From: Don (email) (web)

Question: Why do you drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?

Answer:

I remember seeing this in one of those imponderable books, though I can't recall which. I'm pretty sure I remember the answer, but I might just be making this up. Regardless, here goes.

The "park" in parkway is not a verb. It's a noun, like the sort of park with trees and grass. A parkway is a landscaped highway, usually divided with greenery in the median -- a park of sorts, though I wouldn't want to picnic on it.

Driveways were conceived as a connection between road and garage. You drive over them to get to your garage. Thus, they are driveways. Nowadays, this seems less the case, but originally, that's how it was.

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