Chrysti The Wordsmith: Bus - 2

Greetings This is Christie the wordsmith a friend recently had lunch at our local food co-op where she spotted a sign on the wall that read Love thy neighbor bus table. Now anyone who's ever worked in the industry knows that bus is restaurant jargon for clear a table of dirty dishes. My friend wondered if the restaurant vb. a bus might be related to the noun that refers to the transit vehicle. Her question piqued my curiosity so I turned to the Oxford English Dictionary where I discovered that the two buses are indeed related. Somewhere along a winding etymological path it all started with the word on the bus. A Latin derived term meaning for all or for everyone. The term was applied in France and England in the early 1900s to horse drawn public coaches. The precursor to urban mass transit systems. The coaches called on the buses were etymologically and literally for all by the late 1800s the term was clipped to the now familiar bus. Meanwhile the word on a bus was also being employed in restaurants and taverns

19th century restaurant apprentices who waited on the waiters were called on it buses or on a bus boys because they were required to make themselves useful in all ways for every one American on a bus boys recalled a bus boys by the early 1900s. The driver bus meaning clean a dirty table a typical job for an omnibus boy was first cited in the early 1950s. I'm Christie the wordsmith. Good day were not hers. CHRISTIE The wordsmith is sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry. Zoot web dot com.