Yeah, I think the generic traffic engineering term for a motorway is “freeway,” and with a higher-quality dual carriageway being an “expressway,” but this falls apart pretty quickly when regular people start talking about them. (And it’s regional and context-specific. “Highway” might refer to only freeway/motorway-quality roads in one area but all major roads in another, and as a legal term it includes every road down to residential streets.)
As noted, it varies by state. I’m a native Californian. You can get beer, wine, and spirits at grocery stores, convenience stores, etc. It’s ‘always’ been that way (in my lifetime).
Spirits may now be sold in grocery stores, Costco, etc. Where I live now, there’s a liquor store for spirits. The corner market didn’t feel the need to compete with them. (But there are two supermarkets, each four or five miles away, that sell spirits.)
IME, a ‘freeway’ is a limited-access road. i.e., there are on-ramps and off-ramps. A ‘highway’ may appear to be a freeway, but can have intersections instead of limited access points. Or a highway can be a two-lane road. For example, Blaine Road is a 2-lane road (one lane each direction) that is also State Route 548.
“Four lane road” is how I’ve usually heard it in the Midwest. One lane each way is a “two lane road”.
I’ve only heard “four lane” used for four lanes on one road–two going each direction. A five lane has the extra lane in the middle for turning left. If there’s a partition in the middle, I’ve heard freeway or, yes, divided highway.
I’ve never heard of a term that separates between the big ones, with exits and huge overhanging bridges at traffic lights and butterfly loops, and the smaller ones, with just some short connectors every so often between the two halves and combine back into one road for traffic lights.
Though I do consider the big ones to mostly be interstates.
Convenience stores & groceries can sell beer and wine. Liquor is usually sold by county or city government, which in my area is through ABC stores. Bars usually have to have food available if they want to sell liquor.
Yes, “adult beverages” is kind of tongue-in-cheek. “Alcoholic beverages” implies the drinkers are destroying themselves and society by engaging in risky behavior.
This is only in your state. California grocery stores sell liquor; we have no state run stores selling alcohol that I am aware of and bars do not have to sell food.
In my area state(texas) highways have crosstraffic intersections (except maybe in very large citys) while interstate highways will never . Could be the same elsewhere, I don’t get out much.
Wait, really? So the 750ml bottle of Glenmorangie I buy here in the USA isn’t the same size you get its country of origin?
Aye, 70cl (and this is about the only place where centilitres is used) is the standard bottle size for spirits in the UK. 1 litre bottles are also fairly common though.
Hah, so the American portion disease is real!
What did you think of American on/off wall switches being the other way around?
And restroom stalls are embarrassing when your full head is above the door.
That’s the case as well everywhere else I’ve been in the US. Ironically the non-interstate highway I’ve found most similar to an interstate is 287 in Texas since it has few crosstraffic intersections and even has a couple full-fledged rest stops, which I don’t know if I’ve seen on any other state highway (elsewhere, if there are even parking stops at all, they don’t have facilities.)
Yup, I am surprised at the 75/70 difference between US and UK. But agree that I will often buy one litre bottles at home,
Absolutely. I didn’t know if I was meant to eat it, or climb the north face of it 
Well, hotel room lighting is usually confusing. The switch by the door might operate the main room light, which can also be operated by a switch near the bed. So the light switches can end up either way round. So, now that you mention it, I think I did find it generally the “wrong way”, but put it down to being in a hotel room, rather than being in the US.
I don’t think I ever had my full head above the door, but definitely enough of my head to make eye contact with someone waiting to use the stall. Once I was standing up and sorting myself. Weird.
On the one hand, some stores in some places in the US can only sell weaker beverages. But on the other hand, you’re either allowed to drink or you’re not: A 20-year-old isn’t even allowed to buy half-percent “non-alcoholic” beer, but a 21-year-old can buy Everclear if they want to. I’m pretty sure that that’s different in the UK, right?
And a “divided highway” has at least two lanes each way with some sort of uncrossable median (sometimes landscaped, sometimes wild, sometimes just a concrete barrier) in between. They’ll sometimes have ramps and bridges, sometimes just intersections, and sometimes a combination of both, and can have businesses built right next to the road (so the access is directly from the highway).
“Highway” can refer to any road that has a US or state route number. Some of them are divided highways and some are what you’d call motorways, but some are just two-lane roads across the countryside. Most of the major streets in a city or town will also be part of some numbered route or another: You’ll be driving on Route 43 or something through farmland, and then you come to a town and suddenly you’re on Main Street, and then you get out of town and you’re still on Route 43.
We don’t really have a good word for a motorway here, because most of our motorways are part of the Interstate Highway System and so get called “interstates”, but there are a few non-Interstate routes that have all the same improvements, and nobody’s ever quite sure what to call them.
Nope. That’s one of these cultural differences. Upthread, I’ve seen talk of “beer” and “liquor” like they are separate things. In the UK, alcohol is alcohol. Once you’re eighteen, the whole range is yours to enjoy. And any premises which are licensed to sell alcohol, can sell anything from watery beer to overproof spirits. No disinction. The concept of a store selling beer and wine, but not selling vodka or whisky… nope.