Splitting Hairs

When you move across The Pond your mind starts playing tricks on you after a while. Some well-worn phrases are so similar that you can’t remember which one’s which. While it’s “no biggie”, use of the wrong phrase can raise a wry smile from friends and family members, and make for great conversation.

For example,

In the US you  “putter around” and in the UK it’s “potter”; the American “meat and potatoes” becomes Britain’s “meat and two veg”; and “Main Street” is “High Street”.  So far so good, but it’s a bugger trying to keep them straight after more than a decade or two.

There’s the American “downtown” which becomes the “town centre”, “talk shows” are “chat shows” in the UK, and “business casual” becomes “smart casual” (or “casual smart” in some cases). Did you know it’s “hodge podge” in the States and “hotch potch” in Britain? Or “tid-bit” instead of the more risqué British “tit-bit”?

Some are not only hard to keep sorted, but bloody irritating at the same time, like the US’s “Every little bit helps” versus Britain’s  “Every little helps”.

To quote Mike - “This one drives me nuts.  There is an advert on the telly -- Tesco, ASDA, LIDL or one of the other low-budget shops--that ends "every little helps" and I want to scream at the TV--"Every little WHAT helps?"

Toni’s pet peeve is “I could care less” which is oft-heard in the States. Do Americans realise what they’re saying? They’re trying to convey a deep sense of well, not caring, yet they’re telling you they could actually care a little bit less than they do?  There is a suggestion that it’s a highly sarcastic phrase meaning "as if I could care less about this", but since Americans generally don’t employ sarcasm, it’s doubtful.

And the worst thing about it is...well, David Mitchell says it so much better than we could:

Host Country words & phrases

Host Phrases

We’re obviously into discussing words and phrases, because this week we’re highlighting three favourite/favourite words from our host country:-

Mike:

Cor Blimey!  Three words or phrases I’ve picked up from my host country?  Gordon Bennet, that’s a tall order, innit, and bugger if I can come up with anything.  I’ve been sitting here for ten minutes and, so far, I’ve got sweet FA.

Yeah, to be honest, limiting it to three is the hard part.  The British language is so full of brilliant words and phrases that it’s difficult to not pick them up.  When I visit the States these days, people have a hard time figuring out what I’m on about.

So for my three:

Penultimate: I love this one because no one knows what it means.  In America, we just say “next to the last” or, more likely, don’t mention it at all.  I mean, if it isn’t the ultimate, it simply doesn’t matter.

Fortnight is a good one, too.  People know immediately what it means, but when you say something like, “We’ll be holidaying there for a fortnight,” they think you’re talking like a Jane Austin novel.

Bollocks, however, is my favorite.  It’s such a handy pejorative – “bollocks!” – or can be used to describe a telling-off (“Clive toddled home from the Dog and Bacon at half three last night and she-indoors* gave him a proper bollocking, poor sod.”)

Really, how can you not like these words?

*She-Indoors = wife

Toni:-

(I thought it was “her indoors”, or “’er indoors”, but never mind.)

If this were a competition, Mike’s “bollocks” would win hands down, so to speak. There just isn’t really a word anywhere on the planet, I venture, that has quite the impact. However, there are a few Americanisms that I have grown fond of over the years.

“Snooze, you lose” – used in our house on a daily basis and covers everything from me asking what the kids want for Christmas, (I usually give them ten seconds to list their “wants”), to justification for nicking the last piece of pizza. 

“Copasetic” – I have never actually plucked up the courage to say this. It would be like an American saying “bollocks” – somehow fake-sounding and just plain wrong. However, it’s another one of those words that can cover a lot of bases (ooh, there’s another American phrase), and it means “perfectly satisfactory”. Doesn’t it have a much more scientific sound though? I think it should mean something to do with the left frontal lobe. Or something. (See why I’ve never used it.)

“Behoove” – I’m not so much fond of this word as amazed by it. Yes, it means the same as “behove” but talk about sounding stupid. The word is used a little more in the States than I remember it in the UK, especially in the southern states. The first time I heard someone saying “It would behove you to…” I honestly thought it was a joke. Be-what? Talk about taking a perfectly good British (Middle English, actually) word and spoiling it like that.

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And All This Time I Thought it Meant....

No matter how long you live in a "host" country, you're learning all the time. This week we talk about the words we've merrily been assuming we knew the meaning of...

Toni:

The Ball & Chain is American and has always had quite a colourful vocabulary; by that, I don't mean swearing, but coming out with phrases like "That dog ain't hunting" and "If I had my druthers" *. I have often accused him of making words and phrases up, but I'm having to acknowledge that even after 21 years in the States, the vocabulary still stumps me from time to time.

* druthers -- a preference. Presumably comes from "I'd rather" wouldn't you think?

Take "jonesing" -- a word that comes up quite regularly but the context gives no clue as to its meaning. I have never asked for a definition in public because it's always sounded vaguely dirty to me. A bit like "cottaging". An example of usage is someone is "jonesing" for something. (See - I told you it had dodgy undertones.), and it means "to have a strong need, desire or craving for something".

Then there's carpet-bagger -- a derogatory name used in politics, giving no clues to its meaning. I noticed that it was usually aimed at politicians who were representing regions they didn't come from, as when Hillary Clinton bought a house in New York State and then ran for Senate. According to Wikipedia it was a name Southerners gave to Northerners in the US who moved to the South between 1865 and 1877. The Northerners were accused of questionable motives, exploitation and of meddling in local politics. However, the name comes about because they carried their luggage in carpet bags (a la Mary Poppins).

Carpet Bagger

 Another vaguely dirty-sounding phrase I hear a lot is "charlie horse". Someone will exclaim that they have a Charlie Horse, and I never dare look in his or her direction. Fortunately it only means 'painful cramps or spasms in the leg", a bit like a dead leg in the UK.

Now that I have bothered to learn the true meanings, I will use the above words and phrases as often as possible over the next few weeks!

Mike:

I don’t have the same problem Toni does, but not because I have become an authority on British English over the previous ten years; quite the opposite, in fact.  The British language is so varied and regionalized that even British people become confused about the language from time to time.  And if you take rhyming slang into account (which we are not) all bets are off.

You might, for example, wake up in your home county, travel to a place where you can have a “bap” for lunch, walk down a “twitten” and stroll by the “brook,” and then move on to another locale where you can have a “cob” for dinner, walk down a ‘ginnel’ and stroll by the ‘beck.’  I am, therefore, used to not knowing what people are talking about, and I am generally not alone.

(Definitions: Bap/Cob = bread roll, Twitten/Ginnel = narrow alley way between houses.)

Usually, it’s safe to assume any word I don’t know the meaning of is yet another euphemism for penis.

There remain, however, a few British words that give me more problems than others.

It wasn’t very long ago that I ran across the term “any road” and I had no way of divining what that could possibly mean.  Recently, I came to understand it simply means “anyway.”

Another source of confusion involves things belonging to a dog, for they can denote “good” or “bad” depending on the item.  The “dog’s bollocks” means something is really great, while the “dog’s dinner” (or breakfast) means it is a mess.  This took a bit of getting used to, but I have, happily, caught on.

Another word I struggled with was “gormless.”  I had no way of knowing what my “Gorms” were but I was pretty certain I did not want to be without them.  Likewise, “Muppet,” does that mean you are a Jim Henson devotee, or what?

Muppet, I was able to get to grips with due to the context.  It means that you’re, well, a muppet.  If you can imagine a person you might want to call a muppet, well, that’s a muppet.  Sorry, I can’t come up with anything better than that.

Do you know this guy?

 As for “gormless” I mistakenly believed it meant lazy, but when I verified that with my wife she told me that was not, in fact, what it meant.

“What does it mean, then,” I asked.

“It means you’re a muppet,” she said.