With regard to Northern Ireland, it is interesting to note that Roman Catholicism is the single largest religion, but because the other Christian religions tend to be counted together, NI is generally considered a majority-Protestant statelet.
Gas station guy? What’s that?
True, true.
And my Michigans really go with my Italys.
The guy who works inside the convenience store, apparently. But all I ever do is hand over some cash. I can check the oil and, gasp!, even the other fluids.
Two weeks ago, my coworker (the one who’s my age, mid-20s) looks at a piece of paper on the printer, turns to me, and asks, “What’s a… ‘faks-uh-mile’?” Yes, she was unfamiliar with the word facsimilie. Fortunately, she has a good sense of humor, so we joke about it constantly.
In sixth grade, somehow the idea came up for discussion that people act strangely around the full moon because our bodies are mostly water. I pointed out that, since the phases are just a function of the planet’s shadow on the Moon’s surface, it didn’t really seem to make much sense, since the Moon wasn’t actually getting any bigger. The teacher then began very earnestly to explain the tides to me. :smack: I cut my losses, smiled, and nodded.
My little brother’s ceili team (eight people) qualified for the Irish dance world championships a number of years in a row. The first time I went with, I was amused to find in the program that our school was located in the state of “Westconsin.” (I have no expectation that an Irish person will know the names of American states, but I do assume that they’ll do a little spellchecking before publishing something like that.)
I’m perennially amazed by people who think that the whole of the U.K. speaks a single dialect.
Also, for most *American *English speakers, arse *does *rhyme with farce. How someone pronounces it in another dialect has no bearing on how we pronounce the same word.
… Wait, that’s what that’s referencing? I guess I always just assumed that “Five-O” was a slang term for police. In my defense, though, the show was over before I was born ('83 baby), so the title had already entered popular culture.
To be fair, making instant hot chocolate *is *just like making instant coffee. And they both taste about as good compared to the real thing.
Are you sure she was responding to the same question you were asking? It’s entirely possible that she heard you as commenting on the weather.
Presumably, if you’re living somewhere that icy roads make the news, there isn’t much opportunity to teach people how to drive on them.
It’s why the ones in classrooms roll up, too. Keeps it all contained.
I had to explain a snowball to my dad.
Depends on your definition of “bigger.” After all, $5 is a bigger debt than $2. 
Raised Catholic, and I still have to check the calendar every year 'cause I can’t remember the date.
I’m surprised to find out that my stepmother didn’t know I’m gay. I mean, apart from the fact that I told my Dad years ago and went on holiday with my partner and one of my sisters earlier this year, my stepmum often posts on my facebook page, where it states clearly that my partner’s name is Helen. Yet it apparently came as a surprise!
We mercilessly teased my college roommate for not knowing how to put gas in a car. Then she explained that where she was from (New Jersey), it is illegal for people to pump their own gas! The station attendant has to do it. Same for Oregon, I believe.
I’m not sure if either state has changed the rules since I’ve been in college, but if your cuz was from either state, we should cut her some slack. If not… well, then, she is a special lady. Verrrry special.
Like a waitress, only with gasoline.
Yes. We were talking about how it was still light out at 4:30 pm.
You mean those little round pastry things with shredded coconut on them?
Five-O is a slang term for the police, but it came from the TV show, not the other way around.
There’s an urban myth that the term five-o comes from the Mark III Ford Mustang 5.0, which was popular with cops in the eighties, but it’s not true.
So in other states, do people always pump their own gas? Or does it depend on the individual gas station?
New Jersey and Oregon require gas station attendants. I’ve never seen a gas station attendant elsewhere, although I’ve heard they were common in the South as late as the eighties. Florida doesn’t have gas station attendants, but there’s a button on every pump that allows disabled people to call a station employee to pump gas for them.
Becaue of the price wars, I’ve not seen a full service pump in So. Cal. in a long time, but I used to be the pump guy in 1988. Unocal had an image of being the local friendly helpful gas station, and we even took money from people at the self-serve and ran it in. I guess we could have had them come to a window, but we didn’t. I do wonder how the clueless little old ladies manage now. They used to come to the full service and expect the water and oil checked. One wouldn’t even fully open the window, but just roll it down enough to fit some money out and say an octane grade.
I’ve never understood the American insistance on self-service, especially in light of your obsession with drive-thru. What, you won’t get up for a cup of coffee, but you will for gas? Makes no sense.
There of course are plenty of places willing to let you pour your own coffee. Almost every doughnut shop has just a pot of coffee, a carton of milk, and a shaker for sugar. The difference comes when you want something complicated that involves actual knowledge and equipment. My cousin owned a coffee/snack shop and said that even the employees couldn’t be trusted to turn everything off so it wouldn’t burn out overnight.
Putting in gas is so easy that even my most “CLANG!!”-headed students should be able to manage it. What are they going to do, put in the wrong octane grade? The worst they could do is put in diesel, and that’s not an expense for the business owner, it’s just “Duh” to them.
Drivethrough occupies the time and effort of about as many people as anything else, as you pull away as soon as you get your stuff. The management is willing to let you drive through, because if they don’t, the people in a rush who think it’s faster, who aren’t wearing shoes, or have 4 kids to unpack will go somewhere else.
Especially with the stations that allow you to swipe your card at the pump, it’s actually faster to pump your own gas than to tell Gomer and Goober what you want, wait for them to finish pumping, come back to your window for payment and then run inside to the cash register to make change for your twenty. And even if you come up with time and motion studies saying in some cases it isn’t faster, it feels like it’s faster 'cause you’re in control of the process.
Then why not have both? Have attendants, *and *let you pump your own.Some people prefer to shave off a few seconds by doing it themselves, while other enjoy the convenience of being served. Shouldn’t a good business cater to both types?
Guess what? They do! If you don’t mind paying a couple of extra bucks for your gas, feel free to pull into the full service lane.
If the gas stations were smart, they wouldn’t charge extra. Isn’t it all about customer service these days? Doesn’t research show that people almost always return to where received the best service?