Talk:Lawn
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In the criticisms sections, it's wrong to say that they filter groundwater, because those who criticize lawns aren't comparing them to dirt lots, they're comparing them to unmanaged grassland. ASWilson 22:17, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
can anybody provide a link to statistics quantifying how many lawns there are, or better still, how much labor and materials go into lawns? It seems like it is on the scale of the Apollo Program!
History of Lawns: Bocce
I read this in an article of a streetwise newspaper in Nov. 07: The predecessor of Bocce was a game in Egypt (where you roll a ball as close as you can to a target), was picked up by Greece, then was picked up by the Romans, who spread it through Europe, which was then later a favorite of the English aristocracy. But Bocce was originally a game played with balls on clay or sand, and the English had no such land, so they made close cut grass to play their game, which later became "bowling" from the french word for ball (boule I think). And from there, close cut grass for games became a thing of the rich Europeans (~1600s), and then became the modern lawn of the U.S. today. If you go to China or India or whereever, lawns as they are here are not a common thing - but are more common now than they were before because of westernization. So it's interesting that lawns really are cultural, and trace their roots back to the game Bocce. In fact, before the 1600s or so (think Feudal Europe) noone even cared about lawns, so they're actually a relatively recent thing historically in culture.Ashi Starshade (talk) 22:55, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Grass is Greener?
I commented out a section on the page today offering to explain the "grass is always greener" idiom. I was skeptical about it and the little diagram (which I otherwise enjoyed) didn't win me over. Could we get some sort of reference supporting this claim from a popular science publication of some sort? --Blick 20:15, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
- It is the explanation I've always heard. I don't have any references to hand to cite, though - MPF 11:44, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
- I could not find a scientific reference, but WIKI itself has the "grass" in the List_of_idioms_in_the_English_language - but I think that leaving the drawing in (along with comments here) might eventually get us a reference better. Pls undo my edits if you don't agree - Hulkster 04:02, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
- I'm not only sceptical, but fairly convinced of the oposite: that the idiom doesn't draw from a fact.
- I highly doubt that the origins of this idiom are as elaborate as proposed. Grass usually covers the ground below very well so the block representation isn't very realistic. Even snug lawns (typical of Britain) usually have good soil coverage.
- More likely, the idiom is simply a paralell to the human trait of baseless feelings of inferiority to others. --Swift 20:11, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
vs. bare dirt
One positive benefit of a healthy lawn is that of a filter for contaminants and to prevent run-off and erosion of bare dirt.
In comparison to bare dirt, a lawn may be 20 degrees cooler on a hot day...
Well it is usually not true that if there were no lawn, there would just be bare dirt! You must also compare the natural vegetation. P.S., degrees C or F? Jidanni 19:41, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Globalize tag
Agreed the page has a strong US slant which needs to be addressed. The ext links in particular all had a strong US east coast POV (not even valid for the whole US, let alone the rest of the world), so I've removed them as being unhelpful. - MPF 11:44, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
- Near a year is enough for this tag hanger to have fixed the deficiencies he objects too. Removing today. // FrankB 19:07, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Sure don't see many lawns in Asia, where most of the world's people live. Perhaps add a table of lawn lunacy intensity per country. Jidanni 04:48, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Global warming
Do mention lawns' role in global warming and their carbon footprint. Jidanni 04:51, 22 September 2007 (UTC)