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H-Shear: It seems likely that the Washington Mall derived from The Mall in London. The Mall is now a grand boulevard, closed to public traffic on state occasions etc. But the origin of the word suggests a very different era and ambience. The following note from my colleague, Richard Coates, Professor of Linguistics and expert on place names, should be of interest. "Pall Mall was the name of a prototypical form of croquet, and the London name commemorates an alley for playing it (mid-c17, though hardly, I should have thought, during the Commonwealth). The Mall is a new pall-mall alley built by Charles II. It isn't clear to me why the word should have been segmented in such a way as to treat _mall_ as a generic. Richard." See for instance Adrian Room (1992) The street-names of England. Paul Watkins, Stamford. I would be interested to know more from historians of Washington DC. Colin Brooks -- Colin Brooks, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Vice Chancellor's Office, Sussex House, University of Sussex, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 9RH, England. Tel: +44-1273-678903 Fax: +44-1273-678254 NETWORK ADDRESS: C.Brooks@sussex.ac.uk
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