Which one is the appropriate use for caves?
The evenness of bat species is influenced by the length of caves path (?)
The evenness of bat species is influenced by the length of caves alley (?)
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2"Alley" is never used in natural contexts.– Nihilist_FrostFeb 22, 2016 at 1:56
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2Depends what you mean by natural but Tornado Alley does exist.– PeterFeb 22, 2016 at 2:17
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3 Answers
This Wikipedia article uses the term passageways to describe the routes through a cave. One cave tour guide reads:
The journey begins in the middle level of the cave. The passageways are generally small and variable in shape.
Sometimes the suffix -way is omitted. A National Geographic picture was captioned:
A half-mile block of 40-story buildings could fit inside this lit stretch of Hang Son Doong, which may be the world's biggest subterranean passage.
Natural caves have neither paths nor alleys, but are a group of interconnected cavities (chambers) through passages
The evenness of bat species is influenced by the length of the cave chamber.
A chamber is any large cavity within a cave.
Paths are created by the spelunkers, the situation is similar to a path in a forest.
If a passage is high enough where stooping is not necessary, it is called a walk-through.
The closest thing to an alley in a cave is a grike or possibly a hall, but halls can be very wide.
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1Aren't grikes almost always limestone crevices where the water has eroded away the stone? I don't associate grikes with caves necessarily - they're more of a surface feature in my mind, like this picture They aren't something I would think of as analogous to an alley.– ColleenVFeb 25, 2016 at 21:50
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@ColleenV Grikes also occur in caves (erosion doesn't know if it's inside or outside and sometimes are wide enough to be passable and sometimes much wider, it would depends on the thickness of the limestone layer and time. You are correct it is a limestone feature worn away by water.– PeterFeb 26, 2016 at 0:53
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For a system of caves, we would typically use passage - "A narrow way, typically having walls on either side, allowing access between buildings or to different rooms within a building". The chambers of the caves within the system are similar to rooms in a building, and I think passage could be used for any narrow connector between larger, more open but still enclosed areas.
A path is "A way or track laid down for walking or made by continual treading.", so it's not very suitable if you're writing about ways that bats can move in and out of a system of caves. A path has the sense of a way that is marked, and may be easier to move along than other terrain. There may be paths in a system of caves, like those for tourists.
An alley is "A narrow passageway between or behind buildings." It doesn't have the same sense of connecting two areas together. It means, in the most general sense, a long narrow area.
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"Path" is also sometimes used in computer aided design (not necessarily CAD, but also GIS apps and other drawing apps) to indicate a line route. Note I do not use "linear" route - as the line may not be straight in any regard. This may be why the OP thought to use it in this way. "Passage" would be greatly preferable to describe caves.– Mark G BFeb 23, 2016 at 19:01
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@CorvusB I sort of lump in the other uses like "code path" into either the marked way or well-traveled way concepts but in an abstract instead of a tangible way. There are probably uses that stretch those ideas a little too far though.– ColleenVFeb 23, 2016 at 19:20