BS: Phrases that don't travel

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Rapparee
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 02:59 PM

Well, when my friend Peggy lived in Western PA she'd redd up the house. Folks in Cincinnati eat geatta (sp. is wrong) and Spaw probably does too. I grew up eating panhaus. A tramp wasn't a walk, but a man who lived by begging and stealing and had no fixed abode (a hobo is not and was not a tramp). "Shelter" was defined by its use: bomb, picnic, tornado -- and the last was also called a "storm cellar".

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 02:25 PM

My son (17) recently came up with these :

'I am as sick as a plane to Lourdes'

'It's as noisy as two skeletons riding in a biscuit tin'

'She's as mad as a bag of spiders'.



not sure if they'd travel

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 02:19 PM

I notice that no-one has mentioned the British phrase: "As queer as a nine bob note".

You see, in pre-decimal times a pound was made up of twenty shillings and the colloquial name for a shilling was a 'bob'. There was a pound note and a ten shilling (i.e. 'ten bob') note. Hence the above phrase means something strange or unusual with connotations of illegality.

Then the meaning of 'queer' changed ...

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 09:15 AM

Further to mine of 2 Sep 04.36 AM, note the song in DT called "The Knocker Up".

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Micca
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 03:14 AM

LadyJean, I suspect the "gum bands" might be due to the German language influence as the German for "rubber" is gummi!!

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: LadyJean
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 01:06 AM

Many years ago, I was waiting with a crowd of students outside a classroom. The wait was going to be long. One young man asked the girl next to him, "Want to play hangman?" The girl said, "No, but I'll play Hang the Butcher with you." Both were surprised to discover they were talking about the same game.

I don't know why Hangman is called Hang the Butcher in Western Pennsylvania, but it is. We call cream horns ladylocks and rubber bands gum bands.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 08:55 PM

My sister-in-law once surprised me when she said she was looking for a "time machine."

She was actually saying "Tyme machine."

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 06:09 PM

And its companion phrase- Is thayt righ-ut?

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 05:41 PM

"Well, Ah de-CLAY-uh!"

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 01:53 PM

Well, I declare! Often used by Americans (mostly women) from the South as answer to a juicy bit of gossip or the telling of an unusual event.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: GUEST,mayomick
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 12:34 PM

Thanks Betty ,that will do nicely.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Bettynh
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 12:03 PM

Mayomic, the term is probably folk etymology. Appropriate here, no?

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 11:14 AM

"That's not pedantry on your part, Bill, it's idiosyncrasy."

*grin*..ok, I see... it's pedantry on YOUR part, Kevin.

(thanks anyway... I like being accurate, and I do get in a hurry here.)

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 09:22 AM

Thanks you for the link, that was really interesting. There are a number of phrases even if the variations are slightly different but basically the same so perhaps they do travel well. With the ease of access to travel and communication now I suppose we are picking up sayings from friends and acquaintances.

I have heard and used all of these;

A Dab Hand.
The bigger they are the harder they fall (The bigger they come the harder they fall).
Use a bit of Wellie.
Woe betide you.
Once in a blue moon.
Another one here is; Act your age not your shoe size
A big girl's blouse.
If you break your leg don't come running to me (mother to child).

Interestingly enough phrases like; Enough to freeze the b**** off a brass monkey and Chock-a-block (Chockers) were from Seafaring origins which explains why it's used in Bristol being a historical port back in the day.

Although not a follower I do like the bible phrases and also proverbs. My dad if he was exasperated with someone's behaviour, logic or unreasonableness, he would just quote the shortest phrase in the bible 'Jesus wept.'

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: mayomick
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 08:28 AM

Okey dokey ,the whole nine yards is military slang for "the full monty" which is also military slang. The military does come up with more than its share of slang words for some reason or other.

Ok is a word that definitely does travel . I can understand how Indians might have thought they came up with it first - Nigerians I've spoken to claim it as a west african word.
Is there a term for the coming together of words from different languages that have similar sounds , but which come from different meanings in the source languages ? A bit like a mondegrene . Sorry for sounding convoluted ,here's an example.

Irish speakers will tell you that the word shanty comes from the Irish words shan + ti = old house.

Dictionaries give a different origin:
"rough cabin," 1820, from Canadian Fr. chantier "lumberjack's headquarters," in French, "timberyard, dock," from O.Fr. chantier
Which is right ?

Whoever is right , a french speaker would have understood an Irish speaker and vice versa because , whatever the etymology ,they were talking about the same phenomenom - ie poor housing . When the new word "shanty" arose it was on the basis of this shared sound.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 07:17 AM

Patsy, origin of Okey Dokey

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 06:59 AM

A phrase that I hear a lot here in Bristol is okey dokey. My mate had only ever heard that on his travels in India and surprised to hear me say it. So how did we end with that expression I wonder.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: HuwG
Date: 05 Sep 10 - 01:53 PM

Agh! The last poster was me, sans cookie. Sorry!

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Sep 10 - 01:51 PM

The Full Monty, of which more below:

The common cormorant or shag
Lays eggs inside a paper bag
The reason you will see no doubt
It is to keep the lightning out
But what these unobservant birds
Have never noticed is that herds
Of wandering bears may come with buns
And steal the bags to hold the crumbs

by Christopher Isherwood, from "Poems Past and Present" pub. J. M. Dent and Sons (Canada) Ltd.

I'm late to this thread, but I do recall at infants school in about 1963 (when aged about five or six, I don't know what grade that would be in American terms), that we would be graduating in the next year from gouging crude letters clean through the exercise book into the desk top with a pencil held in the manner of a welding rod, into doing "joined-up writing".

I don't ever recall hearing the term "cursive" writing. Had it ever been used before the collection of horrors who were my classmates, they would probably have asked, "Is that the same as rude, miss?"

The "Full Monty", meaning the whole thing, stems from the British dress hire firm Montague Burton, or "Monty's". Depending on the formality of the occasion, you could hire any or all of a formal suit. The whole outfit was the "Full Monty".

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 05 Sep 10 - 09:31 AM

neither Mayomick

info on the whole nine yards

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: mayomick
Date: 05 Sep 10 - 09:08 AM

I just read "the full nine yards" on another thread and thought it could go here . Is it from baseball or American football ?

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 05 Sep 10 - 08:40 AM

'Bob's your uncle' is usually followed here (in Ireland) with 'and Fanny's your auntie'. The US and UK/Irish have different opinions about the nature of the fanny by the way.

An American musician visiting here let it be known he was looking for a ride. Two girls (separately) offered and he was baffled to find they didn't have cars.

The Dutch call 'roll your own' tobacco shag-tobacco. During the eighties I saw many a Dutch woman travelling in Ireland offering a smoke to people they met. 'Want a shag?' Big grins and 'Yes, please. Don't mind if I do' the usual response.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Sep 10 - 08:29 AM

That's not pedantry on your part, Bill, it's idiosyncrasy.

Pedantry is about getting things right, not about whether you like them or not. "Bob's your uncle" is perfectly OK in pedantic terms."Bill's your uncle" would not be.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Michael
Date: 05 Sep 10 - 07:12 AM

Dave McKenzie:
Archimedes didn't have any principles; he just liked a screw.

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 04 Sep 10 - 08:30 PM

Scotch tape is a registered trademark and applies to the pressure-sensitive transparent cellulose tape marketed by the 3M corporation.
It was invented by Richard Drew, a banjo-playing engineer working for 3M, in 1925. 3M added other pressure-sensitive tapes to the line.

One can only wonder what kind of tape Drew would have invented if he had been a tuba rather than a banjo player.

Cellophane is another trademarked name, owned by Innovia Films Ltd., Cumbria, UK.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Sep 10 - 07:14 PM

..and here in the US, a brand name is 'almost' always used as the generic. We say "Scotch tape" to cover half a dozen different formulations of it....and we have to ask "which type of Scotch tape?"

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 04 Sep 10 - 07:03 PM

My Dad used to say "Strousers" as he thought it was more polite/less blasphemous then "Struth" (God's Truth).
So now we're back to lower body garments: apart from knickers we might say pants (as meaning underwear), whereas, I believe pants in the US are what we call trousers!
And I think what we call Durex is like Sellotape (sticky tape)in Australia?

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Sep 10 - 06:55 PM

confession: I HATE phrases like "Bob's your uncle" which have been crammed into the language and which have little or no meaning out of context.

I like to be able to SEE the relevance of the phrase without having to absorb it thru the pores.

pedant? sure.....

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 04 Sep 10 - 03:41 PM

The phrase is popular in both the U.S. and Canada.
The same movies are shown in both countries, and Virginia Tam's explanation is supported by Lighter's Historical Dictionary of American Slang, which I just looked at.
But is it used in UK?

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: mkebenn
Date: 04 Sep 10 - 02:45 PM

Tanglewood. Yea, that's it, but that doesn't make any sense, either, 'course I heard it from a Canadian..lol. Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 06:25 PM

just realized I probably learned that recently from Disc World Moving Pictures... damnn

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 06:18 PM

oohhh I got curous about cut to the chase and thought it must be something to do with screen directions for early films

I was right!

snip

This phrase originated in the US film industry. Many early silent films ended in chase sequences preceded by obligatory romantic storylines. The first reference to it dates back to that era, just after the first 'talkie' - The Jazz Singer, 1927. It is a script direction from Joseph Patrick McEvoy's novel Hollywood Girl, 1929:

"Jannings escapes... Cut to chase."

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 06:10 PM

Used in UK should have a question mark; it is common in US and Canada and I was wondering if it was used in UK.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 06:08 PM

"Cut to the chase"- Often heard now, it means cut out the preliminaries, and get to the heart of the matter. Kids here use to mean "get to the point."
Used in UK

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Tangledwood
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 05:53 PM

What on earth does "who's your uncle" mean, I think I heard "there you go", but how does that work? Mike

"Bob's your uncle" used to be a common enough term to indicate that a task is easily accomplished so are you looking at a variation of that? I have no idea of the origins of the Bob one though.
Example of usage - wrap the guitar string round the peg a couple of times, thread the end through, and Bob's your uncle.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 05:46 PM

... or even an Archimedes' screw!

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 05:44 PM

"I could get quite philosophical about an Aristotleian shag."

Definitely not to be confused with a Platonic relationship.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Michael
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 05:40 PM

No problem VirginiaTam

It's just that I'd never typed Phalacrocorax aristotilensis before and I quite like aristotilensis as a word.
I could get quite philosophical about an Aristotleian shag.

According to Wikipedia: The bird family Phalacrocoracidae is represented by some 40 species of cormorants and shags.

And shouldn't be confused; how DO you confuse a cormorant?

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 04:57 PM

Hi Mike

I did say in the UK The shag is a seabird aka the cormorant.

In the US I never heard the term shag used for a cormorant.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: mkebenn
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 04:56 PM

What on earth does "who's your uncle" mean, I think I heard "there you go", but how does that work? Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 04:39 PM

As I've always heard it:

The Common Cormorant
The common cormorant (or shag)
Lays eggs inside a paper bag,
The reason why,there is no doubt?
It is to keep the lightning out.

Excellent! When there are variants it means it's become part of an oral tradition...

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: frogprince
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 09:54 AM

Then there are phrases that aren't apt to travel outside the southern U.S., such as "mayonaise"

as in, "Mayonaise some ugly wimmin in 'iz bar t'not."

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 08:59 AM

Bringing up the ATM again, here in Indianapolis the bank that had them called them The Money Mover. That bank was absorbed by another bank, and that one by yet another, and maybe another, and those machines are just ATMs now, and have been for a long, long time.

But after--what, 35 years?--I'll still tell my wife, "I'll be back in a little bit; I'm going down to the Money Mover."

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Micca
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 08:22 AM

Purely In the interest of completeness Of course,
The Common Cormorant
The common cormorant (or shag)
Lays eggs inside a paper bag,
You follow the idea, no doubt?
It's to keep the lightning out.

But what these unobservant birds
Have never thought of, is that herds
Of wandering bears might come with buns
And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.
-- Christopher Isherwood

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Michael
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 07:27 AM

Does that give rise to the saying
"He couldn't shag his way out of a paper bag"?

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Anne Lister
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 06:14 AM

"The common cormorant or shag
Lays its eggs in paper bags" ... or something along those lines. I was on a boat trip off the isles of Scilly once when the skipper explained the difference between a cormorant or shag. He said we had to count the feathers on each wing. As the sea was far from calm at the time and we were some distance from the birds in question this was not intended as a definitive statement of any kind and I think was one of his attempts to distract us all from sea-sickness, but it's stayed with me.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Michael
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 05:40 AM

Re VirginiaTam's post 02 Sep 10 - 02:16 PM

A Shag is also a British seabird - (Phalacrocorax aristotilensis)

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Micca
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 04:49 AM

The term "Hole in the wall" for an ATM has become so wide spread that at least one major UK Bank (Barclays) actually labels them so!

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: JennieG
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 02:32 AM

Many many moons ago when felt tipped pens first came on the market in Oz the brand name was "Texta"......many folk of my generation (Himself included) still refer to all felt tipped pens as textas.

Me, I just call them felt pens.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 12:51 AM

I think felt tip is what we too in the US call them.

Funnily enough I hadn't connected the companies with Magic Marker and Sharpies. I was thinking in terms of the tips- that a Sharpie has a narrower tip than the MM?

humph Learn something every day.