From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Fri Oct 29 08:41:21 1993 Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by NEBULA.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Fri, 29 Oct 1993 12:44:29 -0400 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by eli.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Fri, 29 Oct 1993 12:44:25 -0400 Message-Id: <199310291644.AA00483@eli.CS.YALE.EDU> Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 1127; Fri, 29 Oct 93 12:42:16 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 7095; Fri, 29 Oct 93 12:45:26 EDT Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 12:41:21 -0400 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Bus boys: two nations divided by a common language X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch Status: RO X-Status: The term "bus boy" was bandied about here during the early {ckafybarja} discussions; I defined it, for the non-American, as a restaurant worker who has the duty of clearing dishes from tables, and often also that of filling water glasses and doing other things not directly charged for. Now I have discovered that the proper British equivalent is "commis waiter" (rhymes with "Tommy"). I got this from a neat little book by Norman Moss, a Briton raised/reared in the U.S., called >British/American Language Dictionary< (no flames about that title, please). Some of the definitions have a wonderful flavor, e.g. (in the American-to- British section): English muffin, n - a flat roll for toasting, often eaten with butter and marmalade for breakfast. When my English wife visited an American drugstore for the first time with me, and I ordered brekfast, she was startled to hear the man beind the counter call out to the kitchen, 'Let's have two toasted English.' (from the other half:) job, n - "on the job" means, colloquially, engaged in sexual intercourse. An English friend was delighted when an American told her proudly that his 75-year-old uncle had died on the job. Copy-editing and proofreading this book must have driven everyone involved insane. The American/British section is what you'd expect: only the boldface keywords are American. The British/American section, though, is a hybrid: typography and other matters of mechanics are British-style; the word-choice is usually American, with a few slips, e.g. 'home from home' tends to make an American suspect a word dropped out by the typesetter. The edition I have is the 2nd, of 1984, and lacks an ISBN: the publisher is "Passport Books: a Trade Imprint of the National Textbook Company", and the place of publication is given as "Lincolnwood, Illinois U.S.A." -- John Cowan sharing account for now e'osai ko sarji la lojban.