Bus boys: two nations divided by a common language

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

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 <lojbab@access.digex.net> for now
                e'osai ko sarji la lojban.