On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 22:32:47 -0700, BattMeals wrote:


a3.jpg shows part of a well-trimmed devil strip of the neighbor to the
right.

So, are you from Ohio? I used Google to look up the never-heard-before term "devil strip", and
found this:

http://www.word-detective.com/030600.html

Dear Word Detective: Recently, a friend said that she parked her car on the "devil strip" and
explained that this was the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the road. Can you tell me what
the origin of this term is? (She's from Ohio) -- Wendy Klepfer, via the internet.

Oh, well, there's your answer. People in (and from) Ohio are just plain weird. (I'm allowed to say
that because I happen to live in Ohio at the moment.) Ohio boggles the mind. Our local county
sheriff just got himself indicted by a grand jury on 323 felony charges, but steadfastly refuses to
stop running for re-election. And there's a good chance that he'll win. I think there's something in
the water around here.

What people call that strip between the street and the sidewalk turns out to depend on where they
live. When I was growing up in Connecticut, we called it the "shoulder," but other terms heard
around the U.S. include "tree bank" (common in Massachusetts), " berm," "right of way," "green
strip" and the logical, if unglamorous, "dog walking area."

According to The Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE), which pays close attention to such
local lingo, "devil strip" is heard almost exclusively in Northeastern Ohio, up around Akron. DARE
suggests that the term may arise from the strip's legal status as a sort of "no man's land" between
public and private property.

"Devil" occurs in many such folk terms, applied to plants, animals, places and things, usually those
considered dangerous or unattractive, and the sense of "devil" when found in place names is often
"barren, unproductive and unused." DARE notes a similar term "devil's lane," first appearing around
1872, meaning the unusable strip of land between two parallel fences, often the result of neighbors
being unable to agree on a common fence. And another term, "devil's footstep," dates back to around
1860 and means "a spot of barren ground." So it's not surprising that a strip of land next to the
street, unusable by anyone, would be christened the "devil strip." In fact, for Ohio, it's downright
logical.