English words are American words and vice versa?

Damian posted this:

<<***How is Parking Lot not logical? It makes perfect sense. A lot. For parking...***

You are obviously a North American....from either the USA or Canada, as it is in these English speaking countries where it is logical, which it isn't in this one here on the other side of the ocean.

In the USA and Canada the word "lot" can mean an area of land set aside for some purpose, in this case for the parking of vehicles. I would guess that over there it also applies to an area of land set aside for building purposes which, in the UK, would be referred to as a "plot".

Here in the very first English speaking country the world ever had the pleasure to witness come into existence the word "lot" has several meanings, as it does with you lot over there and elsewhere in the ESW nae doot.....it can mean a plentiful supply of something, it can mean the circumstantial deal a person has had handed out to him or her in life, an item up for sale in an auction and usually numbered for identification purposes and in the sense I used it just now in this paragraph.....a group of people, often used in a rather pejorative way but definitely not in the way I used it here. >>


My response is:

All American words are also English words and vice versa, just with different frequencies of usage.


Do you agree? Is it wrong of Damian to claim that "Parking lot" is not logical in British English, when in fact the American meaning is part of the English language, and since they speak English in Britain, it is also a valid meaning in Britain, just that it is not widely used?


-- Sorry I posted this accidentally on the Languages Forum before. You can delete that one if you want.

There are indeed certain words and terms that are exclusively the property of one English-speaking country or another, and the fact that they are used in one does not make them known or used in the others.

<Is it wrong of Damian to claim that "Parking lot" is not logical in British English>

It is wrong of Damian to claim that "parking lot" is not "logical" in British English, because it is not a matter of logic.

It would be true to say that it is seldom used by native British speakers who have not lived in the US.

American speech is English through and through. You might be surprised at the number of Americanisms "the fall" for Autumn, flapjack and other usages which actually came over from England, then fell into disuse in the mother country.

H. L. Mencken writes of such "Archaic English Words" in America :
http://www.bartleby.com/185/11.html

"The Fall" (meaning Autumn) is a usage traced to Middle English, short for "the fall of the leaf".

[Oak is] "distinguished by its fulness of leaves, which tarnish, and becoming yellow at the fall, do commonly clothe it all the winter." - Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest Trees (1664), John Evelyn, Fellow of the Royal Society

At the Fall of the Leaf, and in cold Weather, Cream will turn from sweet to bitter" - Richard Bradley (Royal Society, 1732)

"It was at the fall of the leaf, and an autumnal sunset threw the lengthening shadow of haunted Lisnavoura, close in front of the solitary little cabin, over the undulating slopes and sides of Slieveelim." -The Child That Went With the Fairies (1870), Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sylva1669.jpg

Wow, that's weird. Are you sure the word "chore" isn't used in Britain anymore? What do children call their chores over there? Or do they simply not have any? If that's true, I think a lot of Americans would want to move back!

I think it is logical for "Lot" in British English i.e.

1. large amount
2. group or set (British auctions use this)

Just because one person in one country says that it is illogical does not make this true, it is merely his opinion as the above is mine.

>>Are you sure the word "chore" isn't used in Britain anymore?>>

Well, H. L. Mencken (in the linked page) was writing a century ago, and possibly in comparing American English to that of Britain he was overlooking some regional forms of speech. Don't they say "household tasks" and "the cleaning" in London ?- And when it's a burdensome thing the older people will say "Oh, it's too much of a fag" (as in "fagged out").

I'm sure the usage varies from shire to shire. "Chore" or "char" or "chare" must dwell out there somewhere, be it in Worksop, Wigglesworth or Tooting Bec.

For what it's worth, here is the entry in Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms, first published in 1848 :

CHORE, or CHAR. The word chore, which has been thought peculiar to America, is without doubt the same as the word char, which, both as a verb and a noun, may be found in the English dictionaries. "In America," says Mr. Webster, "this word denotes small work of a domestic kind as distinguished from the principal work of the day. It is generally used in the plural, chores, which includes the daily or occasional business of feeding cattle and other animals preparing fuel, sweeping the house, cleaning furniture," &c.

According to the English dictionaries char means work done by the day, a single job or task; from which has arisen the words char-man and char-woman. In Jenning's Glossary of Somersetshire, is the word choor, a job, or any dirty household work; choor-woman, a woman who goes out to do any kind of odd or dirty work. In Wiltshire, it is pronounced cheare. This as well as the Somerset word is very near the American word in pronunciation.

That char is charr'd, as the good woman said when she had hang'd her husband (i. e. The business is done).--Ray's Proverbs.

His hands to woll, and arras worke, and woman's chares he laide.--Warner's Albion's England, ii. 111.

A woman, and commanded
By such poor passion as the maid that milkes
And does the meanest chares.--Shakspeare, Ant. & Cleop.

Bob. I approve Your counsel, and will practise it; bazi los manos; Here's two cheares chear'd.--Beaum. and Fletch. Love's Cure. The harvest done, to char-work did aspire; Meat, drink, and two pence, were her daily hire.--Dryden, Theoc.

Get three or four char-women to attend you constantly in the kitchen, whom you pay only with broken meat, a few coals, and all the cinders.--Swift.

Hunting cattle is a dreadful chore! remarked one of our neighbors, after threading the country for three weeks in search of his best ox.--Mrs. Clavers's Forest Life, Vol. I. p. 142.

I'm looking for a place where I can board and do chores myself.--Mrs. Clavers, A New Home, p. 87.

Radney comes down, and milks the cow, and does some of my other little chores.--Margaret, p. 388.

Girl hunting is certainly among our most formidable chores.--Mrs. Kirkland, Western Clearings.

The editor of the Boston Daily Star, in relinquishing his editorial charge, gives the following notice:

Any one wishing corn hoed, gardens weeded, wood sawed, coal pitched in, paragraphs written, or small 'chores' done with dispatch and on reasonable terms, will please make immediate application to the retiring editor.

I am not english born speaker. I want to know how to pronounce word waxhaw., name of the american indian tribe and place name.

And could someone help me? where i could find some english pronunciation guide of the american place names and names of the native american triibes?

For waxhaw think wishaw. I think.

< Don't they say "household tasks" and "the cleaning" in London ? >

You can "do the cleaning" in the UK; but "household tasks" would sound bookish.

< And when it's a burdensome thing the older people will say "Oh, it's too much of a fag" (as in "fagged out"). >

Not very many of them.

"Chore(s)" is fine in the UK, by the way.

Thanks for clarifying the currency.

"Not very many of them." - True enough, the older people tend to die on us along with their idioms, but I reckon one well aimed iPod catchphrase could revive it at any moment.

If "section of land" is an established, but not prominent, meaning of "lot" in Britain, then "Parking Lot" would be logical, but not self-explanatory. If that meaning is absent from the word "lot" in Britain, then "Parking Lot" is arguably not logical, at least, not logical in the sense that the original person meant.

This discussion reminds me of a Briton inquiring as to why Americans use the term "cellular phone". The obviousness of the answer, and whether the term is "logical", depends on how familiar one is with the technology behind the phones. Every term is logical, in some sense, if one is familiar enough with the etymology. It's when a sense of a word is lost in general use, but preserved in a specific term, that that term is branded "illogical". The cliche of it being illogical to drive on a parkway, for instance. depends on a person thinking of "park" solely being a verb, rather than a noun (as in "Central Park").

I think that the British "mobile phone" is more apt and accurate than the American "cellphone" or "cellular phone". True enough they are cellphones as such, but when you see so many people using their phones while they are on the hoof rushing down the street or wandering around the aisles in a supermarket then surely "mobile phone" fits the bill perfectly.

Parkway is used here in the UK, often with regard to a train station, especially one frequented by commuters on a daily basis, usually ones with large areas reserved for the parking of vehicles......Bristol Parkway train station and Didcot Parkway train station (between Oxford and London Paddington train stations) immediately come to mind here.

And here it is "MOW-bile" and not "MOW-b'l"! ;-)