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Date:         Sat, 30 Oct 1993 03:27:34 +1000
Reply-To: Nick Nicholas <nsn@MULLIAN.EE.MU.OZ.AU>
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From: Nick Nicholas <nsn@MULLIAN.EE.MU.OZ.AU>
Subject:      Re: Bus boys: two nations divided by a common language
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To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
In-Reply-To:  <199310291701.AA14252@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU> from "Matthew Faupel"               at Oct 29, 93 05:58:03 pm
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To Matthew Faupel respond I thus:

#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.

Me neither. In this country, that's what waiters do...

#JC:         job, n - "on the job" means, colloquially, engaged in sexual
#JC:         intercourse.
#I haven't heard this usage either.

I've heard it quite a bit down here. Don't recall if I've heard it on any of
the execrable palaeolithic Brit sitcomes we're still subjected to from time
to time, but it's been definitely used frequently to relate the circumstances
of death of Australian Prime Minister McMahon...

 %%%   %%%   %%%   %%%   %%%   %%%   %%%   %%%   %%%   %%%   %%%   %%%   %%%
non me tenent vincula, non me tenet clavis, %   (nsn@mullian.ee.mu.oz.au)
quaero mei similes et adjungor pravis.      % Nick Nicholas, CogSci victim,
      --- Archipoeta, _Confessio_.          % Univ. of Melbourne, Australia