Can I Ask?

“Can I ask you to take off your baseball cap please?”

You can.

*pause*

“Well go on then, take it off.”

You asked if you could ask me to to take off my baseball cap and I said yes, so go ahead and ask. Then I’ll take it off.

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When is a jar not a jar?

When it’s a pint of beer.

“Dad’s gone for a jar.”

I don’t ever recall seeing beer in a jar but my dad still goes for a jar.

Sometimes he goes for a pot. Not “some pot” but “a pot”. Two different things entirely.

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Pled vs. Pleaded

This is one I used to struggle with regularly in my day-to-day work, until I got used to it.

Someone pled guilty or pleaded guilty?

The rule for us in journalism is pleaded. The lawyers like pled.

I imagine this goes back to the good ole English court terminology somewhere in history.

In any case … I like pled.  It sounds more natural.

You don’t say you “saided” something.

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Deep Roots

I remember thinking some years back about one of my cousins back home and how she has such a deep Southern accent that she almost sounds British.

And when you think about it, it almost makes sense. At one time, not too long ago when you really think about it, everyone spoke that way here.

And with the isolation of the rural South, it’s logical to think that the Southern accent might not have Americanized like others have.

Which goes to show that the South, in some far, remote locales, can resemble its own country.

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It Just Doesn’t Sound (Write?)

When we talk about writing letters, us Brits have a certain…overly long way about asking people to send us mail:

“Send a letter to me.”

“Write me a letter.”

Whereas some other nations are somewhat more economic with words:

“Write me.”

Call me old fashioned but I like the long-winded approach:

“Go forth and reproduce” is sometimes a better way of saying “Fuck off.”

But then, this is where I get incongruent…because it can be just as good to say “Go forth” and leave it at that…well, you could add the middle finger in just for good measure. After all, body language is just as important.

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Nick, nick: A verb AND a noun

Jim Davidson's (British 80's stand-up comedian) catch-phrase used to be "nick,nick".  You'd hear him say it more than a few times in a show.
You see, he often got nicked himself, and I don't necessarily mean with a razor blade.

When you get nicked, you get taken down the nick. 

Furthermore, some people get nicked for nicking things.

Usage in this instance

1. verb. to steal – He nicked some vodka from the offy.
2. verb. to arrest – He got nicked for nicking vodka.
3. noun. police station or prison – He's in the nick for nicking vodka.

I've looked in loads of really old dictionaries and failed to find any etymology regarding these usages.  If any readers want to contribute or just even bullshit about where these usages come from, feel free.

Alternatively, just tell us if you've got an amusing story about you or someone you know getting nicked for something stupid.  

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Scud Tharriz

It's good that is.

Actually, some people say "it's mint" or "last night was mint".

It's an expression that has finally started to bug the crap out of me, but folk around here are saying it all the time. I've no idea where it comes from. Can anybody help?

What pisses me off more is when the same people describe wealthy – and I don't mean merely affluent, I mean with more money than I could earn in 20 years – folk as being "minted".

Now, I can understand that one but it's still annoying. Probably to do with coins being minted. Does it count for notes? Do notes get minted or are they just printed. Printed I think, so why minted then? If they were that loaded (and why are rich people loaded; doesn't that mean drunk?) they wouldn't go near coins, just notes. Coins are for peasants and peasants can't afford pheasants and besides that they taste like shit…the pheasants that is, or so I'm told.

So, I don't understand after all; the connection or any of it.

It's mint that one is. Mint. Oh bollocks, I said it. My marbles are well and truly lost.

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Le Cheese Royale – Economy in Words

The people of North America (possibly South America and Canada as well, I’m not sure) have it figured out. They use what I’d call imperial measurements: good old pounds and ounces.

Here in Britain, it’s a different matter. There’s some confusion as to what we use.

Here’s a packet of out of date bacon I found festering at the back of the fridge:

There are 385 grams of bacon in here. But I asked for a pound of bacon. The lady behind the counter isn’t supposed to weigh in pounds, but she does her best to weigh it as close to 500kg as she can, which is as near enough to a pound as she can get with the way the bacon is cut. Actually, I got 0.85 pounds of bacon. Still, I’m not fussy when it comes to food.

Shops here aren’t allowed by the law to sell in pounds and ounces any longer, thanks to the the EEC (European Economic Community)

But a lot still do, and they can get fined pretty heavily for it.

Soon we’ll lose our precious pint and have to buy half a litre of beer instead, which is a con. A pint being 0.585 litre, we’ll lose 85 millilitres yet the price will stay the same which is actually increasing it, if you know what I mean.

So, stick to your pounds and ounces if that’s what you use. It’s much easier and probably why we still weigh in imperial when we shouldn’t.

But just one thing: what does this have to do with economy of words?

“My cousin weighs two hundred and eighty pounds.”

“My cousin weighs twenty stones.”

See how better the second quote reads. And the unit of stone works with pounds (lbs) There are four syllables less in that second sentence.

Of course, you could just say, “My cousin weighs two-eighty.” But that confuses us Brits.

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Brrrrrr

So, it be winter here and it’s a tad parky outside. Exhaustive research (exhaustive being a relative term where I’m concerned) hasn’t yielded the origin of the word parky.

So, I’m going to attribute its origin to the old style parker coats people used to wear when it was…parky. Although I suspect the word’s been around a lot longer than the coat.

Any ideas?

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Stuff At The Breaker’s Yard

bonnet n.

1. British, Australian, N.Z., South African. The hinged metal part of a motor vehicle body that provides access to the engine.

2. Any of various hats, especially worn by women.

3. Scotland. A soft cloth cap [old French – bonet]

Popping the bonnet doesn’t quite sound the same as popping the hood. I always thought of a hood as something you wear over the head, but used in this way, ‘popping the hood’ definitely has more of a ring to it than ‘popping the bonnet’.

Then we have the ‘trunk’, or the ‘boot’ as we prefer to call it over here.

Trunk sounds more logical than boot. I mean, how many people store things in a boot, aside from eccentrics living in solitary up a mountain somewhere.

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