American Phrases - Page 4

11-13-2006, 05:02 PM

Daaayyyuum!

YeeeHaww!

Git Some!

Throw Down!

Ain't.

Kick-ass!

DanaC · 11-13-2006, 05:04 PM

heh, the only one of those we use if ain't. I suspect that's quite old.

11-13-2006, 05:07 PM

You don't use kick-ass?

DanaC · 11-13-2006, 05:08 PM

mmm...actually, I think we do come to think about it. But we use it in an American way, if that makes sense. We use it with an awareness that we are using American slang.

11-13-2006, 05:10 PM

Makes perfect sense... I use some UK phrases like that.
Bully for you.

DanaC · 11-13-2006, 05:21 PM

Do you guys use 'good egg' and 'bad egg'?

11-13-2006, 05:22 PM

I don't but many do.

DanaC · 11-13-2006, 05:25 PM

I thought they'd more or less died out over here but then in the mid-nineties i discovered that they were used quite a lot by drug-dealing types in the north ( you don't need to know how I know that :P) There's something quite sinister about a slightly psychopathic speed dealer saying someone's a 'bad egg'. Always got the impression someone was about to get their head staved in.

11-13-2006, 05:26 PM

I hear it more from older people.

footfootfoot · 11-13-2006, 08:15 PM

dumber than a bag of hammers or box of rocks.
tighter than a nun's nasty or no no
tighter than a frog's asshole (that's water tight) or (yuck) a two year old.

xoxoxoBruce · 11-13-2006, 09:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanaC

Both of those are used in Britain, but are quite old fashioned. I think they come from around the 16th century, but I may be wrong.

Bone up on something, we use also.

"Can't get there from here". I love that. I can almost hear the Maine accent!

I jus...... come down...... from Maine.
Back home was.... the duttyest man..... you evah.... did see.
His name.... was Enoch..... Turner.
Enoch....had a brotha....named Stomach.....Turner.
Now Stomach....got brought befoa the Jedge......for bein'...so dutty.
Jedge says..... Stomach......how come yoah.... so dutty?
Stomach says.....Jedge......how often...... do you change.... your shirt?
Jedge says.....why...I change my shirt.....eeevery day.
Stomach says....now Jedge...how can you sit there and call me dutty....when you dutty 365 shirts... a year.....to my one?
I jus.....come down...from Maine.

Urbane Guerrilla · 11-13-2006, 10:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NoBoxes

A double bagger - One for them and one for you just in case theirs falls off!

From my Navy time, and haven't much heard it anywhere else, except from my Navy-retiree wife who heard it there too:

Piggly Wiggly three-bagger takes a touch of explanation as to its antecedents. Piggly Wiggly is a fairly widely distributed grocery store chain, mostly in the Old South; thus, paper grocery bags, along with the obvious suggestion about this ungainly sex partner you're putting up with. One bag for you and two over her head, just in case her first bag tears open!

Late in her Navy years, my wife once delivered herself of the expletive, "Son of a syphilitic slime-dog!" in public hearing. A little later, a couple of callow young seamen sidled up to her to ask for a repeat, that they might take notes. Ah, educating the young and eager...

Lock, stock, and barrel -- precisely synonymous with hook, line, and sinker. Lists the main components of a flintlock rifle.

A Southernism: eat up with (something) -- suffering greatly, said with a strong, groaning emphasis on "up." "I'm about eat up with the dumb-ass" isn't about anybody but oneself: "boy, was I fucking stupid!" -- rightly said if you just deliberately tried to drive your classic-car hot-rod over a new sinkhole and you're watching its taillights just going under. "How's the arthritis?" "I'm about eat up with it."

Airhead continues to develop: "Blow in my ear, honey, I need a refill." "If you stuck a pressure gauge in her ear, it'd draw about 790 Torr." In even worse mental case than the kind of thing Eeyore railed about re the unintelligent: ". . .just have some gray fluff in their heads that got blown in by mistake."

My uncle reports from his time working in the UK for Procter and Gamble that "all set" in the sense of "we have enough" was a phrase that Englishmen didn't understand; telling a waitress inquiring if there was anything else she might get them that "no thanks, we're all set" left her nonplused.

Urbane Guerrilla · 11-13-2006, 11:06 PM

There are all sorts of explanations for "the whole nine yards" and about all of them miss fire on some inconvenient point...

The standard full load for a cement mixer truck is ten cubic yards, not nine.

There was a rather durable story that the ammunition load for the wing guns of the P-51 Mustang fighter was a nine-yard belt of .50 caliber for each of six guns, and there are a few photos of ground crewmen schlepping a belt of the stuff that looks durn near nine yards total, but then some iconoclast went and did some measuring or interviewing.

Flint · 11-13-2006, 11:17 PM

I'm sure y'all have seen me make slightly Southern sounding posts sometimes...

Urbane Guerrilla · 11-13-2006, 11:23 PM

Nauticalisms come to mind, some of which are suffering from a decay of meaning: by and large didn't mean generally to the sailors of yesteryear, but I'm not sure enough of what it did mean to say without doing some googling first. Splice the mainbrace hasn't, but is fading into mere quaintness. Hit between wind and water is better explained as holes in the hull than as catching a wallop in the perineum, I think. Copperbottomed is out of currency nowadays except in historical novels.

11-13-2006, 08:15 PM	#55
footfootfoot To shreds, you say? Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: in the house and on the street-how many, many feet we meet! Posts: 18,449	dumber than a bag of hammers or box of rocks. tighter than a nun's nasty or no no tighter than a frog's asshole (that's water tight) or (yuck) a two year old. __________________ The internet is a hateful stew of vomit you can never take completely seriously. - Her Fobs

11-13-2006, 11:06 PM	#58
Urbane Guerrilla Person who doesn't update the user title Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Southern California Posts: 6,674	There are all sorts of explanations for "the whole nine yards" and about all of them miss fire on some inconvenient point... The standard full load for a cement mixer truck is ten cubic yards, not nine. There was a rather durable story that the ammunition load for the wing guns of the P-51 Mustang fighter was a nine-yard belt of .50 caliber for each of six guns, and there are a few photos of ground crewmen schlepping a belt of the stuff that looks durn near nine yards total, but then some iconoclast went and did some measuring or interviewing. __________________ Wanna stop school shootings? End Gun-Free Zones, of course.

11-13-2006, 11:17 PM	#59
Flint Snowflake Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Dystopia Posts: 13,136	I'm sure y'all have seen me make slightly Southern sounding posts sometimes... __________________ **************** There's a level of facility that everyone needs to accomplish, and from there it's a matter of deciding for yourself how important ultra-facility is to your expression. ... I found, like Joseph Campbell said, if you just follow whatever gives you a little joy or excitement or awe, then you're on the right track. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Terry Bozzio**

11-13-2006, 11:23 PM	#60
Urbane Guerrilla Person who doesn't update the user title Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Southern California Posts: 6,674	Nauticalisms come to mind, some of which are suffering from a decay of meaning: by and large didn't mean generally to the sailors of yesteryear, but I'm not sure enough of what it did mean to say without doing some googling first. Splice the mainbrace hasn't, but is fading into mere quaintness. Hit between wind and water is better explained as holes in the hull than as catching a wallop in the perineum, I think. Copperbottomed is out of currency nowadays except in historical novels. __________________ Wanna stop school shootings? End Gun-Free Zones, of course.

11-13-2006, 05:02 PM	#46
rkzenrage Guest Posts: n/a	Daaayyyuum! YeeeHaww! Git Some! Throw Down! Ain't. Kick-ass!

11-13-2006, 05:04 PM	#47
DanaC We have to go back, Kate! Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Yorkshire Posts: 25,964	heh, the only one of those we use if ain't. I suspect that's quite old.

11-13-2006, 05:07 PM	#48
rkzenrage Guest Posts: n/a	You don't use kick-ass?

11-13-2006, 05:08 PM	#49
DanaC We have to go back, Kate! Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Yorkshire Posts: 25,964	mmm...actually, I think we do come to think about it. But we use it in an American way, if that makes sense. We use it with an awareness that we are using American slang.

11-13-2006, 05:10 PM	#50
rkzenrage Guest Posts: n/a	Makes perfect sense... I use some UK phrases like that. Bully for you.

11-13-2006, 05:21 PM	#51
DanaC We have to go back, Kate! Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Yorkshire Posts: 25,964	Do you guys use 'good egg' and 'bad egg'?

11-13-2006, 05:22 PM	#52
rkzenrage Guest Posts: n/a	I don't but many do.

11-13-2006, 05:25 PM	#53
DanaC We have to go back, Kate! Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Yorkshire Posts: 25,964	I thought they'd more or less died out over here but then in the mid-nineties i discovered that they were used quite a lot by drug-dealing types in the north ( you don't need to know how I know that :P) There's something quite sinister about a slightly psychopathic speed dealer saying someone's a 'bad egg'. Always got the impression someone was about to get their head staved in.

11-13-2006, 05:26 PM	#54
rkzenrage Guest Posts: n/a	I hear it more from older people.

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