{"id":1106,"date":"2020-08-10T12:39:21","date_gmt":"2020-08-10T12:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.englishwithjosh.com\/?p=1106"},"modified":"2020-08-10T12:39:23","modified_gmt":"2020-08-10T12:39:23","slug":"on-vacation-or-on-holidays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.englishwithjosh.com\/pl\/on-vacation-or-on-holidays\/","title":{"rendered":"On Vacation, or on holidays?"},"content":{"rendered":"

At this time of year, many people have a break from school or university, or take some time away from work. So should we say that they are on holiday, or on vacation? Like many English words, it depends on where you are or who you are talking to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A \u201choliday\u201d was originally a \u201choly day\u201d<\/a>: a day that is connected with God or religion (similar to the Polish word \u201c\u015bwi\u0119to\u201d). In the United States, it\u2019s still used in a similar way. \u201cHolidays\u201d in American English are either important religious celebrations (such as Christmas, Eid, Passover or Diwali), or other important festivals or national celebrations (such as Independence Day or Thanksgiving).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A holiday can also be a day when people don\u2019t have to go to work. In the UK, this is often called a \u201dbank holiday\u201d; in other parts of the world, we use \u201cpublic holiday\u201d. For example, in Australia and New Zealand, on April 25 we have a public holiday called Anzac Day<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A \u201dvacation\u201d, in American English, is time away from work or studies, especially if that time is used for travel or other fun activities. It comes from a latin word meaning \u201cfreedom from obligations\u201d.<\/a> This word is not so common in UK English, but is used in some specific contexts, such as law courts or universities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In British and other varieties of English, such as Australian, we use \u201choliday\u201d or \u201cholidays\u201d for this meaning. The plural \u201cholidays\u201d is most often connected with a long break once a year (e.g. \u201csummer holidays\u201d), whereas we use phrases such as \u201con holiday\u201d or \u201ctake a holiday\u201d in other situations when we are taking time off work or travelling for fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, to sum up: a holiday is an important day for religious or other reasons, or a day when most people don\u2019t work. In British and Australian English, it\u2019s also a longer break from work such as taking time off to go on a trip somewhere. In American English, a longer break, especially if it\u2019s for travel, is a vacation.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, being Australian, I would say that I am \u201con holiday\u201d right now, and that I will \u201ctake a holiday\u201d and go away somewhere on a trip. If I were American, I would probably say that I am \u201con vacation\u201d and that I am looking forward to \u201ctaking a vacation\u201d and travelling someone nice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope this was helpful. Let me know if you have any questions, and I’ll see you after my holiday!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At this time of year, many people have a break from school or university, or take some time away from work. So should we say that they are on holiday, or on vacation? Like many English words, it depends on where you are or who you are talking to. A \u201choliday\u201d was originally a \u201choly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1109,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,56,15,54],"tags":[51,53,52,20,49,50,48,47],"class_list":["post-1106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about-josh","category-british-and-american-english-learning-english","category-learning-english","category-vocabulary","tag-american-english","tag-australian-english","tag-british-english","tag-english-language","tag-holiday","tag-holidays","tag-vacation","tag-vocabulary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.englishwithjosh.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.englishwithjosh.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.englishwithjosh.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.englishwithjosh.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.englishwithjosh.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.englishwithjosh.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1110,"href":"https:\/\/www.englishwithjosh.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1106\/revisions\/1110"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.englishwithjosh.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.englishwithjosh.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.englishwithjosh.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.englishwithjosh.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}