Re: cleaning the car

"Way downer than", surely.  "Wayer down(er)" would be childish.

"Way down ... than"?

Out of curiosity, is there a lot more "tooth rotting" today than there
was when you were a kid?  It really seems to be *way* down in the US
than it was in the '70s.  My son is ten and has yet to have a cavity.
I'm sure that I had about a dozen by the time I was his age.

[somewhat tongue-in-cheek] Is there?  I went looking for norms in an
attempt to bolster my arguments to my son (just sliding into the body
changes that accompany puberty and becoming unsure of his self image)
that he is not, by any stretch of the imagination "fat", when I
discovered that the Body-Mass Index (BMI) norms for kids are different
from those of adults.  For adults, they're absolute thresholds (<18.5
is "underweight", >25 is "overweight", >30 is "obese"), but for kids
the "overweight" threshold is apparently the 85th percentile for that
age and sex.  So 15% of all kids are overweight, by definition, and it
will always be the case that 15% of all kids are overweight.

But seriously I thought that the current wisdom was that snacking (as
long as it's healthy) when you're starting to get hungry is actually
better than waiting and sitting down to big meals really hungry,
because when you're really hungry you eat more than you need before
your body tells you it's no longer hungry.  

When I was in kindergarten, in 1969, there was an official "snack"
(juice and cookies) partway through the morning.  That didn't happen
in the other grades, but it was certainly standard for kids to get
something when they got home from school "to tide them over until
dinner".  For my son, the school encouraged the kids to bring a snack
at least through third grade (age 8), and he has something when he
gets home from school.  

My wife and I are of that generation, and snacks are something that we
don't have.  The early lessons stuck, and I am sometimes amazed at
people pushing trolleys out of Sainsbury's filled with crisps,
biscuits, tooth-rotting drinks and the like.  No wonder there's an
obesity problem.

When I was young, eating between meals was at least as sinful as
omitting to clean one's teeth before bed.  "Snack" still carries
automatic overtones of "bad" for me, so that I have to re-calibrate
every time someone innocently suggests I partake of one.

It may be part of my childhood experience that makes me the way I am.  I was
an active child, but the difference was that I simply had no time to waste
on eating.  Eating was a necessary evil to put up with, not something I
enjoyed.  Yes, I was thin as a rail then.  In our family, mealtimes were
mealtimes, and there were no snacks between them -- not that I still adhere
to that regimen.

A risk I gladly assume to have the grandchildren with me for the day.
Someday, I'll trade in the car.  Not the grandchildren, though.

If you are as active as my two grandsons, you'll burn it off as fast
as you eat.  Perpetual motion.

I don't remember ever washing the cars when I was living on Florida's east
coast.  It rained often enough to ceep the cars clean.

Yeah, that happens.  Fortunately, not often.

I am against eating in the car, although I don't protest much when others do
it in my car.  Too often there are very messy or sticky mishaps.  Why can't
people wait until mealtime to eat, as I usually plan not to be driving at
mealtimes.  It is not necessary to be munching on something constantly, as
many do.  That can lead to obesity.

If so, then I'm peculiar in a different way.  I rarely wash the car.
When it needs it, I take it to a drive-through car wash.  I frequently
clean the car.  Florida's sandy, and I spend a lot of time out in the
boonies looking for things photographable.  I track sand and dirt into
the car, and clean it when it gets too much.

When I take the grandchildren out, I clean the car when I get home.
They always have some sort of snack with them that leaves crumbs.

I see that other have given answers to your question.  I'll go with number
3.

I have a different point to address -- I don't think that Americans use the
expression "clean the car" very often.  They usually wash the car.  Sure,
there can also be some vacuuming involved, but it is still just washing the
car.  I notice that my wife, a Filipina, and her relatives /clean/ their
cars.  Me, I /wash/ mine.  Vacuum it too.

Is this, possibly, pondial?  Or am I a bit peculiar.

Hello:

In AmE:

1. The first thing I did yesterday was cleaning the car.
2. The first thing I did yesterday was to clean the car.
3. The first thing I did yesterday was clean the car.

Do you feel that the first isn't correct?
How about the other two?

Thanks.
Marius Hancu