‘What are the normal definitions of "road" and "street"?’
The wikipedia article gp linked and I quoted says that street is another word for road and is usually used for paved roads. I’d say that that is consistent with how i’ve seen people use those words.
And of course using words as they are commonly used doesn’t make people bad or stupid. Similarly, using a non-standard definition of a word in some narrow setting doesn’t make the people doing that bad or stupid. But it’s silly for people in that latter group to behave as if the definition they’ve made up is the REAL one that other people just don’t know about.
ETA: I don’t think I have a word for what they’re calling “streets.” Which makes sense; I’m sure if there were an existing word for this, urban planners would just use that instead of repurposing “street.” If it were up to me, I probably would have chosen a different word, since this usage is so at odds with the norm, but I don’t think it matters much as long as the usage is consistent within the discipline itself.
The wikipedia article gp linked and I quoted says that street is another word for road and is usually used for paved roads. I’d say that that is consistent with how i’ve seen people use those words.
And of course using words as they are commonly used doesn’t make people bad or stupid. Similarly, using a non-standard definition of a word in some narrow setting doesn’t make the people doing that bad or stupid. But it’s silly for people in that latter group to behave as if the definition they’ve made up is the REAL one that other people just don’t know about.
ETA: I don’t think I have a word for what they’re calling “streets.” Which makes sense; I’m sure if there were an existing word for this, urban planners would just use that instead of repurposing “street.” If it were up to me, I probably would have chosen a different word, since this usage is so at odds with the norm, but I don’t think it matters much as long as the usage is consistent within the discipline itself.