Cobblestone

A cobblestone is a rock that has been asked to lie down in a row with other rocks, and has done so, without complaint, for four hundred years. Together they form a street, which is a hill that has been told to behave.^[1]

No two cobblestones are alike, except the ones next to each other, which are exactly alike, which is why they were put there.

The Great Bump Debate

Scholars have long disagreed about which part of a cobblestone street is the bump. The Convex School holds that each stone is a bump and the gaps between them are the street. The rival Concave School holds that the gaps are the bumps, pointing downward, and the stones are merely the parts in between.^[2]

A 1974 conference to settle the matter was held in a cobbled square. Delegates spent the first morning tripping over the evidence and voted to move indoors, to a carpeted room, where the question no longer seemed urgent.

Use

• Horses: designed for them.
• Bicycles: tolerated, loudly.
• Suitcases on wheels: heard three streets away.
• High heels: an ongoing negotiation.

See also

• Rock (rock) – a cobblestone before it got a job
• Pebble
• Standard of Lumps – for measuring the bumps
• Invention of the bicycle – how bicycles first met cobbles
• Pothole – the alternative

References

1. Sett, G. (1981). Lie Down and Stay. Gravel Press. p. 400.
2. Proceedings of the Cobbled Square Conference (1974). Vol. 1, mostly apologies.
3. Rumble, T. (2010). “The Wheeled Suitcase and Its Discontents”. Heard, not read.