Conference thebay::joyoflex

    The Coal Board -> British Coal
    
    (Except that the owners [that's all of us out here] didn't; it was
    our employees the Government who did)
    
    It took a long time for the NCB to become the Coal Board, but
    eventually it did. One day we will probably say British Coal, except
    by then it will have been sold off to become Exploitation Excavations
    PLC.
    
    Phillip 

    Poll Tax and Community Service Charge
    

    The EEC (European Economic Community) is gradually becoming
    the EC (European Community) - presumably because it's pretty
    uneconomical. :-)
    
    Andy

    There has been a movement to call an egg that has been immersed
    in boiling water for an extended period a "hard-cooked egg" rather
    than a "hard-boiled egg" [hyphen optional].
    
    Most people are ignoring this.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    
    Or isn't that the kind of example you're looking for?
    
    

    Going back to the original question in .0 ...it sounds like another
    Americanism creaping into the King's (Queen's) English.  We've been
    calling them "Phone Books" for quite some time.
    
    But since you raised the question, I just checked mine and guess
    what??  The bold faced title is "NYNEX Yellow Pages" with smaller
    print adding "With White Pages for Nashua Area".
    
    Until only a couple of years ago, our "phone books" were labeled
    as Telephone Directories for a specified area but with yellow pages
    which encompassed a somewhat larger area in order to accomodate
    those businesses wishing to advertise beyond their local telephone
    district.
    
    [Side note for our UK friends, NYNEX is the New York/New England
     spinoff company formed when the American Telephone and Telegraph
     (AT&T) was broken up by court order a few years back.]
   

               "The French have Le Drug Store"
    
          But is it exactly what the name Drug Store implies in
          the States ?
          I remember several years ago eating in a restaurant of 
          that name in Paris and here in Milan they are going to
          open up a 24 hour a day shopping mall which is defined
          as a Drug Store. 
          Would this sort of complex be called a Drug Store in the
          U.S. ?
          Strange things happen in translation particularly when
          it's considered smart to use a smattering of foreign 
          words without actually knowing the language.
          I was confused by an Italian newspaper article a while
          back which continually used Trade Union until I realised
          that the author actually meant to use the french phrase
          'trait d'union' (connection, connecting link or hyphen).
          What's worse there is a perfectly adequate Italian phrase
          for what he wanted to say.
          BTW we have the yellow pages here which, I think, are based
          directly on their U.S. equivalent being divided up by category.
          Their name "Pagine Gialle" is a direct translation.
    
                                               Max
           
          

    Re .6 (Max):
    
          >I remember several years ago eating in a restaurant of 
          >that name in Paris and here in Milan they are going to
          >open up a 24 hour a day shopping mall which is defined
          >as a Drug Store. 
          >Would this sort of complex be called a Drug Store in the
          >U.S. ? 
    
    Well, I don't know whether a whole _mall_ would be (except fopr
    Webb's Drug Store in St. Petersberg), but in the Osco Drugs near
    where I work, you can buy drugs, cards, canned food, detergents,
    electrical supplies, cosmetics, radios, tape players, wrist watches,
    autimotive supplies, paperback books, brooms, dusters, artificial
    Christmas trees (and ornaments), photographic supplies, and copstume
    jewelery.
    
    "Drugstore" has come a long way from what it was when I was a child
    ...
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
          

    Strictly speaking, the original American "Drug Store" is what might
    more properly be called a Pharmacy or (in the UK et al), an Apothecary
    at which the principal business was the dispensing of prescription
    medication.  Because the prescription medicine business, by itself,
    could hardly be self-supporting, various side-line products were
    also offered...non-prescription medications, cosmetics, newspapers
    and periodicals, etc.  This concept continued to grow until we now
    have what we would term a Variety Store not that far removed from
    what we used to call a "Five and Dime" like the original form of
    thw Woolworth chain.  But they still retain the Drug Store connotation
    because they have a prescription druggist somewhere in the back
    of the facility. 
    
    An interesting aside is that from the early days of carbonated drinks,
    and ice cream, they were generally available at "soda fountains" found 
    in most drug stores.  For the past forty years, that element of drug
    store business has been disappearing, and is practically non-existent
    in most American drug stores today.
    
    It might make a most interesting graduate program thesis to trace
    the evolution of this phenomenon both in the U.S. and abroad. 

         Re .7
                  Thanks Steve .....
                  I wonder if they sell rejuvenators for people
                  who feel as old as I do in these places :-).
                                  
                                                Max