Vacation or Holiday??

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

While I was in the Virgin Islands last week… I was talking to some guy from Australia… he asked me why I was there… I told him I was on Vacation… he then responded…
“no… not vacation… you are on Holiday”
but the H was silent…

so I said again…
No… I am on Vacation…and he seemed to get pissed off… (he was drunk) and told me again that I was on Holiday…

So 2 questions really…

  1. What was that all about?
    and
  2. Why was he getting pissed off?
2

  1. Other than Americans, most English speakers tend to use “holiday” instead of “vacation”.

  2. He was a drunken yob.

3

really??

so what do they call holidays?

4

Err… holidays?

I’m not sure I get the distinction between vacation and holiday. Over here, when we take two weeks off work, we’re on holiday. So we’d use it as ‘where are you going on holiday?’ etc.

5

I think you’re asking what we call national holidays, like your Presidents Day or Labor Day. Right? We call 'em whatever they are. Bank Holidays, May Day, whatever.

I’m going on holiday to Rhodes in eight and a half weeks.

6

FWIW, I use “on vacation” and “on holiday” interchangeably. I never know which one I’ll use until after I’ve said it.

7

To Americans, we go on vacations, two weeks in the summer to the beach, what have you. Going to the beach, Disney World or Europe is a vacation.

Holidays are things like Christmas, Thanskgiving, Labor Day, when work is closed. Maybe a “bank holiday”. Most people visit family on holidays, but go some place to relax (not the same thing as visiting family) during vacation. Clear?

8

I think so. Your vacation = our holiday, your holidays = our public/bank holidays. Yet another example of two countries separated by a common language…