before the smoking ban in public places in england was introduced many years ago, a friend, who knew that i was a non-smoker and non-second hand smoker said to me he had found a pub, where on one certain day of the week, smoking was not allowed and he said that this day was called FRESH.
i then replied, what do they call the other six days? STENCH?
In North American English I hear/read, " a couple times".
In British English we (for I speak this variety), say, "a couple of times".
,When/how/why has this preposition become omitted. Laziness or simplification of English?
It sounds such a dreadful word, so harsh. But we have it in our National Anthem (Australia) -- "our land is girt by sea".
In the Bible the word "gird" is mentioned (gird your loins). Gurt is a belt in German, and gurten means to encircle. As English is a bastardised Germanic language so obviously "girt" means encircled. Is there any other word that could describe encircled /surrounded?
What is a good translation for:
Lass ihn doch! Der spinnt halt! ?
Yesterday I tried to send a message to this site, but it was not accepted because some of the words were too long. I was writing about the longest place names in the world. I mentioned the Welsh one, and the New Zealand one which is even longer. TT would not allow such long words, was told to shorten them which would defeat the purpose. What is wrong with very long words and how to get them across?
When you watch a U.S. TV program like THE SOPRANOS or THE WIRE, you'll hear a lot of words and expressions specific to certain geographical regions, ethnic groups or specific communities. Native speakers of English from outside those regions or communities may occasionally not fully grasp a reference or two, or may miss the occasional word here or there, but in general they get most of it. They have no trouble identifying the speech patterns they hear as being typical of Italian-American…
i used to live in england and learnt the meaning of the words 'cankle', 'croydon facelift' etc.
having moved to dubai, where there are tons of indians, who very often wear flip flops with socks on (i swear, this is true, you even see them going shopping wearing flip flips with socks on, even in Waitrose, a place you think they would not encroach upon in this manner), i wondered:
if there was a word that describes the super ugly, completely unforgiveable fashion faux pax of exposing ones lack…
Was talking to a Mexican friend the other day about pants (she was going to buy some "pantalones" and asked me how to say that in English. I said you want a "pair of pants." She siad no, she only wanted one pantalon and wondered why Americans buy their pants in pairs.
Got me thinking, why is it a "pair of pants?"
i wonder if the words 'to oblige' and 'to obligate' have the same meaning (perhaps similar to 'to oriented' and 'to orientated').
and if so, is 'to oblige' more commonly used in the UK and 'to obligate' more in north america.
i wondered if something is second hand, does that mean it can only have had ONE user / owner prior to it being sold again, or can it have any number of users / owners and second hand then simply means used?
why is scarcasm considered the lowest form of humour?
i quite like sarcastic remarks / humour and find one does have to be witty to be sarcastic, and don't see in what way other forms of humour are superior.
many thanks.