Yup – A lot of people only know palari from Julian and Sandy in Round the Horne, but it was a very catchall name for Stage/Homosexual slang. If you were in that crowd, you probably used it.

Some “everyday” words are probably from palari eg camp (Kamp)=(maybe) Known As a Male Prostitute. Naff – possibly from Not Available For F***ing or Normal As F***. Blag = to “pick up” a man. Cottage/cottaging = a cottage was a public loo.

Overseas readers wishing to learn how to swear effectively in an English accent could do worse than take a leaf from Buffy's book.

The following link is recommended:

[www.rathergood.com]

In actual fact, the entire site is recommended, but if challenged be aware that I'll deny all knowledge... heh.

You need to click on the keboard first, and have your speakers switched on (or off, if there's small chilldren, pets or impressionable dodos in the vicinity!)

Excellent link that Ptolemy -- I particularly liked the flying viking kittens singing "Gay Bar"



Jesus saves; Buddha does incremental backup.

Regarding h's, dropped or spurious, I used to know a chap called Bill Ferris-Eamer who misplaced just about h'every h'aspirate 'e h'ever h'uttered. He was incredibly proud of the fact that he had a "coat of h'arms", and this, I think, may have been where his idiosyncratic mode of speech arose, because it certainly isn't common in Sheffield (where he was born). I suspect poor old Bill had been criticised as a child for dropping h's and told that this wasn't appropriate for the scion of an armigerous family, so he over-compensated by putting them in where they weren't needed.



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

What a lovely phrase, "the scion of an armigerous family". That's made my day; in fact the entire posting was beautifully written. Thanks, Sarah!

I recently came across a bit of rhyming slang which i didn't realise /was/ rhyming slang.

apparently 'berk' is short for Berkshire Hunt, and so is rhyming slang for... something very rude.

I think I'll be a bit more offended next time someone calls be a berk... although I can't remember the last time I used or heard the word.

rob

Oooh! Didn't know that one! I always assumed berk was spelt 'Burke' and referred to Burke and Wills, two Aussie explorers famous for missing the rescue party by 6 hours and then dying out in the bush.

Oh yes, and when Americans are "pissed", they're angry. When we're "pissed", we're drunk; when we're angry, we're "pissed off".



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"Whisky-wa-wa," I breathed - she was dressed as Biffo the Bear.

Yes, I remember being very taken aback by that one the first time I encountered it. It was in a description of someone's people skills during a high-level meeting at Microsoft, and the first four words were "Bill Gates was pissed." It took me a couple of paragraphs to realise that he hadn't actually staggered into work drunk!



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

When we are really 'pissed', then we are 'pissed off'. It's all in the degree.

Just wanted to add that you can find some anglicisms in the German language, e.g. mobile phones are called "handy" in German and actually I've got no clue why this term was coined.



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Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.

(N. Chomsky 1957)

Borrowed words are fun! Did an entire module of my uni degree on borrowed words in French, and why the Academie Francaise get so worked up about them...



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"Whisky-wa-wa," I breathed - she was dressed as Biffo the Bear.

on the other hand in portugal some marketing and it works used to be in english and once they are really common some bright person decided to give them portuguese spelling and it look yucky. good thing i don't live there anymore!

hmmm... hey all you British!

just a question (to spice it up)....

when someone is called a "yank" is that good, bad, mean, cruel and unusual punishment? any thoughts?

signing off,
panda

Panda,

"Yank" is used in exactly the same way, and I daresay creates the same impression on the recipient of said appellation (nb not Appalacian; those'r mountains with BEARS in), as the term "Brit."

Largely affectionate in other words, though occasionally a little barbed.

I don't know about my fellow UK residents on the fforum here but I'd actually prefer to be called English (or alternatively Scottish or Welsh or Irish) (or Cornish, sorry) than "Brit" or even "British" (and I certainly prefer it to being called "Britt") but, that's a complex one to understand let alone try and explain...



Post Edited (07-24-03 18:52)

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* I'm backing the campaign to get the official Stalker for 2007 evicted *

The French government has just banned the use of the term "e-mail" by any & all of its employees (when they're at work, anyway), because of its origins in the English language, and decreed that henceforth they should use a French-derived term "Courriel" instead.

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Warning! Product may contain Newts!

Presumably then it's OK to still use the term during "Le Weekend", right?

Funny - I have been having exactly this discussion with a friend of mine on my journal site. She mentioned the point Simon made, and I responded pretty much as Ptolemy did. I think that's the most ironic instance of déjà vu I have ever encountered.

Italians borrow words freely from English, which can be disconcerting. You can hardly open an Italian magazine without reading about una miss (a beauty queen) who is having un flirt with un calciatore sexy (or some such). They take the opposite view from the French; they think English is trendy. Mind you, I'll grant you that una miss is a lot shorter than the Italian phrase, which is una reginetta di bellezza.



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Imagine what it would be like if we tried to drop all words of French origin (including any Norman-French terms that are no longer spoken in France itself) from the English language!

SF/Fantasy author Poul Anderson looked at this possibility (maybe in the hypothetical context of the Norman's inavsion having failed?) at least once: He wrote a scientific essay, which (IIRC) was called 'The Roundandround Board of the Firststuffs', explaining the Periodic Table of the Elements in English without using any words (even Elements' names) that originated in French, Latin or Greek.

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Warning! Product may contain Newts!

Ah... the title was, in fact, "Uncleftish Beholding" (Atomic Theory), and there is a section about it in Douglas Hofstadter's Le Ton Beau de Marot, pages 299-303. I would offer to lend you that, but it is a huge volume and would cost the earth to post. However, if we manage to meet up at some Fforum get-together and you're interested, I'll be happy to bring it.

I seem to keep mentioning LTBdM on the Fforum. This is not because I'm obsessed with it; it's because we all love things of a linguistic nature, and this book is chock-full of them. Every time some piece of clever linguistic oddness comes up on the Fforum, I can pretty much guarantee that Hofstadter has mentioned it somewhere (or something very similar). It's the one non-fiction book about which I would unhesitatingly say, "If you love Jasper Fforde's work, you will also love this." There are even similar influences behind the two writers, not least Lewis Carroll.



..........................................................................................

That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah