Hi, Mark!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:   
      
   AH>  I'll go so far as to spell "elite" without the   
   AH>  accent mark if it's an acceptable alternative   
   AH>  in Canadian English.  In that regard I concede   
   AH>  to US English.  But I also concede to UK English   
   AH>  when I say "trousers" because I realize "pants"   
   AH>  may have a different meaning in Old Blighty.   
      
   ml>  yeah but...   
      
   ml>  liar! liar! trousers on fire!   
      
      
              Hanging on a telephone wire.  Yes, the kids in my neighbourhood   
   said that when I was growing up... using "pants", of course.  ;-)   
      
      
      
   ml>  just doesn't work :P :D   
      
      
              Nor does (now that I see many younger Canadians haven't the   
   faintest idea what we're on about when we use Imperial and/or US measurements):   
      
                   30 g of prevention is worth 454 g of cure   
      
                                      or   
      
                   Approximately 2.4 km onward, approximately 2.4 km onward...   
                   Into the valley of death rode the six hundred   
      
                                      or   
      
                   2.54 cm worm, 2.54 cm worm....  :-Q   
      
      
   Some things don't translate easily from one dialect to another.  Here is a   
   joke I read in a British magazine years ago, for example, which may leave some   
   of my modem buddies wondering why it made such an impression on me at the time:   
      
                   Q.  A soldier, a sailor, and an airman were riding   
                       together in a car.  Who was driving?   
      
                   A.  The soldier, because he had the khakis.   
      
      
   It's a pun.  Hereabouts "khaki" may be pronounced in either of two ways, one   
   of which indeed sounds like "car key".  It seems to me that folks who live or   
   once lived in London... or whose recent ancestors did... generally prefer the   
   latter while USAians generally use a hard short "a" as they do in "drama" and   
   save the /r/ for situations where they can actually see it in print.  YMMV...   
   [chuckle].   
      
      
      
   AH>  I figured that out years ago when as a newlywed   
   AH>  I used the latter in the presence of a uncle-in-   
   AH>  law I hadn't met previously... [blush].   
      
   ml>  ooohhh... that sounds like a story just begging   
   ml>  to be shared :)   
      
      
              Thankyou.  I'm not sure I have much to tell, however.  For a   
   variety of reasons I unexpectedly found myself alone with this person & both   
   of us were trying to make polite conversation.  I don't recall now why I   
   mentioned "pants"   
   ... but I could tell by the look on his face that I'd made a faux pas.  My   
   GAGE CANADIAN DICTIONARY informs me in definition #3 that this word may be   
   used with reference to underwear, but in those days I was working from an   
   earlier edition and (as is fairly typical of native speakers) hadn't looked up   
   the word because I thought I knew & because none of my students seemed to have   
   problems with it. Where we came from most people would specify "underpants"   
   and/or use a synonym. Meanwhile the only two individuals who might have been   
   able to help out because they'd experienced life on both sides of the ocean   
   were effectively absent.  As soon as I saw his facial expression I knew what   
   was going on in his mind... but he was a schoolteacher too, and we managed to   
   get on the same wave length.  :-)   
      
      
      
      
   --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+   
    * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)