UK BritishTerminology

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YES

Always love a bit of Bradley

...I've run into " can't be arsed " for " can't be bothered " .

..." Estate " can mean any kind house/group of houses, even " council estates " in Brit - low-income housing, " projects " or other phrases here. In American usage an " estate " would be where someone with a last name like Rockefeller or Gates lived! VERY, very, very upper-class.

...If Judy Garland had lived longer, perhaps she could have done a Brit commercial (um...advert ) version of "The Trolley Song "! Ummm...for Tesco's? Marks and Sparks?





OfMe"]UK: holiday
US: vacation

UK: Trolley
US: Shopping Cart

UK: Tram
US: Trolley

Taking the piss

And of course
US: Soccer
Most if not all the rest of the world: Football[/quote]

...At least 50-45 years ago, living in the New York City area but visiting my mother's East Texas family, having the noon meal being " dinner " and the evening meal " supper " was more a Southern thing, with " dinner " for the evening meal Northern!







hael829"]I've never understood "dinner" vs "supper" in England.

In the U.S., they're synonymous.

When I was visiting my mom and British stepdad in London, the phone rang in Alan's bookroom (He was an antiquarian bookseller), and someone asked if he was there, and then asked when he'd return.

I said that I didn't know, but that he'd surely be back at dinner.

The guy said, "Dinner???! !"

I quickly said, "Supper", hoping that was the right word.

And, Mr. Chichikov, how big a deal is it really if a significant number of people use a word contrary to some "official" standard. If usages didn't change, then you might be speaking Chaucerian. Going back to the hypothetically-inferred Proto-Indo-European, and before, one reason why languages diversified was because each generation wanted to use new usages.

In one of the Nero Wolfe stories, someone in Wolfe's office says to him, "You fat pig, I never should have contacted you!"

The narrator, Archie Goodwin says something like, "Wolfe was moving his little finger in quarter-inch circles on the arm of his chair. That man had just made an enemy for life--He'd used "contact" as a verb."

I used to dislike "access" as a verb. But why shouldn't it be used as one?

Chichikov, we have enough flamewarrior-behavior at Politics, Philosophy & Religion. Let's not bring it here too, ok?

Alright, one thing I'll never accept: The double-is: "The thing is-is..."

Michael829



Michael829[/quote]

...I think " fagged out " means exausted, like a burned-out, down to its end, cigarette (Or a butt - however,, that could be misinterpreted! ) --- has been used for " tired " - in British and in somewhat older American writing!
I've seen the theory that the pejorative anti-gay use of " fag " comes from burning homosexuals at the stake, but maybe no...







ralplastic"]

Exactly.

In England fag/fa***t means a "cigarette".

Originally a "fa***t" was the bundle you made of the sticks you gathered for kindling to start your fire.
Its easy to see how that evolved into meaning cigarette since cigarettes are burning sticks.

How the American usage to mean "a homosexual male" originated is not so obvious to me.

But in the 19th Century private all male schools in England younger boys worked as servants for older boys. And the servants were called "fags". So you have an all male school, horny teen guys, and no girls around to date, and some kids have power over other kids to force them to do stuff, and if you let your imagination go you can imagine how that usage of the word "fag" could have evolved. Or that was my theory once. But the trouble with my theory is that that was in England (where they don't use the word for homosexual), and not in the US (where we do use it to mean that). So its still a mystery.[/quote]

Hong Kong Phooey=One of my favorite cartoons.

...I suppose a Chinese chippy " would be a fairly inexpensive Chinese restaraunt/ stand/takeaway place? Not particularly " chips " as in " fish and chips ", is it? " Chippy " is a pretty old-fashioned word for a female of (perceived) easy virtue, like " hoyden " or " trollop " or " hussy "!







bybird"]I'll be stuffed later.

I'm gonna get a big fat scran from the Chinese chippy.[/quote]

...Yeah, the old-guard American equivalent of " public school " is " prep school " - when I was younger, my mother had ambitions of me going to one. I never did, but when I was 11, I was going to a school that was a feeder school for boys who would go to a prep school when they were older. We wore uniforms there, a blazer and a tie (I wore a clip-on), it had an Episcopal/Anglican chapel, what CC was calling " evangelical Lutheran " I guess, though I don't think it was officially Episcopal Church-connected.







ikov"]

"Private".[/quote]

...The meal/function " tea " or " high tea " tends to suggest a kind of little-old-lady mild pretense...Sohthern more, again, or old-guard East Coast. I will agree that a lot of now more British terms were in wider use prior to the Sixties or thereabouts








y"]

Can you what? If someone asked me that, I would have assumed they meant someone and not the packet in which they speak.
Usually, it's 'Can I have a fag?' or '' Can I borrow a fag?'' or ''You got any spare Cigs?'' all that and more, but not can I burn a fag from you, usually its impolite.
Also, for Biscuitman, if you want to be the sole provider of your middle class income, it usually goes with an afternoon or mid-afternoon tea (and biscuit). [/quote]

...Yes, they do. I grew up in Westchester County, NY, to the immediate north of NYC, Incidentally?, speaking of the NYC area, when people say " Long Island ", they mean Nassau and Suffolk counties...not the Brooklyn and Queens (Kings and Queens as counties) boroughs of NYC...Krafiekortie, you wouldn't call yourself a " Longuylander ", would you?











aveFerris"]

But States have Counties in them ?[/quote]

I struggle with the American usage of obligated. Where I'm from it's obliged as in 'much obliged'. I was also totally confused when an American was talking about trowma. It took me a while to work out he was saying trauma. Also I do wonder if Americans have always used the word beverage. Here it's a drink.

We Americans (the ones Ive heard) all pronounce "trauma" as "trah mah". Presumably the same way that you say it. NEVER heard anyone say "trow ma". That would sound really weird.

Americans say "drink" (noun as well as as a verb) when talking about potables. "Beverage" is the word printed on menus. But "drink" was the word in actual speech. Though...I dunno....maybe "beverage" is starting to creep in actual speech lately.

About "obligated" . Never thought about it before.

You maybe right. Maybe "obligated" isn't a real word. And you should say "obliged".

Folks here do say "much obliged" coupled with "thank you". But if someone says "I am obligated to put away money each month to pay alimony" it wouldn't sound wrong to me.

The only "trow ma" I've heard is Troma Entertainment who produce low budget horror B-movies e.g. The Toxic Avenger which was such a cult classic it got turned into a musical and a kids cartoon.

A "Long Islander" is someone from Nassau/Suffolk County, not someone from Queens/Brooklyn--even though Queens/Brooklyn is actually ON Long Island.

Trauma is "trah-ma" to me. Rhymes with drama.

A "beverage" is a drink. Nobody ever calls a non-alcoholic drink a "beverage" in everyday speech, though it is referred to as such within menus. Sometimes, people refer to alcoholic drinks as "beverages" in order to appear elegant. The drunker a person is, the more likely he/she will use "beverage."