50 noted Americanisms....

[Denzark]

'Nuff Said.

Except for this explains why we Brits (particularly those that won the lottery of life and were born English) are such pedants on occasion...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14201796

[DrLove42]

Some of them don't seem to bad.

And some of them I've never heard in my life....

[gwensdad]

I'm American and I've never heard some of those.
Others I never knew there was "another way" of saying it. Some are business terms that have invaded "normal" life.

And I have gone off on people who have said "My Bad".

And oddly, I have heard "for cheap" used before.

[Denzark]

BTW all I forgot to mention I put this up as humour... Sorry do you want one of these:D!!!

In the way in which you can say to girls, 'If what I have said could make you happy or could make you sad, and you're not sure which way to take it, take it I mean to make you happy'

[KingStuart]

The thing that is currently at the top of my 'irritating things people say/do' list is when people say 'good' when they clearly mean to say 'well', as in "the kid did good", "I'm good" etc.

Some of those on the list didn't make sense though, like the person complaining about 'train station'. It's a station for trains what else should you call it!

[MaltonNecromancer]

My personal most hated phrases are anything beign said by some overly steroidal, stubbly guy in any kind of action film or shooting game. You know the sort of thing, but instantly embarrassingly bad phrases include:

"Let's do this thing!"
"Time to rock and roll!"
"Bring it on!"
"Come get some!"

and the absolute nadir

"Stay frosty"

I swear, every time I hear that, it's like nails down a blackboard (or chalkboard to our American cousins).

Listen to me Marcus Fenix: it was cool when Michael Biehn said it in "Aliens", but that was because it was 1986, I was thirteen, and I didn't know any better. It's now 2011, and you have no excuse to be trotting out a phrase from fifteen years ago.

Gah.

If I'm going to have an action hero say something, it needs to be utterly devoid of any of that. My favourite phrase of recent memory is The Punisher, faced with a ********er whose weapon has stove-piped. He walks over to the guy, says

"There's a reason they put the sight on top"

And unceremoniously shoots him in the face. That's how an action scene should be; none of this hoo-hah, look-at-my-oily-arm-muscles, so-far-in-the-closet-I'm-having-tea-with-Aslan rubbish.

[Denzark]

I hate 'can I get?'. 'Stay frosty' is pretty good, I intend to say it repeatedly and ironically next time I am somewhere hot and crap like Afghanistan.

@King Stuart - Station is the word for the place where trains drop off passengers, when needing qualifying you add the differing mode of transport ie tram, bus etc. the word is superfluous presumably why people don't like it - I am ambivalent to this one although I dislike 'airplane' to 'aeroplane'.

[Psychosplodge]

You know it originally went on the site as 50 most "hated" americanisms?
I think the yank on the right missed the point about the English language evolving, the problem is not evolution as such but the deliberate corruption of words such as the dropping of the U, and use of Z instead of s in suffixes, which was introduced deliberately following independence to produce a separate american language, which is fair enough, just call it such.
Also the term "British English" is by far my most hated, it's just English.

[DarkLink]

I find it humorous but irritating that British people still think Americans speak their English. We speak American, m#$%^&*$%er:D!

Anyways, American accents and colloquialisms vary immensely. Heck, someone from northern California speaks differently from someone from SoCal. And in California, soda is 'soda'. Other places call it "pop", and get made fun of for it. NorCal says 'hella', and SoCal hates anyone who even thinks the word.



In a spirit contrary to this thread, a funny phrase in the Marine Corps is "you lost your [X]? Well then you'd better $#!* me one right now!".


BTW, did I insert enough censored cuss words to qualify as an uncultured American? I can link to the Team America World Police theme (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhnUgAaea4M), if you like:).


Edit: Oh, and here jokes about Starbuck's coffee cup sizes are old. We made fun of that when I was in, like, grade school. Ironic that it shows up in a British article a decade later.

[eldargal]

'Where are you at' I find particularly annoying, the at being completely superfluous.


Of course Americans are welcome to speak however they wish, the problem I have is that so many of them/you seem to think its ok to criticise English as the British speak it. I get particularly annoyed when various English archaisms are mocked, especially since, for example, faucet is a French archaism.

As to English evolving, well, given the complete lack of understanding of the rules I would call it devolution. Americanisms aren't devolution though, that is just American English slowly splitting off from English.

[Necron2.0]

Aluminium .... :rolleyes: What? You Brits been taking lessons from the French on useless vowel placements? It's aluminum. Originally it was called alumium, and later aluminum. Sometime after that, in Britain, an anonymous git, writing to a British political-literary journal, chose to call it aluminium because "it sounded more classical." :confused: It's aluminum. That's the name that matches the standard naming convention for elements in chemistry (the oxide of the metal being alumina).

And don't even get me started on "chips." :)

[MaltonNecromancer]

I find it humorous but irritating that British people still think Americans speak their English. We speak American, m#$%^&*$%er!

We know you do, darling. But like watching a beloved, ebullient child (who compensates for their lack of ability with relentless enthusiasm) play a game called "football" with their hands, we can't help but feel a combination of pity and mild revulsion that you can't quite do it properly. :)

And I must say, while I love the efficiency of the American dictionary and it's simplification of spelling, I just can't bring myself to embrace the spelling of "color" without the "U".


in Britain, an anonymous git, writing to a British political-literary journal, chose to call it aluminium because "it sounded more classical." It's aluminum. That's the name that matches the standard naming convention for elements in chemistry (the oxide of the metal being alumina).

But dear boy, it does sound more classical; can't help the fact it's a more pleasing arrangement of phonemes :)


And don't even get me started on "chips."

You're right. How on Earth do Americans tell the difference between chips, and crisps? Joking aside, you must remember that while we English and Americans are cousins, we do have some very different history and culture. Modern America has never been invaded and occupied by a foreign power, while the UK has been both invaded and invader with France for literal millenia.

As a result, while Americans like to rag on the French a lot, they just don't have the thousand years or so of practice the English do. Over there, it's a throwaway joke on "The Simpsons". Over here, it's engrained into the national psyche.

There's no way any Englishman is going to call a chip a French fry. No way at all. It's a chip, and that's just how it is.

One thing I do wish American films would do is get British swearing right. Hardly anyone says the word that rhymes with "anchor" as a proper insult; it's just too jokey - it's a thing you call your mates. No, if an Englishman doesn't like you, he doesn't muck around. We go straight for the word that rhymes with "punt", and use it liberally and constantly. In pubs on a Friday night, to quote Warren Ellis, that word loses all meaning and just becomes punctuation.

Also, we pronounce the word that refers to the bottom and is a synonym for a mule the same way as Americans.

Oh, and "bollocks" is a lot more sweary than Americans seem to think it is.

[eldargal]

Chips makes sense, they are chips of potato. French fries does not make sense as they are Belgian.

Aluminum and aluminium were both coined in the same year, with aluminium becoming dominant and in use by most chemists, even American ones, for the nineteenth century with aluminum making a come back in the early twentieth century. Aluminium is also the standard adopted by the union of international chemists or whatever they call themselves, with aluminum being an acceptable substitute. Either way both are acceptable and both have a similar pedigree.;)

Also, so says the nation that says 'erbs instead of herbs.:rolleyes: Silly wannabe frogs.

That reminds me, what is with pronouncing new/news 'noo/nooz'? You don't say ooo for you, coot for cute, moot for mute, repoot for repute etc.

[MaltonNecromancer]

That reminds me, what is with pronouncing new/news 'noo/nooz'? You don't say ooo for you, coot for cute, moot for mute, repoot for repute etc.

Actually, the one that really honks me off is when you get a certain type of English person calling a hospital a "hospickal".

What the hell is that about?! "Hospickal"?!!

Gah!!!

It's even more annoying than when people pronounce yoghurt (YOG-urt) as "YO-gert", or "Vase" (VARS) as VAYS.

[DarkLink]

'Where are you at' I find particularly annoying, the at being completely superfluous.

Right, you can't end a sentance witha preposition. The proper form is "where you at, b$%^& ";).



Americanisms aren't devolution though, that is just American English slowly splitting off from English.

Exactly. This is why I found the article a little annoying. This is how we speak (mostly). Half the phrases on there are things that no American would beat an eyelash at in their life. No one here thinks some of those things are even the slightest bit odd. So if the author(s) have a problem with that... well they can go back in time and try and stop the revolutionary war. I mean, seriously, I've never heard anyone not call a shopping cart a shopping cart.



On the other hand, the humorous part of the article is that some of the phrases aren't in common use. Some of the phrases on there are literally jokes, and the fact that the author(s) take them seriously displays a degree of ignorance. 'Where you at' is actually a good example. Most people use it ironically or jokingly. It's used precisely because it's incorrect, not in spite of that fact. "That'll learn you" is also intentionally stupid, for use when someone else does something stupid, as an irony. The "regular Americano" is another example. No one here understands why coffee shops can't just use large, medium and small sized either.



And then there's the people in the article who just plain misunderstood stuff. One of the guys complained about the phrase "heads up". He uses "let's do a heads up on this issue", which is blatantly not how that phrase is used. Heads up is a sort of warning, letting someone know about something. "Heads up, the boss wants to talk to you". "Heads up, the police came by asking about what you did with that body". You don't "do a heads up". It's derived from sports, where one warns about an incoming ball by yelling "heads up" (which is a little ironic, but I digress). It's basically short for "lift your head up and look around, you're about to get hit in the head with a ball". Used more broadly, it's "heads up, something might happen to you if you're not paying attention".


We know you do, darling. But like watching a beloved, ebullient child (who compensates for their lack of ability with relentless enthusiasm)...

Americans also like pissing off people who look down on them. It's not uncommon to continue some obnoxious behavior because some random person gets red in the face about it. Being flamingly patriotic is a good example of this:p, though it usually doesn't come off well because foreigners aren't in on the joke. Some liberals over here don't like it either. My sci-fi english teacher in high school was really cool, but he got pretty annoyed when we asked "does America win" at the end of every book, even when it made no sense. Especially when it made no sense.



Oh, and "bollocks" is a lot more sweary than Americans seem to think it is.

Maybe to the ratings groups, anyways. Talk about slipping things past the censors.



"Vase" (VARS) as VAYS.

Where'd the 'R' come from:p? Oh, you brits and your funny accents.

[Morgan Darkstar]

Ahm getting knackered of aal this taak of proper english. Wi aal knaa the ernly proper english is geordie.

So ah divvent want te hear ne more aboot yer americanisms yee should aal recognise the reet an correct way of speaking english "Geordie"

noo someone get me a bottle of broon ale. :p

[Necron2.0]

Actually, all this reminds me of the North/South speech pattern perceptions in the US, and an associated old joke:

A southern girl ends up riding next to a New England socialite on a train. Trying to be friendly, she turns to the socialite and asks in a thick southern drawl, "Where y'all from?"

The socialite, refusing to look at her, says with great disdain, "I do not speak to people who end their sentences with a preposition."

The southern girl thinks for a moment, and then with a pleasant smile on her face asks again, "Where y'all from.......beetch?"

;)

[Edit]: Sorry DL ... hadn't seen you gave out the punchline previously.

[MaltonNecromancer]

I'm sorry everyone, but Cheryl Darstar has just won this thread.

And sadly for your English class Darklink, by doing it, she's beaten America in the process. I hope you plucky young scamps don't take it too hard :D

EDIT: Oh and Darklink, I think therein lies the real difference between American and English children. Americans ask "Does America win in the end?"; the English ask "Does someone die horribly?" and are terribly disappointed if not. The notion of victory doesn't matter to them as long as there's someone getting gibbed. It's why Roald Dahl is so very beloved here :D

[DarkLink]

[Edit]: Sorry DL ... hadn't seen you gave out the punchline previously.



Lol, yeah, I've seen a greeting card for college grads that used that as a punchline, but I can't seem to find a picture on the first page of google images and I'm too lazy to look further.

[scadugenga]

Sorry for your trams, your crisps, your football and takeaway woes...


But unless you can go really old school with the English language like this:

HWÆT, WE GAR-DEna in geardagum,
þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon!
oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas, syððanærest wearð
feasceaft funden; he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum weorðmyndum þah,
oð þæt him æghwylc ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan; þæt wæs god cyning!

Then (in the somewhat tasteless American colloquialism) "quit yer *****in'"

;)

[eldargal]

That is Old English, though, not Modern English (which began in the 17th century). It is very distinct from modern English. We could go back to the 17th century and converse well enough, but a 17th century Englishman could go back to Anglo Saxon times and have the same problems in understanding we have.

[scadugenga]

That is Old English, though, not Modern English (which began in the 17th century). It is very distinct from modern English. We could go back to the 17th century and converse well enough, but a 17th century Englishman could go back to Anglo Saxon times and have the same problems in understanding we have.

I'm aware.

Old English was my post-graduate area of study. :)

It's just amusing to find Brits and Americans quibbling about the evolution/usage of the language when what we are speaking is nothing compared to the original tongue spoken by our (collective) ancestors.

[eldargal]

Well, as I said Americans are welcome to speak however they wish, I just get annoyed when Americans poke fun at the British for the way we use our language when yours is the offshoot and equally illogical at times. :p
In all honesty irritating Americanism are far less irritating than the fact we let our own populace brutalise the language. I understand languages evolve, I'm just not sure how not even bothering to teach our children the basic rules of the language equals evolution.

[Verilance]

Being Canadian, I howl with laughter whenever I watch a BBC documentary on television and speakers from different parts of the UK are subtitled, I can understand what they are saying why can't people who live there.

what bugs me most though is creeping americanisms here, dropping the u is by far the worst offender but pronoucing zed as zee also bothers me to no end :D

[scadugenga]

Well, as I said Americans are welcome to speak however they wish, I just get annoyed when Americans poke fun at the British for the way we use our language when yours is the offshoot and equally illogical at times. :p
In all honesty irritating Americanism are far less irritating than the fact we let our own populace brutalise the language. I understand languages evolve, I'm just not sure how not even bothering to teach our children the basic rules of the language equals evolution.

I blame texting. Texting is killing basic grammar skills. And mass media is encouraging it.

Blech.

[Necron2.0]

Actually there are two things I despise over here. I hate hearing someone say, "Let me axe you something." I had a boss once who always said that. It made me lose all respect for her.

I also hate Ebonics. The idea of creating a fictitious language to make largely illiterate people feel good about themselves just strikes me as the definition of retarded. For every single proponent of Ebonics, I'd like to grab them by the scruff of their neck, drag them down to a library and force them to read Malcolm X's essays on education.

[scadugenga]

Actually there are two things I despise over here. I hate hearing someone say, "Let me axe you something." I had a boss once who always said that. It made me lose all respect for her.

I also hate Ebonics. The idea of creating a fictitious language to make largely illiterate people feel good about themselves just strikes me as the definition of retarded. For every single proponent of Ebonics, I'd like to grab them by the scruff of their neck, drag them down to a library and force them to read Malcolm X's essays on education.



You do realize you come off particularly racist there, right?

Ebonics, or AAVE (African American Vernacular English) is a recognized dialect of American English, just like every other dialect out there.

Now Esperanto--there's a real honest made-up language for you.

[Necron2.0]

You do realize you come off particularly racist there, right?

Ebonics, or AAVE (African American Vernacular English) is a recognized dialect of American English, just like every other dialect out there.

Now Esperanto--there's a real honest made-up language for you.

As a minority (1/4 Native American and 1/4 Latino), by definition I cannot BE racist, no matter what I say. :)

Ebonics is poor grammar encoded into a grammar. It is a byproduct of political correctness and "white guilt." It's a tool to keep black people marginalized and uneducated. Two quotes from Malcolm X keep ringing in my ears every time I hear it:


The Negro revolution is controlled by foxy white liberals, by the Government itself. But the Black Revolution is controlled only by God.


Without education, you are not going anywhere in this world.

[scadugenga]

As a minority (1/4 Native American and 1/4 Latino), by definition I cannot BE racist, no matter what I say. :)

Ebonics is poor grammar encoded into a grammar. It is a byproduct of political correctness and "white guilt." It's a tool to keep black people marginalized and uneducated. Two quotes from Malcolm X keep ringing in my ears every time I hear it:

As a minority (gamer--I kid, I kid!though I do have some Cherokee blood in my lineage as well) racism is racism, no matter the particular heritage.

It also doesn't change the fact that it's not a language, it's a dialect, just like creole, Boston Brahmin, Jersey, hell, even Minnesooootan (!) and spanglish are considered dialects of American English.

They all have idiosyncrasies that set themselves apart from the parent language.

And Ebonics isn't a byproduct of political correctness. It actually was coined in the 70's. Don't blame the mass idiocy of the 90's-2010 on the word.

Disliking a dialect is one thing. (If you've been on the phone dealing with someone from Fargo, ND for 40 minutes, you'll know...) It was this statement
I also hate Ebonics. The idea of creating a fictitious language to make largely illiterate people feel good about themselves just strikes me as the definition of retarded. For every single proponent of Ebonics, I'd like to grab them by the scruff of their neck, drag them down to a library and force them to read Malcolm X's essays on education. that turned your statement from a misplaced dislike (IE, not a made up language) into a racist comment. Are you cognizant of literacy rates among the different ethnic groups? How about the relation to literacy rates and socio-economic positioning? Or how it relates to geographical regions? You made a prejudiced statement about an entire group of people that is really not related to your initial dislike of the dialect at all.

[Psychosplodge]

Well, as I said Americans are welcome to speak however they wish, I just get annoyed when Americans poke fun at the British for the way we use our language when yours is the offshoot and equally illogical at times. :p
In all honesty irritating Americanism are far less irritating than the fact we let our own populace brutalise the language. I understand languages evolve, I'm just not sure how not even bothering to teach our children the basic rules of the language equals evolution.

That's the simple if you can't DO, TEACH at work.
Plus it seems these days anyone with any actual intelligence avoids teaching like the plague.


Being Canadian, I howl with laughter whenever I watch a BBC documentary on television and speakers from different parts of the UK are subtitled, I can understand what they are saying why can't people who live there.

what bugs me most though is creeping americanisms here, dropping the u is by far the worst offender but pronoucing zed as zee also bothers me to no end :D

Could be for export? I remember seeing a re-broadcast BBC report on an american news channel during the '07 floods and they'd subtitled it for the american one.

[Lord Azaghul]

oh you brits and your snooty elitism...just because we get things right on this side of 'the pond'. ;)

Seems to like most of those are just from people watching to much american (bad) television, I rarely hear most of those and the ones that I do are just fine (looking at you 'shopping cart') - the rest is all office talk - and we have no one but the british to blame for modern buracracy! :D

All in good fun!

[DarkLink]

What the f else would you call a shopping cart? It's a cart, that you use to shop with.

[Verilance]

What the f else would you call a shopping cart? It's a cart, that you use to shop with.

shopping trolley

a cart is something pulled...:D and only has two wheels

[Necron2.0]

It was this statement that turned your statement from a misplaced dislike (IE, not a made up language) into a racist comment.

I'm sorry. I was just going to ignore this, but there is just too much wrong with it. Ebonics is slang at best. It is not spoken by a race, therefore calling it what it is cannot be racist. Even educated people in the African-American community realize what it is. I recently read an article by Natalie Holder-Winfield (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/natalie-holderwinfield) in the Huffington Post about a school instructing teachers in how to "translate" Ebonics for the benefit of inner-city children. Natalie is an employment lawyer, President of Compliance and Talent Management Training for QUEST Diversity Initiatives, and the author of "Recruiting and Retaining a Diverse Workforce: New Rules for a New Generation." This is what she had to say about the Ebonics program:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/natalie-holderwinfield/uh-oh-here-we-go-again-wi_b_271528.html

Recognition of misspoken English will do nothing to help these children or Black people in general. The children cited in the study were just 4-6 years old. These children are at a crucial age where they are developing their vocabularies and rapidly gaining a better understanding of the English language. Like all children, the children in the article probably used a wrong verb tense or two. African-American children are not alone in mispronouncing words and having an occasional verb-noun disagreement. As any English as a second language learner will tell you, the English language is probably the most difficult.

Although Teacher U teachers may be patient and willing to translate incorrect English, Corporate America is not. I cannot tell you how many discrimination cases I've come across where someone was fired for pronouncing "asked" as "axed." Sorry Teacher U, but this assignment gets an F.

[Lord Azaghul]

shopping trolley

a cart is something pulled...:D and only has two wheels

see a tolley car is something is runs only through the streets of san fransicso - no one else wants it - thus they get the only specific disignation of the word 'trolley'.

I'll take my shopping cart thank you! :D

[Brass Scorpion]

see a tolley car is something is runs only through the streets of san fransicso - no one else wants it - thus they get the only specific disignation of the word 'trolley'. Every major city in America had trolleys until the 1950's when General Motors (GM) Corp. destroyed them all so they could sell, noisy, air polluting, traffic jamming buses to those same cities. In cities that didn't want to replace their trolley/streetcar systems with buses GM bought the trolley systems just so they could tear them out and then sell those cities buses. More than 50 years later most cities are finally figuring out that was a huge mistake and many of them are trying to restore those "light rail" trolley systems and some of them have already done so.

Now get your botty off the sofa, tighten up your braces and head down to the market and fill your shopping trolley with some history books. Don't get your knickers in a bunch over the differences in colloquialisms from opposite sides of the pond. Besides, thanks to decades of TV crossovers and the Internet, many expressions from one side have already become familiar expressions on the other.

[Lord Azaghul]

Now get your botty off the sofa, tighten up your braces and head down to the market and fill your shopping trolley with some history books. Don't get your knickers in a bunch over the differences in colloquialisms from opposite sides of the pond. Besides, thanks to decades of TV crossovers and the Internet, many expressions from one side have already become familiar expressions on the other.

Just to prove your point:

The only reason I understood any bit of that paragraph is due to me love of history, literature, and the BBCA; every other red blooded american will surely be lost! :eek:

[DarkLink]

a cart is something pulled...:D and only has two wheels

Oh, so you still pull stuff with horses in England? Because in America there are plenty of other four wheeled carts around.

[Verilance]

by strictest definition if it has four wheels it is not a cart but a wagon, doesn't matter to me though I am Canadian (crap I may owe Molson/Coors for using their slogan :p)

you asked... I answered.

[Psychosplodge]

see a tolley car is something is runs only through the streets of san fransicso - no one else wants it - thus they get the only specific disignation of the word 'trolley'.

I'll take my shopping cart thank you! :D


Every major city in America had trolleys until the 1950's when General Motors (GM) Corp. destroyed them all so they could sell, noisy, air polluting, traffic jamming buses to those same cities. In cities that didn't want to replace their trolley/streetcar systems with buses GM bought the trolley systems just so they could tear them out and then sell those cities buses. More than 50 years later most cities are finally figuring out that was a huge mistake and many of them are trying to restore those "light rail" trolley systems and some of them have already done so.

Now get your botty off the sofa, tighten up your braces and head down to the market and fill your shopping trolley with some history books. Don't get your knickers in a bunch over the differences in colloquialisms from opposite sides of the pond. Besides, thanks to decades of TV crossovers and the Internet, many expressions from one side have already become familiar expressions on the other.

Clearly mean "tram".

[Brass Scorpion]

Some cities called them "trams". Some streetcars (as in "named Desire"). San Diego calls their new light rail system the San Diego Trolley.

The next time you see someone whining about their new Codex over in the rumors section of the forum, tell them they need their "nappy" changed.

[Psychosplodge]

lol

[Drunkencorgimaster]

Have any of you read the newly-posted American guy's response to the commentators' responses to the original story? He correctly pointed out (as one person speculated on in this discussion) that most of the so-called "Americanisms" are not 1) American or 2) unique to America. I get the impression that if an annoying new phrase pops up in Britland, many folks just assume it has to have come from the States.;)

Having grown up in Minnesoooooota (Ja, sure, you betcha), lived very briefly in Aberdeen, Scotland, lived a long purgatorial spell in Philadelphia (aka "Philly") and just passed my 10th year in Arkansas, I have been exposed to some rather unique versions of English.

I found them all to be a bit annoying occasionally, but they were mostly just fun and amusing. Or as dey'd say in Philly: "Ahmuuuuoooozing."

[eldargal]

Nappy atleast makes sense, being (probably) a contraction of napkin, which is what the old nappies were. Diaper is an old french word for patterned decoration on fabric.


Some cities called them "trams". Some streetcars (as in "named Desire"). San Diego calls their new light rail system the San Diego Trolley.

The next time you see someone whining about their new Codex over in the rumors section of the forum, tell them they need their "nappy" changed.

[Drunkencorgimaster]

So what IS your degree in? Linguistics? History? You seem to know something about every subject. And you actually appear to know what you're talking about (unlike some of us).

[Brass Scorpion]

Nappy at least makes sense, being (probably) a contraction of napkin, Exactly, it is a cute form of "napkin".

Here's another fun one from the UK you may get from the context. Many gamers, especially some of the larger ones, seem to have a problem with exposing their batty crease when the bend over in public. When they are asked to cover it up, some of the behave like a batty crease.

[eldargal]

Archaeology, history and art history. Etymology is really the history of words so you pick up bits quite easily.:) Have some pretty hefty etymology dictionaries I can check on as well.


So what IS your degree in? Linguistics? History? You seem to know something about every subject. And you actually appear to know what you're talking about (unlike some of us).


I'm assuming batty crease is bottom cleavage?:rolleyes: