“Obstacles along the road to success” vs. “obstacles across the road to success”

Question

My sister got this question for one of her tests.

There are many obstacles __ the road to success.

Her options were:

1. across
2. along

I initially thought that across would make more sense here, as it conveys the meaning “from one side of the road to the other” as in a block of wood placed across my path. However, across could also mean “on the other side” as in “I live across the road”. Therefore, across seems like the more ambiguous term here when compared to along.

Along, therefore, seems like the better choice here. However, it can be argued that along doesn’t necessarily give the impression that the obstacles “cross” my path.

What would be the appropriate term here?

Answer 1

Either is appropriate, and in my opinion equally so, depending on whether you are trying to emphasis the blockage of the obstacles or the length of the road along which they appear.

Answer 2

Along the road to success is a fairly common phrase, getting 2,000,000 results on a Google search of that exact phrase. I would choose along.

Answer 3

Along the road to success is by far the more common choice:

ngram viewer

Answer 4

In your example of...

I live across the road

The road itself is the obstacle. You are not travelling the road as a path, you are traversing it as it is something between you and your destination.

When referring to...

There are many obstacles _ the road to success

The road is a path, and you are focused on travelling along that path as a long term goal. You are talking about travelling along this road. The point of the statement is not to focus on the individual obstacles, but rather the more general fact that there will be obstacles on this path itself... which is the focus. If you were to change the sentence to be about a specific obstacle, then you could choose to use "across", as it would describe that individual obstacle. Let's say...

A lack of college education is an obstacle across the road to success.

There, the focus is on the obstacle, more than the path.

Answer 5

I can certainly see a logical argument for why one should say "across": the obstacles lie across the road. But in practice that's not what people say, they say "along the road".

I presume the origin of the phrase is that, independent of the presence of obstacles, we routinely talk about "travelling along the road". If you encounter an obstacle while travelling along the road, then there must be obstacles along the road.

Answer 6

Ngrams and "which-is-more-common" arguments aside, I would choose along.

Why? The road to success is a long one, and that road must be traveled down, not crossed, in order for success to be reached. I know we're speaking metaphorically, but I don't think one would run across the "road to success" in order to achieve success, but that (unless we're talking about the videogame Frogger) one would travel down that road instead.

Moreover, I don't believe it would be a smooth road – at least, not all the way from start to finish. Instead, I'd expect to run across several obstacles along the way.