OT "Standing in a queue"

[charles]

My occupational pension is paid monthly - on the 15th. My State Pension arrives every 4 weeks.

[The Other John]

Too much information! :) Let me refine my question: what other *legal/ contractual* types of month are there?

[NY]

a) calendar month; b) "four-week month" as used by the payroll of some older companies

[David Lang]

My first job was working with a bloke called Jack Thomas, he was christened John.

[Bob Eager]

+1

I budget as if I receved the state pension once a month. Then I have a nice bonus once a year!

[Bob Eager]

Given that my ISP is happy to bill you 'lunar monthly', it is presumably contractual.

(third bullet under 'Periodic billing')

[The Natural Philosopher]

Any sort you care to mention in a contract. Venusian months will do nicely. Assuming venus has months...

[charles]

Bird's Eye - the frozen food people - were about to market "Crispy Cod Pieces" and there nearly was a City University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

[NY]

Apparently Mary Whitehouse (her of the puritanical "rid our television of this filth") was about to name her campaign " Clean Up National Television". Oh how I wish she'd actually done it... Her of all people...

[David Lang]

Odd when you are self employed. If employed, a 5 week month means you have to make the money last an extra week. Self employed means you have another week to earn money.

And then there's bank holidays.

[harry]

Randy is a common American name.

[Sam Plusnet]

Discussing Shakspear and correct spelling is bound to lead to problems.

Shakespeare Shakespere Shakespear Shakspeare Shackspeare Shakspere Plus a few others.

[Sam Plusnet]

The DWP pays us pensioners every 28 days (lunar month), & I imagine that is both legal & contractual.

[Bob Eager]

I agree!

[Bob Eager]

That's not a lunar month. A lunar month is about 29.5-ish days (see my ISP link).

[Sam Plusnet]

Yesbut.

The Cousins have a phrase "Close Enough for Goverment Work".

So... My Moon May Vary.

[Bob Eager]

Not close enough for my ISP's invoicing system though!

[Tim Streater]

Correct, although any computer engineer or computer scientist or software engineer will know the word queue, where it has the same meaning as when we use it more generally.

[The Natural Philosopher]

A 'line' is for people only. Queue has the concept of FIFO behaviour of any elements.

The only difference - after all we say 'stand in line' as well as 'form a queue' is that we are more disciplined, and society endorses FIFO behaviour on people.

[News]

In message , Tim Streater writes

True, but would any American use queue in the British sense? Probably not, in the same way that most Brits will know the Americanisms, but would rarely use them in place of the more usual British words.

Getting back to the original conspiracy theory, I doubt that speech was written for Obama by a Brit. Yes, Baz and Dave probably agreed the general outline, but far more likely the speech was written by Obama's usual writers, then gone through with a fine tooth comb, to change any Americanisms to words more easily understood by a British audience. No more than common courtesy.