What the Cove?

What does someone call a short street with only a single outlet to a larger street? I wondered because I found different terms that varied geographically. There seemed to be a cultural dimension to it as well. Certain suffixes seemed to be more prevalent in the United Kingdom and others in the United States, with Canada displaying elements of both. I’ve fixated on such suffixes before, notably in What the Drung and What the Stravenue. This time I focused on the humble cul-de-sac.


Cul-de-sac

Sprawling Subdivison in New Jersey. Photo by Kaizer Rangwala; (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Suburban Sprawl With Cul-de-sac

Cul-de-sacs don’t get much respect in recent years. They became a favored symbol of unbridled construction and suburban sprawl. All those dead end streets allowed developers to stuff more homes onto lots at the expense of traffic efficiency. I couldn’t do anything about that — some things were way beyond the abilities of Twelve Mile Circle — although I could examine some etymology. From the Online Etymology Dictionary:

“1738, as an anatomical term, from French cul-de-sac, literally ‘bottom of a sack,’ from Latin culus ‘bottom, backside, fundament.’ …Application to streets and alleys is from 1800.”

I guess it made sense. The cluster of homes at the end of a road resembled the bottom of a sack. Cars going into the sac could only exit the same way. No other choices existed. Actually I didn’t intend to beat up on the Cul-de-sac (or any generic dead-end street) as a design element. The point today was to examine the designation of such roads, specifically the suffixes appended to them.


Close

I got started on this unfortunate idea when I examined the Isle of Dogs in the recent Random Islands article. I noticed a street with an odd suffix; Wheat Sheaf Close. Nearby I soon spotted Inglewood Close, Severnake Close and Epping Close. Was this a common thing, I wondered? Were little dead-end streets in the United Kingdom sometimes referred to as Closes? It seemed to be the case as I checked various random corners of the British Isles. Twelve Mile Circle’s loyal UK readers should be able to confirm its usage and frequency if that’s the case.

They existed in Canada too. Canada Post included Close as an acceptable suffix. However it did not offer an abbreviation for it. The UK specified “Cl.” In London’s Isle of Dogs someone could write a letter to Wheat Sheaf Cl and that would be acceptable. Head to Medicine Hat, Alberta, on the other hand, and the address should include the entire word, as in Smith Close SE. New Zealand also used the abbreviated form in its address system although I couldn’t find any real-world examples. I couldn’t find any information about Australia, though. Any Closes in Australia, dear readers? Conversely, the United States Postal Service didn’t even include Close among its recognized suffixes.

Nonetheless the suffix made perfect sense. The roads indeed closed at one end.


Cove

The US Postal Service did include something more unusual however, the suffix Cove. It referred to the same thing, a short road with a dead-end or a cul-de-sac. I suspected the usage must have been sporadic, geographically confined, or both. I’d never personally seen a street with a Cove suffix. Even so, the USPS reserved the abbreviation “CV”, so it obviously existed with at least some level of frequency.

Wikipedia referenced the suffix and singled-out Memphis, Tennessee. Naturally I needed to find a Cove in Memphis. I plugged common street names into a map randomly until Ash Creek Cove appeared, as did several others nearby. I didn’t know why Wikipedia singled-out Memphis though. Other coves appeared in Arkansas, Mississippi and Arizona before I got tired of looking for more.

I wish this suffix got greater use. I liked the image it evoked.

Lulworth cove. Photo by Alex; (CC BY-NC 2.0)
Lulworth Cove

A cul-de-sac resembled a perfectly formed cove, like Lulworth Cove (map) along the coast of Dorset, England. A cove offered refuge and safety, a nice analogy for a quiet suburban home away from traffic.


Court

Just What Is This Street Sign Trying To Convey? Photo by raider3_anime; (CC BY-NC 2.0)
Just What Is This Street Sign Trying To Convey?

I was most familiar with the use of Court as a suffix. I wondered if that sounded weird in other places, like Close and Cove sounded to me. Actually Court seemed so normal to me that I never even considered other possibilities until I stumbled upon Close.

That, of course, made me wonder why someone chose Court as a suffix for a street with a cul-de-sac or a dead end. The etymology supported it, though. It derived from Old French via Latin, for an “enclosed yard.” Over time it came to be applied to various enclosures, e.g., royalty (king’s court), government entities (court of law), or sports (tennis, basketball, etc.). A street closed at one end, using the same logic, could also be a Court.

I enjoyed the photo I found to represent the concept. Aspirations Court featured a Dead End marker — where aspirations went to die, perhaps? What were the sign makers in Modesto, California (map) thinking?

Comments

8 responses to “What the Cove?”

  1. Greg Avatar
    Greg

    What about Mews? IIRC, “mews” is another word for a stable; my old neighborhood in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, features two Mewses right next to each other: https://goo.gl/maps/J6StXjRTiqL2. As far as I know, that area no longer features a stable but it well could have in the past.

  2. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    I knew I had seen Close before somewhere around Atlanta, GA (my hometown). A bit of searching turned up this:
    https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hunters+Branch+Cl+NE,+Sandy+Springs,+GA+30328/@33.9460892,-84.3512386,18z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x88f50bf75f065141:0x66d4de61883e27c4!8m2!3d33.9460892!4d-84.3501443
    A Close that is not, by any normal use of the word, closed.

  3. John of Sydney Avatar
    John of Sydney

    While it’s a bit hard to list them there are many closes in Australia, it looks like they are in (relatively) newly developed areas. I live in an older part of Sydney so street names end in street, road, avenue, parade and place – there seems to be no pattern to the names.
    While looking I came across a site by Alan Waddell who in his 80s decided to walk every street in Sydney – this is at http://www.walksydneystreets.net – it’s really interesting.

  4. Peter Avatar

    Cul de Sac is also the name for a part of a woman’s anatomy, alternatively called the Pouch of Douglas.

    In my hometown in Connecticut there is a small street called Sunrise Nook. I always really liked that name.

  5. Joshua D Avatar
    Joshua D

    I have friends who live on Tennis Court in Brooklyn, NY which is only 2 blocks long and connects to streets at both ends:
    http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/40.64851/-73.96215

  6. Gary Avatar

    The street that I live on in Sanford, FL is called Groveview Way. Basically, the street is an apartment complex. The place that I live in has 5 numbers in the address, but it the building number and apartment number. As and example, 13213 would be Building 132, Apartment 13.

    https://www.google.com/maps/@28.7576093,-81.3073677,16.85z?hl=en

  7. Ben Avatar
    Ben

    This article is highly interesting to see my hometown, Memphis, called out. Growing up I can’t remember ever hearing the term “cul-de-sac” because all of these areas of neighborhoods were “coves”. One of my best friends as a kid lived on a cove. After becoming an adult and getting married to someone from a different state, was only when I realized that the cove designation wasn’t normal. My wife has poked fun at the name so I had to do some research, and this is what I found.

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