British propensity for dimunitive nicknames (tranny, addy, proggy,etc.)

[Eeyore]

Only yesterday I had to correct my earlier misunderstood email reply to
someone in the USA.
I had earlier slipped into Brit-speak saying I'd posted something to him,
wheras for USA I have to say I had mailed it to him.
Americans pay checks with bills - we pay bills with cheques.

I like the French for bills (US checks) it's l'addition ! Delighfully
explanatory.

In German it's somewhat more terse, die Rechnung (the 'reckoning').

Graham

 

[Ron(UK)]

Then there is back-slang taken into Polari.
eg riah for hair
Polari somehow connects Italians, bargees, actors and homosexuals but how ?
and British Romany,

Still sometimes used in the World of The Theatre ( pronounced Thee a
Torrrr) dear boy

popularised by the likes of "dell-boy" eg Kushti.

What was the one , in the 1940s ?, where you swapped first and last
syllables and added something to make a lilt

UbbiDubbi, or Verlan

Ron

 

[Smitty Two]

Americans pay checks with bills - we pay bills with cheques.

Only in a restaurant is an invoice for monies due termed a "check."
Otherwise, it's a bill.

 

[Eeyore]

Only in a restaurant is an invoice for monies due termed a "check."

Why is that ?

Graham

 

[Ron(UK)]

Why is that ?

Graham

and what about a 'raincheck'


Ron

Pretty far off topic now, I`m surprised the usenet police haven't been
round!

 

[clifto]

Why is that ?

The same reason we drive on parkways and park on driveways.

If the plural of "mouse" is "mice", pluralize "house" and "spouse". (That
latter one should make one think.)

 

[Ron(UK)]

The same reason we drive on parkways and park on driveways.

If the plural of "mouse" is "mice", pluralize "house" and "spouse". (That
latter one should make one think.)

Posh English folks pronounce house as hice

okay yah

Ron(UK)

 

[Eeyore]

and what about a 'raincheck'

A curious one that. I only tried using it once having discovered its meaning and
it caused confusion (here in the UK at least).

Pretty far off topic now, I`m surprised the usenet police haven't been
round!

LOL ! Give them time.

Graham

 

[msg]

N Cook wrote:


I like the French for bills (US checks) it's l'addition !...

Huh? I thought you both had transposed 'check' and 'bill' as a typo; never
have I encountered this usage in the U.S. This sounds a bit like
negative energy; if we in the U.S. could pay our debts with 'bills'
we'd all be richer than Croesus. Except for the spelling (check vs.
cheque) we're stuck tendering that bank draft to pay our 'bills'.

Regards,

Michael

 

[msg]

Only in a restaurant is an invoice for monies due termed a "check."
Otherwise, it's a bill.

In another post I stated that I'd never encountered the above usage;
I have been absent from sitdown restaurants for so long that I forgot
"check please!".

Regards,

Michael

 

[Smitty Two]

Why is that ?

Graham

I do not know.

 

[Meat Plow]

The reason for calling your tube a valve is because it has a current controlling
effect. As in a water valve also controls the flow of water.

In the case of a CRT the control aspect no longer applies to some load part of
the circuit so I can understand why it wouldn't be called a valve. Also we'd
have to have a different acronym which would be a bit silly.

Graham

Nothing wrong with CRV. It's a valve like most any other.

 

[Smitty Two]

Huh? I thought you both had transposed 'check' and 'bill' as a typo; never
have I encountered this usage in the U.S. This sounds a bit like
negative energy; if we in the U.S. could pay our debts with 'bills'
we'd all be richer than Croesus. Except for the spelling (check vs.
cheque) we're stuck tendering that bank draft to pay our 'bills'.

Regards,

Michael

I think we still have some confusion. We do call "paper" currency
"bills," as in "twenty-dollar bill," so we can pay debts with bills, but
we don't say it that way, we just call that "paying cash" for something.
I guess the British equivalent of "bill" in that usage would be "note?"

 

[Meat Plow]

Back when I were a lad like, just doin' me learnin' in the TV repair trade,
customers used to call anything that led to no picture, "the picture valve".
On many occasions, I would go into a house and ask the customer what the
problem was, and they would reply "Oh, me 'usband says it'll be the picture
valve, me duck" ('me duck' is a sort of term of endearment, much used by
older people in some parts of the country). So you'd go ahead and stick a
new boost rectifier in, or a field output valve, or a tuner mixer valve, and
then the customer would look knowingly at the old one and say " Ah, it was
the picture valve then ?" But I can't recall anyone ever referring to the
picture tube as anything other than that or CRT. Customers always knew it to
be "The tube", and according to them, if it wasn't picture valve (or sound
valve) trouble, then it must be that the tube's gone ...

Happy days !

Arfa

That's a cool story, me duck.

 

[Eeyore]

I think we still have some confusion. We do call "paper" currency
"bills," as in "twenty-dollar bill," so we can pay debts with bills, but
we don't say it that way, we just call that "paying cash" for something.
I guess the British equivalent of "bill" in that usage would be "note?"

Correct.

Graham

 

[Arfa Daily]

The same reason we drive on parkways and park on driveways.

If the plural of "mouse" is "mice", pluralize "house" and "spouse". (That
latter one should make one think.)

So were we actually better off in the days before cats on car exhausts, when
we just poisoned the air with CO and assorted hydrocarbons and oxides of
nitrogen ? And if jet engines burn more or less the same stuff that car
engines do, and don't have cats on them, how come they now seem to put out
so much CO2 that the global warming brigade see it as a big issue ? d;~}

Arfa

 

[Ron(UK)]

:

LOL ! Give them time.

They don't usually need any time!

 

[Heinz Schmitz]

I do not know.

The title of this thread does appear somewhat narrow. Imho the Brits
do love nicknames, wether diminuitive or not. Think of the Krauts, and
the Frogs, for example. Sometimes they even apply their nicknames,
thus, when a person from India was given his default password 'Wog'.

Regards,
H.

 

[Ron(UK)]

The title of this thread does appear somewhat narrow. Imho the Brits
do love nicknames, wether diminuitive or not. Think of the Krauts, and
the Frogs, for example. Sometimes they even apply their nicknames,
thus, when a person from India was given his default password 'Wog'.

Oh now that`s unfair, we didn't just single out the Indians with that
epithet, almost anyone born to the right and down a bit was fair game.
Actually I sort of think 'Frog' is almost a term of endearment, there`s
a lot worst things we could call them

I understand that 'wog' short form of 'Polywog' was originally a
nautical term for deckhands of a dusky skinned nature.

I think the Aussies currently corner the market in derogatory nicknames
for people of other nations, tho who knows what the 'natives' call us.

Ron(UK)

 

[Meat Plow]

They don't usually need any time!

Surprised Michael Black didn't chime in with his usual off topic
nanny-isms.