Rutabaga

No question. It just sounds odd to my American-biased ears, especially after my struggles with subjunctive when learning French (where it figures more prominently). I can think of other British expressions that Yanks don't use but seem useful: "There, that's the food sorted." "The weather pretty much put paid to our travel plans." "It was gone ten when we finally went upstairs." "Come through to the dining room." ”Thank heavens we finally got shot of that bore.” R

You are certainly correct that that sort of thing would have gone (and indeed did go) right over my head. And I have no doubt that there are innumerable bits of American culture that would mystify, or be missed by, those from other cultures. It still leaves me wondering what the actual story purpose would have been. We already know that this is an exclusive and apparently quite pricey school, with the assumption that the students come from relatively privileged backgrounds. Stephen is a Viscount, although he seems to resist at least some of the implications of that title. He shows pluck along with his occasionally short fuse. It's not clear what light his drinking habits might shed on his character in addition. I have become far more accustomed to the British way of expressing things as a result, among other things, of reading stories here. Apart from terminology differences, such as "living room" here and "lounge" there, there are verb form differences. In the US we would not say something like, "I found Marge and her sister sat in front of the television." We would use the present participle, "sitting," rather than "sat." Similarly, we use the present subjunctive as follows: "Bill suggested that we go after lunch." rather than "Bill suggested that we went after lunch" where "went" is not subjunctive (I'm not really sure what it is). And so on. I've gotten used to it. I assume British teachers would not have marked either of my examples wrong. In the US they would have. I will almost certainly be appreciative of any efforts you undertake to make your new story more understandable to Yanks. Although I do not recall any particular challenges with the previous ones. R

Not sure if this will work:

Regardless of the legality or lack thereof (and the story hints that it was at least possibly questionable), I simply found it weird that the author devoted so much attention to the subject . . . and that the boys and their teachers all seemed to like getting hammered on a regular basis. If there was some point to be made I missed it. From a personal standpoint, I have never been a fan of hard liquor (distilled spirits), and it surprised me that 15-year-olds were knocking back Scotch and gin with such regularity. I'm not condemning the story for it; it just didn't seem to serve any useful purpose in advancing the story line. R

When we stopped, he asked me, “Where did you move here from?” I told him Ohio, and he said he’d never been there, he’d lived here in the South all his life and they didn’t travel much. As far as I can tell, "here in the South" is as close as we ever get to learning exactly where Tim and his father moved to when they left Ohio. A plausible place to relocate from there would be somewhere in Tennessee, which would arguably qualify as "the South," but that's just my speculation. Somehow the story does not seem to be set in somewhere like Arkansas or Mississippi or Georgia. If there is anything more specific I missed it. R

Just finished "Thilo" at IOMFATS. It was an enjoyable, if somewhat uneven, read, with some quirkiness such as a major focus on alcohol consumption by the teenagers in the story. Not sure yet whether it has convinced me to try any of the other Andrew Foote stories also available at this site. R

A camera and microphone installed next to the nest of a mating pair of bald eagles in Big Bear, California bring live coverage of starting a family. As of this afternoon, the mama eagle has just laid her second egg, and it's possible a third will be added soon. See it all here. R

Never a dull moment. There's already been a knife fight, police, and not one but two ambulances. R

A trivia note: I see that Miss O'Reilly's cat Merkin is female. R

"Ha ha! I know what you guys are really thinking of when you talk about bananas!"

"This discussion is drifting pretty far afield."

Thinking about my friend with the banana . . . R

[Reaction on reading the comments.] R

The lad definitely gets the “dressed lightly” part correct. R

Or: R

More pondering. R

He's pondering the dilemma of what to use for dressing fruit salad. R

Continuing the water theme: R

Or this: R

Here's another: R

Another candidate: R

So the challenge is to find a more challenging challenge picture. I'll see what I can do. R

In the vein of my last post, here is a challenge picture for you: R

What I was deftly doing was leaving my options open. Maybe we should send you challenge pictures, similar to what Pedro is working from. R