International expressions: whaddaya mean???

[RabbitPam]

So we FL’s were chatting, and it seems that what one of us from Australia means by TEA, or HAM, another of us (*coughs*) reads something entirely different.

Cause it’s an expression. 

We want to know, what expressions are common in your country, city, town or habitat that you think everyone gets, that, well, needs explaining? Can be current or from the past, but keep it clean. Swear words lack in creativity. We’ve all heard those.

Ready? Do TELL!

THE CAT’S PAJAMAS: I’ll start: Back in the 1920s in the USA people said they were “the cat’s pajamas”. Meaning: really interesting, or COOL (60s etc.). 

Now, whoever thought of that one must have had a WICKED cat. (In Boston everything cool is “wicked cool”.)

[Vienna Blue in France]

Briiliant !! Well that very same meaning is called “the bees knees ” in the uk… cool and interesting, the “must have”.
I’m just imagining now cats in pyjamas speaking to bees with really funny knees !!

Ps. Are we not allowed to know what Tea and Ham are? or are they part of the swear words that we’re not allowed to talk about….

[Azerane]

Tea, at least in my family has two meanings. You can have a cup of tea, which is what most people read it as, but in my family, tea is the evening meal (dinner). In addition you can also have morning tea or afternoon tea. Morning tea is like the snack you have between breakfast and lunch (tea and biscuits as someone described) then afternoon tea is just an afternoon snack.

“Sticky beak” is a good one that hubby and i recently discovered he didn’t know I’ll let you guess it’s meaning

[jerseygirl]

Ps. Are we not allowed to know what Tea and Ham are? or are they part of the swear words that we’re not allowed to talk about….

Haha, no it’s all very innocent. A member used the word ham and I had thought they might have meant the food. So I ran it passed the other FL’s. Azerane let me know it was likely an expression in that instance. “Go ham” meaning “go for it”. I’d never heard it used that way before.
Tea was in reference to another post where a member had used the term “tea” meaning a meal and other has mistaken it to mean tea, the drink.

In that note, we always called the evening meal “Tea”. The term dinner was sometimes used also, they were interchangeable.
And here is an funny tie-in to other expressions used in this thread: When Mum got tired of us kids asking “What’s for Tea?” (Dinner) she would say “Bees knees and Chickens elbows” !!
No idea on origins of that.

But we do use term “the bees knees” like you know it as, Vienna.

[jerseygirl]

Mum also use to use the phrase “do my Charlie”. So when she was really frustrated with us and telling off is was having little impact, she’d warn “I’ll really do my Charlie”. I think it was something her parents might have said too. I’ll have to ask her about that term though. I’ve never thought about what it actually means or its origin. As kids, we just got the gist of it when used in context.
Maybe it’s a military term about discipline? My mind first went to Charlie Chaplin though. Somehow I don’t think her doing an impression of him would have had much impact on rowdy kids.

[jerseygirl]

Posted By Azerane on 2/22/2017 8:05 PM

Tea, at least in my family has two meanings. You can have a cup of tea, which is what most people read it as, but in my family, tea is the evening meal (dinner). In addition you can also have morning tea or afternoon tea. Morning tea is like the snack you have between breakfast and lunch (tea and biscuits as someone described) then afternoon tea is just an afternoon snack.

“Sticky beak” is a good one that hubby and i recently discovered he didn’t know I’ll let you guess it’s meaning

That just reminded me of a phrase someone I use to work with use. He would say “give me a Captains Cook” meaning “give me a look” at an item. I’d never heard it before! He was several months younger then me but used some phrases pretty foreign to me. I think some came from the people he trained with and others from his parents.  

[Azerane]

^I’ve no idea of the origins of “do my Charlie” but my Poppa always used to say “blow me Charlie” as an exclamation, sort of out of frustration. When we played board games and you made a good move against him he’d also say “what do you think it is, bush week or something!?”. Apparently bush week is the week when farmer’s come into town to buy things and get ripped off by the town folk in stores From Wiktionary “An imagined or symbolic time when assumedly unsophisticated people from the countryside come to the city, likely to be preyed on by tricksters there.:”

Captain’s Cook (bit of a look) is one of the numerous Aussie ryhming slangs, such as Dead Horse (tomato sauce), Harold Holt (salt), Dog and Bone (telephone)

[Vienna Blue in France]

“Give us a butcher’s” = give us a look (butcher’s hook)

London Cockney rhyming slang of which there are loaaads in everyday use (at least in the South of England)

[jerseygirl]

Another came to mind this afternoon. “Carry on like a pork chop”. Im not sure the origins of that one either.

I spoke with Mum earlier and she doesn’t know where “do my charlie came from either. I had a thought about the phrase “charley horse” meaning something like a corked muscle and wondered if the other charlie phrase had anything to do with horses? No time to google unfortunately.

[Azerane]

Perhaps because pigs squeal a heck of a lot, especially when they’ve been captured to be made into pork chops?

[Vienna Blue in France]

Oooo. Youve shocked me Az….I thought you wld have put after and not

[Theodorusrex]

We have loads in Ireland. Our most famous being
‘What’s the craic’ – meaning what’s up, not referring to hard drugs
Also ‘What about ye’ meaning what’s the craic

We also have a dialect in northern ireland called ulster scots which has phrases such as
Thon’s a quer lookin’ wee cuttie – meaning ‘that young lady over there is very attractive’
Wee’un (pronounced wain) means small child.
Parful means shocking or great e.g. ‘Thon rain out there is parful hi’ meaning that the rain is crazy or shocking. Many rural people here put hi at the end of everything for no reason

Some other favourites include
Aw she’s suckin’ diesel – meaning ‘this project is going really rather well’
Keep ‘er lit – meaning keep going, don’t give up.

It’s no wonder people struggle to understand us

[sarahthegemini]

“Bob’s your uncle…” means there ya go. I don’t know how that came about tho!

Also, similar to the bees knees is “the dogs b*******” 

[LittlePuffyTail]

Interesting.

I can’t think of any expressions but I’m sure there are loads.

We have lots of weird Canadian words, though. 

http://cottagelife.com/canadiana/7-…-in-canada

Also, for the record. I don’t know anyone who says “Eh”. Or “Hoser”. 

[RabbitPam]

Posted By Vienna Blue in France on 2/22/2017 4:29 PM

Briiliant !! Well that very same meaning is called “the bees knees ” in the uk… cool and interesting, the “must have”.
I’m just imagining now cats in pyjamas speaking to bees with really funny knees !!

Ps. Are we not allowed to know what Tea and Ham are? or are they part of the swear words that we’re not allowed to talk about….

BRILLIANT is, well, Brilliant! That’s not an expression used in the US, at least not until kids started reading Harry Potter.  I love it.

And the swear words I meant are things like “the F-word”, only actually spelled out. You know, the ones. Anything that needs to be spelled with an asterix or adding -word. No S***

BTW, I Luv the Scottish and Irish expressions. 

[RabbitPam]

Bob’s your uncle always baffled me because my brother’s name is Bob, and he’s an uncle, so ?????

JG, Carry on like a pork chop?! That’s crazy cute.

Speaking of accents, I have, in fact (though it’s hahd to find a space) pahked the cah in Hahvahd Yahd. Which is the propah way to pronounce all of those words. Because we ah wicked smaht.

[Reesebun]

American expressions:
Cute as a bug’s ear
Hold your horses
Easy as pie
I’m all ears

My teacher is Irish and he sometimes says “in two shakes of a lamb’s tail”. He is awesome. He yells a lot and laughs really high pitched when he scares someone with his sock monkey when they are walking down the hall. He sneaks up behind them and yells “SOCK MONKEY” and they scream.
He also really wants everyone to hate him for some reason. He asks someone, “who do you hate?” and if they don’t say “You Mr. O’Brien” he gets angry. He also asks “How’s the hate today” and if you say “pretty high” he says “good”. Whenever someone isn’t listening in class, he stops talking and stares at them and does this weird growling that sounds really realistic and makes everyone laugh. He also likes to make fun of people and single them out. He calls himself “The old goat” which stands for Gross Old Aging Teacher.
Are all of these Irish things?

[LBJ10]

Slicker than a puppy dog’s snot on a brass doorknob! Which is what my grandma would say, she was from Missouri. I think most people just say slicker than snot. LOL

[LittlePuffyTail]

I use “Hold your Horses” a lot with my toddler….and the bunnies…. Or sometimes I use “Hold your Shorts”. If I’m talking to Bindi, it turns into “Hold your Fluffy Little Shorts”

[BubblesJo]

Oh, LPT! That’s a good list of “Canadianisms”. All of those confused me a lot when I moved here! When I heard people say “double-double” or “tuque” for the first time… ah man, fun times

I’m still confused how “Bless him/her” can be used either as sarcastic (Bless him, he’s really an idiot) or as concern (Bless him, that’s going to be hard to deal with) without really changing the intonation! Or how “Good for you!” isn’t used sarcastically her. It drips sarcasm back home

[Author]

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