Post subject:
Sorry for the delay in answering this most pressing of questions tomassi.
'Ask Greg' likes to get his facts straight and I needed to double check this one.
The short answer is there is no actual difference.
Apparently this is, as I first thought, a quirk of the English language.
To explain:
The actual action of completing a form is 'filling in'.
In most other languages the request would be to 'fill in' a form and the action you would be taking would be 'filling in'.
However in English it's slightly different.
The action again is to 'fill in', but the correct request is to 'fill out' a form.
Example:
If you were completing a form, you would be 'filling in' the form.
If you were asked what you were doing, again 'filling in' would be the correct response.
However if a third party was asked what you were doing, then they would be correct in stating you were 'filling out' a form.
I checked with a Lecturer in English at a college I work at and he suggested the phrase had come from American English.
So in summary, logic says "fill in", English says "fill out", both in essence the same thing. Phew!
