don't recall ever hearing this word growing up in Connecticut. They were always just 'courts.' Is this a regional phrase?
Its not a regional phrase...Americans are too close-minded to use it 74.96.215.187 02:24, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
- Not in Arizona we aren't... --Node 10:29, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Correct plural form
Please see Prescriptivism. While the etymologically correct form may well be "culs-de-sac", anyone who used that nowadays where I live, even in an academic paper, would be seen as pretentious or even wrong. "culs de sac" finds less than 100K results on Google (many of which are just people lecturing others about how it is the correct plural), while "cul de sacs" finds over 600K. I don't really care which one this article uses, but I do think the sentence about the correct plural form needs to be taken out of the introductory paragraph (and preferrably out of the article altogether) as it is clearly not the majority form. --Node 10:29, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
- Okay, I checked on Google to see if "culs-de-sac" was more common than "cul-de-sacs" in any of the «primary» English-speaking countries (US, CA, UK, IE, AU, NZ, IN, SG, ZA, NG...) and have found that it is not. It appears to be more common in some than in others (ratios are roughly 1:18 US, 1:82 CA, 1:4 UK, 1:44 IE, 1:37 AU, 1:5 NZ, 1:19 IN, 1:5 SG, 1:7 ZA, 0 NG, although there were less than 100 results for either in India and Singapore). It seems to me from these results (excluding Singapore and India due to relative paucity of data) that the use of "culs-de-sac" as a plural is somewhat regional, being well-accepted though not used by the majority in the UK, New Zealand, and South Africa, while in all others it is relatively foreign and unused. Note that in Canadian results I filtered for language, because if French-language results are not filtered out the ratio is 1:2, and if only French is allowed, the result is more like 5:1. --Node 10:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Why there exist separately both "Cul-de-sac (disambiguation)" and "Other uses"?
Why these two points are not together?
I think that it is good to put all versions to "Cul-de-sac (disambiguation)" and in "Other uses" put the link only.
[edit] question
aren't cul-de-sacs normally differentiated from a normal dead-end because there are no corners in them? A dead-end can have corners but I always thought a cul-de-sac was rounded at the end.
- I was wondering that myself. Here in North Carolina, I always learned that cul-de-sacs were the ones with rounded ends, and a road that just stopped was a dead end. It seems there must be a difference of some kind, even if it's just in my state's DOT because they don't use Dead End signs in the rounded areas. They usually use No Outlet signs there instead, but my road had a Dead End sign. Suamme1 16:48, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
- I think cul de sacs are the roundabout of dead-ends. Once one drives into a cul de sac, just keep turning and you will leave. Exiting a dead-end is much more laborious. -Henry W. Schmitt 17:46, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] French text
Shouldn't the text at the beginning have a translation? --escondites 17:01, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
