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The number's up for US
Page 28
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I WAS SORRY to read in a news item about the shortcomings of sat-nay for large vehicles (CM 22 June) a reference to the truck involved as an '18-wheeler'. There are enough Americanisms polluting the English language without resorting to US truckers' vernacular.
We can all agree.! think, that an eight-wheeler of the sort we know and love has eight wheels. deployed on four axles.
Yes. two of those axles are likely to have twin wheels and tyres, but our established terms are clearly defined, which means an eight-wheeler is decidedly not a 12-wheeler.
Today's maximum-weight. six-axled artics of the kind that got into trouble in the middle of Shepshed typically have 14 (or maybe 16) tyres—but they remain a 12-wheelers, even if they are rarely called such.
Insidious adoption of Yankee terminology will, if we are not careful, lead to us calling artic tractor units*tractor trailers'. 'Trailer tractors' would be more logical, but across the Atlantic semantic logic doesn't get a look-in.
Alan Bunting Harpenden Hertfordshire