BS: Phrases that don't travel

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: 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: VirginiaTam
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 06:10 PM

kleenex

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 04:13 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 02:07 PM

Quite a few references to the old money (UK) have survived. It's still common to hear "He's worth a few bob", or "Daft 'aporth"; and "Sing a Song of Sixpence" survives.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 01:52 PM

Gee whiz, that's sad. Golly gee, I bet it's because of those darned moving pichers!

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 12:30 PM

Hummppff! *I* use it now & then...and it seems to carry it's own built-in context. Even those who barely recognize it get the meaning.

Golly gee whillickers!

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 12:03 PM

Gee whiz is not cool any more?

It wasn't cool when I was a younker, say 1940 to 1950.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 11:08 AM

"I hope it was an ironic comment that "cor blimey" had less history than "gee whizz"."

ummmm...that was more of a hurried, poorly worded comment...Of course 'cor blimey' has the history. "Gee whiz" is just a recent Americanism...and not 'cool' to use among kids anymore.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 10:57 AM

Let's see:

"Four-way-stop-street" is used in the US.

We now have "roundabouts" here, but the local drivers call them other names which are not for polite society.

"He's a whiz" is a usually a compliment, but "whizzing" is best done in the toilet and not the living room, unless you're talking about a flying toy whizzing around. The child playing with the toy could also be whizzing around, but you'd want to check to make sure s/he is dry.

A police officer arrests you or tickets you; if a cop nicks you you shouldn't have made s/he draw and fire his/her weapon and you should feel good that s/he wasn't a good shot. And you're lodged in jail, not gaol, after being taken to THE hospital, not just TO hospital.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 10:45 AM

A "four-way-stop street" is certainly used in the US. It simply means that everybody at an intersection must stop before proceeding.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 08:41 AM

...let yer ass 'ave a chance

In Bristol, as in the rest of the British Isles, when written like that this would mean "give your donkey a turn".

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: JennieG
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 07:47 AM

We called it "running writing" as distinct from "printing", i.e. writing in block letters.

Don't forget the term "cracked record"......."he went on and on like a cracked record".......it meant something in the days of 78rpms and even LPs, but not in this age of mp3s.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 06:43 AM

Joined-up writing just means that it avoids too many non-sequiturs do it's the logic that joins up.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Michael
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 05:47 AM

Joined-up writing = cursive writing. Joined-up thinking = cursive thinking? Probably not,probably the opposite in fact.

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 04:36 AM

Richard ~~ How many over here could explain the origin of Belisha Beacon, do you think?

To knock-up here also means to wake up in the morning, especially by knocking on the door or window. Northern English industrial town councils in the 19C-early20C used to employ a man who would go around working-class areas at about 5·30 a.m. with a long pole with which he would knock on the front upstairs windows to 'knock-up' the fathers of the families, who would sleep in the front or 'best' bedroom, and would soon after have to leave for work. This official was actually called 'the knocker-up', or sometimes, colloquially, the 'knocker-upper'.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 04:33 AM

'For God's sake shut yer gob and let yer ass ave a chance' I've heard many a Bristolian say but doesn't travel well.

'You can't educate pork' when someone does something really stupid or says something really ridiculous.

On the Bank Holiday weekend I travel with my Isle of Wight pal through Gloucester, Herefordshire, Brecon through to Swansea and back to Bristol. At the end of it I said 'God my backside is making buttons yer' meaning 'It has been such a long journey and my backside is numb.' I had to repeat what I had said to him so he could get the gist of what I was saying.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Anne Lister
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 04:09 AM

Tam, these days round here at least it's very simply just "aw, bless". Often used to describe a winsome but hapless child or adult.

I hope it was an ironic comment that "cor blimey" had less history than "gee whizz". My historic husband (that is, husband who is fascinated by history) was talking last night about the history of swearing. You could be in major trouble in past eras for blaspheming but not necessarily for sexually explicit language ... so "Cor blimey" was a necessary disguise. Today we've gone entirely the other way, so the F word and the C word are far more unacceptable generally than any way of invoking the deity.

"Script" and "handwriting" aren't necessarily forms of joined-up writing, at least as used here in the UK.

And, as it hasn't been clarified yet, "joined-up thinking" refers to ideas that actually connect with each other, so that reformers/politicians/teachers/managers actually work out how one innovation might affect another process. If only they would.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 03:59 AM

Elevenses is a cup of coffee accompanied by a dry (not cream) biscuit taken at 11 am.

Afternoon tea is a cup of tea accompanied by bread and jam (probably damson jam or crab-apple jelly or gooseberry jam or jelly, not anything common like strawberry) and possibly some cake, taken at 4 pm.

How about "hit for 6" - or a "yorker" - or "that's got me stumped" - or "bowled a maiden over" - or "out for a duck".   I think "hat-trick" has become universal.

Is "levanter" (of a damp foggy easterly wind) known outside Gibraltar and southern Spain?

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 03:14 AM

which came first?

The British phrase "Bless her/his cotton socks."

Or the south eastern US phrase "Bless her/his heart."

Both often delivered with intonation that really does not mean to "bless" at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Hrothgar
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 03:09 AM

Hmmm, Foolestroupe, surely you've heard "knocked up" in the sense of "very weary" or "exhausted"?

As in the poem

"He was driving Irish tandem, but perhaps I speak at random -
"I'd forgotten for the moment that you're not all mulga bred -
"That means he had his swag up through having knocked his horse up"

It can also mean brought them to the door by knocking on it.

And why doesn't this spell checker like "mulga"?

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 02:34 AM

""joined-up thinking." Is it a good way or a bad way to think? "

Depends whether you mean it in a positive or negative way .... :-)

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

OK, I've recently learned what "joined-up writing" is, but I still don't understand "joined-up thinking." Is it a good way or a bad way to think?

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: mousethief
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 01:32 AM

I assume that "elevenses" is self explanatory

Not really. Is it a snooty block on a long street? An hour of the day starting with 11:00 and ending with 11:59? I think it means a meal, but I'm not sure of it, and it's far from self-explanatory.

I have been using "cursive" to mean, well, cursive, since 2nd grade (that would be ... um ... 1968-69, I think).

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 01:06 AM

I assume that "elevenses" is self explanatory, but do any people other than English and recent colonies really understand "tea-time" or "afternoon tea" - or indeed "tiffin-time"?

And what about Belisha beacons?

And I think a "four-way-stop-street" is unique to South Africa.

Legendarily Jowett cars used to use an advertising slogan "Built like a battleship" which was conceptually alien to the French.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 12:51 AM

"I knocked her up" in the US would mean you get someone pregnant.

Same here in Australia - I blame the WWII US Forces .... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 12:36 AM

>"Pissed" means irritated/angry, not drunk.<

Our UK equivalent for irritated/angry is "pissed off". We often thus add a preposition to modify the meaning of a word ~ as in "joined up", as queried by one of you-over-there above.

A "jumper" here is a sweater or pullover, not a gym-slip.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: LadyJean
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 12:24 AM

I had a lot of fun telling friends I'd brought them rubbers from England, with pictures of Andy and Fergie on them, since it was the summer they were married.

They were surprised to get erasers.

Not as surprised as the Oxford don, when I told him we wore jumpers to school all year round. What we wore, I'm told, are known in England as gym slips.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Janie
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 11:11 PM

Makes sense. One won't catch a metaphor if one doesn't know the original context.

Here in the States, "joined-up" is most likely to used to convey that one has enthusiastically "signed-up or signed onto" something, probably stemming from times of patriotic fervor involving war or the threat thereof, when young men rushed to "join-up" into the military.

The USA is so big there are also regional phrases that, while they may travel, don't do so without some thought or explanation.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 10:58 PM

Clockwise and counter-clockwise
"I knocked her up" in the US would mean you get someone pregnant.
"Under the bonnet" in the States would be "under the hood".
"Putting in the boot" has little or no meaning over here, but kicking in the balls does.
"Pissed" means irritated/angry, not drunk.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Janie
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 10:30 PM

I agree, Kevin.    Now, think of all the concepts people don't get when they are from entirely different cultures with intirely different native languages. Really helps me appreciate how challenging it is to be an interpreter.

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 10:11 PM

"cor blimey" is a bit like "gee whiz!", but with lots less history.

"Do they know which way clockwise and anticlockwise are?"

I actually know about 'widdershins'

Subject: RE: BS: Phrases that don't travel
From: Tangledwood
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 10:03 PM

I'm sure there are lots of examples of that having happened, where we still use the terms,but with no idea of what they actually refer to.

There's an ideal opportunity to put in your two bobs worth.
Do young folk know why we "dial-a-pizza*"
* or other commodity for home delivery
Do they know which way clockwise and anticlockwise are?