This is for those who don't have English as mother tongue or don't live in America or UK.
I had to look for the term "turnpike road" because of the post below since Jane Austen's character says that it was one of the advantages of the "nice old-fashioned place" she describes.
Wikipedia:
"A toll road (also tollway, turnpike, toll highway, or express toll route) is a privately or publicly built road for which a driver pays a toll (a fee) for use. Structures for which tolls are charged include toll bridges and toll tunnels. Non-toll roads are financed using other sources of revenue, most typically fuel tax or general tax funds."
"The privately built Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Road was the first important turnpike and the first long-distance broken-stone and gravel surface built in America according to formal plans and specifications. The road's construction marked the beginning of organized road improvement after the long period of economic confusion following the American Revolution." (...)The Spread Eagle Tavern is shown as it appeared in 1795.
Source; here.
Now we know!
Now we know!
I hope more turnpike roads appear in the book to make me feel proud I have a fully understanding of what it's meaning. Usually we pretend we already knew it when we are in our twenties and, from time to time, this artifice is necessary if the person we are talking to is very full of themselves and put in disbelief those who are bold enough to say: "I don't know what it is."
