I am not resident in America but like many countries around the world mine has much American TV shows and other cultural imports. One that has long puzzled me is the apparent assumption that not pursuing tertiary education is a failure of intelligence or ambition or both and dooms a person to a lower standartd of life in both material and social status. Even in my country now people might say the equivalent of 'I am just a plumber' or 'just a builder' so I was interested to read this article in the New York Times today that addressed some of these points. It is interesting how words take on new layers that then seem to become inseparable parts of them.

"The trades suffer from low prestige, " is counting maybe for all rich countries.
We now at last see a slow change towards the return of trade-craft-school education. Everybody agrees it should return, but it's even hard to find adaquate teachers.
Our policy for about thirty years has been to oblige youngsters who are most fit for manual work to study mainly theorethical subjects for two years, from the age of twelve. By the time the two years are over they have lost all interest, even in the manual education they might have aspired to. Many drop outs as a result. Silly development.

Rather like driving a hummer - the triumph of status over function.

And the rarer the trained people get the higher the renumeration they may expect.

Latishya:
I have a number of degrees from colleges. But I cannot figure
out what goes on under the hood (boot) of an automobile.
When something mechanical goes wrong I call in the experts.
I have the highest regard for electricians, plumbers, and
other specialty personnel. "Just a plumber"? Not in my book.
They have saved me plenty of times, and I am so grateful.
The idea that book-degrees is superior exists only in the minds
of the arrogant who believe it of themselves.

The hood is front of the car, no? In my country that is called the bonnet. The boot is the storage space I think is called the trunk in US English. I have heard of some cars with their engine in the rear and I don't know if the terms are used the same for them.

This is funny. We call it cap. The hood, the bonnet and the cap.

Wow. Hats off to you! :-)

Have a friend who drives in to service and says: "It's something under the boot", referring to the
mechanical apparatus of the engine, etc. Don't know if he's correct, I assumed it was the "hood".

Workmen and owner discussing some repairs on my opposite neighbour's roof. Workman: " Does this mean it only needs constructive repairs or should they be cosmetic as well?"

That sounds like a practical and sensible question. If I were the owner, I would prefere both, but if I had to choose I would pick constructive over cosmetic. Perhaps it was a question of cost. I have heard that construction can be done quickly, well or cheap - any two of those three, but never all three.

I've heard the same two out of three choice from design engineers.

I'd take well and cheap.

That's two votes!

Originally Posted By: BranShea: Workmen and owner discussing some repairs on my opposite neighbour's roof. Workman: " Does this mean it only needs constructive repairs or should they be cosmetic as well?"

Latishya: That sounds like a practical and sensible question.

Sure, but I wasn't thinking about practical or costs. I was amused thinking about how fifteen years ago the man still would have asked: "Do you want have it just repaired or shall I also make something nice of it?"
I mean, the two years of preparatory theoretical lessons apparently payed off.

My first thought was that constructive repairs is somewhat tautologous. I'm not sure anyone offers destructive repairs (though you could argue that as a definition for cleaning). And I've never heard constructive used as the (insert fancy grammatical term here) of construct (cf construe).

Sometimes I really wish I'd paid more attention in English.

"Constructive repairs" might be a tautology, but "only ... constructive repairs" isn't.

Doc, I translated these words from Dutch directly. I am aware that these terms may not be in use in English this way.
The exact words were 'constructieve reparatie' and 'cosmetische reparatie' and it made me chuckle. I would say: " Skipp the posh words and do a good job for a posh pay"