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[Tabbyman]

What reason would we have had to have lawns up until we had herded animals that ate grass? Then we walked around on their field and thought, hey, this stuff's nice to walk on...

Eventually, humankind parted to an extent with its close relationship to cows, but thousands of years of having lawns drove us to invent a grass chewing machine, resulting not in meat and milk but in petroleum dependency and the temptation to buy chemical fertilizers for a lawn that would have gotten pooped on and mowed by the same animal.

Goats are also an option, but I have a feeling we first came to follow the cow around. Just based on something the guy in my avatar talked about (monkeys following cows for a particular reason...). Maybe horses and sheep and goats and donkeys and antelopes and deers etc etc all had lawns we weren't aware of, but if we first met the cow, the cow gave us the idea.

I was always puzzed, why do we have lawns? When did we come to desire a surface of shortened grass? I can't imagine crawling around with shears or a sickle trying to cut a lawn, so anything before the lawnmower made no sense...

Until I thought of cows. And now that I really think about it, I think the stereotypical suburb may have been the source of this funny lawn thing we do, if the suburbs were a way to attract former rural citizens to the city life (a bridge between rural and urban), at which point someone must have invented a lawn mower just to make sure these people had their familiar chewed grass to walk on, without the cow.

Just a thought, not really meant to be serious.

Any other ideas as to why we have lawns?

PS: Mmmmm banana. Back to my monkey roots.

[Loud Whispers]

LAWNS KILL BEES

[Tabbyman]

LAWNS KILL BEES

I just googled that phrase and found nothing. Congratulations, those three words in that order have never been typed into the googleable internet before! Until now.

[optimumtact]

Heh, we still use cows to mow our lawns, saves me having to do it!

I feel like the lawn probably came out of old english nobility, where being able to keep your grounds in absolute tip top order was probably a sign of someone who was wealthy enough to afford many servants. That would be my best guess.

[Frumple]

Re: why lawns: We have cut lawns nowadays to cut down on vermin issues (particularly re: snakes -- an overgrown yard in some places can be damn dangerous -- but there's some other critters it helps with, too.) and reduce fire hazards in crowded areas. S'not just aesthetics. Can depend on how high grass/undergrowth normally gets for your area, though.

[kaijyuu]

I'll just put down some cement and paint it green.

[Jervill]

Or just put down some astroturf.

[Yoink]

Cutting the lawn is a true excercise in utter futility. Something poetic about that, I'm sure.
Kinda like sweeping and mopping.

E: And bathing.

[kaijyuu]

Everything's futile on long enough time scales. But not on shorter ones.

So please, take a shower.

[kaenneth]

Last I heard, Lawns originated in Scotland, as an effect of smaller grazing animals; large animals, like cows churn the earth too much to leave more than mud in damp climates.

On a related note, 'Court's as in law are derived from Courtyards, the enclosed garden areas where nobles would hold audience with the public, and mediate disputes, etc.

[Loud Whispers]

LAWNS KILL BEES

I just googled that phrase and found nothing. Congratulations, those three words in that order have never been typed into the googleable internet before! Until now.

Honoured. Although I mean what I say, in that since most owners of lawns have a vengeance with weeds (specifically flowering ones), bees end up starving... To quote : "A green desert."

[Heliman]

Welcome to the science of quantum status symbols, AKA "culture." To your left you will find fashion and the daily concept of beauty, and over on the right is that thing that's like, SO last week.

Culture doesn't make alot of sense.

[scriver]

Problem: Animals did not graze around the houses unless they lived in cities. A more likely theory (that I just made up without any basis whatsoever :P) is that it is a cultural leftover behavior that originally oriented in people chopping down and flatting the area around their homes so that they'd get less ticks/parasites, so other animals like spiders, snakes and other poisonous or dangerous critters wouldn't want to lurk nearby as much (and make it less likely to step on things you don't want to step on in general), so predators wouldn't he able to sneak up on the small farm animals (like fowl), so that tools wouldn't be lost upon accidental dropage, so fires would have more trouble getting hold, and so on.

[Knight of Fools]

In places not blessed with lawn mowers and the like, I've seen people use machetes to cut their grass, when they don't just burn it.

[DJ]

I have 3 lambs grazing on my lawn right now.