"Tabled"

I’ve written before about my love of “invisible assumptions” and similar to that are words in English that have different meanings in different countries.

The one word that is most frustrating like that is “tabled.” Like when you are running through the agenda of a meeting and the chair says that it is time to table the next item.

In my native American English, when a committee tables an item, it is agreed to not discuss it today, but instead move it to a future agenda.

In British English, African English, and Indian English, when an item is tabled, it is put before the committee for immediate discussion.

Same word. Same pronunciation. Same intonation. Opposite meanings!

One change from running a private company to a public company and from focusing more on the capital markets than private equity markets is the huge increase in meetings with agendas, chaired by a variety of partners. All who live in the African Union. All of which keep tabling items. And every time, my brain has to pause for half a second to remember what that word means.

It’s a lot like switching from driving left-hand drive to right-hand drive. I’ve done that many times in the last year, and no matter where I’m driving now, half the time the windshield wipers turn on when I turn a corner as the stalk for the turn signal switches sides along with the steering wheel and driving lane.

Which reminds me, no item this year was tabled in the American sense. What is the word for that in British English? And what is American English for “next up on the agenda?”