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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think people are stupid!

89 replies

freshcleanair · 24/01/2016 11:22

Since moving into a new house this has happened so many times!

I live in a village. It's small but clearly has its own 'identity'. Own train station, high street, church and park. I will call it willton.

Next to the village is a slightly (very slightly) bigger one. This also has a train station high street and church and park. I will call it ellsborough.

I live opposite the train station in willton.

Every time I order a taxi or a pizza or have a new tradesperson coming - they go to ellsborough.

WHY??

OP posts:

Pipbin · 25/01/2016 18:51

I might well be wrong but to say that I am wrong because I spend all day glued to American tv is condescending.
And I'm 40, does that count as young?

hazelnutlatte · 25/01/2016 18:51

And I have always said train station not railway station

hazelnutlatte · 25/01/2016 18:53

According to Wikipedia, the term 'train station' is often misconceived as being an Americanism when it is as common as railway station in written English

honeyroar · 25/01/2016 18:58

Delivery companies miss our house a lot. Our single track rural lane is a mile long and the 20 houses on it share a postcode, yet if you put that postcode into a satnav it sends you half a mile up the road. Even though we always tell them we're the first house they always drive past and ring up when they're lost. Some of these companies and drivers have been many times before. So yes I think they're a bit stupid!

ouryve · 25/01/2016 19:08

We live on X road in our village. It's a long road. It's also unconventionally numbered - up one side and down the other, instead of odd/even. Delivery drivers drive up and down looking for houses because they can't work out where, say, number 84 is. To complicate matters more, number 84 is on the side that often pops up on satnags as 84 X Road South. I also live on the south side, of the road, so drivers tend to look quite harrassed by the time they arrive and ask if they have the right house.

To complicate matters more, both sides have a long back lane. Our front doors are on the main road, but the houses opposite have their front doors on the back lane. So I often get confused drivers wondering if I can take parcels for across the road because they can't work out how to get in through the usually locked back garden!

Theoretician · 25/01/2016 19:26

as soon as I say I live opposite willton train station people go pootling off to the other village

So you now know that it is you that is causing the problem. If you simply gave your address as it appears in the post office database, the problem would not happen. (The post office database is what you see every time you go to a web site that allows you to put in your post code then choose your address within that code.)

Theoretician · 25/01/2016 19:29

As I read this wikipedia article, Earlestown is a subset (area within) Newton-le-Willows.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton-le-Willows#Two_town_centres

Pseudonym99 · 25/01/2016 19:34

Because Wikipedia is written by the same people who sit and watch American telly all day.

Pipbin · 25/01/2016 19:57

Pseud, I say train station, I don't watch American television all day and neither, at 40, am I young.

Trills · 25/01/2016 20:09

Nothing wrong with "train station".

Trills · 25/01/2016 20:16

If you look at Google ngram viewer (which is a lot of fun) you can look at the frequency of words and phrases in all the books that Google has scanned.

Railway station used to be the only phrase in both British English and American English.

Train station is relatively recent in both the US and the UK, starting to be visible in the 1960s.

In the US, train station has now (by 2000) overtaken railway station, whereas in the UK railway station is still marginally more used.

peckforton · 25/01/2016 20:23

I would say Newton le Willows rather than just Newton and name the pub or that car sales place near the station. Even though the two places run into one another they are actually two distinct places. Although when I have told people we use the vets in Newton they always name the one in Earlestown.
Newton has a very distinct village centre as it is much more ancient than Earlestown.

bakeoffcake · 25/01/2016 20:35

Nobody uses trains in American.
They all drive or use buses, so why would they be talking about them on American TV?

Rather a stupid assumption to think that's where we get the term "train station" from.

MeanwhileHighAboveTheField · 25/01/2016 20:58

Yes people are stupid. A delivery driver saw me coming out of our lane if there was a house called "the willows" down the lane. I had to confess I had no idea - there are only 4 houses in the lane and I walk along it several times a day and have lived here for 8 years. And yes, next time I walked down our lane there is indeed a huge"the willows" sign on one of the gates. You see, people are stupid

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