emsr2d2,
How would you say, "We're going to stay with my parents for the holidays" in British English, referring to the week of Christmas and New Years?
By the way, "the holidays" in America refers to Christmas and New Years, whereas it now seems to me that "the holidays" refers to summer in British English.
I would say "I'm going to stay with my parents for Christmas" and "I'm going to stay with my parents for New Year". If I needed to specify an actual time period, it would be something like "I'm going to stay with my parents for a few days/for a week over/for Christmas/New Year".
I'm aware that "the holidays" can mean Christmas and New Year in AmE but it's not used by anyone I know in the UK.
YAMATO2201 and Piscean,
I would say that "used to be..." is correct in American English. Not so in British English?
"I used to be happy" is fine (for example). The interrogative, though, is "Did you use to be happy?"
Hi everyone!
Does British English use “holiday” to refer to a regular day off (Sat. and Sun. of every week) or is it "day off" like in American English?
Referring to the idea of “holiday” as in the American word “vacation”, does British English use the verb phrase “take a holiday” or is it just “go on holiday”
No, we definitely don't use "holiday" to mean "day/days off". Don't forget, too, that these days, many people don't get Saturday and/or Sunday off every week. People work all sorts of schedules these days.
I'd use "go on holiday", not "take a holiday" but some people probably use the latter.