>>>>>I've seen one faucet with a huge lump of white sediment grown around it... in a water quality testing laboratory in Hungary. Now that was a water which tasted great, but if you didn't wipe the glass immediately after washing it, the water drops would leave white outlines.
>>>>
>>>>We have hard water here on the chalk south coast. Even the rain (mixed in with salt sea air) leaves white marks on you windscreen. When I go back up north visiting, when washing I always end up with too much lather as I'm used to vigorously agitating the soap down south. :-)
>>>
>>>You can chalk it off on regional differences.
>>
>>"chalk it up to ..."
>
>I figured you'll know that region of the grammar far better than I would :).

Just trying to help with your knowledge opf idiomatic English. You remind me sometimes of the Israeli agent in NCIS :-)

Talking of which, I've never been able to figure why we say "later on" rather than just "later", or "earlier on".

Why on high-brow radio talk shows, the English cogniscienti always reply "Absolutely" when a yes/no answer is illicited. They also start their spiel with "I mean ..." too, when asked to come in to the confab. (How can they be explaining what they mean when they haven't already said something?)