Vacation vs. holiday

As is sometimes the case, the British and the Americans have different words for vacation, the time a person takes off from work (often in the summer) to relax or travel. The British call this time holidays, and sometimes they shorten it to hols. We Americans call this vacation. When you work for a company, you have a certain number of vacation days. Generally this number increases with the time you work for the company. We often use the verb take, for example: When are you taking your vacation this year? We can also use go on for both the British and American usage: I'm going on vacation in August/I'm going on holiday in August.

In American English, holidays are days like Christmas and the Fourth of July. They might be national holidays celebrated across the country, or simply special days to give a gift. Depending on your job, you might have the day off, or not. In the UK, these days are called bank holidays. When this kind of holiday occurs on a Monday or Friday, we call it a long weekend.