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When it comes to taking a taxi or calling a waiter, which one should we use and what is their difference?

  • Hail a taxi or flag down a taxi?
  • Hail a waiter or flag down a waiter?
alphabet
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Majid Abdolhosseini
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    Your choice on the taxi, but the smallest gesture will do as cruising cabbies are already on the lookout for fares. The language of hailing or flagging down is 100 years old. One finger will do. No, not that one. – Yosef Baskin Mar 09 '23 at 23:19
  • You might beckon a waiter, if they want to see you. If not, I suppose you could rustle one up :) They can often see a note coming out of your pocket. – Weather Vane Mar 09 '23 at 23:26
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    You can flag down any vehicle if you have a need to (for example your car has broken down), but 'hail' is specifically for a taxi. – Weather Vane Mar 09 '23 at 23:35
  • Ngram Viewer says (FWIW) that "hail a taxi" is more common than "flag down a taxi" in both BrE and AmE. Odd, because this use of "hail" strikes me as more old-fashioned. – alphabet Mar 10 '23 at 00:28
  • One never places a space before terminal punctuation in English, be those question marks or exclamation points or full stops/periods. – tchrist Mar 10 '23 at 00:58
  • @alphabet I'm a little hesitant to extend this thread, because it seems that OP's question is being answered in comments, but I wonder how "flag" (without "down") compares to the other two options. – MarcInManhattan Mar 10 '23 at 04:27
  • All of these sound fine to my Western American ears. The difference between hail and flag down is in what lengths you must go to in order to get attention. – Tinfoil Hat Mar 10 '23 at 05:47
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    There's an old joke - "What's worse than 'raining cats and dogs'?" - "Hailing taxis." – Kate Bunting Mar 10 '23 at 09:02

1 Answers1

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Strictly "hail" would imply calling out to the taxi, and "flag down" would imply gesturing to the taxi. However they are often used interchangeably when it comes to taxis. In particular "hail a taxi" is a specific well-understood phrase, used whatever the means of summoning.

In general you would not use "hail" with a waiter, because we normally summon waiters with a gesture, not a shout (and "hail" means a loud shout, not a polite "excuse me"). If you are going to shout loudly to attract the waiter's attention then you can use the word "hail".

DJClayworth
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