Driving into work, there was some commentary about the recent case in Bedfordshire, UK where the police had tweeted a picture of a cannabis plant, commenting it was the largest cannabis plant they had ever seen. You must have heard this in the last week or so. Duly it was dug up and confiscated. The owners of the plant, a retired couple, had not known what is was, but they had liked their spiky looking plant. They said they had bought it a car boot sale.

Now this is where it gets funny. One of the commentators asked what a car boot sale was; the reply from the other was it was a police sale. When you don’t pay your fines, they put a boot on your car and proceed to sell it and the contents of the car. Hence the name car boot sale. I have verified this terminology with the people I am working with. The other commentator thought this was hilarious; the UK police selling cannabis plants.

I have to say this was on American radio, and I can only comment on how far are common language has parted. As you well know a boot is the back of the car, (trunk in American) and a car boot sale is where you empty your house into the boot, drive to a sale field, and then proceed to sell the contents of the boot. (In American parlance, this is a flea market)

Now we have a group of Americans in Connecticut who think the UK police are crazy, selling drug plants to old age pensioners. This is how myths are made.