LogFAQs > #947222375

TomNook posted...

I think a motor seems to be the main thing that turns something into Drive.

Because you ride a bike, you ride a skateboard, you ride a sled, you ride a horse. Even though you are capable of steering them, the motor is what makes things like driving a car, driving a motorcycle, driving a forklift, etc.

The one that stands out from the examples as being different is the horse carriage, but that's more of a different definition of drive, and could be more closely related to driving a nail into a piece of wood.

People would probably object to saying you "drive" an airplane, even though that's not really different than driving a car. I suppose I can allow that driving a carriage or driving sled dogs is a different manner of "drive" than driving a vehicle and shouldn't really count, but even then, you're just adding one more qualification to the still pretty unambiguous term, and motorcycles cleanly fall well inside either definition

My heuristic justifying my definition is basically "how confused would I be if somebody used the term in real life".

• "Drive a car". Perfectly fine, obviously
• "Drive a motorcycle". Equally fine
• "Drive a skateboard". A little weird, but whatever
• "Drive a treadmill". You're smoking crack

and i think the topic in general wants to imply that you "ride" something only if you don't "drive" it?

---

You shine, and make others shine just by being near them.