Left Behind I never realized that about "quite", Mac. Another example of how we are divided by a common language! As GBS so rightly said!

Another example I've heard is "momentarily". In the US, it means, "in a moment". I understand that in the UK it means, "for a moment". bang on! Yet one more we've had to adapt to - as with 'different than' rather than 'different from' although in Scientific American I've seen the latter used so maybe it's a verbal slang?

The story goes that some British passengers became frightened when the American pilot announced, "Momentarily we will be flying over the Atlantic Ocean". They wondered what would happen after that: a crash-landing into the water? eek!

I was very disappointed when I first visited England and saw only one gent during my whole visit wearing a bowler hat. It was at Oxford University. He was a middle-aged man who was yelling at a young man who appeared to be a student. I'm a hat person and I'd love to wear a bowler but how ridiculous would that look in Mansfield? In the USA hats of all sorts are unremarkable but in the UK it's mostly young uns who wear emblazoned baseball style caps. Old ####s like me wearing 'em are atypical but I still wear mine!

Someone told me afterward that he was a "Bulldog": a kind of security guard with authority to keep the students in line. In some universities (colleges!) the house master used to wear one as a symbol of his authority I guess - keepin' young uns in line a little... When I was in English Grammar School our senior teachers wore a black gown routinely and in morning service and formal occasions some also wore 'mortar boards'! Such days are probably gone for urchins like me - grammar schools all but disappeared, classics rarely taught unless it's in private schools....