We have rethought the roof rack and called and asked them to skip that one, but go ahead with the moon roof. They have installed the heating for the seats, and that is good. We are told they MAY get the roof work done today.
We had a little worry about a post-factory moon roof, but they swear on a stack of Bibles it should work fine and will add, not detract, from future value of the car. Leaks are the worry. But having worked with aquariums and bulkhead gaskets, I just cannot see, outside of incompetence, WHY a roof insert should leak. It’s got to involve a gasket, and if competently done, should not be an issue. Granted it’s large and curved, still, if the ones from the factory don’t leak, the ones installed later shouldn’t, granted they tighten it properly. And it’s under a five-year warranty. So if it leaks—it’s their problem.
Anyway, it’s the roof rack they aren’t sure fits, and they might have to order another one, and it’s black, on a very pale car, so in the memory we’ve only used the one on the Subaru twice, we think we’d rather skip that one in the interest of prettiness.
And that may mean we get the car late this afternoon, maybe tomorrow.
Incompetence, did you say? There is that. Didn’t Barnum say, “You’ll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”?
But there is the “Button it up quick and get it out of here!” effect. That’s why Microsoft released Vista and Windows 8. 😉
You’ll get slightly better mileage without the roof rack, anyway – especially on long trips. It adds wind resistance.
GW is right about no roof rack giving better milage. I know two people who had dealer installed moon roofs in their cars. Both had no problems after ten years of heavy driving.
Are there going to be pictures?
Heated seats are good. We call them Norwegian air conditioning here. Absolutely necessary in the winter. Good one!
There will be pix as soon as we lay hands on it.
Ooohhh, Ooohhhhh!! Fingers and toes crossed it gets to you soon!
As long as the moonroof doesn’t open, it should be nice. On the much lamented Nissan wagon we had a sunroof that began rusting out; I eventually had to Bondo it shut because it allowed water to seep into the roof, and when we braked, a cascade of filthy solar-heated water sometimes ended up in the driver’s lap!
I am awaiting my own new car, which should be coming in on the barge either Friday or next Wednesday. One hopes sooner rather than later.
No, alas, no car.
They got the moonroof in—but—the headliner didn’t fit. They had to order a new one. Friday, they say.
Sigh.
Actually we had great experiences with the Subaru moonroof. Never a leak, never a problem. Granted we don’t often have tropic rains in Spokane, but they have them down south, and we’ve been through them with nary a drop of moisture where it didn’t belong.
What on earth is a moonroof? I know what a sun roof is. And a headliner? Sorry, but American idioms don’t always cross the Atlantic 🙂
Carole, a moonroof is similar to a sunroof, except it’s a panel of tinted glass. A sunroof is a metal door, opaque but it slides back to let in the sun. A moonroof might or might not be mobile, the one I had on my 1994 Saturn SL2 moved very nicely.
the headliner is the fabric lining inside the passenger compartment that covers the roof. So, when your head hits the inside of the roof, it’s brushing against the headliner.
Thank you ie the fabric lining the inside. Why does it need a special name?
Why does it need a special name? Because Americans make up names for everything, naturally. 😉 And three or four letter acronyms too! O:-)
That’s quite OK. If I were to live in the UK, I’d have to learn all sorts of slang expressions I’m not familiar with here.
For instance, English food is so mysterious that it requires special code words to get any. :LOL:
(I am only kidding, of course.)
An Australian friend says they get from both sides. British and American slang. He said the American “y’all” is gaining some ground over there. I thought he was pulling my leg.
Que? Code for food? That sounds suspiciously like Americans’ view of Britain as being stuck in WWII 😀
I’ve not heard ‘y’all’, but there again I don’t live in London, which is now a foreign country.
I find a lot of CJ’s posts difficult to follow, not because she uses what I would call slang, but because it is someone’s daily life with it’s own language which does not necessarily translate to a wider audience. In daily conversation we make assumptions that people share our culture, but that doesn’t hold true for the internet. But c’est la vie.
Thank you – that’s what a sun roof is! It lets the sun in. But the moon? I thought perhaps it was domed, but couldn’t figure out how that would work with the roof rack.
the moonroof is smoked glass, usually dark enough to make the sun look like a full moon.
Wikipedia says the term was invented by Ford, though I find that a little suspect since it’s not a trademark. Detroit is in a continental climate. The wide temperature swings, daily and seasonally, could imply that you can look out the moonroof even in the dead of night, when you wouldn’t want to let the cold in; thus, moonroof because you see the moon through it. My moonroof is not so darkly tinted you want to stare at the sun through it.
Be fair, nor do Britishisms. 😉 Your spare and luggage is in the “boot”, engine under the “bonnet”, and the “hood” is what you raise on your MG-TD when it begins to rain.
Yes, but I’m not writing a blog which is my point and, apart from the post above, I don’t think I’ve used any nouns or expressions that non-Britons wouldn’t understand.
And the ‘lumber room’ is what the US calls the attic.
(‘Mind the lorry round the next bend.’ ‘What lorry? …Oh, that lorry.’)
Oh! Yeah, the most famous of them! 🙂 In America you don’t “knock-up” your girlfriend for breakfast. 🙂
You don’t in Britain 🙂
The roof rack is over it, bolted into the roof as a permanent structure, 2 rails to which you attach your rack.
Carole, any time you don’t get a word, let me know. I write the blog colloquially, and often use slang, but I certainly never mind translating.
Re American names for things: it’s somewhat founded in the need to trademark names to protect an intellectual property like a roof design; and then, conversely, it gets commonized into American slang, such as ‘hand me a Kleenex,’ meaning any tissue, much to the chagrin of the Kleenex people who insist we capitalize it, and would prefer we used the TM symbol. Xerox, Jell-o, and the like are all victims of that process.
On the other hand we find Bisto and biscuit and jumper bewildering. An American biscuit means something like a round scone, and a jumper is a sleeveless loose overdress, or something you use to charge your car battery. We say subway, not tube or underground, but we have increasingly adopted ’roundabout’ instead of traffic circle. Cars and cooking are probably two very divergent topics.
One of the reasons for the moonroof is that Chicago is, as I recall, on the latitude of Rome, which leaves most of the southern US in the latitude of North Africa, with heat (and, ironically, humidity) big discomfort factors; and very long boring distances to drive. The moonroof is a way of having an open top, but with a bit of protection from the sun. Anthing you can do to keep yourself awake on I-40 (major east-west southern route) is a safety feature.
I’ll second CJ as regards moonroof. A sunroof down here where I live in Oklahoma would let in the blast furnace from the sky – I absolutely get quite enough sun, thank you very much and have the pre-cancerous skin conditions to prove it. And I have relatives who live in the tropics – no sunroof needed or wanted there.
Thank you – but I think you’d soon get sick of me if I started doing that 🙂
I wouldn’t mind in the least. Like Bren, dictionaries are one service I provide and don’t mind at all…
I enjoy the dialectal differences, American and International. I’m well read enough that I could do reasonably well with British and Australian English. (I’ve edited UK/AU writing before and kept with proper International spelling and usage, or asked when something was new to me.) — So I may tease about dialect and slang and accents, but they’re something I truly enjoy. I’d never want to make someone feel bad about it.
I’m Texan, with Oklahoma and Virginia relatives. CJ’s dialect has word choices or usage occasionally that’s just slightly different from mine, in a way that’s refreshing to see. CJ’s books use language specifically for flavor and authenticity and to lend an exotic feel of another time and place and culture(s). I very much like that. Her fiction style is distinct from nearly any other I can think of.
the
Things like “biscuit” do seem strange to my American ear, though I’ve known that one since high school French, at least. But more and more, there is crossover because of the internet and mass media, audio-video and printed matter. So some Briticisms are “comfortable” to me, while others, even ones I’ve known a long time, seem very different. — I like British science fiction, for instance, because it is British. It has a flair, a way of seeing the world, that is not like my American view, and that’s great, extremely welcome. (Likewise with other countries.)
With the web and ebooks and audio-video downloads or streaming, I think we’re already seeing the merger back to an overall standard, eventually. I’ve become used to seeing “prolly” for what I say as “prob’ly” when I speak fast or casually. As someone who used to earn his living with editing, design and layout, and sometimes outright writing, as someone who edits amateur web fiction at times, I could be very happy if I didn’t have to watch all the time for the US/UK spelling nonsense. (Both systems are badly outdated. Let’s find something sensible.) On the other hand, I don’t want to lose the local flavor and color that adds spice to our language.
Right, so if I’m so familiar with it all, drop me in rural Scotland for a month or so and see how I do with the dialect. Or urban or rural France, either, and see just how quickly my rusty French recovers. (Probably quickly, but I’ve never been immersed in it.) (I did better than I would’ve expected on my one out-of-the-country visit to Mexico, with then high school Spanish II.)
So… If people have questions about words, ask. Someone’s bound to answer. 🙂
Now where did that that human translator tape go to…?
I’m Texan, with Oklahoma and Virginia relatives. … drop me in rural Scotland for a month or so and see how I do with the dialect.”
No fair! You’ve got more than a headstart with Virginian relations. Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Cavaliers tended to flee to the Piedmont after losing the Battle of Culloden. There are Elizabethan Jacobite accents and music galore in the Appalachians!
Having friends in Leeds, UK and down under helps grasp the national varieties of English. regionals can be confusing though. There are folk here in Minnesota that think anything south of Iowa or Missouri is a different country, based on how they talk
Ah, but the BIG difference between an American biscuit and a British biscuit is (to my understanding) the British version is sweet, and the American version is NOT! Also, even in the states, the common language isn’t always ‘common.’ I’ve moved from coast to coast, and north to south and back again, so I’ve seen quite a few variations on common usage depending on region. I grew up down the street from a rotary and the first time my Scottish friend called it a ’roundabout’ I just about died laughing. When I moved out here to the west coast, I got very strange looks for ‘rotary’ and others. The thing you push through the grocery store, the sweet fizzy drink that comes in cans, and oh so many others!
Chicago is, as I recall, on the latitude of Rome, which leaves most of the southern US in the latitude of North Africa…
For some of us intrigued by misperception that can be an interesting “party diversion”. 😉 Ask people which cities in Europe and North America are at the same latitude. 🙂 Portland, OR? London, maybe? No, Milan! Stockholm? Seattle, maybe? Try Juneau, Alaska! London and Calgary.
People seem to compare general climatic conditions, but the Gulf Stream current knocks that into the hat. 😉
Sun is not something you can readily ‘sell’ to a person who lives in the heat belt of the US.
I wouldn’t get a sun or openable moonroof for the same reason that I don’t want a convertible: structural integrity. After our experience with the rusty roof, I’ll pass.
No car today. Now, after checking my account balance several times a day for the past week to see if the car payment cleared, it finally did yesterday. Today, the dealer called me and said they needed confirmation from the bank that the check had cleared before the car could be shipped. I had to fax over a request to my bank to fax the dealer a copy of the canceled check. Folks, you already have my money, WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot?!?
I hope your car comes through sooner than mine.
The Prius has side curtain air bags and the equivalent of roll bars…so we’re not giving up anything in integrity but a little tin…
I feel your pain on the delivery. They SWEAR ours will be ready today, that it’s arriving at the dealership with moonroof and whatever, and they’re spraying down the fabrics with what amounts to Scotchguard…believe me, that’s a good step: we stored the headrests for the Forester for 9 years in the garage (lousy design, but part of the car) and when we pulled them out, the wrapping had slipped and they were brown velvet(supposed to be grey twill). A damp cloth restored them to pristine condition.
A family joke: my brother and his British girlfriend, from Bishop’s Stortford, were down at the lake, in the cabin we’d built…
Unfortunately, their fire shot embers past the firescreen, and the burning embers landed on the ‘new’ carpet. The girlfriend cried, “It’s alight, it’s alight!” in great alarm, and my brother looked around at the electric lights and the windows, asking casually: “Where?” as the smoke rose.
Then he twigged to it, shouted “Fire!” and took out running for the water hose.
“Two countries,” as the playwright had it, “divided by a common language.”
Why you want wool in front of the fireplace, even with a brick hearth. (The carpet in the house I grew up in had little ember scorches scattered on it. The wood would have bits explode, even with the screen closed.)
Would you prefer some synthetic made from petroleum? 😉
Shaw, wasn’t it?
@Weeble
The difference between US and UK biscuits is more than the sweetness.
To me an Oreo is a biscuit. The archetypal British biscuit is the ‘rich tea biscuit’, which looks like this.
(If you asked for a ‘rich tea biscuit’ in South Africa, nobody would know what you meant. We call them ‘marie biscuits’. South African, Australian and New Zealand brands of English have their own individual quirks.)
But UK-type biscuits are not necessarily sweet. A ‘water biscuit’ is what I think you would call a ‘water cracker’ in the US.
Ah, ok, I was thinking its synonymous with a cookie, but I guess its not exact. American biscuits are usually soft and fluffy baked thingamabobs usually made with baking powder (not yeast, those are rolls), usually served warm, very good for mopping up gravy or butter.
What you are describing sounds like a dumpling. What GreenWyvern has described is a plain biscuit. Many British biscuits are what Americans would probably describe as cookies, others overlap with crackers and others border on chocolate bars – it is a whole industry and I could probably write an essay on the subject!
Biscuit seems a widely-travelled sort of staple that changes its meaning depending on the kind of baking people can do when circumstances change.
In Holland we’ve got both, ‘biscuit’ pronounced the French way = GreenWyvern’s rich tea biscuit; and ‘beschuit’ pronounced the Dutch way = rusk, unsweetened 4 inch scone halved like a layer cake and baked again until dry (used as a breakfast cracker). Cookies (or British biscuits) are ‘koekjes’, which sounds almost exactly like the American word.
I’d guess biscuits, scones and cookies were widely baked by the early American settlers of both Dutch and British nationalities, and the names reflect the back-and-forth influence of these various languages and cultures.
Also, the South African ‘Marie biscuits’ is also reflected in Dutch: another word for ‘biscuit’ is ‘Mariakaakjes’, mostly used in the southern provinces (a bit old-fashioned).
Dutch easily borrows foreign words, but in this case I’d guess the influence is likely to be in the other direction, considering history.
Which Marie?
An American biscuit is very exactly a dumpling, though browned on the bottom, cooked on a baking tray and dusted, often, with flour, and served with butter and jelly…or smothered in sausage gravy.
Other British terms: a ‘hosepipe ban’ for ‘water rationing’, hosepipe for what we call ‘hose’ or ‘garden hose’. We have ‘sprinkling systems,’ meaning the automatic buried watering system especially popular in the South.
‘Spanner’ for a ‘wrench’ is understood in the US, as in, ‘throw a spanner in the works,’ but that was the WWII generation.
And food: I am extraordinarily fond of Yorkshire Pudding, but never got to admire Toad in a Hole, and kidney pie is quite beyond me. I do love bangers and mash (sausage and fried potatoes) and recall a little hole in the wall place off the square in Bath, probably very tourist. And a place called the Twice Brewed Inn up by Housesteads was not only a wonderful place to stay (I do recall the pumps going on to fill the inn’s water tank in the night, but a hop, skip, and a jump from the Roman Wall and serving the most wonderful meals…to die for. We also were very fond of Moffat, and love the whole countryside there.
We love British pub food…not so much the restaurants, always; but pub food is wonderful. We stopped at a little place in Scotland and they apologized that the town didn’t have a McDonalds. We assured them we far, far, far preferred what they were serving.
Berry pie with heavy cream poured over…mmmm.
Heavy cream? That’s double cream, yes?
CJ , Mash is mashed(smashed) potatoes with milk, cream or butter. In never heard of fried mash 😉
Sure! Mom, a Missouri girl, used to make patties of leftover mashed potatoes and fry them in a skillet. Possibly it was Depression Era frugality. 😉
Yes. Love it.
When I lived in Edinburgh in the early 80’s, we would go down to the Marks & Sparks (aka Marks & Spencers) on Prince’s St for the store brand Double Cream. It was so thick you could substitute it for Clotted Cream and put it on scones (yes, I think the American “biscuit” is best translated in the UK as Scone) with jam.
Last time I was in Edinburgh, a few years, ago, I also went food shopping at the same Marks & Sparks, but didn’t come up with a good excuse to buy any of the double cream. When I am in Edinburgh “now”, I stay in a youth hostel and do my own, “self-catering” but that didn’t run to baking. I did happily buy lots of other favorite foods, though.
In the summer, the Scottish Youth Hostel Association rents out a residence hall=”dorm” in US English from my old, alma mater the University of Edinburgh since no students are in it in the summer. That hall has been on the Cowgate, one of the two main, original=Medieval streets in the burgh. The hostel turned out to be ~120 feet (~40 meters) away from where I base the historical fantasy II am (still) working on. I was so excited when I realized that — on my 11:30pm arrival from the Belfast ferry to Ayr and then the long bus trip to Edinburgh — that I could hardly sleep that first night in eagerness to go exploring!
Hmm, when I think of dumplings (as an American) though, I think of chicken and dumplings primarily, in which the dumplings are more or less the American biscuit dough in bite-size or smaller bits, dropped into broth to cook in the pot.
So I’d tend to think of an American biscuit as something like a scone. — Wikipedia, it turns out, has entries for these things, with pictures and good descriptions, so UK and international folks can see what Americans mean by a biscuit, and Americans can see the others.
Bangers and Mash, Bubbles and Squeak, and other such terms are what I was kidding about being code words to obtain food. 😀 (And I’m glad I remembered properly what bangers and mash are. But I’ve apparently forgotten bubbles and squeak. I thought they were scrambled eggs and…something-something.)
I’m mostly unfamiliar with pubs and pub food (and beer and alcohol). — I don’t know why pubs didn’t stay popular over here, and why they developed mostly into bars here. Too bad, really. The impression I get is that pubs are less prone to serious problem drinkers, more friendly and relaxed, a little less about drinking and more about enjoying friends and food. This could show I’m naive about it. 😉
I have no objections to wine, beer, alcohol, I just don’t much like the taste (and I like to be in control) so I just don’t know much. — I was brought up it was fine in moderation, it just wasn’t common. So I never got the “forbidden, therefore highly tempting” aspect, and lol, didn’t usually care for the taste. All that said, I’m happy to enjoy a margarita or wine at dinner, etc. with friends.
Bubble & Squeak, as my mother used to make it, was leftover mashed potatoes and leftover cooked cabbage lightly mixed together and fried (more sautee’d). Mum was born in England so Nana’s cooking was English even though they lived in a country town in the wheat belt of Western Australia. The name describes the bubble of the mashed potatoes and the squeak of the cabbage.
I like bangers & mash (mashed potatoes, not fried) and bubble & squeak.
I also eat kidney pie (yum!).
Bangers = sausages?
Think of it as an extreme, catastrophic form of “They plump when you cook them.” 😉
And sometimes what Americans advertise as chicken and dumplings turn out to be noodles, giant noodles. To me those are, yes, noodles.
Nowadays in America there are old bars that declare themselves pubs, Irish-themed bars that declare themselves to be pubs, and new bars that try to decorate themselves as pubs, but for me, a real American pub is the neighborhood bar, the one close enough to residences that mostly locals eat there.
The secret to getting seated in an overcrowded American restaurant, at least in the west, is “Is the bar open seating?” It usually is, and you can waltz past the line of people waiting for tables and go sit and order from the same menu in the bar.
It’s also an area free of screaming children.
So we eat in the bar wherever we go, and we’re lucky enough to have a good neighborhood bar: an old sports bar, always has games on, good food, huge menu…Gordon Ramsey would not approve, except of the food quality. And it’s a place where the waiters know you, though it’s been undergoing some changes, and we’re not seeing our old regulars. We hope it hasn’t changed hands: at least it hasn’t changed menu or decor, which is sort of tables and booths wherever we can put them so they can see the tv screens. Good burgers, good sandwiches, good fish and seafood and salads, and good steaks.
The one drawback to bar seating is that it usually involves uncomfortable stools and/or tiny tables. All the American bars I have ever sat in are focused on drinking, not eating, and the seating is secondary, regardless of the food quality.
Mmm, ours have booths that seat 6 and tables that seat 8, easy—plenty of room for people getting multiple dishes. Pool tables, too, which convert to regular tables for Sunday brunch. We’ve always picked places with good booths. I’m not fond of tables.
Really, in the bar? How nice the west coast ones sound. I alwasy equate bars — here in the east — with tiny, high stools lined up against a beery, wet counter-top and far, far too much noise (they make me highly claustro- or at least, people-phobic).
Anywhere west of the Missisippi, including Memphis, you can find big-seating bars. If you open a bar and don’t serve food, it’s kind of odd, though there are a few old ones that don’t: there’s one near us that must date from the 1920’s—but they have big tables. (Go figure.) Sports bars are good for having seating out here. If they advertise live music, with all apologies to musicians trying to earn a living, I don’t go there. I’ve been trapped in one that could fry eggs with the sound alone, but that’s not for me. I like fairly quiet places. And since everybody’s gone non-smoking, they’re really much nicer than they were.
You can also try spaetzle, a German or Pennsylvania Dutch version of a dumpling. Smaller, doughier, irregular bite size noodles, simmered until done in a thin gravy or broth, and usually served with sauerbraten or other meat dish.