From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Fri Oct 29 18:58:03 1993 Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by NEBULA.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Fri, 29 Oct 1993 13:02:30 -0400 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by eli.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Fri, 29 Oct 1993 13:02:26 -0400 Message-Id: <199310291702.AA00937@eli.CS.YALE.EDU> Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 1212; Fri, 29 Oct 93 13:00:18 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 7261; Fri, 29 Oct 93 13:03:13 EDT Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 17:58:03 +0100 Reply-To: Matthew Faupel Sender: Lojban list From: Matthew Faupel Subject: Re: Bus boys: two nations divided by a common language X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch In-Reply-To: message from Logical Language Group on Fri, 29 Oct 1993 12:41:21 -0400 Status: RO X-Status: JC: The term "bus boy" was bandied about here during the early {ckafybarja} JC: discussions; I defined it, for the non-American, as a restaurant worker JC: who has the duty of clearing dishes from tables, and often also that of filling JC: water glasses and doing other things not directly charged for. JC: Now I have discovered that the proper British equivalent is "commis waiter" JC: (rhymes with "Tommy"). I got this from a neat little book by Norman Moss, JC: a Briton raised/reared in the U.S., called >British/American Language JC: Dictionary< (no flames about that title, please). Never heard of "commis waiter" in my life I'm afraid - I'd have a better chance of understanding "bus boy" than that. JC: (from the other half:) JC: job, n - "on the job" means, colloquially, engaged in sexual JC: intercourse. An English friend was delighted when an JC: American told her proudly that his 75-year-old uncle had JC: died on the job. I haven't heard this usage either. "On the job" has meant what is says whenever I've heard it, e.g. "on the job training". I'm sure that under certain circumstances this phrase could be a double-entendre, but then practically anything can be (q.v. Finbarr Saunders). JC: Copy-editing and proofreading this book must have driven everyone involved JC: insane. The American/British section is what you'd expect: only the JC: boldface keywords are American. The British/American section, though, JC: is a hybrid: typography and other matters of mechanics are British-style; JC: the word-choice is usually American, with a few slips, e.g. 'home from home' JC: tends to make an American suspect a word dropped out by the typesetter. "Home from home" describes a place that makes you feel at home, e.g. "I know a lovely little B&B that's a regular home from home; they make you feel really welcome there." JC: The edition I have is the 2nd, of 1984, and lacks an ISBN: the publisher JC: is "Passport Books: a Trade Imprint of the National Textbook Company", and JC: the place of publication is given as "Lincolnwood, Illinois U.S.A." When was the first printing though? The examples you give sound very much as if the researchers did their investigations somewhere around the 1950s :-) Cheers, Matthew