Glosso’s advent: Baubles of Britishisms – Dec 13

sockmouth

Day 13

Put a sock in it.

“When Field got to the pushing phase, Williams helped out… by singing a song from Frozen. His bride nicely asked him to put a sock in it.” — on Robbie Williams tweeting his wife’s labour. Yahoo Celebrity blog UK, Oct 28 2014

A Brit’s way of telling you to shut your mouth.

Also:

Shut your cakehole. “Cheryl Fernandez-Versini was shaking with fury after a row with Simon Cowell at X Factor auditions. … In the end Geordie Cheryl, 31, blew her top at Wembley Arena in London. She snapped: ‘I am gonna give him a slap. Shut your cakehole.'” — Daily Star, 4 Aug 2014

Belt up.

Glosso’s advent: Baubles of Britishisms – Dec 12

sod

Day 12

Sod. 

An unpleasant or obnoxious person. Eric Partridge explains its origins in the Dictionary of  Slang and Unconventional English: “A sodomist: low coll.: mid-C. 19-20; ob.-2. Hence, a pejorative, orig. and gen. violent: late C. 19-20. Often used in ignorance of its origin.  

Also:

Sod off (f*** off): “The effect on Rita is shown through the breakdown of her marriage to her lummox husband Eddie, played by big-voiced everyman Adrian Der Gregorian, but his character is so irritatingly simple you want her to tell him to sod off.” — London24, 6 Nov 2014 (also see Dec 5’s advent post). Stack Exchange explores sod off in more depth.

Sod it (f*** it) “It’s a big challenge. I have had a few of those recently with charity things I have done and I thought ‘sod it’ this year! I feel tough and I don’t want to do it when I am too old! It is going to be an experience and I want to have fun.”” — Melanie Sykes in Daily Mirror, 11 Nov 2014

Sod all (nothing): “f you’re desperate to avoid anything remotely pumpkin-shaped, here are three great club nights that have absolutely sod-all to do with Halloween and everything to do with top tunes.” — Time Out London, 30 Oct 30 2014

Sod’s law (what Americans know as Murphy’s law): “Mossop had surgery on his troubled right shoulder when he arrived at Parramatta, having initially dislocated the joint in the 2011 Challenge Cup Final. Three games into his return, he suffered a fresh injury to his other shoulder. … “I had just been rehabbing it, rather than having surgery,” he explained. …“Parra wanted me to get it sorted, which ruled me out of the first eight weeks of the season. Then, sod’s law, I came back and I did the other shoulder, which I’d not had any troubles with.” — Wigan Today, 12 Nov 2014

Also you sod and sod you.

Glosso’s advent: Baubles of Britishisms – Dec 11

 

cricket

Day 11

It’s not cricket.

“Raising UK interest rates soon simply isn’t cricket, the Bank of England’s chief economist has declared, in an intervention that swapped the spreadsheet for the Wisden almanack.” — The Guardian, 17 Oct 2014

“‘For instance, in the UK, tipping for food in restaurants is OK, although unexpected as service charges are generally included. Yet, tipping for drinks at a bar is just not cricket!'” — Daily Mail, Oct 16, 2014

Not fair, not cool old chap. Cricketers are the ultimate sportsmen: it’s a gentleman’s game. If it’s not on, it’s just not cricket.

 

Glosso’s advent: Baubles of Britishisms – Dec 10

mick

Day 10

Take the mick (or Mickey)

“Rafe Turner, prosecuting for the RSPCA, said a fellow resident at the guest house had made the grim discovery after going to Rogers’ room to feed the rabbit. Rogers had earlier told the man he had killed it after microwaving it for three minutes but the man did not believe him and thought he was “taking the mickey”.” — The Independent, Nov 6 2014

“According to Mr Eagan, the witness added: “Brian was pretty drunk. He was taking the mickey out of his younger brother.” He said that Phillips initially pushed Brian off the stool. Mr Eagan said: “Then he [Brian] gets back up and continued to take the mickey out of his brother and then the incident took place. “There’s nothing worse than being taken the mickey out of by your own brother.” — Surrey Mirror, 13 Oct 2014

That’s what the Brits do when they’re making fun of you and laughing mercilessly at your expense.

It’s thought that the phrase is a shortened version of “take the Mickey Bliss”, which is Cockney rhyming slang for the slightly more vulgar “take the piss”. Who Mickey Bliss was and why the poor chap came to embody the Brits’ favorite past-time of taking the piss out of anyone and everyone we’ll probably never know. World Wide Words has the story.

Also:

Take the piss: “Men may fill them, but it takes a woman to take the piss out of a urinal. Or so Julian Spalding, the former director of Glasgow Museums, and the academic Glynn Thompson have claimed. The argument, which has been swooshing around the cistern of contemporary art criticism since the 1980s, is that Duchamp’s famous  artwork Fountain — a pissoir laid on its side — was actually the creation of the poet, artist and wearer of tin cans, Baroness Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven.” — The Guardian, 7 Nov 2014

According to World Wide Words, “it’s usually said that the phrase derives from an older one, piss-proud, which refers to having an erection when waking up in the morning … This developed into a figurative sense of somebody who had an exaggerated idea of his own importance. So to take the piss is to deflate somebody, to disabuse them of their mistaken belief that they are special.”

Glosso’s advent: Baubles of Britishisms – Dec 9

fingerpull

Day 9

Pull your finger out.

“I can still see my parents coming home from parents’ evening with their hair falling out, having been told once again that I was going to end up as a tramp on the street corner. It wasn’t until I was 14 that I suddenly realised that if I didn’t pull my finger out I really was going to be a tramp on the street corner.” — Richard Madeley, Daily Mail, 18 Oct 2014

In other words, stop faffing around and get on with whatever you need to get on with …

There are various theories about where the phrase originated — including that it was RAF slang, it referred to courting couples, and that it was a nautical saying about crew members loading cannons with powder. Read some of those suggestions in this Guardian notes and queries piece from 2011.

Turkey in Turkish is hindi. And more dope on the Thanksgiving fowl and its curious name …

turkey1

Photo by Malene Thyssen

The name of our Thanksgiving bird has a history almost as colorful as its handsome plumage, and certainly as exotic, but is based on two historical mistakes — one of geography, and one of fowl distinction.

Which came first: the big chicken or the country? Well, the Turks gave Turkey the country its name, and even thought the origin of the word Turk is unclear, we know that the country’s English name was “Turki” or “Turkeye” by 1275, a few centuries before the fowl that we now know as a turkey was even found in that part of the old world. So the country came first. And it’s because people were geographically and fowlishly challenged in the 16th and 17th centuries that the Thanksgiving bird got its name. Continue reading →

‘Strophes: straight or curly, smart or dumb?

strophestraightstrophestrophe

Ah, the apostrophe.

It’s unquestionably the most misused punctuation mark in the English language — so much so that its errant form has its own nickname: “the greengrocer’s apostrophe” (and that’s from widespread abuse on signage by guilty tradesmen). Orange’s and lemon’s: says who?

But it does have a bit of a bad rap, this aerial word-comma: it’s really not as complicated as the world seems to think it is. Except perhaps when it comes to its typography, not to its role in spelling. Continue reading →

Nuts: to be or not to be …

Mixed Nuts

Do you know your nuts? (And I don’t mean that in a rude or ungrammatical way.)

I thought I did know, especially since I’m allergic to them. But I really don’t. I was aware that the fabulous peanut, which seems to be the quintessential nut in both name and appearance, isn’t actually a nut (it’s a legume). But it seems that the peanut isn’t the only impostor in our nutty midst. Take a look at the picture of the mixed nuts above. Those various protein forms have little in common with each other — they’re different colors, shapes, sizes, tastes and textures; in fact, the only quality they seem to share is the fact that they’re edible and plant-based. So what makes them nuts? (And I don’t mean to suggest they’re angry.) Well, that’s a hard question to answer — a tough nut to crack — because most of them aren’t actually nuts, at least not technically. Only one of the items pictured can lay rightful claim to that generic label.* So what exactly is a nut? And why do we call someone a nut — or nuts — when they’re off their trolleys? Continue reading →

The Fifth of November

guyfawkes

The Fifth of November

Remember, remember!
The fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!
Guy Fawkes and his companions
Did the scheme contrive,
To blow the King and Parliament
All up alive.
Threescore barrels, laid below,
To prove old England’s overthrow.
But, by God’s providence, him they catch,
With a dark lantern, lighting a match!
A stick and a stake
For King James’s sake!
If you won’t give me one,
I’ll take two,
The better for me,
And the worse for you.
A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,
A penn’orth of cheese to choke him,
A pint of beer to wash it down,
And a jolly good fire to burn him.
Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!
Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!
Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!

English folk verse, c. 1870 (from Poem of the Week)

For Lily