re: Louisiana House votes to ban ‘free’ to describe government giveaways

America is one of the few places in the world that uses “free” to describe govt services or private sector offerings at no cost to consumer

In British English, the term used is “free at the point of use”. They use that term to describe everything from their NHS to govt-provided WiFi services to even private sector offerings.

When our company acquired a British hazardous disposal company and had our first meeting with their guys, they looked puzzled at us when we kept on referring to the “free” reconditioned containers we offer our clients.

They were confused how it wasn’t costing our company money by offering the free stuff. Finally we figured out it was because we weren’t using the phrase “free at the point of use”