Discussion Groups / British English / June 2005

(Cross-posted AUE & UCLE)
Brits will know that The Management has spent the last day or two
celebrating the Victory at Trafalgar, ending last night with a review of
the fleet by Brenda and assorted scrambled eggs.  It has put us in mind

I wonder, has the expression
going the full nine yards
popped up in British English usage yet?
I've heard it on American radio 2 or 3 times recently, and once in a

Could anyone please explain to me the difference in usage of "holiday" /
"holidays"?
And am I right that the word "vacation" is the American equivalent of
British "holiday(s)"?

I have a fridge (refrigerator).
It has a control knob marked 1 through 6.
To what number do I turn it to make the fridge as cold as possible ?
{R}

I'm translating an essay on Dan Brown's new novel, can someone help me
with this phrase?
«Some might stop pursuing allusions and allegories at this point, but
this is exactly the kind of stepping-off point for an author like Dan

New editions of dictionaries tend to be accompanied by a news handout
listing lots of colourful new words that are claimed to have entered
the language This gets lots of free publicity. The new Collins seems
to have taken the art to the extreme - e.g.

You might be interested to know that the BBC Wordhunt was
launched just over a week ago and can be found at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wordhunt.  This appeal is at the heart of a major
new series being made by Takeaway Media for BBC 2 in the UK, in

Where can I get the TOEFL word list?

The Americans have made it simple. They spell all the words in the
subject (and alike) with z. As for the British spelling I seem to have
seen both variants. For example, realize, as I know, is spelled with z.
I don't think I've ever seen another word with z rather than s by

Using various standards including:
+  most popular
+  most widely used
+  most respected

I'm not 100% sure if my cows understand the English language.They
could be French cows or Spanish cows, nobody knows.
So what can I do to understand my cows ?

I have been wondering about the words "assume" and "presume" and
whether they are exact synomyms. Dictionaries seem to think they are,
where relevant (sometimes they can have entirely different meanings).
But to me the word "presume" has a slightly more tentative meaning than

I've heard (say, in some British songs) the following pronunciation:
the vowel in "got" was pronounced in a sort of American manner, more
like in "but", for example. That was Blur, by the way. The sound was
not even short, it lasted for some time (because it's a song).

My wife & I regularly argue about the correct use of the word "NEXT".
My wife considers that if I refer to "next Friday" then it depends on
the week in which I make the comment. If I say it in the same week then
the word "next" must refer to the Friday of the following week but if I

There has been much discussion in Usenet of the peculiarity
of speech shown by some younger people wherein they have a
rising intonation at the end of a declarative statement,
making it sound like a question.