Originally Posted by mel
As for complement/compliment - according to my dictionary here in my lap, the latter means an expression of praise, while the former means something that completes, or makes up the whole. So actually they are two different words with different meanings (hey I'm a librarian!).
Exactly!
Originally Posted by Bramela
Its not a spelling mistake but its interesting to note, the word 'vacation' used so often here, is virtually never heard here Down Under. Here it is a holiday.
Then again we are quite a bit out of the way down on the bottom side of the globe.
An Americanism that amuses me is "gotten". "Got" is already past tense, there isn't a single case where "gotten" cannot be transplanted with "got" and retain the exact meaning. This is the only word I know of that has got longer and retained it's original meaning, usually people shorten words. And no, I never ever use gotten.