bowser: mobile water dispenser

[Chris F Waigl]

Mark Mandel wrote:
> Not in OED. Closest sense is bowser2, 'petrol pump or tanker'; see below.
> This can be subsumed as a transference, but it's outside the chiefly
> antipodean usage area. This came to my attention via a former colleague, who
> wrote:
> I nearly got flooded out in Cheltenham. Ironically we are now without a
> water supply! As a consequence, the word  "bowser" has entered the common
> vocabulary of over 300,000 people.
>
> <<<
>
> He provided a link to this article:
>
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6916665.stm  [...]

Far more than 300,000, as apparent from the link to BBC News. "Bowser"
is all over the media over here and comes up in interviews with people
from Tewkesbury and surroundings (who are out of running water, and will
be for a while, after the water treatment plant serving them got
flooded): many complaints about empty or contaminated bowsers and the like.

The word was unknown to me, but not being a native speaker, I didn't
pick up on it not being in the dictionaries. It is certainly part of the
relevant jargon in the UK (see for example http://www.mainltd.co.uk/ ),
but required an explanation as late as last year when BBC News wrote
(about how the Downing Street garden was being kept in bloom despite the
hosepipe ban that was in force then):

====
But when is something that looks suspiciously like a hosepipe not a
hosepipe? When it's a bowser with a dowser.

Downing Street has invested in a portable container called a bowser.
They come in a range of sizes, but No 10's holds six watering cans-worth
of water. Its gardeners use it with a trigger-action douser for more
accurate spraying, so it minimises waste.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5059240.stm
====

Chris Waigl

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