BS: American vs British slang

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From:
Date: 30 Jul 02 - 01:29 AM

I've got a collection of mainly midwestern US idioms, etc. (still needs editing) here --

http://www2.truman.edu/~adavis/expressions.html

Adam

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: GUEST,seanchai
Date: 30 Jul 02 - 12:54 AM

There is a book out called, "Cold As A Bay Street Banker's Heart", subtitled, 'The Ultimate Prairie Phrase Book'. It gives a few local expressions, such as matrimonial cake (date squares), a wedding 'social', and fowl supper.

Here are a few words / phrases to prove to you that we Canadians are not TOTALLY American:)

great white combine sleepers / strollers / grinners improved Englishman / Scotsman principal meridian cow gate

There are many more but these are some easy ones!

Jean in Winnipeg, Canada

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: GUEST,Charmion at work
Date: 29 Jul 02 - 11:57 AM

To Steve Parks, in re "starving": My mother (English/Irish ancestry, born in Montreal in 1929, lived 40 years in Ottawa) would say "starving of the hunger" to remove all doubt.

Someone above mentions "stupid o'clock" -- anyone hanging around in Canadian military circles will soon hear "zero dark thirty" to mean an unspecified hour between midnight and dawn, and "zero dark stupid" to mean an unreasonably early pre-dawn hour.

In re "crab" for RAF: in the Canadian Navy of the 1970s, I learned that airmen were "crabfats", from the greyish colour of the RCAF uniform, similar to that of the grey paint used in Royal Navy ships, which was always called "crabfat". Oddly enough, this usage has survived 30 years, although the paint association has disappeared, perhaps because the Canadian Navy does not have nearly as much contact with the Royal Navy as it used to. I recently heard a youngish petty officer recounting a fanciful bit of folk etymology concerning the non-existence of fat on a crab. Among soldiers (then "pongoes", now "grunts"), airmen were "pigeons", and their arrival in the Junior Ranks' would be marked by cooing sounds. If one wished to start a fight, the thing to do was remark (loudly) that the canary would be a more representative bird, as they are too yellow to fight but too cute to shoot.

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Snuffy
Date: 29 Jul 02 - 09:16 AM

I've always assumed that Gog, meaning a North Walian, is just an abbreviation of Gogledd (which is Welsh for north), rather than anything to do with LlanfairPG.

Wassail! V

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: HuwG
Date: 29 Jul 02 - 09:14 AM

Guest Steve, the (sometimes derogatory) name "Gog", applied by a South Waleian to a North Waleian, derives from the welsh word, "Gogledd", meaning "north".

If I might be politically a little uncorrect here, in the last century a typical piece of mutual insult might go:

"Gwell bantu na hwntwr" (Better to be from Africa than South Wales) "Gwell wog na gog" (Better to be from the Indian sub-continent than North Wales)

This was quoted in "This sweet and bitter Earth", a novel by Alexander Cordell.

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 29 Jul 02 - 08:47 AM

And does "starving" mean "hungry" or "cold" where you come from? (Or...?)

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Jul 02 - 05:04 PM

You'll find pumps in a dictionary as a term for a light shoe used for dancing (ie not clog type dancing), and it was used for plimsolls at one time.

(You can really annoy some young people by referring to their trainers as plimsolls. I wonder if there are any brave young people who defiantly use the term themselves -maybe the kind of noncomformists who might go in for folk music?)

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: The Walrus
Date: 27 Jul 02 - 04:37 PM

"GUEST,your fat momma",

Don't come back until your IQ reaches double figures.

Walrus

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: GUEST,your fat momma
Date: 27 Jul 02 - 12:18 PM

you are all dumb little gay idiots. get a freaking life you morons

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 27 Jul 02 - 12:13 PM

Kevin, I've certainly heard 'plates' as slang for feet.

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Catherine Jayne
Date: 27 Jul 02 - 09:14 AM

We use 'pegged it', 'snuffed it' and 'popped their clogs' to mean dead!

cat

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: GUEST,Steve
Date: 27 Jul 02 - 07:31 AM

Nigel,

Dunlop Associated Plastics is more believable I have to say. I was a bit sceptical when I heard the derivation. My dad (Cambs) always used to call them pumps, but then that's what we used to call farts when we were kids - and so did he!

Pegged it is what we say! My wife uses the term as well, and most of my contemporaries which is why I was so surprised by my northern mate! I agree about the crib derivation.

I think most of the slang/dialect terms used in Glo'shire are also used in South Wales (except for the wonderful term "South Waleians" use for their Northern welsh-speaking cousins: "gogs" derived, I think, from the end of Llanfairpwllgwyn etc.....goGOGoch), this has been my experience!

I heard the buttie system explanation from a Forester on the radio as the local government have launched an initiative designed to preserve the ancient dialect which is sadly in decline. Buddy is likeliest a derivation of buttie though.

Miners in the Forest were generally solo miners (called Freeminers). Even now if you're born in the Forest you have ancient mining rights you can claim, I think there's only one person left now who still mines.

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Jul 02 - 07:18 AM

Anybody got anything relating to my query about "honky-tonk" as meaning bed or sleep? Anyone come across it?

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 27 Jul 02 - 06:00 AM

Guest Steve: "Daps" is / was current in S Wales, (now replaced by the ubiquitous 'trainers'), and the derivation I heard was that the factory name was on the wal as "Dunlop Associated Plastics". The 'original' daps would not have been 'pneumatic', as these were the bog standard school type plimsoles, black uppers, light brown rubber soles, elasticated across the arch of the foot, or with laces. Elasticated version was favoured for primary schools because the teachers never liked having to tie/untie,unknot, dozens of pairs.
Numerous other terms survive, although 'trainers' is taking over. :"Pumps"
"baseball shoes" (usually like daps, but ankle length with rubber protectors for the ankle bone.
"Pegged it" for died, I have always heared as "pegged out", also as a term for winning in a game of cribbage, where the score is kept on a peg board. (possibly this is the derivation)
"Buttie" as mate is also common in S Wales, but as for the "buttie system", perhaps this is a corruption of the "Buddy System" as used for scuba divers (or vice versa)

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: GUEST,Steve
Date: 26 Jul 02 - 08:36 PM

I've used "pegged it" to mean "died" for as long as I can remember. But my mate from Southport, Lancs thought I meant that the bloke had run away. That was a confusing conversation...

In Gloucestershire (and I think Bristol and South Wales) they call plimsoles "daps". Someone told me that this was because it stood for "Dunlop Athletic Pneumatic System" - hmmmm the jury's out on that one. My mum's from Cambridgeshire and we had a conversation like this on my first day at my new school in Glos:

"Mum, I need a dap bag for PE" "What's a dap bag?" "I dunno, but I've got to have one!"

People in the Forest of Dean use Buttie to mean friend. I've heard that it comes from the use of the buttie system in the coal mines in the FOD - I think a buttie was a truck which you had with you to fill with coal, ie it was with you all the time and therefore dependable etc, so by extension was applied to your mate.

The older generation use "en um?" to mean "aren't they?" (I've also heard be um? for are they), then there's "en 'er, en 'im, en us"

Steve.

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 26 Jul 02 - 10:52 AM

Walrus, if the first explanation is the true origin, then the second would have been a powerful reason to perpetuate it. "Blue unction", as readers of Spike Milligan's memoirs will know, was widely used, and greatly loathed, by those who had to use it. Not that I'm old enough to know ...

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: The Walrus at work
Date: 26 Jul 02 - 08:33 AM

I've heard two versions of "crabs" for the RAF
The first is that the colour of the uniform is (or was) reminiscent of the colour of some of the inedible bits of a crab (don't ask me, I can't eat crabs etc. so I don't go near them). RAF blue is known in some circles as "Crab fat blue".
The second version is that the original shade of RAF blue was similar to that of "606" or "Salvorsan" (also known as "blue unction") an ointment for the treatment of crab lice.

DonD, Eric Partridge records the existance of rhyming slang both in Australia and the USA (with a subset for tramps/hoboes), if I can find a reference, I'll post it over the weekend.

Walrus

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 26 Jul 02 - 08:19 AM

I've never heard of the RAF being called "crabs"; they were always "Brylcreem boys" in my younger days, from their penchant for using lots of that hair cream. Must have made a mess of the flying helmets ...

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: NH Dave
Date: 26 Jul 02 - 12:49 AM

This may be more military than in common US useage, but we frequently use the terms, curtain climbers, rug rats, cookie crunchers, and ankle biters, as previously mentioned, in reference to young children.

Again, military, British this time. I've heard the Army referred to as Pongos/Pongoes, and I know the derivation of that one, but why do the forces refer to RAF types as Crabs?

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: DonD
Date: 25 Jul 02 - 06:55 PM

I remember 'dogs' and barking ones at that from before WW2. I associate it with the American depression and Black or poor white slang. (Yes, I predate WW2.) Cockney rhyming slang? I doubt it.

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Jul 02 - 06:35 PM

Talking about slang - sometimes you aren't sure whether a particular expression is general, or local or just family.

And the particular one I'm thinking of is "honky-tonk" meaning bed (as opposed to bar in America or cheap wine in Australia). "It's time I went to my honky-tonk". Anybody care to elucidate.

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Jul 02 - 03:47 PM

Barrage balloons were more in evidence in the last war in civilian area, such as the London Parks. If you saw the movie Hope and Glory, there's a great episode with an escaped barrage balloon that has in fact gone a bit pearshaped before it was through. But more like an inflatable elephant that's lost it's puff.

Dogs for feet is London as well. I think it's rhyming slang from "dogs meat". A variant on "plates of meat", meaning feet, which oddly enough never seems to be contracted to "plates". And once you've got "dogs", well if they're complaining at the treatment they've been getting, it stands to reason they'd be barking, it's what dogs do.

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Ditchdweller
Date: 25 Jul 02 - 02:15 PM

Sod it! meant to say "If the inflated baloon leaked that was the shape they went!"

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Ditchdweller
Date: 25 Jul 02 - 02:13 PM

To Lady Penelope; "Gone pear shaped" dates back to barrage baloons in WW1. If the inflation baloon leaked that was the shape they went!

Now, who can give me the origin of an Egg Banjo?

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 07:38 PM

well!! having just read the entire thread, I can tell you my wallies are totally boffered! This had all the chompfer of a dilton waggle, but not half as dulft!

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: GUEST,Just
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 07:27 PM

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Les from Hull
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 06:48 PM

That sounds very feasible!

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: The Walrus
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 05:25 PM

I'd always assumed that "yonks" was a contraction of a corrupted (spoonerised?) "donkey's years". I have no real basis for this, it's just something I picked up somewhere (makes it sound like a skin disease).

Walrus

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Les from Hull
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 02:34 PM

Yonks is pretty classless. We use in as in 'for yonks', or sometimes 'for yonks and yonks'. 'I've been doing that for yonks.' 'I've been waiting for yonks.'

I don't think of it as being regionalised, but then I'm only in one region! (about halfway up the lefthand side). And I've no idea where it came from, but I've certainly been using the word for yonks.

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Catherine Jayne
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 02:33 PM

When I was doing my teacher training I had to get up at 4:30 am to get to the train station and then catch 2 trains to my placement my brother used to complain that I was getting up "at stupid o' clock" in the morning. I now use this phrase regulary when I have to get up and it's still dark outside!

cat

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: DonD
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 02:00 PM

Thanks all for adding to my trove of local expressions from both sides of the ocean. However ... except for what I took to be a facetious usage, I haven't gotten an answer for --- yonks.

I know it means years, but there are two things I want to know: is it ever used other than in "it's been yonks since...; would anyone (the Queen?) say "I can't believe I've reigned for so many yonks."? second, is it a class or gender thing? I picture it as a usage from the Belles of St. Trinians school girls or Sloane Rangers (are there still Sloane Rangers?) and never by men or boys or the missus at the chippie.

I'll wait patiently for illumination, for yonks if necessary.

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Snuffy
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 09:35 AM

Isn't it a 'Wobbler' rather than a 'Wobbly'?

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Catherine Jayne
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 09:33 AM

My brother calls young children "ankle biters!"

cat

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: The Walrus at work
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 08:30 AM

ozmacca,

I always thought "chucked a wobbly" (or in the circles I move in, "threw a wobbly") came from the appearance of someong almost trembling in rage.

Walrus

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Shields Folk
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 07:25 AM

Mr Happy, in the early part of this century South Shields attracted a large Arab population, I think they were from Yemen. Hardly politically correct but they became known as Sandancers. And by the way if I was from 'South' Shields I would have said 'South' Shields

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: ozmacca
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 06:45 AM

Down around here, we hear "spat the dummy" and also "chucked a wobbly". Now the dummy spit I can understand - baby gets upset, starts whingeing and out drops the pacifier. Fine. But "wobbly"? Nobody I know can explain that one. Nearly had a blue about it.

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Mr Happy
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 04:44 AM

and shields folk,

i don't know if you're north or south shields.

a colleague who's from s.shields told me the slang name for those from his 'neck of the woods' are known as 'sandancers'. what's the origin of this?

i wonder where the expression 'neck of the woods' comes from.

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Mr Happy
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 04:37 AM

catsP,

the guernsyites 'cob on' is similar to merseysiders 'he's gorra gob on' [he's pulling a face]

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Catherine Jayne
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 04:30 AM

When I lived in Scarborough (Yorkshire) one of the favourite phrases when someone was in a mood was "'e's spat his dummie out"

When my mum was in a mood my dad used to say that she had "a monk on".......what she was doing with a monk I will never know. When I spent some time in Guernsey they used to say the person had "a cob on".

cat

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 03:24 AM

"Gone for a Burton" was WWII RAF slang for having been shot down. I'm (almost) old enough to rememer the 50/- tailor, and I'm very familiar with Burton Ales, coming from Staffordshire; but I don't recall any of those ads, Lady P.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Shields Folk
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 09:01 PM

Down where I live in Shields there is a small pier that points out into the mouth of the Tyne that goes under the name of Lloyds Jetty. Until very recently it had a small hut on the end that was referred to as the hailing station. The story goes that before the introduction of telegraph a bloke on the end of the jetty would call out to vessels coming into the river, "What's your name and where are you from?"

Anyway one morning an inbound vessel was approached the hailing station. It was a collier bark from Hamburg named Anna. The bloke on the hailing station shouts out "What's your name" the bloke on the ship replies "Anna". From the hailing station is repeated, "What's your name" again the bloke on the vessel replies "Anna" This carries on for a few minutes until the bloke on the hailing station shouts out "Ah naa yee na but ah wanna na"

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Shields Folk
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 08:42 PM

I thought "gone for a burton" had something to do with sailing, i.e. as in a burton tackle on a dipping lug?

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: lady penelope
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 06:44 PM

Spaw L.O.L. But actually, that's just a threat people make.......

Open sarnies are actually 'pieces' as in "Hey Maw, gee us a piece an' jam" . Laid down in song by Matt McGinn in " Ye canny fling pieces frae a twenty storey flat".

My favourite London phrase is " 'E got right out of 'Is pram" meaning to get dreadfully upset, at volume. When some one becomes even angrier they are said to have " thrown out all the toys an'all ". Parker has just informed me of " spat the dummy", which he thinks is Australian but means roughly the same thing.

In America people advise you " Don't have a cow, man". In east London it's "Don't 'ave a 'mare". As in, don't have nightmares over this.

A phrase I love but still don't understand how it came about is " With the corner up " as in " I disbelieve your last statement " or " The likelyhood of your last statement becoming reality is extremely minimal"

"Gone for a Burton" translates as " It's all gone horribly wrong" and comes from a series of adds for Burton Ale. ( Various pictures of domestic disasters, with 'father' throwing his jacket on and the buy line " Dad's gone for a Burton" ). Parker used this phrase for years around me before he noticed the puzzled look on my face and explained it!

And where does " it's all gone pear shaped " ( again, it's all gone horribly wrong ) come from?

Why is it, when you're trying to think of stuff like this, you know you know loads of stuff but can only think of a couple?

TTFN M'Lady P.

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: The Walrus at work
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 08:50 AM

"me dogs are barking!" is not exclusively Merseyside. I've been hearing it since I was a sprog and my family were mostly from London.

Walrus

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Mr Happy
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 04:48 AM

merseyside slang.

as i mentioned above, liverpool & merseyside have their own peculiar slanguage.

when i worked there, a colleague often remarked 'ah! me dogs are barking!'

i thought she must have a remarkable sense of hearing!

it was later explained that 'me dogs are barking' meant her feet were hurting- obscure or wot!.

also another expression which mystified me was 'he's going down the bank!'. i first came across this around st. helens but again heard it in l/pool and other areas.

i first thought it meant someone was going to the bank- but colleagues enlightened me that it meant someone was 'kicking off!' - apparently this means having a spat (tantrum)

more?

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: The Walrus
Date: 08 Jul 02 - 11:40 AM

The bread cutting technique mentioned earlier was not unusual. In earlier times. Amongst the poorer members of society, it was not unusual to have little or no furniture and even a table might be a luxury that some could not afford, so the bread was buttered or more likely "scraped" (scrape the butter on the scrape most of it off again) and then cut using the body as the board (hence turning the loaf and cutting to the centre). Eric Partidge records the use of the phrase "When yout mother was cutting bread on you", by British soldiers of the Great War, as a variant on "Before your time"

Walrus

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 08 Jul 02 - 05:11 AM

GodyBP:
There was a young girl from Madras
Who had a remarkable ass.
Not rounded and pink
As you possibly think.
It was Grey, Had long ears, and ate grass!

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 08 Jul 02 - 03:40 AM

Further to Murray's wishful thinking on film stars' weddings, I'd always hoped that Whoopi Goldberg would marry Peter Cushing ...

Liz, I think that's dialect you're talking about; I think that's when everybody speaks like that, including the older grerations; while slang comes and goes like other fashions.

Bert, if yo spend much time inhaling the alcoholic fumes from the barm on top of the fermentation vessels in a brewery, you'll certainly end up barmy, OED notwithstanding!

Keep out th'oss road, as we say where I come from,
Steve

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: Mr Happy
Date: 08 Jul 02 - 03:26 AM

bert & bob,

its our eng. lang spellings that are barmy. just like our weather. yesterday i was at cleckheaton ff[yorks] enjoying the warm,sunny, BALMY day, twanging, squeezing & singing with some chums. today the weather's gone back to being BARMY again, cold 'n pissing down!

btw, as well as being a term for sandwich, 'butty' also means 'friend', chum, or mate in south wales.

Subject: RE: BS: American vs British slang
From: GUEST,ozmacca
Date: 08 Jul 02 - 03:13 AM

Hmm.... Is that slang, though, Liz? It's more of a foreign language with different sentence structure and grammatical rules by the look of it - Just 'cos it's SUPPOSED to be english doesn't stop it being foreign! In Oz we KNOW we're supposed to be talking english, but are too lazy (or too bloody-minded) to do it properly, while you're actually using another language altogether... it just so happens it has some english words in it!

I feel that we are really more exposed to what passes for "international western marketable" slang these days. The american and americanised slang we all seem to be familiar with is the version we get in ads and TV shows, which is, I assume, the currently "accepted standard" slang or street talk - cleaned up for broadcasting. Nice to know that we will have a universal lingua franca some day - even if it is slang......... Just hope we can keep our own ways of speaking intact.