wrote:

wrote:
The new Peter O'Toole film, 'Venus',
has a scene that suggests he takes
a red, presumably London, tube to
a coastal beach.

Is this possible today? On which
'red electric train' to use John
Betjeman's term, to which beach?

Edwin Bock

I wish people wouldn't call tube trains "tubes". Tubes are the tunnels
the trains run in.

You are fighting a completely and hopelessly losing battle on that
front Mike!

I do demur from using the term "tube" when I'm specifically talking
about the sub-surface lines (District, Met etc) as the line neither
uses a tube tunnel nor are the trains tube shaped. LU/TfL freely uses
the term "Tube", with a capital 'T', as a shorthand way of describing
the whole Underground system - a convention that I follow when posting
here.

Of course an Underground train that would have travelled from London to
Southend wouldn't have spent a lot of the journey underground, so even
the usage of that term can be criticised.

Anyway, point being that you can wish as much as you want the people
wouldn't call the trains "tubes", but they will certainly continue to
do so - it is absolutely ingrained in the language!