Oh, Dear, my instructor (of EFL techniques, I rush to add) told me that 'hoovering' meant this:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hoover definition No. 2 I didn't realise that the verb had a slightly different meaning to the noun. The reason 'hoovering' means vacuuming in Britain is because Hoover was the first company to mass market vacuum cleaners there. In fact 'hoover' is so tightly linked (semantically) with vacuum cleaners that other white goods made by Hoover (washing-machines and so on) are never referred to as a 'hoover'. This is similar to the verb 'to xerox', meaning to photocopy. Presumably 'to xerox' means, in America, to photocopy intimate pieces of one's anatomy :) sincerely, Richmond Mathewson. ____________________________________________________________ A Thorn in the flesh is better than a failed Systems Development Life Cycle. ____________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [email protected] Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
