British trucker wins Greek appeal?

According to BBC news, ‘British trucker wins appeal’. Pardon? Well, the story itself does return to British vocabulary:

bq. A lorry driver who faced 11 years in jail for smuggling illegal immigrants into Greece has won his appeal.

It reminds me of a letter to the Times when British Airways was given its name (what was it called before?). I think it went something like:

bq. Sir,
British Airways?

5 thoughts on “British trucker wins Greek appeal?

  1. Indeed, an interesting phenomenon. That same BBC site has several other links to that “trucker story”, and each time, “trucker” is the word used in the headline. It seems that “trucker” is used in headlines only, because it’s shorter and more compact than “lorry driver”. I find it a shame, though, because is it really necessary to go fishing in another region’s linguistic pool just to come up with a succinct headline?

  2. Thanks, Robin!

    @Werner: yes, it’s bizarre. There are a lot of Americans reading the BBC news site, and sometimes I think they try to make stories, or perhaps only headlines, internationally comprehensible. But OTOH I imagine a lot of Americans would understand the word ‘lorry’.

    I get BBC News in a feed reader (Newzcrawler) and the headlines decide whether I click on the story or not. That’s why my own headers are supposed to be informative rather than joky. Some readers just see the RSS feed headers.

  3. Not only (as Margaret Marks notes) has the BBC started using trucker instead of lorry-driver or patient with chronic back pain and a dietary disorder: the Americanism has been the preferred usage in Holland for years. Henk Wijngaard’s 1978 hit,…

  4. Not only (as Margaret Marks notes) has the BBC started using trucker instead of lorry-driver or patient with chronic back pain and a dietary disorder: the Americanism has been the preferred usage in Holland for years. Henk Wijngaard’s 1978 hit,…

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