BS: Look your flies are open

Subject: BS Look your flies are open
From: greg stephens
Date: 31 Mar 02 - 08:38 PM

This may not be quite relevant yet in America, but it is (just) in the UK

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: Amergin
Date: 31 Mar 02 - 08:40 PM

uh ok,..,...

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: Brakn
Date: 31 Mar 02 - 08:45 PM

and?

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: reggie miles
Date: 31 Mar 02 - 11:33 PM

we're waiting....

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: catspaw49
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 01:10 AM

I assume you are wishing us a Happy April Fool's Day.........So bite me right back atcha'.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: reggie miles
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 01:47 AM

Got me!

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: Tam the bam fraeSaltcoatsScotland
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 07:04 AM

your flies, for our Amercan friends, is over here your zip on your trousers, or as you say pants.

So in other words what he is saying, your zip is down

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 07:12 AM

Hi, Greg: Over here we only have one fly per pants. What kind of people are you over there? We would say XYZ... examine your zipper.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: Les from Hull
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 07:49 AM

Well you didn't get me 'cos it's after twelve now (BST). So now it's officially legging down day. Anybody want to fall over my virtual leg?

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: gnomad
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 08:15 AM

I'll fall, first time in yonks, but I don't think you will have many takers Les.

I have asked around over several years and I think legging down is a very localised custom.

Former Hull school kids of the world, stand up to be recognised (and legged down of course)!

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: gnu
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 08:22 AM

And, if you're a Canuck, it's, "What's the score ?", ie, your net is open.... yes, and beer. Hockey and beer is all we ever think about.

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 12:06 PM

So you don't say "flies" in the States? You only learn that kind of stuff in the Mudcat.

So what would you say if it wasn't a zipper on the flies (or whatever you call them), but buttons? What do you call that particular aperture on the trousers? "Flap" maybe?

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: Mrrzy
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 12:07 PM

OK, somebody explain this thread to clueless me, thanks!

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: Les from Hull
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 12:36 PM

OK here goes, Mrrzy!

In England, possibly elsewhere, April 1st is April Fool's Day, when (mostly young) people play April Fool jokes on each other, mostly harmless little jokes like 'your shoelace is undone!'. If the unfortunate actually looks towards his shoes, he/she is an 'April Fool', and the subject of some derision.

Still awake? OK. 'flies' is a UK expression for the zipper or buttons designed to give easy access to a gentleman's nether reasons. So your 'flies are undone' is a practical joke designed to make you look and so be an April Fool.

Now this is where the story really gets interesting. April Fools Day in Hull (Yorkshire, England), and possibly other places, only lasts until 12 noon. After that it's Legging Down Day, when children endeavour to trip each other up (called 'legging down') by thrusting an ankle, often your own, in the way of someone elses. It's a tradition, of sorts

End of long boring explanation in the interests of improved intercourse between nations.

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: MMario
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 12:38 PM

"fly" - singular in the US. Other expressions might be "barn door's open"

mrzzy - it's an april's fool joke of the "made ya look!" type.

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: CapriUni
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 12:51 PM

For a moment, I misread the title of this thread as "Your files are open!

Um... Misspellers of the world untie!

And for you Pagans out there who are celebrating the ressurection of Attis:

Happy Hilaria Day!

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: GUEST,amergin
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 01:52 PM

another shining example of some of the bullshit going on here...

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: catspaw49
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 02:06 PM

Hey 'Gin Boy! Close your compact before your lipstick pops out.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: SharonA
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 02:23 PM

Yeah, over here in the US you only get one fly per pair of pants. More often we'll say "your fly is down" rather than "your fly is open". Cutely oblique phrases such as "XYZ" are commonly used by those who don't wish to embarrass their friends by announcing the faux pas to the world.

But when your flies are "open" in the UK, do you "close" them or"shut" them?

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 02:29 PM

Ahhhh - fun Bullshit without rancor or major division - I always asked, "You trolling for a friend?" With a glance in the direction indicated (the crotch har har har)!

And as for flies - I believe the correct English would be "Fly's open" indicating a conjunctive ( is that really a word?) of "Fly is open."! And a great April Fools to you all!!!

Steve

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: SharonA
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 03:15 PM

Steve: Yes, there's such a word as "conjunctive", but it's the wrong word! "Fly's" is a contraction of "fly is". And that is an open-and-shut case!

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: MMario
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 03:25 PM

*THWAP*

shakes head

Takes second look

yup! That *is* what she said, isn't it?

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: SharonA
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 03:56 PM

Maaaaaaaaax! MMario keeps hittin' meeeeeeee!

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 06:16 PM

We used to say to other girls that it was "snowing down south" so they'd look to see if their slip was showing. Does anyone wear a slip anymore?

The best prank of all, that we mercilessly carried out, every year and every year our dad fell for it, was to fill the sugar bowl with salt. He used to have a little coffee with his sugar so you can imagine how that must have hit the taste pallets.

I think "fly's open" is what I hear the most over here and maybe that is the origin of you UKers thinking you have multiple flies!?**BG**

kat

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: catspaw49
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 06:22 PM

Kat, I think slips are about as outdated as compacts that I mentioned above. That line (Close your compact before your lipstick pops out) was one of the Old Man's favorites along with "Your barn door's open." And being a rairoad engineer there was, "You got an open block and a fast freight comin'."

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 07:31 PM

"Please adjust your dress before leaving" is the rather strange way the notices in public bogs in England put it, in a way to avoid this little local difficulty.

I remember a song contest at a festival in Ireland where the chief adjudicator sprawled there, behind his table up on the stage, giving forth at length his gems of wisdom and disapprobation. And all the while his flies were gaping wide open for the rapt audience, with their attention fixed on him throughout. He thought we were all ears, but in fact we were all eyes.

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: Big John
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 07:55 PM

I heard a guy praising a motor mechanic as follows, "He could pull a cat's tail through a dog's arse and make it run". No relevance whatsoever to this thread but what the hell.

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 02 Apr 02 - 05:22 PM

No Norton the correct word was 'flies' which over here are plural as are trousers. So we say flies ARE open and then just for Sharon we would neither close nor shut them but simply 'do them up'!
Never come across legging down Les but I agree that April fooling has to take place before noon.

Subject: RE: BS Look your flies are open
From: GUEST,fb
Date: 03 Apr 02 - 04:26 PM

the punk scene has pants with multiple (12 or more) zippers that are called "bondage pants"