I'm not aware of any distinction in meaning in British English between renting and hiring - I'm pretty sure they're interchangable terms. Here, though, there seems to be an important difference... my brother-in-law explained it as "when you rent something, you just get the thing. When you hire something, you get a guy with it to work it for you."

So you'd rent a car unless you want to be chauffeur-driven, in which case you'd hire it.
You wouldn't want to hire a suit, because there'd be no room for you in it.
My wife won't let me rent a backhoe to sort out the yard, as she doesn't trust me not to knock the house down, and we'll hire one instead.

Anyone else noticed this?

Hire a person.

Rent a thing.

That can't be it. Then it would be hireboy.

And you'd know this because

Oh, I asked Zoe.

So rent boy is to do it yourself and hire a boy he does it for you? Is that correct?

I'm not sure. Perhaps dbd33 will drop by to clarify. He's the expert on pimping around here.

According to my copy of "Current English Usage", it's do with time scale.

"Hire" is short-term, as in hiring a car on holiday.

"Rent" is long-term, like renting an apartment.

The difference is obviously getting blurred.

I believe Oakvillian's relative is mistaken, at least in this context. After checking with some young men outside here my understanding is that someone rent will most certainly work it for you, indeed he'll do so "any way you want, hon". A hireling, otoh, is a horse in Ireland, they only fox.

Thank you dbd. Straight from the horse's mouth, as it were.

A hireling is a horse one hires for a day's hunting - Ireland or England.

Historically so, but I was primarly concerned with working the pun on "fox". I thought that the train of thought suggested by the rent boy's willingness to perform any sort of sexual act contrasted nicely with a hired horse being limited to pursuing foxes. I phrased the response in that cumbersome fashion so as to have fox as a singular verb in the hope that it would suggest "****s" or, in case that's asterisked, "fux". I specifically mentioned Ireland as, now that hunting is banned in England, I doubt one can rent or hire a horse for that purpose.

My posts thus far on this thread were intended as banter. I haven't heard the term "hire" used in Canada except in the case of what Canadians call "human resources".

Abject apologies DBD, the fox/fux thing was far too clever for me. As for hirelings in England - fox hunting is very much alive and well over here and you can still hire a horse to go fox, er sorry 'drag' hunting should you wish.

(I generally assume the banterish nature of your posts btw).

shhh , you promised not to tell , you won't be getting a tip next time then