History
Beginning about 1,000 years ago the word "high" evolved into a term also referring to excellence or superior rank ("high sheriff", "high society"). "High" also applied to roads as they improved; "highway" emerged during the 17th century to replace "high street", and "High Street" began to be used to describe thoroughfares with significant retail areas in villages and towns.
In recent years, although "High Street" is still used to refer to commerce shopping has begun to shift to purpose-built out-of-town shopping centres and supermarkets. However, compared to the United States town and city-centre shopping remains widespread. The town centre in many larger British towns combines a group of outdoor shopping streets (one or more of which may be pedestrianised), with an adjacent indoor shopping centre. The presence of chain stores on High Streets in settlements around the UK is part of the clone town theory, which has among its concerns the loss of "sociability" offered by traditional shopping. "The demise of the small shop would mean that people will not just be disadvantaged in their role as consumers but also as members of communities – the erosion of small shops is viewed as the erosion of the 'social glue' that binds communities together, entrenching social exclusion in the UK."
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“To summarize the contentions of this paper then. Firstly, the phrase ‘the meaning of a word’ is a spurious phrase. Secondly and consequently, a re-examination is needed of phrases like the two which I discuss, ‘being a part of the meaning of’ and ‘having the same meaning.’ On these matters, dogmatists require prodding: although history indeed suggests that it may sometimes be better to let sleeping dogmatists lie.”
—J.L. (John Langshaw)
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.”
—Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929)