BS: English To English Dictionary

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 10 Dec 03 - 04:14 AM

Jerry ... I can't remember! Somebody mentioned music, I think ...

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: LadyJean
Date: 10 Dec 03 - 12:46 AM

It suddenly occurred to me to wnder what The British would think of my favorite breakast, biscuits and gravy!

Many years ago, a friend of my mother's was in a resort town in New Jersey. All the hotels had signs that read, "No Fags". The lady thought it was an odd way to say no cigarettes.

One of the Many times I got lost in London, I followed a sign to the subway. I was of course seeking the tube, not that walkway under the road.

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: GUEST,pdq
Date: 09 Dec 03 - 03:17 PM

As music fans, we are probably more familiar with the "tin ear" than the "tin foil".

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 09 Dec 03 - 01:28 PM

Hey, Steve! Huh? This IS a BS thread. I don't get it.. who you talkin' to?

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Amos
Date: 09 Dec 03 - 01:04 PM

Sure!! It's the generic for the stuff regardless of what it is made of. For one reason, slang never goes uphill toward three syllables when it is already comfortably ensconced in one syllable!! It entropic -- head for less energy!

A

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: maire-aine
Date: 09 Dec 03 - 12:50 PM

Does anybody call alumin(i)um foil "tin foil" any more?

Maryanne

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 09 Dec 03 - 09:22 AM

Please constrain your posts to BS!

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 09 Dec 03 - 08:32 AM

Brill!, Splott man!!!!

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Splott Man
Date: 09 Dec 03 - 08:19 AM

Got it!

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Splott Man
Date: 09 Dec 03 - 08:18 AM

Damn! I was tryng to be no 100 again. Missed

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Splott Man
Date: 09 Dec 03 - 08:15 AM

A few years ago an American visitor was much amused by the road signs near my house saying "You are now entering the Tremorfa Hump area" and "Humps for 100yds".

And I've just noticed the legend above this "Reply to Thread" box. It offers to translate English to French!
Aaaaaaargh!

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 08 Dec 03 - 08:46 PM

More about "posh"...

Found this in a recently-acquired book (it echoes/confirms what's already been said above, but offers a bit more detail):

posh        Swanky. Deluxe. [A direct borrowing of the form but not the sense of Romany posh, half. Brit. Gypsies commonly, if warily, worked with Brit. rogues. Shiv, Romany for "knife", came into Eng. through this association. Similarly rum go is at root Rom go, "a Gypsy thing," hence, a queer thing. Brit. rogues came to know posh in such compounds as posh-houri, half pence, and posh-kooroona, half crown, so associating it with money, and from XVII to mid XIX posh meant "money" in thieves' cant, the sense then shifting to "swank, fashionable, expensive" ("the good things money can buy").]
        NOTE: A pervasive folk etymology renders the term as an acronym of p(ort) o(ut), s(tarboard) h(ome), with ref. to the ideal accomodations on the passage to India by way of the Suez Canal, a packet service provided by the Peninsula and Eastern steamship line. The acronym is said to explain the right placement of one's stateroom for being on the shady side or the lee side of the ship. On the east-west passage it is true, the ship being north of the sun, that the acronym will locate the shady side (though time of year will make a substantial difference). The lee side, however, is determined by the monsoon winds, and since they blow into the Asian heartland all summer and out of it all winter, only the season can determine which side will be sheltered. The earlier dating of posh as glossed above sufficiently refutes the ingenious (but too late) acronymic invention. As a clincher, veterans of the Peninsula and Eastern, questioned about the term, replied that they had never heard it in the acronymic sense.

-- from A Browser's Dictionary
   A Compendium of Curious Expressions & Intriguing Facts
   by John Ciardi (published in 1980)

(Anyone else remember hearing "Good Words to You", Ciardi's weekly bits on NPR (Morning Edition, if I remember rightly) in the 80s?
I really enjoyed 'em!)

Cheers,

YY

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: The_one_and_only_Dai
Date: 01 Dec 03 - 08:00 AM

...and a bloater, FWIW, is exactly like a kipper except you smoke 'em with their guts still inside (kippers are filleted first). So, they can optionally be cleaned before grilling (trad for bloaters) or grilled whole. Oops, I mean broiled. Do I? erm, anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 01 Dec 03 - 05:28 AM

Sorcha, A toff is a nob, more or less; "toff"="toffee-nose", i.e. "one with his nose in the air", and "nob"="noble/nobility". Neither expression is derogatory per se, and both mean an upper-class or well-heeled person, usually a gent[leman]. "Toff" can also be used metaphorically to mean a decent or generous person, as when a cab driver might say in response to an unusually large tip, "Cor stone the crows, you're a toff sir, an' no mistake." Well, he might in Mary Poppins! (More likely "Get me sarf o' the river this time o' night, I expect more than a bleedin' Lady Godiva!")

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Coyote Breath
Date: 01 Dec 03 - 12:08 AM

Wonderful parody YY.

Taxicab, I read somewhere, is short for taximeter cabriolet. A Cabriolet is a vehicle whose passeneger accomodations are closed and whose driver sits out in the open and whose mileage (and therefore rate for hire) is determined by a meter which measures distance traveled - a taxi meter. Pronounced: taksimiter cabrolay, emphasis on sim and bro.

Cabriolets were horsedrawn until the advent of the automobile. There are a number of classic autos which are called cabriolets. The Lagonda was one, I believe, and I think that Rolls had a model or two called cabriolets. There were probably others.

I don't know the difference (if there is one) between a cabriolet and a Hansom unless it is the number of wheels (or horses?) but if what I read is correct and cab is short for cabriolet, it is possible that it should be Hansom cabriolet not Hansom cab?

CB

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Amos
Date: 30 Nov 03 - 11:17 PM

We eat what we can,and what we can't... we can!

A

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 30 Nov 03 - 10:12 PM

Fowler's & Vocola "Bottling" (Canning) kits are still seen in the shops in Australia from time to time.

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 30 Nov 03 - 07:15 PM

You're right, Foolestroup... we "canned" vegetables every summer in Mason jars... a wide mouthed jar with a rubber ring gasket and flat top.

Would have seemed weird saying we were glassing vegetables..

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 30 Nov 03 - 06:02 PM

Interestingly people used to "can" food long before "tin cans" were invented - a "can" was also used as a drinking vessel - going back long towards the Middle Ages. The phrase "canning" was used in the USA from early days - and is still ocassionaly used to refer to preserving food in glass jars.

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: GUEST,pdq
Date: 30 Nov 03 - 02:29 PM

SU - tin (noun): an elemental metal; also a prime ingrediant in solder

UK - tin (verb): to place excess food in moderate-sized metal container for future use

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Sorcha
Date: 30 Nov 03 - 01:19 PM

Faggot can also mean a stick of 'fat wood' used as a torch or to light a fire.

Loo/vs bathroom--usually our toilets, washing up sinks and bathtubs are all in the same room. In public toliets (almost always free) you only get a toilet and a hand washing sink.

While we're on it, where did 'toff' come from? Means same as 'posh' I believe.

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Leadfingers
Date: 30 Nov 03 - 12:14 PM

I am Wild About My Flat Means either that I am annoyed because my motorised vehicle has a puncture, Or that I am ecstatic about the apartment I live in. And in UK we have been known to 'hump' heavy objects!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Nov 03 - 12:47 AM

Ah, bangers and mash. Sausage and atomized potatoes. Bloaters are a fish, bloated herring. The name brings up visions of dead, gaseous bodies, so I never have, and never will, eat one.
Why banger? For low-grade sausage bloated with water so that they explode when cooked in a pan?

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: GUEST,pdq
Date: 29 Nov 03 - 08:53 PM

I was ordering food in an English-style pub in California, years ago, and saw two items on the menu that were unusual: "bangers" and "bloaters". I still do not know what they are, but neither name makes you want to order them!

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 29 Nov 03 - 08:39 PM

Must be an interesting subject, if it keeps coming up... :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Nov 03 - 06:43 PM

So many usages that were once confined to one side of the pond or the other have now become common on both sides. Much of what is posted above as British or American falls apart when regionalisms are taken into account.
Also usage has changed with time; when I was a child, vest in the U. S. meant an undershirt as well as a waistcoat, now it has become a waistcoat- but one that matches the pants (tailors prefer trousers) and suitcoat. Fancy waistcoats are worn primarily as period pieces.

Color was originally Latin; which now is couleur in French but remains color in Spanish; the English colour (colur) became usual in England in the 14th c., but color also was used in the 15th c and later, becoming standard in the U. S. Color predates Webster in the U. S., he just accepted general usage. Why? Dunno. In fakelore books, it is said that the 'u' distinguishes words borrowed from the French, but this is not true- the 'u' is applied to some words that did not come from French, and is left out of others.

Webster was a standardizer, but there were several compilers in the British Isles who accomplished standardization as well.

Much of what is being posted here has been gone over in several earlier threads. The subject seems to come up in about a nine-month cycle.

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 29 Nov 03 - 05:16 PM

Great song, Yorkshire Yankee!

For some reason, I was reminded of eating at a restaurant, many years ago. A very sheltered, sweet friend of mine was with me, and he saw Veal Cutlet on the menu. A Veal Cutlet Wedge. That's a sandwich, made with a long roll, slit down the middle. He didn't know what a wedge was, and asked me. I told him, It's like a "grinder." He had no idea what a Grinder was, so I said, "It's like a submarine sandwich." And his eyes glazed over. "Like a Hoagie? I offered, hopefully," only to be met with even dimmer recognition. "A Hero sandwich? I offered in final desperation. He'd never heard any of the terms, although he was born and raised in this country and was in his fifties. Finally I said, "It's a sandwich made with a long roll, slit down the middle." He nodded, indicating that he understood what I was talking about.

When the waitress came over he said, "Can I have the Veal Cutlet Wedge, without the bread?"

Jerry

Subject: ADD: Don't Know the Words... (for My Favo(u)rite T
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 29 Nov 03 - 04:54 PM

As a transplanted Yank (Detroit-area to Sheffield), I'm particularly enjoying this thread.

A few terms I haven't seen mentioned yet:

Shattered: emotionally traumatized (US); exhausted (UK)
Muffler: car silencer (US); scarf (UK)
Scoff: make fun of (US); gobble up (UK)

Mobile: something you hang over a baby's crib (US); portable phone (UK)

There are a few more in this parody wot I wrote (I think most are evident from context, but if not, let me know & I'll clarify).

Don't Know the Words... (for My Favo(u)rite Things)
(with apologies to Rodgers & Hammerstein)

Jelly is jam here, and jello is jelly
Cars have a boot and my foot wears a wellie
Mention "sultanas", I think: Eastern Kings
Don't know the words for my favourite things

Summat is not where you go when you're climbing
Jumper is not someone into sky diving
Bob is Your uncle, the Beeb is your Aunt
Don't know the words to explain what I want

If my languish causes anguish; if you think me sad
Oh, won't you remember I'm just a poor Yank, and that's why I talk... so bad

Beer's sold by landlords instead of bartenders
Don't tell the clerk that your man needs suspenders
Braces aren't something you wear on your teeth
Rubber is nothing to do with a sheath

I stand in line; over here it's called queueing
Lines are engaged but they never need wooing
You work while five while I labor 'til four
Knob isn't always a thing on a door

If I speak, luv, like a freak, luv; if you think me mad
Oh, won't you remember I'm just a poor Yank, and that's why I talk... so bad

Biscuits are sweet but a tart can be racy, a
Nice bit o' crumpet might wear something lacy
Crackers are not to be eaten with cheese
Folks don't wear flannels but you can wear fleece

Chips come with haddock; and crisps in a packet
Soccer is football and baseball's not cricket
Stockings have ladders and Cricket has runs
Baps is the word for my favourite buns

If my diction causes friction; if I seem a cad
Oh, won't you remember I'm just a poor Yank, and that's why I talk... so bad

Two pints of bitter were not a bad notion
Held up two fingers and caused a commotion
I didn't quack but you called me a duck
Muffler's not something to quiet a truck   

You call me luv; I don't know who you are, pet
But when I say shag, ducks, I only mean carpet
Met a cute bloke at the Anchor & Bull
Kept my hands off him but he said I pulled

I get confused but I can't ask my granny
My knickers are knackered and show off my f...reckles               
You can go barking though you're not a dog,
Everyone goes to the loo in a swamp... um, bog!

If you're thinkin' I've been drinkin'; if you think me lewd
Oh, won't you remember I'm just a poor Yank, and that's why I seem... so rude!


Cheers,

YY

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Naemanson
Date: 28 Nov 03 - 01:50 PM

This is good. I wish I'd found this thread earlier on my trip to Australia. Unfortunately I fly out today and will have little use for it. But the trip has shown some interesting differences between our English and the Aussie version. And there must be some very interesting differences between the UK english and the Aussie english.

...separated by a common tongue? Is it a plot to keep those learning english as a second language on their toes?

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 28 Nov 03 - 04:34 AM

Romany posh karoon = half-crown, a Brtish coin that disappeared with decimalisation, worth 2s6d, or 12.1/2 new pence.

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: GUEST,Raedwulf
Date: 27 Nov 03 - 10:27 PM

DaveO - strictly speaking, the beaver is actually the bottom portion of a knight's helm (I ought to know, I'm a re-enactor) that protects the chin & mouth. It can't be "cocked up" I'm afraid. The beaver is definitely a hat in this case.

Johnny - glad to see yer still wiv us! *g* You can always complete the anecdote with the (possibly) correct definition of "posh" y'know. Even the dikkers don't have this. The OED says that it may be derived from slang for a dandy or fop. So I looked up posh in Partridge's dik of historical slang. It reckons that posh derives from the Romany for half, which was applied to a halfpenny, from there to mean having money in general, and ultimately someone that had (or appeared to have) money was therefore posh. Not quite sure why the main dictionaries don't credit this explanation suficiently to offer it moer assuredly. Possibly because there isn't enough of a concrete trail back to the original...

As to mantle for put together, that one is a back formation I think. Webster Online gives the second definition of dismantle as to strip of dress or covering, & mantle as a cloak or covering, or (as a verb) to cover something; rather than to put something back together. I've also seen mantling used as describing the action of climbing onto a ledge (as in mantlepiece, in this context).

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Nov 03 - 06:54 PM

I don't believe it. Sure, I was pretty stinkin' last night and I was pretty hung over when I went to pick up the old woman at her old ladys, but did she need to ride my ass about it? I finally pulled into a rest stop and told her that if she could take the wheel, and she did and I got some naptime from there to the garage. She didn't wake me when we got home, either, and I woke up looking at a grinny through the passenger window. Good thing I'd redded up the place before I left, 'cause there was enough hell to pay without that too.

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Cluin
Date: 27 Nov 03 - 06:12 PM

The beaver referred to in "Cock Up Your Beaver" isn't the visor on a knights helm.

It's one of the old felt hats made with the hair from beaver pelts. It was supposed to be the best hair to use in making hats which were extremely popular in the last few centuries and the main market for the booming fur trade in the Americas. The hats were nick-named "beavers".

So Midchuck above was right.

On both counts.

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Mr Red
Date: 27 Nov 03 - 05:24 PM

Raedwulf

the least I say about American pronunciation and American spelling the better but one has to acknowledge they are homophones.


the SOED CD ROM says -
1 A peg or spigot to stop the vent-hole in a cask etc. LME–M18.
2 A tap for drawing liquor from a barrel etc. Now dial. & US. LME.
3 A tap for drawing any liquid or gas from a pipe or vessel; spec. one providing access to a supply of piped water for household etc. US. M19.
4 The enlarged section of a pipe made to receive the spigot end of the next section. US. L19.

and second entry

A facet; a faceted stone.

go figure.

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 27 Nov 03 - 12:33 PM

So you don't think old Rab was having a joke, then?

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 27 Nov 03 - 12:13 PM

Midchuck, in that usage "beaver" is the part of a knight's helmet with "cocks" up off the face when not in battle, and can be lowered to provide protection and some vision through apertures.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Midchuck
Date: 27 Nov 03 - 10:32 AM

Was just looking at some old Robert Burns song lyrics.

There's one called - I swear I'm not making this up - "Cock Up Your Beaver."

Meaning: tip your hat - I think.

Good idea in any case.

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: muppett
Date: 27 Nov 03 - 09:46 AM

Oops sorry artbrooks for my blunders

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Splott Man
Date: 27 Nov 03 - 08:00 AM

Driving on the pavement (sidewalk) is still illegal here in the UK.

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: GUEST,Strollin' Johnny
Date: 27 Nov 03 - 07:54 AM

Hey again Raedwulf, your treatise regarding the addition of prefixes/suffixes to reverse words is interesting. My favoutite (which I've use for years) is 'mantle', meaning to put something together,(as distinct from dismantle). Eg "That clock yer dad dismantled is still in pieces, he'd better mantle it again" :-)
Johnny

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: GUEST,Strollin' Johnny
Date: 27 Nov 03 - 07:50 AM

Amos, Raedwulf - you just blew my best anecdote out of the water! I'm applying the razor-blade to my jugular as I type. Goodbye Cruel World.................................THUMP!

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: artbrooks
Date: 27 Nov 03 - 07:42 AM

S&r: most people in the US use traffic jam. Muppett: Fanny bag=fanny pack, fawcett=faucet, the game is craps and is played with dice. LadyJean, herself (a Taylor-Alderdice grad) says you left out grinnies.

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 27 Nov 03 - 06:33 AM

Jerry - your question:
Isn't Gymnasium a term for lower Elementary School in England? Or is it Germany?

In Germany gymnasium is the secondary school qualifying for University. In my prime it was classical (Latin, English, Greek and one or two more modern languages in the last years, Hebrew at will for future ministers) or modern (sciences, English first, less Latin, no Greek).
Now the classical branch is abandoned, but for qualifying you still need 9 years (5th to 13th) after 4 years of elementary school.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: muppett
Date: 27 Nov 03 - 05:23 AM

UK Bum bag
US Fanny bag

UK Rubber = the thing you use rub out mistakes you have made with a pencil

US Rubber = a Contraceptive

The Expression 'to loose your Cherry'
UK = you had a cherry & now you've lost it
US = you've lost your virginity

The implement you use to turn water on/off
UK = A tap
US = A fawcett

A Faggot

UK = A delicacy
US = A gay person

To play crap

UK = Some who plays sub standard
US = a Card game

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: s&r
Date: 27 Nov 03 - 05:03 AM

Elevator - used in shoes to make you look taller.
Flat - apartment
Tart - derogatory term for woman
Bird - woman
Traffic jam - gridlock
First Floor - the one above ground level (called the ground floor)

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: s&r
Date: 27 Nov 03 - 04:39 AM

Aluminium is aluminium. Aluminum is American usage.

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: LadyJean
Date: 27 Nov 03 - 12:10 AM

And then, course there are the regional dialects. Scots would know what a Pittsburgher meant if she said "redd up". But they*d be confused by th Pittsburgh definition of neb. Here, a neb is a snoop.
Thorns are jaggers, baby chickens are peeps, rubber bands are gum bands, and yinz is the plural of you. The clerk at McCrory's said, "Yinz is really evil aint ya?" when we bought my friend Emily a very short, very red nightie with fringe.
Jeannie, our school uniform was green too.

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 26 Nov 03 - 05:50 PM

There's a wonderful song called "The Widow Who Keeps The Cock Inn" - from Pills to Purge Melancholy, I think.

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Raedwulf
Date: 26 Nov 03 - 05:36 PM

It's faucet (which comes from middle Fr., whereas "tap" is English), Red. Fawcett is a surname.

A cock is, amongst other meanings, a device for regulating liquid flow. As a verb, most of its meanings revolve around "to turn, tip, or stick up". I reckon that's influenced or inspired the noun. In most/all cases a cock is a simple on/off, up/down device. So it's either turned up or turned down - 'cocked' one way or t'other.

Subject: RE: BS: English To English Dictionary
From: Mr Red
Date: 26 Nov 03 - 05:21 PM

Now I can guess why fawcet gained currency in the colonies

You see a fawcett in English (UK) is a wooden tap. Which is driven in to a barrel by tapping. While the pioneers carried water in barrels us sophisticates had the stuff piped in and the flow was regulated by stop cocks. (remember them?) Now the real puzzle is why were they called cocks?