Okay, so we Brits aren't much better as we call the place you park your car at your home "the drive"....BUT
Why do you guys call the place you park "the driveway" and the place you drive "the parkway"?
I'm not sure how serious this question is, but....
"Parkway" isn't commonly used anymore, at least not as a generic term. Depending on the region of the US, "highway" or "freeway" would be the default option. "Parkway" is used almost exclusively to refer to a specific road, usually an old one built and named in the 1920s-40s. In the New York City area, for example, there's the Belt Parkway, the Merritt Parkway, and the Garden State Parkway.
The early limited-access roadways had no stressful intersections, so "Sunday drivers" began to make aimless driving a new national pastime in that era. The original concept of these roads was to maximize the pleasantness of the driving experience -- choosing a route that meandered through the countryside, laying the asphalt in gentle curves for a changing perspective behind the wheel, and orienting the roadway toward special areas of natural beauty, especially those "scenic vistas" that could be appreciated from a moving car... For new drivers coming out of industrial areas, I'm sure the name "parkway" made perfect sense.
"Driveway" is a word that used to have an obvious, literal meaning. But the logical connection has been sapped away over the years; mostly, IMHO, because of a gradual shift in the social norms relating to car ownership.
Back in olden times, if you lived in the kind of middle-class suburban area where each house had a garages, you were expected to park in it at night -- to
drive up from the street to the garage along the
driveway. Nowadays, there's no longer the same kind of stigma, so people are obviously inclined to just use the garage for storage and park in the driveway.
Lol
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