COMM: Selling a few items on eBay

Well, it is rather a nice, nasty-sounding word to use without being "officially" crude and vulgar. Somewhat Monty Pythonish IMO.

waiting on pins & needles for the CLPs in N. A., SM: Ocean Springs

Intercourse the penguin!

"Ocean Springs"

Smeg!

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

"auto" - automobile or autogyro?

Good question, and one that clearly needed to be asked. Ambiguity is the devil's work and should be stamped out with vigor. I was referring, of course, to an autoMOBILE, and not an autoGYRO, as I didn't consider that one would drive about on the parkway in one's autogyro, but rather that one would fly about in the airway with it.

SM: Ocean Springs

It does indeed, thankyou Britain and North America appear to be seperated by a common language.

This is another example of the American fetish for using a polysyllabic word when a monosyllable would do the job much better. In the good old UK, we would refer to the "car", and there would be no confusion.

Trouble is in US parlance a 'car' is the passenger coach towed behind a locomotive although more and more Americans these days are using it to describe a road vehicle.

(kim)

Not in South London, we don't! Down here we drive about in our "motors" (awight, John?). A "car" is something with flanged wheels that goes backwards and forwards between Croydon and Wimbledon on our fabled Tramlink, carrying "customers", whereas "passengers" are the people what sit in the left-hand seat of our motors. Hope this clears up any confusion.

Cheers, Steve

Indeed. On the Gulf, Mobiile & Ohio railroad a "Motor" is what a diesel locomotives was called. A "Motorcar" was the name for a track speeder, or section car. I don't have a clue what a track speeder is called in GB.

Motorcars:

I think Ill go and Naff the wife then. :-)

Or a freight vehicle - boxcar, hopper car, flat car, tank car...

In message , Steve W writes

I fough' tha' in Sarf Lunnun vey was called "mo'ors".

Handy modelling tip: you might find it easier if you dismantle her first.

Cheers, Steve

The message from "Steve W" contains these words:

Nah! That's a totally naff idea.

Jane Sullivan wrote: > I fough' tha' in Sarf Lunnun vey was called "mo'ors".

The glottal stop is very difficult to produce in written communication!

True, but I must have got it right because you recognised it as such.