…If you are made redundant it just means (literally, not euphemistically or dishonestly) that your role is not needed, and the company will no longer employ anyone to do your job…
I get the odd feeling that nobody debating redundancy has ever been made redundant. Really? I have. Company got taken over, site got closed down, I was offered another job I didn’t want in a site far away, turned it down, and I was out.
Another point that I haven’t seen addressed is that if you are made (UK) redundant, you are typically (depending on time of service etc) entitled to compensation - redundancy money. Trousered that, left on Friday, started a new job on the Monday. Thank you very much.
I’m with you on the unnecessarily added syllables thing, but I think the dropping syllables thing is a wash. I’m all about simplifying pronunciation as long as it doesn’t become a shibboleth on the one side, or having people not understand you on the other.
Reminds me, at least in terms of good old 1990s British Gentlemen magazines:
UK - Suspenders/Suspender Belts (although I only recall suspenders being used)
US - Garter Belts
I’ll go with garter belts on this one.
A bit more vague and far less strict usage, but I recall DIY/DIYer being more UKian v. USian’s Home Handyman/Weekend Handyman (OK, and Family Handyman - still miss the Roy Doty Wordless Workshop strips).
I think the terms have bled over the pond enough now that both are in use, but maybe 20 years ago I recall that being the state of affairs.
While DIY is shorter, I prefer home handyman.
Also, in regards to Australian Utes, the images I see on the web seem to remind me of the old Ford Ranchero/Chevy El Caminos - hack an open air cargo bay out of the back of a station wagon (estate car) and off you go (vs. hacking a open air cargo bay out of the back of a crossover). Still look pretty cool.
There’s been a couple mentions of this one already, but it needs to be revisited.
UK: Pants.
US: Panties.
Good grief. You have got to go with “panties” here. “Pants” is so widely recognized as a type of trousers in so many places that allowing it to mean “panties” creates such oddities as “Your pants are showing.” and “Who wears the pants around here?”
A coupe is a car that is a saloon - sorry, sedan - with no rear headroom and no legroom for the poor sods in the back, and only two doors. For some reason people thing that sedans that look like an elephant sat on the rear half are more sexy than the familymobile they were derived from. Just another brainfart from the marketing department, no doubt.
The UK also has sports cars, but not at all related to wussy little coupes. The UK version is a two seater with suspension hard enough to be able to read the maker’s name with your bum when you drive over a manhole cover - and probably leave half your exhaust system on it. Or sorry, I mean, your muffler. But in the UK, if you told somebody you had lost your muffler, they would just give you a scarf so that you don’t catch your death of cold. Sports cars are driven by full time mechanics, as that is what you will be to keep one running, and the glove compartment has a pair of woolly hats in it. The reason for the woolly hats quickly becomes obvious at above 30 mph.
No, this is not correct. A freeway (or “expressway”, or, if it has tolls, “parkway” or ‘turnpike”) is a limited-access highway, meaning you can only get on it via ramps (what the Brits call “slip roads”). “Highway” may include long sections that have some crossing intersections. I was on many of those just recently – two-lane highways that require passing in the oncoming lanes and periodically go through downtown areas with controlled intersections; when a freeway goes through town, its traffic is isolated from regular street traffic with overpasses or sometimes tunnels.
I am not sure exactly what “motorway” literally means: whether it is exclusively limited-access highways or the broader definition that includes high-speed roads that may be subject to cross-traffic and downtown interior traversal.
It is precisely the former. Access is always via slip roads, no cross traffic, no pedestrians or bicycles permitted. So far as I can discern having lived in both countries, freeway and motorway are synonymous (noting as you mentioned the additional vocabulary in the U.S. for special types of limited access road).
All good, solid woody words. No hint of tinniness in any, so good show all round. Well done chaps. Sadly though we have to pick a winner. So tonight’s prize goes to the words with the most letters.
(singing) Ruuuule Britannia, Britannia blah blah blah
If we do this again, we should have a rule that Americans are only allowed to bring up instances where they think the British version is superior, and vice versa.
(Vice versa meaning, of course, that Brits are only allowed to bring up instances where they think the American version is inferior.)
Nonsense, Motorways are dinky little back roads - cite: “Took five hours from London. Couldn’t find the freeway, had to take a little back street called the M5!” (Fawlty Towers - ‘Waldorf Salad’)