garbage vs. trash

[Lynne Murphy]

--On Monday, January 22, 2001 11:36 am -0600 Mark Odegard
<markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:


> We might mention 'rubbish'. This suggests the stuff left over from a
> construction site. It's outdoor trash, and much of it would seem to be
> incombustible.


Now, here our intuitions vary.  To me, rubbish would be paper waste or
rags, not construction waste.  And it would definitely be burnable.  But
maybe I've lived outside the US too long to have American 'rubbish'
intuitions.

Lynne

M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
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