Oh dear, I think I need a clue or two although I think I have an idea for turnpike.

Annette

Me too. A clue, a clue,please.

Did highway have something to do with actually being raised above the surrounding ground for drainage? That's all I can come up with - an engineering view.

TM

Also waiting for clues. Too wet for much gardening though may do some deadheading.

The main reason I chose this was because we were watching the BBC last evening. The show on D-Day ended and a discussion of this came on. I think it was just a brief filler between real shows.

Sorry, TM, not due to a raised roadway.

Cynthia

OK, another thought: would this have anything to do with kings, as in, His Royal Highness? Just thinking out loud here.

TM

Hmmm, maybe so now that I think of it, TM. Bet both terms come from the same origin.

Not that it is the most important thing, but I have almost finished washing all my woolens. Then, on to quilts...hope the washer holds out. It has been running since 7:30 this morning.

Cynthia

What about turnpike? I believe a pike used to be a type of spear, but I'll bet that has nothing to do with turnpike, does it?

I think I've heard the word pike used to refer to a road.

Then there's the northern pike (fish) that are common around here.

Hmmm.

TM

Hey, I just looked up northern pike and found that it got its name because it is a long and narrow fish, sort of like the pike that is a weapon.

For the record, I certainly did not look up turnpike or highway. :-) We do have standards around here.

So, I didn't advance the cause here at all, but I did learn something.

TM

TM, how clever of you! That is a great clue! I have been concentrating on the main part of the question rather than going from one to the other for you. Completely forgot to give clues for turnpike! Not focused. Sorry.

So, can you take your thought a step further along the road perhaps? Did you know that toll roads and turnpike roads are the same thing?

Cynthia

The only thing that comes to mind is the song ....you take the highway and I'll take the low way and I'll be in Scotland before ye...
Maybe woolens are a clue for Scotland.

Doesn't pike also refer to a large pin/nail used with railroads?

Toll roads and turnpike...how about a long pole that went across the road that one had to pay and then it was turned up or to the right or left?

Sorry to lead you astray, Bobbie. Not Scotland so much, but definitely Great Britain or England. Woolens just seemed to fit and I expect the Scots used this terms just as the English did. Many a High street in towns and cities.

TM was almost there. Bet there are lots of pikes swimming around the waters up there. Not just one alone. Do they travel in groups?

Cynthia

I'm picturing a guard with a pike at the toll booth, turning the pike aside after the traveler paid the toll. It's a lot like what Bobbie is thinking, I guess.

Bobbie, I've heard of big nails being referred to as spikes. Pikes? I dunno.

TM

turnpikes make me think tolls, highways...main roads?

Annette

I fear Nancy has been busy all day with complaining cable customers.

I will hold off a bit with stars. If not tonight, tomorrow after school.
You are all close enough! :)

Cynthia

Bobbie - I've been singing that song since i saw the clue - not sure what that means though. I think in the song the highroad is life and lowroad is death - not 100% certain though.
I think turn pike is a short form, but for what eludes my little brain.....

Nancy.

Ha, ha, TM, I think you are right about spikes! Somehow I got Pike's Peak and the golden spike muddled in my head.

Is High Street like our Main Street, the main or major roadway or street?

TM, Northerns, as we called them in our area of SD, were a welcome fish on our plates. A group of fish is a school, don't see how that fits.

As a kid I pictured one fella walking on a high road and another fellow a ways bellow him walking on the low road, parallel roads. Couldn't see how that made any sense.

As you can see I am trying to put clues together as I have no idea.

Well, let's see...
Nancy, you get two stars for knowing the proper reference in the song (high road/low road).

Three stars for Annette, TM, and Bobbie, who either got one or very close to both.

The first explanation is from Michael Quinion World Wide Words and the highway definition is from Online Etymology Dictionary.

The original turnpikes ��" dating from the fifteenth century ��" were indeed spiked barriers, but they were designed to be placed across roads to prevent sudden attack by men on horseback. Later ones were horizontal timbers fitted with spikes, a version of what is called a cheval de frise, but the Oxford English Dictionary suggests that the mounting timbers of the originals may have been vertical, since a slightly later sense was of a horizontal cross of timbers turning on a vertical pin, set up to exclude horse-traffic from a footpath, which is in essence the device we now call a turnstile.
The word itself doesnâÂÂt come from turning spikes, but from turn and pike, the latter in the old sense of an infantry weapon with a pointed steel or iron head on a long wooden shaft. ItâÂÂs the inclusion of turn here that suggests the pikes were the barrier, which could be turned aside about a vertical pivot to allow access.
From the middle of the seventeenth century onwards, many new toll roads were created in various parts of Britain through acts of Parliament. They were run by trusts, the tolls supposedly being put towards the cost of maintenance. Early toll gates were modelled on the old turnpike barriers and so the roads became known as turnpike roads, later shortened to just turnpikes.

highway (n.)
Old English heahweg "main road from one town to another;" see high (adj.) in sense of "main" + way (n.). High street (Old English heahstræte) was the word before 17c. applied to highways and main roads, whether in the country or town, especially one of the Roman roads. In more recent usage, it generally is the proper name of the street of a town which is built upon a highway and was the principal street of the place.

So, Main Street and High Street are different terms for the same thing and that also became the generic term for those main roads which take us from one town to another.

Thanks for playing. Hope you all have a wonderful week. I finally broke down and turned on the air conditioning-it's going to be too hot to sleep without it tonight! I am off to help the kids plant a new border garden (only about a foot wide space, unfortunately). Need to dig up a couple of my hostas for them. Hope we bought enough on Friday to fill in between the perennials with annuals.

Cynthia

And here are yours,
Nancy.

Oh so beautiful!! Thanks Cyn.

Nancy.

Beautiful "stars". Amazed I got any.

Thanks for the fun, Cynthia.

Now we know! Fun information, Cynthia. Thanks for digging it up for us and coming up with such clever stars. You and Nancy are getting so creative.

TM

Well I was in the ballpark :), great question, another fun weekend, thanks you two.

Annette

Oh so beautiful!! Thanks Cyn.

Nancy.