BrE / AmE vocabulary and grammar perception

<In the British Isles "footpath" is used to mean a paved sidewalk.>

That's sometimes true; but without context, I think most British speakers would first associate the word with an unpaved path, of the kind that runs between fields, for instance, or along the backs of houses.

"Footpath" is universal for "sidewalk" in New Zealand. Not that anyone cares. Anyone know what they say in Australia?

In the UK the word "footpath" usually means a public right of way through a tract of open countryside or through woodland, and you will often see signposts indicating this - often with just two words "Public Footpath".

More often than not it is just that - a simple pathway, unpaved in any way, through the trees or across the fields and meadows, or along a river bank or alonside a canal, and many have been there for centuries.

Footpaths are popular with dog walkers as they are far removed from busy roads, and often provide shade on hot sunny days which, contrary to popular belief in other countries, do occur here in the UK. Footpaths are also popular with hikers and walkers and ramblers as many of them pass through some spectacularly beautiful open countryside, be it in the rugged Scottish Highlands or the equally rugged Welsh mountains or up on the more gentle downlands and heathlands of Southern England.

Some footpaths follow the tracts of ancient routes such as the Ridegway, which crosses the Chiltern Hills of Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, or the famously historic Pilgrims' Way, immortalised by Ceoffrey Chaucer, which runs along the top of the long line of the South Downs from the ancient cathedral city of Winchester in Hampshire all the way to the prime cathedral city of Canterbury, in East Kent - the shrine of the aforementioned St Augustine (who died in the year 604!) and of course the ill fated St Thomas a Becket - assasinated close to the main altar on 29 December 1170 reputedly on the orders of England's King Henry II - Canterbury Cathedral of course being the destination of the pilgrims all those centuries ago...now the destination of those aforementioned walkers, hikers and ramblers...all trudging along the footpaths.

Well, in Ireland a footpath is paved. The wooded kind is just a "path" (what in America is sometimes called a wilderness trail).

Yeah, in America we say trail, not footpath for something like that.

<<In the UK the word "footpath" usually means a public right of way through a tract of open countryside or through woodland, and you will often see signposts indicating this - often with just two words "Public Footpath".

More often than not it is just that - a simple pathway, unpaved in any way, through the trees or across the fields and meadows, or along a river bank or alonside a canal, and many have been there for centuries.>>

<<Yeah, in America we say trail, not footpath for something like that.>>

That is very interesting. We don't have such things in the U.S. and if we did we wouldn’t ever refer to them as footpaths. That must, as you indicate, be a U.K. thing . . . oh wait, you are both dumb asses:

"The Appalachian Trail (A.T.) is more than 2,175-mile long footpath stretching through 14 eastern states from Maine to Georgia. Conceived in 1921 and first completed in 1937, it traverses the wild, scenic, wooded, pastoral, and culturally significant lands of the Appalachian Mountains. The A.T. is proudly America's first national scenic trail!"

For citation, see the NPS website of the Appalachian Trail @:
http://www.nps.gov/appa/index.htm

For addition aditional information see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZxEh_klLU0

"The Appalachian Footpath (A.F.) is more than 2,175-mile long footpath stretching through 14 eastern states from Maine to Georgia. Conceived in 1921 and first completed in 1937, it traverses the wild, scenic, wooded, pastoral, and culturally significant lands of the Appalachian Mountains. The A.F. is proudly America's first national scenic footpath!"

Winterice: One apparently cannot read. Look at the second to last word of the first line in the quote. What is it? Footpath. That is correct, the A.T. is a . . . drum roll please . . . footpath. It so happens that we use both trail and footpath. Darn, that takes a lot of brain cells to remember, don't it?

I have no doubt that "footpath" is sometimes used for rural paths (I'm a city boy, what do I know ?).

Regarding the first Appalachian Trail reference (given by "Wintereis"-signed-in-the-German-spelling) ~ yes, the word "footpath" was probably carefully inserted in official brochures by Federal Government lawyers in order to ensure that all hikers understand that (with very few exceptions) the Appalachian Trail is a path for walking, not for bicycles, mountain bikes or pack animals. But I normally hear such a way called a "wilderness trail" or simply "trail", "dirt path" or simply "path". And "footpath" has a paved application in much of Anglophony, including Ireland, New Zealand and Australia, though not in America.

The second quotation (A. F.), given by the Person-signed-with-the-"Winterice"-spelling, looks bogus. Isn't it odd that, according to a Google search to-day, only two individuals in the entire Web world are calling it "the Appalachian Footpath" ? :
http://www.google.com/search?client=gmail&rls=gm&q=%22the%20appalachian%20footpath%22

Even your own citation on Antimoon doesn't appear there, Person-signed-with-the-"Winterice"-spelling. At this writing it fails to appear on Google even just as the Antimoon entry posted here by you.

By the bye, did you all know that in the old Dutch colony of Nieuw-Amsterdam (New York) the street we call Broadway was Breedeweg (same elements, same meaning in Dutch) ?- It was the ancient Indian trail which the settlers found upon arrival, widened and used as a wagon road and commercial thoroughfare. Eventually they paved it over.

We certainly use footpath in the US, along with path and trail. Usually I would think of it as being unpaved, but I guess it doesn't have to be -- all that's really important is that it is for pedestrian traffic, not vehicular use.