too true, we also say going to the bath room

now, another question. does anyone say Water Closet (WC for short), anywhere?

Panda

But why have the nationality on your CV?
It like those places that ask for a photo when you apply, i just dididn't apply for those.

somethign that cropped up in chat yesterday:

americans say "roommate" also when they mean "housemate" or "flatmate".

Here if you hear "roommate" you assume people share a room... at least I do...

nggy: I know the phrase, but don't use it.

Here's a word from the old Sussex dialect, which is probably no longer used because nowadays even the county's natives seem to speak 'standard English' (i.e. the dialect of the south-east Midlands & western London) instead _

Spannell: Verb, meaning to leave muddy footprints on a floor. (from 'Spaniel', as in the type of dog, because they're likely to do this...)

Have any of you ever heard, or read of, a victory celebration being described as "mafficking"?

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My mother is from Sussex - must ask her if she's ever heard that one. The only word I know which is definitely Sussex dialect is "twaddles", meaning "cute". It was the name of my grandmother's cat, and he lived up to it.



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

Sarah

Back to the pavement/sidewalk thing, what's even more confusing is that they call the part of the road you drive on 'pavement'. This caused me loads of confusion when I moved here from South Africa and the driver's license manual said "No part of the car shall leave the pavement at any time".

And then they make things worse by driving on the wrong side of the road...

Sarah: Where in Sussex? My own mother's known connections are with Battle, but her maiden name of 'Rodmell' presumably derives from the small village of that name which is a few miles outside of Lewes.

By the way, it was only "spannell" that I meant was from the old Sussex dialect... "Mafficking" was coined by the London press ('The Times', IIRC) when reporting the celebrations in England after news had arrived about the relief of Mafeking, in the Boer War, and was apparently used to describe some later festivities (perhaps including the ones at the end of the Great War?) too.

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My mother was born in Burgess Hill, and the family later moved to Haywards Heath. Her mother's family had always lived in Sussex as far as I know, but her father's family was originally Welsh (hence their name, which was Hughes). Her father, John Hughes, was actually the grandson of this John Hughes. By a weird coincidence, Sheffield happens to be twinned with Donetsk - shake those entroposcopes!



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

Sarah

I know the phrase "going to see a man about a dog", but I've never associated it with going to the toilet - I think I've just heard it used about having to go off to do some sort of minor errand or business thing (especially if you don't want to tell people exactly where you're going.)



:--

Do something pretty while you can...

pretty much what going to the toilet is... ;-)



Post Edited (07-26-03 20:16)

Simon - the 'mafficking' thing ustrely comes from the Releif of Mafeking in South Africa. I've never heard of the word, but it makes sense to me.

Down under we quite often refer to the toilet as a dunny, but generally that's the term for an outside toilet. You know the type. the ones with really big spiders and huge holes in the walls and no lock on the door.

Over here that would be a shithouse... Hence the name in LIAGB...



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Er... each to their own, PSD, some of us would call it a privy!



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

Sarah

Yes, but some of us aren't as common as PSD.

Kaz _
That's right. One line from a newspaper that I recall seeing quoted was "People were mafficking in the streets", and a poem that appeared slightly later on included the lines

"Mother, may I run and maffick,
Shout and scream and stop the traffic?"

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Nicky - to further confuse the pavement thing I told someone to look at the "Tarmac" at the airport while waiting for a co-worker to land and they started looking for an "asphalt" truck.

They thought I meant that the runway was being re-paved at the plane was going to crash. What a scene!

'Mafficking' reminds me of 'tomking' which we used for a while in the 80's

Tomking - sticking one's foot in one's mouth and speaking out of one's arse at the same time...

I think he was defence secretary at the times. Could have been a spitting image gag originally.

Tracy, if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, don't cause mass hysteria at the airport! It always ends badly--rioting hordes of barefoot passengers, luggage thrown about, small packets of dry-roasted peanuts everywhere...where's a tiny bottle of booze when you need one?

Nicky - Thinking back on it now it was really quite funny. This tiny little British woman in her "Tweeds" as she put it yelling "how can you be so calm???"

She had only been in the states for about 24hrs at that point having never been here before. I think she was just barely 21 and had never left England before.

You know, I just got it--tarmac. Sometimes I'm a little slow. :-)