How come Brits "reclaim" luggage,
 

but Yanks "claim" it? Seems to me that you can't "re-" anything until you've already done it.

The prefix "re" doesn't only mean "again" - either in English, or in its more obscure colonial offshoots. It also (and possibly originally) means "back". As in return and restore.

Again, two countries separated by a common language. I understand the "re"claim business, now, after having it explained to me by my English Practice Wife years ago, but still have trouble with the use of "overtake" in Britain to indicate passing.

In American English to "overtake" someone is to catch up to him, and then travel at the same speed. After you have overtaken him, if you are traveling at a greater speed, you would then "pass" him.

:-)

The "re" thing isn't a division: Americans return home and call military expeditions Operation Restore Freedom.

Ditto, really, "over". Americans overspend, are overpaid, seem to be oversexed and - though decreasingly - are over here. Some overcompensate: many over-react. Only when it comes to driving does "over" lose its sense of breaching (NOT just getting to) a limit.

Or does it? Isn't it just that the US needed to find a way of compressing thoughts into phrases that could be written on road signs earlier than we did? We have longwinded driving concepts ("no nearside overtaking") because by the time road traffic was dense enough to matter, we'd gone all European and started using icons, rather than verbal directions, as road signs.

You never actually see the English for "do not pass" on roads: just a picture of one car overtaking another with a line through the overtaker telling you you shouldn't.

Incidentally, does your refusal to accept "overtake" mean you haven't got the wonderful "undertake"?

This one will make most mercuns scratch their heads:

http://www.boringstreet.com/boringst...8/DSCF1303.JPG

Flan,

The term "nearside" throws me too. Near to what? Is the opposite term "offside", or "farside"?

:-(

"Near to what?"

God knows. Actually She probably doesn't either.

It's a piece of jargon the police and the traffic management section of local authorities use between themselves. I'd bet 99.9% of real people (including me) haven't got the faintest what side it is.

The opposite is offside (still don't know): Farside is generally used only to refer to Gary Lawson cartoons. Sadly, we've yet to commission him to design our traffic signs.

Nearside - nearer to the curb.

No, nearside and offside are older than cars. Believe it or not horses have two sides; the nearside and the offside. You talk of their near hind for example, (the nearside back leg).

When you are facing the same way as a horse, (imagine sitting on it) the horses 'left' is the nearside, and the horses' 'right' is the offside.

As any fule kno there are only two sides - onside and leg side.

Thanks nona I sort of knew that but couldn't drag it up from my ancient memories of horse riding in the UK. I'm now so used to Dutch horse riding terms (two sons are riders here -I no longer ride) that the English ones are but a faint memory.

I suppose the next thing will be to talk about the railway "up" and "down" lines.

Excellent reply, Flan, though I'm still not clear. By the time I figured it out, I'd be in the ditch.

What's wrong with the old fashioned "Left" and "Right"? Even "Port" and "Starboard" would do.

:-)

Turnwise and widdershins ?

I just thought reclaim was more appropriate if you fly through Terminal V at Heathrow, since you pretty much expect to never see it again. :)

What about Chunnel?

PalenQ,
"What about Chunnel"?
Don't start that one again !!

In respect of cars, nearside is nearest the kerb, it generally used to be a term in the garage trade as I remember from my time working in a garage many years ago. I've noticed though that these days more garages are using "Driver" and "Passenger" side instead.

Regards.