So these are gigantic water bongs or what?

My god - people actually changing their behavior in response to environmental needs. You mean actually changing your lifestyle, instead of hoping that they come up with a hybrid SUV is an option? I am shocked, shocked.

they need to by some fat off of some folks asses while their at it.

water butt?

Is that anything like Montezuma's Revenge?

I got watery butt from a chicken burrito once...

I like big [water] butts and I can not lie?

Actual headline making you wonder what in the hell they're doing South of the border, George W Bush Re Elected President.

Well, TFA doesn't work in lynx so I'm commenting blind - this is to do with the lack of rainfall we've had here over the last few years. This results in hosepipe bans, you're not supposed to use them for watering your lawn of cleaning the car or whatever. These used to just come in over July and August. This year the summer hosepipe ban in my area got lifted in January. It'll probably go back on next time we actually see the sun.

Our climate is undergoing change (AGW or not, it's changing here) and people are responding. The water butt is a great way to keep the lawn watered with rain water, hence keeping your garden good and not wasting clean drinking water.

Ahh, bless you poor Merkins and your child-like version of the mother tongue. Don't you find it rather patronising that Webster felt the need to remove all the "tricky" spellings?

Do you need plumber's butt to install a water butt?

/Seymour Butts approves

Hosepipe ban? WTF is a hosepipe? Is that like going to the pet store to buy a dogcat?

diesel3

Well what do you call it?
"hose" would be a shortening of "hosepipe" that's quite common, but most people say hosepipe. Or maybe "Garden hose".

A hose and a pipe are not mutually exclusive descriptions, unlike "dogcat".

/or catweasel.

A "hosepipe ban" is when yo ho's ain't allowed to touch yo pipe.

/you're welcome

Daddy_was_a_Donkey

Don't you find it rather patronizing that you couldn't keep a handle on a few unruly colonists 225 years ago?

/ha!

Where I come from,
Hose = flexible
Pipe = not flexible

Ceci n'est pas une hosepipe?

Front butts?

Butt plug?

EatYourHearOut

touché old boy, touché

/Damn you uppity colonists and damn those long supply lines, damn it all to hell.
//having a Georgian afternoon

Sheesh..when you blokes have cactus flourishing in your front yard, then you can say you've been in a drought.
Here in Texas, we're in year 3-4 of what could last 5-10 years easily. Everyone uses the aquifer, so the wells are going dry.
I hate it..the rivers are drying up, depriving me of valuable kayak time.


/Thanks for inventing India Pale Ale, chaps.

Water butt sounds so much classier than rain barrel.
You Brits have all the culture!

2007-03-02 11:47:20 AM Daddy_was_a_Donkey

Ahh, bless you poor Merkins and your child-like version of the mother tongue. Don't you find it rather patronising that Webster felt the need to remove all the "tricky" spellings?

Of course, you do realize that the differences in spelling between US English and UK English all stem from the aftermath of the second world war.

The industrial complex of America stepped up letter production during the war years, and a vast shipment was sent to our allies across the sea - bombing campaigns by Axis forces were destroying words by the millions. However, the operation being a governmental one, the delivery of said letters was delayed until almost the end of the war.

The British, being far too polite to return a gift no matter how useless, pleasantly accepted the surplus shipment of letters and began a program to use up the excess letters in a manner that wasn't too problematic.

The decision was made to insert extra vowels into more common words like colour and humour, where they wouldn't make much difference, or aluminium, where the difference is more noticeable but arguably more melodic.

Consonants posed a particularly troubling situation, but in the end it was decided to pair them with some vowels, stick them into place names, not pronounce them, and in general ignore them - hence the spelling of Leicester and Gloucester, for example.

I expect the surplus of letters and other various word fragments to run out sometime in the next decade.

Shemp Mo-Din
You appear to be mis-informed; all the additional consonants got fobbed off on the Welsh in exchange for 80% of their vowels, the poor misguided fools.

I believe they've tried to sell them onto the Russians but they're not having any of it, it's cyrillic or nothing for that lot.

bennu
Thanks for Bush-bashing! I didn't think it could be done in a thread like this, but you sure proved me wrong.
/Grow up, Nancy-boy.

Well, I'm sure you've seen the mess that the surplus shipment made in Iceland - they got all the dregs that came out of the machines with twisted ascenders and/or random spots or dashes over them.

Daddy_was_a_Donkey

Ah, interesting tidbit about the Welsh deal - I suppose that must have come about after the failure of the place name scheme. Which, on second though, makes sense. I mean, once you've done the maps and the street signs, you'd still have a ton left over.

what about Herbs? the brits properly pronounce the H and we dont

also, what about our unnecessarily silent H in cHemistry? Why all the disrespect for the noble H?

does it have something to do with why the brits say 'ello?

Tricky Chicken

Ah, that's an amusing remnant of wartime rationing. Americans gave up a few letters here and there during the conflict until production could be stepped up - after all, bombs weren't falling on our cities, the least we could do is change a few words, like erb. I mean, it's not that heavily used.

Once the war was over, we were able to add that letter back in, and in fact we had a surplus of letters as well. Fortunately, with our larger geographic mass, we were able to use up the bulk of them in various place names (primarily in the New England area) and sprinkle the rest into words we stole from other languages.

I am going to breed catweasels.

then I'll profit!

go me!

Stop pushing our American Values on them.

Rain barrels? Great idea, if you like mosquito farms.

If you were my neighbor and had one, I'd drill a hole in it.

My boss called Loews to try and get a water butt. They had no idea what the hell he was talking about.

/he also called TP 'bog roll'

Shemp Mo-Din

2007-03-02 11:47:20 AM Daddy_was_a_Donkey

Ahh, bless you poor Merkins and your child-like version of the mother tongue. Don't you find it rather patronising that Webster felt the need to remove all the "tricky" spellings?

Of course, you do realize that the differences in spelling between US English and UK English all stem from the aftermath of the second world war.

The industrial complex of America stepped up letter production during the war years, and a vast shipment was sent to our allies across the sea - bombing campaigns by Axis forces were destroying words by the millions. However, the operation being a governmental one, the delivery of said letters was delayed until almost the end of the war.

The British, being far too polite to return a gift no matter how useless, pleasantly accepted the surplus shipment of letters and began a program to use up the excess letters in a manner that wasn't too problematic.

The decision was made to insert extra vowels into more common words like colour and humour, where they wouldn't make much difference, or aluminium, where the difference is more noticeable but arguably more melodic.

Consonants posed a particularly troubling situation, but in the end it was decided to pair them with some vowels, stick them into place names, not pronounce them, and in general ignore them - hence the spelling of Leicester and Gloucester, for example.

I expect the surplus of letters and other various word fragments to run out sometime in the next decade.

__________________________

Nice!...

Actual headline making me wonder why submitter: only has a sixth-grade vocabulary: Actual headline making you wonder what in the hell they're doing across the pond: "Brits buy up water butts"

"people are desperate to get their hands on a water butt."

heh.

What is hilarious is that the Brits then turned around and sold the vowels to Hawaii at a major mark-up, and also required that the locals put the union flag in the Hawaii flag.

Hence we have places like Aiea, ka'a'awa, etc.

So the brits are discovering rainwater collection now? Good for them.

We central Texans have been doing it for years.

/We use tanks, which are a bit less nasty than butts.

Hence we have places like Aiea, ka'a'awa, etc

Poor guys, they just can't seem to pronounce Ikea can they.

Skimming headlines, I thought this was something about Britney getting an enema.

/carry on

water butt == rain barrel

FSM we are a sundered people...

Daddy_was_a_Donkey: Ahh, bless you poor Merkins and your child-like version of the mother tongue. Don't you find it rather patronising that Webster felt the need to remove all the "tricky" spellings?

QFT

I like the mix-up between the meaning of the word Fanny. In the UK it's the fun parts of a lady, but Americans seem to have mixed it up with a posterior.

/Not that there's anything wrong with that sort of thing.
//Cigarette?

YouPeopleAreCrazy

In mosquito season a couple of drops of detergent in the barrel kills the surface tension... and consequently the mosquito larvae, which can't breath.