Well, here we are sports fans, at the famed Non Sequitur Speedway.  Today’s race will be when we take the English language, which the Brits claim to have invented, and prove that many of them don’t speak or write it as well as most Americans…. and that’s a low bar

Where Happy Hour is from 6 to 7 PM.  All drinks half price.
Mimosas are free to any guy, man enough to order one.
You ask – We promise not to tell.   😉

After we give thanks for Pensitivity101 and her pit crew of collaborators, we’ll be off to the race for the Lies of the Century – or at least this afternoon.  The pole lineup for today is as follows….

1. What’s the difference between “going on holiday” and “taking a vacation”?
   What are you vacating when you go on a “Vacation?” As I said, your desk, your chair, your employer, your house, your municipality, and often your better judgment. And yet, especially with COVID, a vacation might be a staycation, while “going on holiday,” more strongly indicates a trip, but not with a “caravan,” which is a line of vehicles, not a pull-along, camper trailer.
2. What’s the difference between a “rubbish bin” and a “trash can”?
   
   Many English people talk rubbish, while Americans have raised trash talking to a performance art. Brits must talk considerable rubbish.  They require an entire bin to contain it, where Americans get their trash in a can.  There’s no mention of a dust-bin, which contains no dust.  I think it’s all garbage, anyway.
3. What’s the difference between the “boot” of a car and the “trunk” of a car?
   
   Two nations, separated by a common language – and by how the moldy upper crust treated the lower classes. When British Milord and Lady went on a carriage trip, they sat inside, protected from dust and weather.  At the rear of the carriage was a small shelf where a couple of servants, or Boots, gamely clung on, till they were needed.  Americans, being a tiny bit more egalitarian, forewent the dangling servants, and used the space for storage of necessary things that they packed in a steamer Trunk, and strapped to the back of these new horseless carriages.  Eventually, these automotive areas were enclosed, and they both became the same thing, only different.
4. What’s the difference between a “nappie” and a “diaper”?
   
   ‘Nappie’ is short for ‘napkin’, the thing that the usually persnickety Hercule Poirot uses to create an etiquette faux pas, by tucking in at his neck when he eats. A diaper is used to catch stain-causing food matter at the other end.  The word comes from the Greek di aspros – meaning pure white.  It’s called a diaper for short, but not for long.
5. What’s the difference between the “pavement” and a “sidewalk”? Pavement is the usually-black-stuff that covers roadways – tarmac, or Macadam – The stuff that a Scotsman invented so that the English moneyed class could smoothly, comfortably re-invade drive north to vacation – or holiday – however their wealth entitles them to describe it, in Scotland. Sidewalk is a place, often made of concrete, to ‘walk’, at the ‘side’ of the pavement portion where the cars drive.  No wonder Brits are confused by these terms.  They already drive, and probably walk, on the wrong side of the roads and the language.
6. What’s the difference between “chips” and “French fries”?
   Chips are what are confused for French fries, at chip wagons and fish and chips shops, especially British ones, and England has a plethora of them. They now shout, “We’re number 2!” because they’ve been supplanted by Curry in a Hurry.  England has yet to emerge into the 20^th century, and admit that ‘potato chips’ is the American development of the language.  They call them ‘crisps,’ which might well also be crisp Cheese Crunch-Its.  My brother visited a roadside restaurant on a trip to Yellowstone Park, and requested a hamburger, and an ‘order of chips.’  He was quite distressed when the server tore open a bag of Hostess “chips” and poured them on his plate.
7. What’s the difference between the “bonnet” of a car and the “hood” of a car?
   
   A bonnet would be on the front of a woman-owned car, or on the head of the woman who owns it. She’s probably named the car – something cutesy, like Peaches.  On the other hand, a Hood (sometimes) covers the turbo-charged power-plant of a manly-man’s performance car…. Which he isn’t using to compensate for anything.  😉
8. What’s the difference between a “rubber” and an “eraser”?
   If you use a rubber at every conceivable opportunity, you won’t require the services of an eraser, which are still illegal in many districts, especially Texas, and now, Florida, as well.
9. What’s the difference between a “flannel” and a “washcloth”?
   
   Flannel is what is used to make my Canadian formal shirts. My washcloths are made from soft, absorbent terry cotton.
10. What’s the difference between a “pram” and a “stroller”?
    
    Pushable child transporters with wheels were invented during the Golden Era, when everybody who was somebody (as long as he was a man), spoke much Latin, and a little Greek. The device was given the pretentious Latin name, perambulator ‘’ meaning ‘inspector, or surveyor,’ but coming to mean ‘ramble, or stroll’ and finally ‘to walk with.’
    

The common man – or more often, the common woman – had no time for all that, and it quickly shortened to pram.  The stroller – the person walking – soon added that name to the device being walked with.  Prams used to be more commonly lie-down carriers, while strollers tend to have the baby sitting upright.  My mother transported my brother in a baby buggy.  Being a bit older, she dragged me around with a travois.