BS: Phrases that don't travel

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Becca72
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 02:13 PM

"cracked record" around my neck of the woods (northern New England) is "broken record" but means the same as sited above.

I ran up against one a couple years ago that was quite amusing. Traveled from Maine to Virginia with friends. We stopped to eat (at the Cracker Barrel, of course). We confused the hell out of the waitress with the phrase "all set". She asked if we wanted more coffee to which I replied "I'm all set", which around here means "I'm good" "no thanks" or "I don't need anything". Poor woman had no idea what I was talking about. She stammered for a minute or two before pouring coffee anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 02:16 PM

Lets talk

SHAG

When I was a teenager in a small town Virginia in the late 1970s Stevie Nicks (Fleetwood Mack) had a hairstyle, everyone was emulating in my high school.

It was called the shag, the Gypsy and the Gypsy shag haircut.

SHAGGING

When I vacationed in Myrtle Beach South Carolina in the mid 1990's I learned of a dance called Carolina Shagging


In the UK

the term SHAG stands for the sea bird also known as a cormorant

To SHAG and SHAGGING means the sex act.

I'd like to know how shagging became the common phrase for having sex?

And another thing.... in the US it is fine an dandy to tell someone "I'm waiting for my ride" or He's my ride." Don't say that here in the UK. Eyebrows are raised.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 02:52 PM

When I was visiting St. Louis a few years ago, I asked a sales clerk at Target where I could find a "cash machine" and all I got was a blank stare. Another clerk intervened: "You mean an ATM?"

In Minnesota, the first bank that introduced automatic teller machines used the trademark name "Instant Cash," and so everybody called them at first "Instant Cash machines," and later it was shortened for convenience to "cash machine." This became the standard generic term even when other brand-names appeared.

In other places, I think other terms were used for similar reasons.

I still like the term "cash machine" and I wish everyone would adopt it. I dislike calling things by letters.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 03:04 PM

I saw a "Pluggers" cartoon recently where a grandma was teaching her grandson how to use her phone: "OK, now move your finger around the circle until it hits the little metal thing."

Meanwhile the kid was asking, "So how do you text with this?"

*

Someday people will be asking, "How did 'dial' come to be the word for punching numbers into a phone?"

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 03:38 PM

When The Lewis Family of Georgia(fine gospel group) came to the Winfield Folk & Bluegrass festival in Kansas, they announced from the stage that if you bought their records, you'd get a free 'tote bag'....next performance they explained to the crowd what 'tote bag' meant. Seems THAT exact phrase hadn't traveled West past the mountains

Then, a woman I knew asked me if I had fun at "the blue-string plucking thingy"...

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 03:49 PM

An ATM in Britain is often known as a hole in the wall.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 04:04 PM

If you asked about an "ATM" in Britain people would probably think you were talking about some disease.

"Cash point" I suppose is the offical term - but hole innthe wall is probably more commonly used.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 04:05 PM

Because that's what's left after the pikeys have visited with a JCB.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 04:13 PM

"I still like the term "cash machine" and I wish everyone would adopt it. I dislike calling things by letters. "

Well, I sort of agree in principle, but the gadget does FAR more than give out cash. ATM stands for 'automatic teller machine', which describes what it is better. Maybe call them 'wall banks'?

Phrases like 'mobile' in he UK and 'cell phone' here are similar. 'Mobile' could refer to many things unless you know the context...'cell phone' is a bit more specific, as it says phone and also refers to the 'cellular grid' that the technology employs.

I usually prefer terms that have at least some etymological indication of the meaning... 'knickers' means almost nothing to me, although I have since learned its referent.
-----------------------------------------------

Here in the US, I once worked in a grocery store where I was told to 'get a Listo' and mark those items. Blank stare....turns out Listo was simply a brand names for a 'grease pencil', a kind of marker with an extrudable core of dyed wax.

In the UK, the term 'Araldite', a registered trademark of a type of epoxy, is used as a generic term, like Kleenex, a trademark of 'tissue for nose blowing' often is here.


My personal wish is for everyone to use whatever term is common at home, but to try to be aware of the generic terms and be ABLE to translate their own slang and vernacular when traveling or greeting strangers who may not share the language.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 04:25 PM

"knickers" - it's an abbreviation from "knickerbockers", which I gather got its meaning of baggy pants from the illustrations by Cruickshank to a book by Washington Irving back in 1848, which had as its pretended author a Dutch New Yorker, Diedrich Knickerbocker. The word has settled in England as the normal word for underpants, but I believe it isn't used much in the States where it came from.

I hope that's enough etymology to be going on with...

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 04:35 PM

Yep... a strange route from a fictional character to generic 'underpants'..(usually just women's?)

Over here, we occasionally hear the comment "Don't get yer knickers in a twist", but in a store catalog, you'll likely just see 'panties' advertised.

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

Well, how about "bank machine" or "teller machine" or just "teller?" There could be human tellers and mechanical tellers. If I'm in a Target store and asking for a "teller" I think they could figure out that I was talking about a machine, not a person. (Actually, I wouldn't care. If they had a person who was willing to give me cash, I'd accept that, too.)

Was "cashpoint" originally a brand name? (Like "Hoover" for vacuum cleaner?) If not, I wonder: who coined that particular term and how it came to be accepted as the standard term?

By the way, I notice that recently "Sharpie" (a brand name) has come to be the common term for what we used to call a "Magic Marker" (another brand name)--a marker in which liquid ink flows out of a porous solid tip.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 04:54 PM

...and which we later called a "felt pen." The material was originally felt but later it changed to porous plastic, and we still called them "felt pens."

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 04:59 PM

Well, I sort of agree in principle, but the gadget does FAR more than give out cash. ATM stands for 'automatic teller machine', which describes what it is better. Maybe call them 'wall banks'?

hhmmm automated.... What if we call them job stealers?



shame on you Richard... I am quite shocked and disappointed by that comment.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 05:00 PM

I suppose it is a goal of any company to come up with a product name that is adopted as the generic term... 'Coke' came close, Viagra is close, Sharpie is pretty close....and I shake my head in wonder at 'Hoover' gaining the generic term in the UK. What DO they call a Dyson, which I believe IS English?

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 05:16 PM

My ex-wife, who had worked at the US branch of Cambridge University Press, sent a memo to the home office about her office's personnel attending a conference. She wrote that "to maintain normal office functioning, the staff attended in various shifts and combinations"---which seemed to really impress the home office.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Michael
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 05:38 PM

At least they weren't naked, Dick.

Mike; sticking his two penn'orth in.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 05:49 PM

A Dyson is called a Dyson - and so is anything else that resembles it. The rest still get called Hoovers.

In the same way "Thermos" is the term for Vacuum Flasks. Even when they aren't actually vacuum flasks, but just insulated some other way.

And ball point pens still get generically called Biros.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 06:10 PM

kleenex

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Alice
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 06:13 PM

The Australian hair removal product advertised in the
USA called "Nads". Did they come two in a package?




A.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 12:24 AM

>>.and which we later called a "felt pen." The material was originally felt but later it changed to porous plastic, and we still called them "felt pens."<<

Or [more commonly is my impression] 'felt tips'.

~Michael~

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.

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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 05:46 PM

... or even an Archimedes' screw!

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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.