Terry wrote:

Enjoyed this thread. It elevated the word 'aerial' to new heights!
Noting also that during it, no one, as a previous English teacher of mine
used to say, "Demonstrated their inability to express themselves properly by
descending into profanity".
The same teacher, however, also claimed, "Anyone using words such as 'sox'
and 'foto' were definitely not using the English language"!
In the 1950s Broadway show 'My fair lady' based on G.B.Shaw's Pygmalion,
there is the line, "There even are places where Engish completely
disappears. In America they haven't used it for years!". It was good for a
laugh.
Personally; if we can combine the American skill for
inventing/designing/adapting words so that so that they are terse and
descriptive with the British penchant for contrasting and 'punning' the
various meanings of words, we will continue to have a rich and adaptive
language which will, as from the time of Chaucer and Shakespeare, be the
most powerful communicating language in the world. More power to us.
Terry.


Remember what that great american political leader, Winston Churchill,
said. "We are one people divided by a common language.