Joinery

I just picked up a mouse. A tiny, fat, little grey house mouse. It was sitting in the corridor, not dead, but probably dying. I took it outside and put it in a flowerbed and told it to die there. Now I feel guilty.

What was it doing out in the open,  huddled against the skirting board, where any passing cat could have nabbed it? Perhaps Ian the joiner destroyed its home yesterday when he was ripping out the old woodwork round the kitchen door.

I was writing about Ian to Judy and she picked up on the word "joiner". How delightfully and quaintly Shakespearean, she said.

So what's the American word? Do you guys say "carpenter"?

Because if so, I'm here to tell you there's a difference.

This is how Ian explains it . A carpenter is a master of all forms of woodwork, whereas a joiner is someone who just joins bits of wood together, having perviously got a turner to shape them for him. 

Strictly speaking Ian is a carpenter, not a joiner, because he owns his own woodworking tools.