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Win by a street

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stormin | 13:22 Sun 19th Feb 2006 | Phrases & Sayings
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Which game gave us the expression "to win by a street"?
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Monopoly?
The idea of 'street' representing a wide margin...as in 'streets ahead', 'streets better' and so on...dates back to the 19th century. The earliest recorded use of the phrase 'won by a street' appeared in The Times in 1962 as part of a report on a match of some sort. It read: 'Oxford could have won by a street by half time.' Clearly, therefore, it would seem to have been a football/rugby match.
I think this term dates back to when the earlist forms of football were played. they used a pigs bladder as a ball [during the Frwnch revolution a more grizzly ball was a human head !. There were 2 teams of many people up to 50 in some games and the test was for one team to get the ball from thier end of town to the opponents end of town. It has been reported that numerous deaths ocurred during these'games' The winners were literally 'Streets' ahead of their rivals

I've known such phrases attributed to the card game Cribbage. A Cribbage board has lines of holes into which you stick small pegs to keep a tally of your score as you play. A normal game involves pegging down, up and down again to a total of ninety points. Then you must "peg out" with ninety-one points to win. You can peg out by scoring more but if you score exactly ninety-one, you have "died in the hole".


Each line of holes is known as a street. If you're "in the same street" players are no more than thirty points apart but you can then "win by a street" if your opponent is more than thirty points behind you at the end.


This is all well and good but it's rare to find yourself or your opponent, for that matter, actually "streets" ahead.

thats easy man!!


need for speed most wanted!!!!!!!!!

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