>>>>>>>For example, one time a group of us were hanging out at Don's apartment -- sorry, his flat -- when there was a report on the TV news about someone being "in hospital." "In THE hospital," Don said emphatically.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Maybe in his neck of the woods there was only one hospital? So anything but a definite article would be out of place (and time, I'd hazard a guess).
>>>>>
>>>>>That actually may be where our habit of saying "in the hospital" came from. The British 'in hospital' tends to sound strange to me, but I do understand what they're saying.
>>>>>
>>>>>What makes me crazy is when some group decides to change the pronunciation of things. Before they moved the airport to Bergstrom (the old AF base), the Austin airport was Mueller (pronounced 'mewler' - the closest most Texans can get to pronouncing the umlaut u). The property was sold for development and we used to hear commercials for the new Mueller's Crossing, except they pronounced it 'miller'. I don't know why it makes me crazy, but it does.
>>>>
>>>>Do they now also write "gesundheit" and read "health"? I mean, if they started translating...
>>>
>>>'Course, Austin is also the place that has Manchacha Street (Man-chack) - but the hamlet of Manchacha is Man-cha-ka, Guadalupe Street (Guadloop), Burnet Road (burn-it) and the town of Manor (Mayner) down the road.
>>
>>And, don't forget Pedernales (Perdenalis) river.
>>
>>Because I grew up on AF bases, the sound of jet engines does not really register with me. While attending UT (73-77) I lived in a house with really low rent, right off the end of the runway of the old Mueller airport. Never noticed a thing compared to the noise of military jets. When I graduated, I could not get out of Texas fast enough, but I have fond memories of (the old) Austin.
>

When I left in '77, Austin was still mainly a sleepy college town and state capital. No real industry to speak of. Population was around 250,000. The music scene was already great. Armadillo World Headquarters was still going strong, and East 6th street was just starting to gain notoriety. My main problem was that the Austin area is flat. I wanted to live in the mountains.

I went back to Austin in '82. Could not believe how much it had grown in those 5 years. And it has almost doubled in size since then. I've spent most of my adult life in Nevada and Montana, two of the least populated states in the union. I'm used to elbow room.
>The new Austin sounds pretty good to me. Maybe next year I will finally make it to the SXSW music festival.