Althouse: Why did the crow cross the road?

June 12, 2024

Why did the crow cross the road?

(Video by Meade.)

53 comments:

Jamie said...: I was walking in my parents' neighborhood last week, a close, older suburb of Sacramento. I rounded a corner and - chickens! Several of them! Crossing the road!

I fumbled for my phone and managed to get a still of the last one to cross just before she hopped up into the curb. So of course I sent it to my kids with the same question.; 6/12/24, 7:25 AM
Rusty said...: To steal a car. I like crows. They are very smart and have good memories.; 6/12/24, 7:25 AM
Temujin said...: Crows are nasty, tough, and smart. And a murder of crows can do amazing things. This one crow crossed the road because he/she is a tough m**********r and he/she could. Period. Crows don't need no stinkin' badge to cross the road.; 6/12/24, 7:26 AM
Wilbur said...: Because she wanted to lay it on the line.

Crows are indeed badass. They show very little fear of homo sapiens, and last week on the golf course I saw a couple of them take over the nest of some eco-protected ground owls - who are aggressive SOBs too if you venture too close. The owls just sat there and watched them.; 6/12/24, 7:35 AM
rhhardin said...: Crows in Japan are looking for victims to mug for food handouts.; 6/12/24, 7:35 AM
ganderson said...: Question, although I can’t really see from the video if there is one; what do Madisonians call the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street? Growing up in St. Paul we called it “the boulevard”. Dad would leave for work in the summer and say, “cut the grass today, and don’t forget the boulevard!”.; 6/12/24, 7:37 AM
Big Mike said...: To take a crap in the middle of the street.; 6/12/24, 7:40 AM
Wince said...: "It's just a theory that I happen to agree with."; 6/12/24, 7:47 AM
traditionalguy said...: Maybe that is one of the new MTG CROW models. It’s an aggressive unit.; 6/12/24, 7:49 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Big Mike got the correct answer.; 6/12/24, 7:56 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Question, although I can’t really see from the video if there is one; what do Madisonians call the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street? Growing up in St. Paul we called it “the boulevard”. Dad would leave for work in the summer and say, “cut the grass today, and don’t forget the boulevard!”."

I think I blogged about that somewhere in the archive.

Around here it's called the "terrace."

I grew up in Delaware, where it was called the "extension."; 6/12/24, 7:58 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Found it, here, from the second month of this blog:

"What do you call ...? I like this dialect survey (recommended by Andrew Sullivan).

""What do you call the area of grass between the sidewalk and the road?" Lots of names for that, I see now, but where I come from it was called the "extension," which is apparently an even more minor term than "terrace," which they call it here in Madison.

"It's too late to participate in the survey, but you can get an assessment of your regional tendency by taking a quiz here. I came out 43% Yankee on the quiz, which is probably a pretty accurate way to describe someone who started in northern Delaware (Newark and Wilmington)(and had a Delaware father), spent her teens in northern New Jersey (Wayne), lived 5 years in Michigan (and had a Michigan mother), 10 years in New York City, and, having reached the age of dialect impermeability, 20 years in Wisconsin."; 6/12/24, 7:59 AM
Ralph L said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/12/24, 7:59 AM
imTay said...: That car must look pretty sexy to a crow; 6/12/24, 8:01 AM
imTay said...: I have a theory that it’s called a murder of crows because you would maybe see a small flock of crows around the body if you came upon a murder scene when traveling on horse or foot on a road in the “olden days,” as we used to call them in the old days. This lead to the ersatz creation of names for other groups of like creatures that had far less basis.; 6/12/24, 8:09 AM
J L Oliver said...: That crow was very interested in the shiny black car. Jumped on the tree lawn from there.; 6/12/24, 8:10 AM
Ralph L said...: Ganderson, International Road Verge terminology

This the second time in a couple of days that the wrong video came up in an Althouse post until I refreshed the page a second time. A Biden commercial appeared the first time; 6/12/24, 8:11 AM
mezzrow said...: So, when I travel "as the crow flies" I get to take a dump when I reach the halfway mark?

Noted.; 6/12/24, 8:28 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Ganderson, International Road Verge terminology"

Interesting that the word I knew from childhood — "extension" — is listed as from Ann Arbor, Michigan. That is where my mother grew up. I grew up in Delaware and maybe I'm just assuming that the word I heard was what was said where I lived. It's possible that I understood that word solely through my mother.; 6/12/24, 8:31 AM
Kate said...: I've owned chickens. I recognized that little pause with a tail contraction.

That's just random business, though. The crow wanted a look at the shiny Mercedes.; 6/12/24, 8:34 AM
Big Mike said...: @Althouse, my son and his wife have two parrots and the wife and I feed wild birds on our deck. I recognized the signs of a bird emptying its cloaca.; 6/12/24, 8:45 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Why did the crow cross the road?

To transition to a chicken.; 6/12/24, 8:48 AM
Curious George said...: "ganderson said...
Question, although I can’t really see from the video if there is one; what do Madisonians call the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street? Growing up in St. Paul we called it “the boulevard”. Dad would leave for work in the summer and say, “cut the grass today, and don’t forget the boulevard!”.

We called it a "tree lawn" in our Chicago suburb. And I see commenter J L Oliver does too.

J L Oliver said...
That crow was very interested in the shiny black car. Jumped on the tree lawn from there.

I think it comes from from the common practice of cities planting trees there.; 6/12/24, 9:07 AM
RCOCEAN II said...: I dont know what to call that strip, because no one in my entire life has talked about it. Of course, out West people either didn't put that extra stip of grass in, or its responsiblity of the city to mow.

I have yet to see a crow who was run over by a car. They seem to be very saavy about traffic, unlike other birds.; 6/12/24, 9:10 AM
Leland said...: Crows like Mercedes. Don't judge.; 6/12/24, 9:11 AM
Rocco said...: ganderson said...
“Dad would leave for work in the summer and say, ‘cut the grass today, and don’t forget the boulevard!’”

I think he was subtly tell you to go play in traffic. :)

And we call it the berm here.; 6/12/24, 9:15 AM
David53 said...: I've lived in Texas most of my life and have never heard a specific word for that strip. It's just the part of your front yard where the neighbor's dog is most likely to crap.; 6/12/24, 9:23 AM
Yancey Ward said...: That is where the dead squirrels usually are- the road.; 6/12/24, 9:33 AM
RCOCEAN II said...: Why Geese and Ducks are always crapping all over the place, and crows seem to be discrete by comparison is a good question for vets or animal biologists.; 6/12/24, 9:33 AM
wendybar said...: Never heard the strip of grass called anything...looked it up, and decided that I like Besidewalk!!

https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/road-verge-terms-37038231; 6/12/24, 9:36 AM
Rusty said...: We called it "the parkway" growing up. I've heard it referred to "the verge" and "the curbway".; 6/12/24, 9:38 AM
Travis said...: A few years ago I was driving through my hometown of Idaho Springs, Colorado, and a crow was crossing the street in front of me in the crosswalk. Needless to say I yielded to the corvid pedestrian.; 6/12/24, 10:13 AM
Oligonicella said...: RCOCEAN II:
I have yet to see a crow who was run over by a car. They seem to be very saavy about traffic, unlike other birds.

Yes and no. The vultures are pretty road savvy as well and seem to have a couple hundred foot radar.

Around here, I've seen more than a couple pull road kill off to the side.; 6/12/24, 10:19 AM
Oligonicella said...: Some people think crows are aggressive. GEESE are aggressive. Canadian geese seem to enjoy protection for some reason. You aren't even allowed to defend yourself. When I contracted in RI, they would attack pretty much anyone. The rules never stopped me from slapping one that attacked and no one even looked twice when I did.

You gotta catch me.; 6/12/24, 10:25 AM
Smilin' Jack said...: “Aha! A nice shiny clean car. I know how to fix that!”; 6/12/24, 10:31 AM
imTay said...: It’s killing me because I know we had a word for that stretch of grass, because my dad used it when he told me to mow it, but it’s not one of these words so far.

I live around crows and ravens. I hear them all the time, I have never found them bothersome in any way. The chickadees crap all over the place, so do the wrens, and if the robins weren’t constantly on patrol for ticks in the lawn, I might be out there with a pellet gun the way they foul the sidewalk and the porch steps, and build nests in the hanging plants, or the rafters of the pole shed, highly concentrating their waste droppings. But crows? Good neighbors in my book, maybe urban crows are different.; 6/12/24, 10:44 AM
Josephbleau said...: “Around here it's called the "terrace."

I grew up in Delaware, where it was called the "extension."”

It is called the “tree plat” if you are a surveyor.; 6/12/24, 10:47 AM
RCOCEAN II said...: The way to handle overly-aggressive geese or gooses is to grab the Alpha Goose by the neck and twirl them around a couple times. Usually they back off after that.; 6/12/24, 10:47 AM
FWBuff said...: We have a murder of crows that started hanging out in our cul-de-sac a couple of years ago. They're fun to watch, and more importantly they ran off the yellow-crested night herons that nested in the live-oak trees on our block. Crow poop is nothing compared to heron poop!

Also, in Fort Worth we call the grassy strip the "parkway".; 6/12/24, 10:51 AM
imTay said...: The hunters around here took great pride in killing off the coy dogs, because, you know, they killed deer. Good! A point in their favor! Deer are just goats with the same appetites but fancy horns. And now that I no longer hear their yips and howls at night, the resident geese are starting to appear in places. Non-migratory geese should not be protected by the Migratory Bird treaty.; 6/12/24, 10:52 AM
Rory said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/12/24, 11:18 AM
PM said...: 1. The 'strip' at our house in LA.
2. Crows will put a hard nut on the street and wait for a car to run over it. Lunch.; 6/12/24, 11:20 AM
ganderson said...: I took that NY Times dialect quiz once. It came back “Minneapolis/St. Paul”. My wife registered as “Northern New Jersey”, which makes sense as she grew up in North Caldwell, right next door to you in Wayne, Ann.; 6/12/24, 11:20 AM
Joe Smith said...: To go to a rave?; 6/12/24, 11:21 AM
mikee said...: I disagree that the crow crossed the street to take a crap in the middle. There is a nice Mercedes, all clean and shiny, right there at the curb and available for crapping upon by any Crow so inclined or in need.; 6/12/24, 11:23 AM
Lyle Sanford, RMT said...: Nice!!!!!!! And the ambient sound is great.; 6/12/24, 11:54 AM
Narr said...: "Neutral strip."; 6/12/24, 11:54 AM
Art in LA said...: Not a raven? I always have a tough time telling ravens and crows apart ...; 6/12/24, 12:43 PM
n.n said...: To caw-caw on the other side.; 6/12/24, 1:10 PM
Oligonicella said...: Art in LA:
Not a raven? I always have a tough time telling ravens and crows apart ...

Same genus (Corvus), different set of species. "There is no consistent distinction between crows and ravens, and names are assigned to different species chiefly based on their size."

So.... small wonder you have a tough time of it.; 6/12/24, 4:06 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: My experience is Ravens is they are less "Mouthy" than Crows and have a deeper voice. They are also bigger.; 6/12/24, 4:55 PM
Aggie said...: @Big Mike said: " To take a crap in the middle of the street."

Non, non mon ami. Ze crow is starting his own multi-colored cross walk. Do not sully the work of Le Artiste !; 6/12/24, 5:29 PM
imTay said...: We might have called it the swale. I remember moving to another state that used swale to mean something different, and I reacted to it when I heard it, but I think I lived in that other state so long that the word got contaminated in my mind.; 6/12/24, 7:05 PM