"David CL Francis" wrote in message
...
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.

Paradoxically, American English is an older style of English and more akin
to 17th C English, whereas English English has moved on. Churchill was right
where he described "Britain and America as two countries divided by a common
language".

The is an excellent book by Bill Bryson which explores the differences
"Made in America"