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Heaven: 2021 Proof Americans and Brits speak a different language

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  • Sparrow wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    “Girlfriend” is very commonly used in the US by females to refer to close female friends, and has been used that way for a long time. I’ve never heard “boyfriend” used by a male in the same way, though.

    That would be "mate".
    Not in the US it wouldn’t be. A man here would never refer to a friend as his “mate”—at least I’ve never encountered it. While we’re certainly aware of the British and Australian usage and understand what’s meant by it, “mate” here is, in my experience, used only to refer to one of a pair. The only person I’d refer to as my mate would be my wife.

  • Eirenist wrote: »
    Rucksacks etc. Much of the hiking/rambling culture of the inter-war years was imported from Germany. (Youth Hostels were an imitation of the Jugendherberge. Back' in German is 'Rucken', so a rucksack would be , literally, a back-sack, frobably a bit larger than a 'knapsack', the older English term, which would carry your 'knap', or bite to eat when working out of doors, slung on your back. A haversack I would think of as slung over one shoulder. A bergen would be a more serious affair, with a frame.
    My parents were keen walkers, who met through their local hiking club.
    A hike is typically a day-l0ng walk, with some objective. A stroll would be a gently meander. A Trek, which came in after WWII, would be a more serious affair, perhaps involving tents, or ponies.

    This German importation doesn't apply to where I live in Canada. There certainly were Germans, Norwegians and Swiss in the evolving mountain climbing and skiing culture, but not central nor involved much in hiking and canoeing.
  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    “mate” here is, in my experience, used only to refer to one of a pair. The only person I’d refer to as my mate would be my wife.

    Whereas I'd find it unusual to use "mate" to refer to a spouse - IME, "mate" in that context is exclusively used about animals. So unless someone was drawing deliberate animalistic parallels, it would stand out as an odd usage. (cf. my eldest child as a preschooler, on learning that they had a new cousin: "So Uncle A mated with Auntie B?")
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host
    Back to "walk" vs "hike" -- I think these terms are used very differently by different people and in different regions, depending on the kind of terrain that normally accompanies your walks or hikes. I know there was a TV show set in the US (California, specifically) we used to watch where two characters used to meet up regularly "to go for a hike," which I found quite funny. They would walk side by side along a path nearly as wide as a road, that seemed to be covered with something like gravel, and talk easily to one another as they walked up a gentle slope. Only the fact that it was not in an urban setting seemed to make it a "hike."

    We have both walks and hikes around here, and hikes tend to be in the woods or on cliffs by the sea, and even if they are groomed and maintained hiking trails (like with wooden steps put in to get up steep cliffs, or boardwalks over boggy places) they will still be fairly challenging. If you're hiking here, the path is usually only wide enough for hikers to walk single file, and requires a good deal of attention to the rugged ground underfoot. In fact if I have any doubt, my main qualifier for "Is it a walk or a hike?" is "Do you have to look at your feet fairly often while doing it?" If so, it's a hike.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    The East End was badly bombed during WW2 and the inhabitants were rehoused in the new towns around London - Romford, Barking, Dagenham and Harlow are where many of the traditional Cockneys were relocated, in small pockets, not big enough to keep the dialect alive. I met more Cockneys working Dagenham than I did in the East End. The Cockney families in Harlow lost their roots when they moved, or had two generations later when I worked with the children in school.

    Thank you for a very interesting post. Do you think that there were any motives behind the move other than getting people into houses? Were streets and neighbourhoods kept together? And what about all the little shops and corner stores - was there provision for them?
  • HeavenlyannieHeavenlyannie Shipmate
    edited August 2021
    I imagine there was little incentive to keep communities together, both because they had been disrupted by war and because of social reasons; these areas often had poor reputations.
    In the 1990s I lived in a Victorian terrace on the edge of Bethnal Green and Hoxton, in Shoreditch (Quilter Street near Columbia Road flower market). It is now a very trendy place to live but in the 1970s the council was going to knock the Victorian terraces down as they were considered slums; a letting agency bought the houses for a pittance which is how I ended up living there. But this wasn’t the first suggestion of clearance of the houses there. In the Victorian period, the area was the site of the notorious Nichol slum which was cleared in the 1880s; my terrace had survived the clearance as it was one of the better roads with artisan occupiers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_Estate
  • In my part of the world we've 2 housing trends. One is to knock down houses built 50-80 years ago, divide the lots into 2, and build 2 homes where there once was over. It's called "in fill".

    There was a trend to design large lot neighbourhoods with car driving everywhere in mind. The streets tend to be curvy and not really walkable to anything important like stores. The more expensive homes in these neighborhood are in cul-de-sacs which means a short street which ends in a rounded expansion. The design is called "lollipops and rainbows" by many people. Versus the grid pattern pre-1950.
  • Trudy wrote: »
    We have both walks and hikes around here, and hikes tend to be in the woods or on cliffs by the sea, and even if they are groomed and maintained hiking trails (like with wooden steps put in to get up steep cliffs, or boardwalks over boggy places) they will still be fairly challenging. If you're hiking here, the path is usually only wide enough for hikers to walk single file, and requires a good deal of attention to the rugged ground underfoot. In fact if I have any doubt, my main qualifier for "Is it a walk or a hike?" is "Do you have to look at your feet fairly often while doing it?" If so, it's a hike.

    That seems right to me. I count myself as a walker, rather than a hiker, which probably has something to do with the fact that I spend 95% of my walking time in Toronto. But even if I were walking along a rural road it would still be a walk…

  • One German told my husband that a certain type of backpack is called in Germany a body bag - in English, not translated into German, and that most Germans aren’t aware that at least in the US a body bag is what you zip a corpse up into at a crime scene. Has anyone who has been to German speaking areas or knows German speaking people heard this?
  • In the UK a make of cross body bags (small handbag worn across the body) used to call them body bags; I think it was Radley who introduced the term. I’m an ex-nurse and would know the US meaning of body bag (as would many film watchers) but didn’t see anything strange about a handbag being a body bag.
  • We refer to my son's huge bag for camping as the body bag, but I'm not sure if the original reference was macabre or not. It certainly is now, him being into horror at the moment.
  • The imminent UN Climate Change Conference will give us all another opportunity to express our shockandhorror as we hear people proudly telling about their trips from across the ocean to Glass Cow.
  • We are in danger of getting into bum bag/ fanny bag territory. Avaunt!
  • @Eirenist "... fanny bag..." 🤣😂😱🤣😂
  • Eirenist wrote: »
    We are in danger of getting into bum bag/ fanny bag territory. Avaunt!
    The term here is “fanny pack.” :wink:

  • I do hear fanny pack occasionally, mostly waist pack. The single strap over the shoulder diagonally are generally called sling or sling packs.

    Because the word sling reminds me of the word thong... The foot wear now called flip-flops were always called thongs when I was young. Thong means now (usually) female underwear with a wee strap going down between the buttock cheeks flaring to a larger triangle to cover the front. Which has always has me thinking that sitting must be uncomfortable many times on things like leather, vinyl, something hot or cold, something rough.
  • I do hear fanny pack occasionally, mostly waist pack.

    I am told those fanny packs are a sure sign of an American tourist.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Eirenist wrote: »
    We are in danger of getting into bum bag/ fanny bag territory. Avaunt!
    The term here is “fanny pack.” :wink:

    Not even slightly less funny.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    I well remember an American fellow student referring to her ‘fanny pack’ amongst U.K. students, and being perplexed by the mingled shock and mirth expressed by her hearers.
  • I have one, wear in front mostly or to the side. Useful for carrying alternative eyeglasses and other little things when in a canoe, when skiiing. I take it fanny means "front bummy" to UK people. Is it rude to say fanny for you?
  • I take it fanny means "front bummy" to UK people. Is it rude to say fanny for you?

    Specifically, it means (ahem) 'lady's front bottom'. It's a somewhat vulgar term: one would be surprised to hear in a sermon, less so to hear it in a pub. There are other terms for the same area which might get one thrown out of the pub.

  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited August 2021
    I have one, wear in front mostly or to the side. Useful for carrying alternative eyeglasses and other little things when in a canoe, when skiiing. I take it fanny means "front bummy" to UK people. Is it rude to say fanny for you?

    Only inasmuch as it just means female genitalia*, unlike other terms which are also used as derogatory terms for people upon whose character or intelligence one wishes to cast doubt. Bit like willy, really.

    *there is, however, the phrase "fannying about" implying time-wasting activity. "They spent hours fannying around with the DNS settings but it was a routing issue in the end". In a spirit of equality, "dicking about" has the same meaning.
  • I do hear fanny pack occasionally, mostly waist pack. The single strap over the shoulder diagonally are generally called sling or sling packs.

    Because the word sling reminds me of the word thong... The foot wear now called flip-flops were always called thongs when I was young. Thong means now (usually) female underwear with a wee strap going down between the buttock cheeks flaring to a larger triangle to cover the front. Which has always has me thinking that sitting must be uncomfortable many times on things like leather, vinyl, something hot or cold, something rough.

    My middle school (in the Northeast US) issued a dress code in the 1990s (before "The Thong Song" - about the underwear or bikini bottom - was released) in which "thongs" were banned. There was some confusion, at least among parents, as to whether that referred to the underwear or the footwear. I haven't heard flip flops called thongs in a long time, though.
  • Perhaps "fannying about" means the same as "farting around" as in wasting time.
  • Fawkes Cat wrote: »
    I take it fanny means "front bummy" to UK people. Is it rude to say fanny for you?

    Specifically, it means (ahem) 'lady's front bottom'. It's a somewhat vulgar term: one would be surprised to hear in a sermon, less so to hear it in a pub. There are other terms for the same area which might get one thrown out of the pub.

    And most definitely not to be confused with the FANY or First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, Commandant in Chief The Princess Royal (of course).

  • I have one, wear in front mostly or to the side. Useful for carrying alternative eyeglasses and other little things when in a canoe, when skiiing. I take it fanny means "front bummy" to UK people. Is it rude to say fanny for you?

    Yes, "fanny" means ladyparts. It's somewhat rude and vulgar by virtue of being a reference to genitals, but not nearly as offensive as the 4-letter words beginning with t and c for that same part. On the scale of the male equivalents, it's more offensive than "willy", about as offensive as talking about a man's dick, and marginally less offensive than cock.
  • This always cracks me up. Here of course it's a prissy word suitable for sweet old ladies (if there really are such beings) who wouldn't be caught dead saying anything so vulgar as "butt," let alone "ass." As in, "Sit your fanny down and stay a while."
  • My middle school (in the Northeast US) issued a dress code in the 1990s (before "The Thong Song" - about the underwear or bikini bottom - was released) in which "thongs" were banned. There was some confusion, at least among parents, as to whether that referred to the underwear or the footwear. I haven't heard flip flops called thongs in a long time, though.

    The footwear, I hope. (If schools are concerning themselves with their pupils' underthings beyond "they're undergarments - we shouldn't be able to see them", then that's a bit troubling.)
  • This always cracks me up. Here of course it's a prissy word suitable for sweet old ladies (if there really are such beings) who wouldn't be caught dead saying anything so vulgar as "butt," let alone "ass." As in, "Sit your fanny down and stay a while."
    Yep, or suitable for children.

  • This always cracks me up. Here of course it's a prissy word suitable for sweet old ladies (if there really are such beings) who wouldn't be caught dead saying anything so vulgar as "butt," let alone "ass." As in, "Sit your fanny down and stay a while."

    In UK parlance, "bottom" probably occupies this niche, if one were to be sufficiently indelicate as to refer to that area at all. UK bum is mostly equivalent to US butt, and ass / arse are pretty equivalent.
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    edited August 2021
    My middle school (in the Northeast US) issued a dress code in the 1990s (before "The Thong Song" - about the underwear or bikini bottom - was released) in which "thongs" were banned. There was some confusion, at least among parents, as to whether that referred to the underwear or the footwear. I haven't heard flip flops called thongs in a long time, though.

    The footwear, I hope. (If schools are concerning themselves with their pupils' underthings beyond "they're undergarments - we shouldn't be able to see them", then that's a bit troubling.)

    AFAIK that was the time when the whole "whaletail" fad was going on (think: girl wearing a thong under jeans very low-slung in the back, so the whole waistband bit was visible as well as some of the vertical before it disappeared in, er, the crack). So yes, it could very definitely have been a reference to underwear. And the whole point would have been "We don't WANT to see them, Ah! Ahhh! My EYESSSSSSS!!!!"

    ETA I still call flipflops thongs, because I'm older than dirt, and it gives my son a giggle.
  • Leorning CnihtLeorning Cniht Shipmate
    edited August 2021
    AFAIK that was the time when the whole "whaletail" fad was going on

    Isn't that mostly a function of the cut of one's trousers, though? You could wear the same trousers with granny pants and have acres of visible underwear, surely?

    Mind you, I'm being amused by school rules at the moment, having just glanced at the rules for our local high school and realized that the vast majority of kids are in permanent breach of them.

    (There's a rule against being at a party where alcohol is present. The vast majority of those kids are present at family, church, and neighbourhood parties where alcohol is present on a regular basis. We know what kind of parties they mean (and that "but I wasn't drinking - I was just standing next to a group of pissed kids with a coke in my hand" doesn't get you off the hook), but that's not what they actually say....)
  • It does seem many most all of the dress codes I am familiar with have something to do with females covering up their bodies since we don't want to excite h--ney boys. But what about the males? What dress codes for guys would you like to see to prevent getting turned on by them?
  • Yes, but you’re not going to find teens who wear low cut jeans with the goal of exposing granny panties. “No visible thongs” would deal with the whole issue.
  • Yes, but you’re not going to find teens who wear low cut jeans with the goal of exposing granny panties. “No visible thongs” would deal with the whole issue.

    But it's the wrong solution, because the "thong" is irrelevant. "No visible underwear" has the merit of both covering female thongs, and men who choose to show off several inches of boxer short above their waistbands.

    And if the rule is "no thongs", do you just invite young women to select a marginally more generously-cut high-cur bikini brief to produce much the same effect without technically being a thong?

    You really don't want to be concerned with the details of what underwear schoolchildren are wearing. In fact, the whole point is that you don't (and shouldn't) want to know what underwear schoolchildren are wearing, and you don't want to see it.

    My preferred dresscode is quite simple:

    1. No visible underwear.
    2. Sleeves. High school kids are often stinky. They don't wash as much as they should, and they often aren't offered the opportunity to shower after a PE lesson. So "sleeves" is an entirely practical rule to aid the confinement of stinky teenage armpits.
    3. I could go for "no exposed midriffs" as a rule. There probably has to be some kind of "garment coverage" rule to prevent someone from wearing a v-neck that comes down to crotch level.

    This has nothing to do with teens being turned on by classmates in skimpy clothes. Teens are quite capable of being turned on by attractive classmates whatever they are wearing. Not getting turned on is an unreasonable expectation. What is reasonable is to expect kids not to do anything about it.

  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    edited August 2021
    There's no need to be promulgating an ideal dress code here. Somebody upthread was trying to figure out if and why a high school might have been talking about thongs-the-underwear in their dress code, and I explained why. If you want to fight with them about the non-ideal nature of their wording, go for it. The person who wrote it might not be retired already...

    ETA: I see it was you, worrying about the use of the word "thong" and finding it inappropriate and unlikely. I've explained it, and you can do whatever you like with it.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    .

    Because the word sling reminds me of the word thong... The foot wear now called flip-flops were always called thongs when I was young.

    Still does here.
  • I wonder what my old Aunt Frances - always known to the other grown-ups as Fanny - would have thought of all this? Likely something along the lines of, "Yes, my dear, another glass of burgundy would be most agreeable".
  • Any of you shopped with cool young men? As in adolescents. Gotta have gotch which show off your package (underwear that prop up your wiener and beans). I'm not sure if this is more to show other guys where their antlers place them in the deer herd or if the young women are truly interested in their junk.
  • Ewwwwwww. Speaking as a former young woman, I never was.

    D'ye think you could talk him into a codpiece?
  • Nephews. Can't do other than buy 'em cheeseburgers and 2 litre slurpees. Maybe the bulge is for liquid.
  • D'ye think you could talk him into a codpiece?

    The Black Russian, perhaps?
    </Blackadder>
  • Got it in one, Noprophet!
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Yes, but you’re not going to find teens who wear low cut jeans with the goal of exposing granny panties. “No visible thongs” would deal with the whole issue.

    But it's the wrong solution, because the "thong" is irrelevant. "No visible underwear" has the merit of both covering female thongs, and men who choose to show off several inches of boxer short above their waistbands.

    And if the rule is "no thongs", do you just invite young women to select a marginally more generously-cut high-cur bikini brief to produce much the same effect without technically being a thong?

    You really don't want to be concerned with the details of what underwear schoolchildren are wearing. In fact, the whole point is that you don't (and shouldn't) want to know what underwear schoolchildren are wearing, and you don't want to see it.

    My preferred dresscode is quite simple:

    1. No visible underwear.
    2. Sleeves. High school kids are often stinky. They don't wash as much as they should, and they often aren't offered the opportunity to shower after a PE lesson. So "sleeves" is an entirely practical rule to aid the confinement of stinky teenage armpits.
    3. I could go for "no exposed midriffs" as a rule. There probably has to be some kind of "garment coverage" rule to prevent someone from wearing a v-neck that comes down to crotch level.

    This has nothing to do with teens being turned on by classmates in skimpy clothes. Teens are quite capable of being turned on by attractive classmates whatever they are wearing. Not getting turned on is an unreasonable expectation. What is reasonable is to expect kids not to do anything about it.

    Only problem there is that long sleeves are pretty much unbearable in exactly the sort of weather that exacerbates the armpit problem.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Only problem there is that long sleeves are pretty much unbearable in exactly the sort of weather that exacerbates the armpit problem.

    I didn't say "long" sleeves. A t-shirt would be fine. The difference between a t-shirt and an athletic shirt in the confinement of stinky armpits is quite dramatic.

    (Also, our high schools are air conditioned, so indoor temperatures aren't problematic in that way.)
  • A good, healthy dose of underarm deodorant needs to be encouraged--along with daily showers.
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host
    Gentle reminder that this is a thread for discussing language differences. While a comparison of the different usages of "thong" vs "thong" may naturally lead to a discussion of when and where the underwear type of thong should or should not be viewed, once we have gotten as far off-topic as discussing school dress codes, it's my Hostly duty to direct you back to the subject of the thread.

    Trudy, Heavenly Host
  • Fawkes Cat wrote: »
    I take it fanny means "front bummy" to UK people. Is it rude to say fanny for you?

    Specifically, it means (ahem) 'lady's front bottom'. It's a somewhat vulgar term: one would be surprised to hear in a sermon, less so to hear it in a pub. There are other terms for the same area which might get one thrown out of the pub.

    And most definitely not to be confused with the FANY or First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, Commandant in Chief The Princess Royal (of course).

    My grandmother was a FANY - when I have to say that out loud it in no way causes mirth...
  • Gill HGill H Shipmate
    I'm about to go on a Disney cruise, and one thing that is being discussed in the cruise Facebook group is a dress-up/makeover package for children. This is done by a member of staff called the Fairy Godmother In Training (yes, I know...) The Americans can't understand why we fall about laughing when they suggest contacting the F-GITs.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    Could it be that some of them are F-GITS? (Meant in jocularity).
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