Re: Bus boys: two nations divided by a common language

[Matthew Faupel <matthew@CPDAPO.TELE.NOKIA.FI>]

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