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Originally Posted by hobnail
Or what about the different types of schools? In British books it sounds to me like what they call a public school (e.g. Eaton and Harrow; very upper crust) is what here in the US we'd call a private school.
What do they call what we call a public school; one that's free and paid for with taxes?
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It also sounds weird to Australians. Here, a "public school" is a government run and funded school and a "private school" is, well, a privately run school. They do get some funding from the government, but, charge fees to the students. The latter includes schools run by a religion.
As with the English public schools, private schools here have traditionally been seen as "upper class" and look down on public schools. I come from a country town that had no private schools. When I went to university, being asked what school I went to seemed weird until I worked out that they were really asking, "Are you one of us?" and after an excuse to brag about what school they went to. After that, it could be fun to pretend not to know what they were talking about.