On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 at 16:50:23 in message
et, Colin W Kingsbury
wrote:

I have heard both these terms (well, lorry, not lorry crash) from
American friends who spent their working lives in Cambridge MA.

There is no end to the strangeness of language and the subtle
differences between USA and UK English (in as much as there is any such
thing as UK English nowadays - the BBC have more or less abandoned it
for some time now).

On an area of 'tarmac' inside our factory there was once a notice
painted on the ground. 'Lorry's Only' it spelled. Leaving aside that
the plural of 'Lorry' is 'Lorries' it led to comments like who is Lorry,
and to what is he laying claim?

Have you all heard of the Englishman, who while in America, saw a sign
saying, 'Do not walk on the pavement', and was shortly afterwards killed
by a truck?

Some of our police forces have acquired PC madness. One is now referring
to minorities as 'Visual Minority Ethnics'. They don't even know that
ethnic is an adjective not a noun.

Another Force had Police districts which everyone had happily called
'townships' for years, but are now to be called 'partnerships' would you
believe? I leave you to guess the reasoning behind this.
--
David CL Francis