get him a cab

[GoodTaste]

The phrase "get him a cab" sounds to be British. Would it be "get him a taxi" in the US?

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Dr George Christos tweeted today:

Nobel Laureate Murray Gellmann (quarks + quantum chromodynamics) spoke 41 languages fluently including Welsh. I was walking him back from a conference in General Relativity to get him a cab. He asked me what my ethnic background was. I said Macedonian and he spoke to me fluently.

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Off-topic: Speaking 41 languages fluently doesn't mean he can use it in depth, especially for Chinese Language. I don't believe him unless he writes some texts in Chinese with suffcient depth.

 

[GoodTaste]

This Brit uses 'taxi'.

New Yorkers use "cab" then?

 

[GoesStation]

New Yorkers use "cab" then?

Yes. When they wanted to get somewhere, they would often grab a cab in the pre-Uber days.

 

[PeterCW]

I think "taxi" would be more likely in BrE but it is very much a matter of personal taste. It isn't something that you can use to determine nationality.

When tweeting there is the advantage that you save a character by writing "cab"'.

 

[Tdol]

This Brit uses 'taxi'.

This one uses both.

 

[GoesStation]

The (rarely-used) full name of the conveyance is "taxicab". "Taxi" and "cab" are simple short forms of the word.

 

[PeterCW]

In London the vehicle's registration plate will say "licensed taxi" and the drivers badge will say "cab driver".

 

[Skrej]

New Yorkers use "cab" then?

Many Americans use 'cab', not just New Yorkers. Both 'taxi' and 'cab' are widely used across the entire US. One or the other may be slightly more common in a given region, but I seriously doubt anyone would even notice if you used the other.

It's only an issue in bigger cities anyway. Smaller towns and rural areas won't even have occasion to use either term, as there's no such service.

I live in a town of about 19,000, and we've only had taxi service in the last 10 years or so. We got a bus system about 8 years ago. Until then, people either drove themselves, hitched a ride, walked, or bicycled.

 

[emsr2d2]

In London, the vehicle's registration plate will say "licensed taxi" and the driver's badge will say "cab driver".

See above.