What is....

[Toaster]

The english call it a "fortnight". (may be mis-spelled)
The english call the trunk a "boot", what is the "hood"?


Extinguish all rational thought.

[M. A. Dockter]

I always thought a fortnight was two weeks time.

As for the shoe thing...I have NO clue whatsoever :(

[mosquito]

the hood should be the cover of the engine compartiment (don't know the name, I speak dutch, english is second language)

[HAL9000]

I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong, but don't they call a hood a bonnet?

[Kubie]

Its a bonnet.
Carl

[Toaster]

That did jog my memory, "bonnet" was what I couldn`t remember. Still, "fortnight" escapes me but 14 days souds familiar, thanks DOC and others.

[AndyM]

I would say you're bloody welcome if I had contributed to this thread.

[glc]

I believe that the Brits call a convertible top a "hood".

[mairving]

Fortnight is fourteen nights. The word seems to be used more in England than here. Over here it is two weeks or if you want, you can shorten it to tweeks (done frequently where I live in the south).

Here is what Mr. Webster says about bonnets and hoods
<blockquote> Hood - chiefly British : a top cover over the passenger section of a vehicle usually designed to be folded back .
<BR>Bonnet - a British : an automobile hood
</blockquote>

[Statica]

Although I am not a huge fan of the American diction, having been educated in an Irish school [yeah with discipline as tough as dried starch], some of the usage out here is a lot more logical, I'll admit.
You could have a "<b>bee in your bonnet</b>" or "<b>an internal combustion engine</b>" and yeah to be perfectly forthright a fortnight is indeed 14 days!

& even though the IUPAC [International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry] ratified sul<i>f</i>ur, I still find myself trying to make a conscious effort not to etch sul<i>ph</i>ur [_{of course, it is my theory that I couldnt complete the chem paper in my 1st year of University cos I wasted time writing excessive <b>ph</b>'s while everyone else wrote <b>f</b>'s, no insult intended}]! Its a moot point though, cos I switched over to a different discipline for my <b>F</b>D .. or was that an occasion to use <b>Ph</b>?

Now, here's the kick in the knickers, where would you put a <b>trailer</b>? Of course if you were educated between the atlantic and the pacific, you would indubitably answer AFTER something. Then why is it on the other side of the atlantic they call Coming Attractions [the time when I decide when I have to go to the washroom or I can hold out for the next 92 minutes] as <b>trailers</b>?

My tupence....

[StuartW]

A fortnight is a period of two weeks (not necessarily only nights); a bonnet of a car is what you call a hood; the trunk is what we call a boot. Another one you may come across is 'lorry', this is what you americans call a truck. Our vehicles run on petrol or diesel. On the roads we have 'roundabouts', which I think you call rotaries. In England we drive on the left side of the road. What is interesting is that during the Napoleonic wars,Napoleon forced every country he conquered to travel on the right hand side.Ever since then, the French have continued to be just plain awkward.LOL
btw apart from calling coming attraction in a cinema 'trailers', we also call the small two wheel box towed behind a car a trailer.Confusingly, we also call the very large truck sometimes pulled by a lorry, a trailer.
As to spelling, as a chemist I never use the spelling Sulfur.In fact many English Journals I publish in would edit that spelling to the British version.