They are called 4x4 in the UK too!
Ron - if it was Dominic Savio, it must have been the Salesians... OMG!
I suppose with QuadBike, at least in the vernacular, it is often shortened to Quad. Not to be confused with Quadrophonic, Quadruplets ( 2xTwins ) Quariplegics, Quadrangle etc.
At Cafflik school we had a quadrangle which we called the quad, which housed a statue of goody goody creep, Dominic Savio petrified in mid gait, prayer book in hand...eyes gazing at the heavens. The boarders, in the middle of the night, painted footprints from the plinth to the bogs and back. Needless to say the whole school was punished. Not a gay day.
Celeste, I meant just the Oxford English Dictionary and their 'syndicate' deciding... I think they wait seven or so years before accepting a word. In 'yoof speak' at present that may well be six years, eleven and a half months too long.
There is also a dictionary of Scots. A selection of words from outside common 'English' usage is accepted according to their blah-blah. I have the several CD set version which I took instead of money for some work for OUP. The Cambridge English Dictionary actually does exist, published by CUP, but is rarely viewed as of importance. At risk of my ear being clipped by Catharine, what makes Oxford so superior to us? Or is that just a foible?
Ron, unless I am mistaken, the OED waits several years before a colloqium of posh blokes (maybe they allow women into their medieval coven nowadays too) decides what is common usage and adds to the dictionary. That is why people sometimes shake their heads about words that do not make it and ones that do that are out of use by the time they appear. Then there is the obsession with what is American and English, whilst the rest of the English speaking world is excluded, so Jamaican never gets a look in, etc, etc.
I broadly speaking agree with Catharine except that I prefer to write my name in lower case which is a silly affectation I adopted years ago but stuff the rest of the world if they must tell me.
Quite right to rant ( and rave ) there Kent. But even with an alternative, how does one feed a new ( accurate ) word into the English language? when it seems the Oxford English Dictionary accepts any old street jive nowadays.
Agreed too Catharine...I do suffer from überuse of Caps Syndrome, myself.
My personal rant (well the first for this thread...) is people who fail to use capital letters.