Obit for the special relationship

Here's a little (true) story about the difference between American and British English. In my first job as a budding reporter at the Conway Log Cabin Democrat, in between picking up McDonalds breakfasts and massaging weather reports to make everywhere outside of the circulation area unbearably hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter, I would write obituaries. A typical obit in Conway, back in the early '90s at anyrate, went like this: John "Jack" Jones, 72, a farmer, of Vilonia, died on Tuesday of natural causes. He was a Baptist. He is survived by his wife, Jeanie, a son, John "Jack" Jones Jr and a grandchild, John "Jack" Jones III. But every now and then the publisher would get his knickers in a twist over a local dignitary whose time was up, and then the next one down the food chain, the editor, would shout over to me to stop tucking into my sausage and egg "biscuit" and call round the funeral homes to get the phone numbers of next of kin who might give us a juicy quote. On one such occasion I kept ringing the fellow at the last funeral home on the list, but just couldn't get through, so I sauntered over to the editor who was getting quite fraught as the high noon deadline approached, and told him "I tried to give him a ring, but he was engaged." The correct American English should have been "I tried to call him, but the line was busy." My perfectly correct British English in American English meant I was trying to get married to the poor chap who was betrothed to another. My long-suffering editor's head just sank further into his hands.