UK and US vernacular

The UK television series ‘Location Location Location’ has recently become my favo(u)rite comfort watch. Having lived about half my life in Yorkshire and half in Massachusetts, it’s only recently that it occurred to me (because of all the Allsopp and Spencer) how curious it is that these houses are referred to as “detatched” in the UK. Of course America has its rows of Brownstones and plenty of duplexes, and all manner of other ways that larger older homes have been carved up to create apartments/flats. And yes, I understand that in America, it’s the norm that single-family homes don’t share walls with the neighbours, whereas in Britain these stand-alones only account for about 20% of all dwellings. Yet I do find it a linguistic oddity that these homes should be called “detatched”. It’s a funny quirk, a backwards-construction in the language. Unattached, or Free-Standing, would make more sense. After all, one cannot “detatch” a structure unless it was formerly attached to another! Conjures up a funny image of some eccentric househunter having fallen in love with just one wing of a stately home, and with money to burn, ordered it to be snapped off the grander edifice and hauled away to be set apart on three-quarters of an acre. 🙂