"Do you do Taco Hell?" / "bus" as non-count n.

[Jonathan Lighter]

I was sitting just in front of a pair of college kids on a bus on Nov. 21.  One was from a California college. She asked her friend,  "Do you do Taco Hell ?"  Of course this meant "Do you patronize Taco Bell restaurants ?"  Tens of thousands of RG's for "Taco Hell."

  Perhaps of greater interest was the question, "So am I going to spend $100 this weekend riding bus ?"

  "Bus" as a non-count n.?  This is strange to me.  And yet my neighbor in grad school one year (1977-78)  used to reminisce about "driving truck" in Ohio, and in Tennessee I was once asked, "Do you ever ride bike ?"

  In all three cases the speakers (white) showed no other indication of "final cluster reduction."  So I believe tsomething is going on with certain vehicular idioms, something that, fortunately, has passed me by.

  JL



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