Re: Wastebasket woes

[Martyn Russell <martyn lanedo com>]

On 26/08/10 14:31, Karl Lattimer wrote:
> On Thu, 2010-08-26 at 14:21 +0100, Bastien Nocera wrote:
> > I believe we already had that discussion, and "rubbish" is far to
> > colloquial for my liking anyway.
>
> Exactly how can rubbish be far too colloquial? Rubbish *is* the usually
> used written term in English _as well as_ the usual spoken term. The
> terms, recycling bin, wastebasket and trash are scarcely if ever used in
> English.
>
> Furthermore it is not marked in any of my dictionaries as "colloq" and
> is in common usage in literature.

I have to say, I think it depends how much American you're subjected to 
:) - I don't feel altogether uncomfortable with "garbage", "trash", etc, 
because in my company nearly everyone uses it and sometimes I do have to 
explain the difference, but I would never use those myself.

I personally use "rubbish" quite often at home and I know a lot of 
people (friends and family) that do too. "wastebasket" seems ok to me 
too, but I would *never* use it in speech or a written letter, so less 
fitting. Plus "recycling" is a derivitive form of "rubbish" in my mind, 
it doesn't apply to all "rubbish".

Just my 2 pence ;)

--
Regards,
Martyn