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If I had the money and could move back to the UK.......


Martino
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5 hours ago, AndyID said:

Many "Americanisms" actually originated in the UK, were adopted in the USA and re-exported back to the UK. Similarly with spelling. For example, "spelt" is wheat. It is not the past tense of "spelled" and "spelled" is the way I was taught to spell it in Scotland more than 60 years ago. "Spelt" is just sloppy spelling.

 

Florida??? I dunno. Arizona was bad enough. North Idaho is much more like it. Two weeks ago we were dining outside. Today we had six inches of snow and the power went out :)

Bill Bryson’s book “Made in America”  is a great read on how the English language evolved in the USA. 
as for Arizona I preferred the climat there to where I lived in Florida any day. 
 

Andy

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On 22/10/2020 at 12:55, Hibelroad said:

It’s a horrible Americanism, while in purgatory they should have continuous root canal work without anaesthetic. 

It isnt an Americanism. There is documented evidence that the term dates back to Victorian times. Whilst I deplore it, you can see why it has become common. Buses and coaches use stations and you don't call them road stations!

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2 hours ago, Denbridge said:

It isnt an Americanism. There is documented evidence that the term dates back to Victorian times. Whilst I deplore it, you can see why it has become common. Buses and coaches use stations and you don't call them road stations!


2C0E0895-53F7-4D34-B6B1-0769F638CA5F.jpeg.3db670ce51174842666ce81ec9abb0f0.jpeg

Photo from Wikipedia Commons. 

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8 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

So why do you call them bus stations then? Busses stop at bus stations, ergo.....

 

We don't. Buses start from a bus station, they don't tend to stop there. Some terminate there, but that's rare.

 

Even if you go to what they are now calling bus stations. You still get the bus from a bus stop, just that there are loads of bus stops.

 

They are nothing like what they have in America for long haul buses.

 

This is Liverpool Bus Station. Just a few bus stops, no facilities. Great during a gale....

 

spacer.png

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23 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

I tend to get a bus from a bus stop....

 

Bus station is yet another Americanism.


What do you call the starting terminals of buses, usually found in City Centres or where you can catch National Express buses from?  Something like this:

Bath_Bus_Station_First_66729_WX54XCO_429


Although if you catch a bus from a "bus stop" then surely "train station" should be acceptable too as you go there to catch a train.
You don't go to a railway station to catch a railway :P

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8 minutes ago, Sir TophamHatt said:


What do you call the starting terminals of buses, usually found in City Centres or where you can catch National Express buses from?  Something like this:

Bath_Bus_Station_First_66729_WX54XCO_429


Although if you catch a bus from a "bus stop" then surely "train station" should be acceptable too as you go there to catch a train.
You don't go to a railway station to catch a railway :P

 

 

They are bus stops. Or stands. Or bays. But I can almost guarantee that on the sign where you board it'll say "Bus Stop".

 

 

Besides National Express use coaches. They don't call them Coach Stations....

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3 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

They are bus stops. Or stands. Or bays. But I can almost guarantee that on the sign where you board it'll say "Bus Stop".

 

Besides National Express use coaches. They don't call them Coach Stations....


Not in Leicester :P
leicester-st-maragarets-bus-station-1280
14402208586_1b5df00d47.jpg

 

They all use the same building.

 

Just because you don't personally use bus stations, doesn't mean they don't exist.  Each stand just has an ID - A1, B2, C3...  granted, called Stands, but they are areas within the "Bus Station".

Where would you instruct a taxi driver if you wanted to get to that building though?

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14 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

 

 

Besides National Express use coaches. They don't call them Coach Stations....

 

 

Unless they have changed it (not impossible having been away for the best part of 30 years) doesn't the capital have Victoria Coach Station?

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Erm @Steamport Southport ..... in Cardiff there are both coach and bus stations (in a park a mile away from the 'other' station from which trains arrive and depart. I understand it's temporary) - here's a picture ..............

 

CoachStation.pdf

 

(Sorry, I can't save Google views as .jpgs)

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

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14 minutes ago, Philou said:

(Sorry, I can't save Google views as .jpgs)


If you're using Windows, search for the Snipping Tool (if Win 10, just type it into the search box on the START bar).

You can take a quick partial screenshot that way.

Save to desktop, then upload here :)

FYI: Microsoft said they'd be retiring the snipping tool in favour of something bigger and "better" - still works at the moment though.

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They may have them. But as I'm saying they are an Americanism that has crept in over the last few years.

 

However my point was the thing you actually catch the bus from is still called a bus stop. Not a station. Look at the signage next time you are in one. It's something like this.

 

spacer.png

 

 

 

You don't call a platform at a railway station "the train station" do you? Maybe you do. It's still wrong.

 

 

 

I forgot about Victoria. Which I think came from a coaching inn which was on the same site.

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I have anecdotal, if not documentary, evidence of the bit of Durham where longer distance buses start and terminate being known as Durham Bus Station in the early 1950s if not earlier. Similarly, the great, echoing, diesel fumed shed on Worswick Street in Newcastle was definitely being referred to by the populace as a bus station at a similar time. Leeds old coach station announced itself as a station on its very 1960s signage when I was regularly passing through it in the 80s.

 

Hardly the last few years. 

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This was originally Digbeth Coach Station, which was built by the BMMO in 1925 as part of it's bus garage. When it was rebuilt it became Birmingham Coach Station:

https://goo.gl/maps/d9U13MCt81VpbaGM7

 

There was also the Midland Red Bus Station opened in 1963 as part of the new Bull Ring complex.

 

Then there is this where buses pass through on service as well as start/terminate:

https://goo.gl/maps/6YswATCwzrmf2Ksn8

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Here you go :)

 

"Looking at the etymology, the Oxford English Dictionary cites British newspapers using "train station" in 1845 and 1856. 

And in 1825 the engineer Thomas Tredgold published A Practical Treatise on Railroads and Carriages, while in 1837 the Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal wrote about a "rail-road station". Nowadays that term would definitely be considered an Americanism and yet it appears to have been in common usage in Britain - the OED has numerous other citations."

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/1cbca265-2424-320c-b032-6e6f7974e221

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7 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

But as I'm saying they are an Americanism that has crept in over the last few years.

Language does not creep in.  Unless a physical invasion occurs (last one in Britain was 1066 if I remember correctly) and the invaders mandate the change of language (which even the Normans didn’t manage with the man in the street Brit), then new words, phrases etc are adopted, voluntarily by the population. So ‘Americanisms’ are something adopted, encouraged, invited by the local population.  One could even say (heaven forbid) that it is ‘cultural appropriation’ !

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9 hours ago, PatB said:

I have anecdotal, if not documentary, evidence of the bit of Durham where longer distance buses start and terminate being known as Durham Bus Station in the early 1950s if not earlier. Similarly, the great, echoing, diesel fumed shed on Worswick Street in Newcastle was definitely being referred to by the populace as a bus station at a similar time. Leeds old coach station announced itself as a station on its very 1960s signage when I was regularly passing through it in the 80s.

 

Hardly the last few years. 

Going completely OT (quelle surprise), mentioning Worswick Street reminds me how saddened I am by its current, disused state. I mean, yes, fair enough if it's redundant, and, in any objective sense, it wasn't a particularly pleasant place. However, at evening peak on a wet winters day, packed with damp humanity, diesel and woodbine smoke mingling in the air and the racket reverberating off concrete and corrugated iron as another yellow lit Atlantean laboured away from its stand and set lumbering course for points south, I've always thought of it as the definitive illustration of the gritty reality of Northern English public transport. 

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16 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

 

They are bus stops. Or stands. Or bays. But I can almost guarantee that on the sign where you board it'll say "Bus Stop".

 

 

Besides National Express use coaches. They don't call them Coach Stations....

Using your own logic, trains stop at platforms in Train Stations. 

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Buses and coaches do get confused. In the '50s world of my early yoof, it was quite clear that the red-signed bus stop outside my house was where the buses stopped. If we went into Dorking, the bus station was at the far end of town. But that was also the starting point for three Green Line Coach routes, all heading for London and beyond. And two of them bore signage saying they went to and from Victoria Coach Station, which was nearly true - they actually stopped on Eccleston Bridge, as did a lot of coaches, but not many buses. Furthermore, at stops where only Green Lines stopped, the bus stop sign was green instead of red and said Coach Stop.

 

I did, more than 20 years ago, once catch a coach from Victoria Coach Station that took me to Le Mans. 

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