So there really are differences between British and American English

[Gerald Cohen]

This message is solely for Americans. British subscribers should read
no further and promptly delete what follows.

   Okay? All set? Here goes.

   I quote from the _St. Louis Post Dispatch_ Oct. 26, 2003, pg.
2C/1-3; article by Jerry Berger, title: "At least St. Louisan Didn't
Call Prince Andrew a Bum!":
   'RE-MEMBER, SUE: It's too bad Sue Engelhardt doesn't live in
Pittsburgh.  Residents of that town have been subjected to days of
lessons in the proper behavior toward royalty.  But Engelhardt, the
princess of Peabody Coal, is a hometowner so excited at meeting HRH
The Duke of York, (aka Prince Andrew) at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel
Wednesday night, that she had the young prince baffled.  Engelhardt
discussed coal-to-Great Britain, at which point Prince Andrew
deadpanned, "We use gas!"  Turning to the prince, who was in town to
raise money for the English Speaking Union-St. Louis Branch,
Engelhardt told him, "You're the best tool we have."  Prince Andrew
shot back, "I'm a tool?" For the record, Sue, "tool" is British slang
for something that a member of the Royal Family is unlikely to
mention in polite company.  Still, the allusion drew a faint smile
from Andrew's otherwise scowling Special Branch security detail.
Andrew's impromptu admission at the beginning of his prepared remarks
that he finally understood the well-intentioned reference was the
only spark in a lackluster, four-minute royal oration.'

Gerald Cohen,
an unabashed Anglophile