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Post by imec on Sept 15, 2009 22:05:29 GMT
"There's the rub"
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 15, 2009 22:57:36 GMT
"There's the rub" is from Hamlet's soliloquy (to be or not to be), but what eggzackly it means, I could not tell you.
To me it sounds as though "the rub" is something that keeps anything from being just right. A saddle that seemed to fit, but wound up irritating the horse would have a rub, as would a pair of shoes you'd buy thinking they fit perfectly. That would fit with how it's used in the soliloquy.
Or I could be wrong.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 16, 2009 9:36:38 GMT
The place looked pretty dodgy. In fact, it was a dive.
Who is dodging what? What are we diving into?
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 16, 2009 16:18:19 GMT
Dodgy = to be dodged, i.e., avoided?
Without looking it up, I am guessing that dive has nothing to do with diving. It might be a word or word remnant of non-English origin, possibly Latin or French.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 17, 2009 7:41:27 GMT
I don't give a hoot!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 17, 2009 7:52:22 GMT
I found this about dives:
Word-Detective.Com says the name goes back to the 19th century, when many disreputable joints were located below street level. An adventurous evening out literally meant “diving into a subterranean world of bad booze and even worse company.”
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 17, 2009 16:51:38 GMT
You mean I was wrong?!
Oh well, I don't give a hoot.
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Post by imec on Sept 23, 2009 20:45:55 GMT
Someone said to me today "he could talk the hind leg off a Donkey"
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Post by Kimby on Sept 24, 2009 21:10:29 GMT
Dodgy = to be dodged, i.e., avoided? Dicey. A synonym for dodgy? Must have to do with chance/risk of the gambling dice?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2009 6:52:46 GMT
A "bum's rush" sounds logical, but I wonder if the meaning is as simple as it sounds.
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Post by auntieannie on Oct 2, 2009 18:56:37 GMT
Would yonks as in "I haven't seen him in yonks" derive from "donkey's years"?
could donkey's years refer to the number of years of an animal compared to humans? If I am not mistaken, donkeys would - similarly to dogs whose year ratio compared to humans is 7:1, have a different year ratio than human beings? (gosh, does that make sense? it took me ages to find the wording!)
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Post by bazfaz on Oct 2, 2009 20:22:22 GMT
Until I met Mrs Faz I had never heard the expression "mankey" - something dirty or not right. Does this derive from the French manquer?
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 3, 2009 1:24:04 GMT
Yes, what you wrote makes complete sense, Annie, and could be an explanation. I think donkeys live @30 years. Maybe that is @90 years old for a human. ~?~
Hmmm. I think I've read the word "mankey" in British novels, but not knowing French, I just took it as unfamiliar slang. Just looked it up, and you're probably on to something, Baz.
1 manquer Verb, transitive (a) to miss a person, a chance, a bus, a step, school (b) to fail an exam (c) to spoil a photo, a cake (d) to miss a meeting, school
2 manquer Verb, intransitive (a) to be lacking, (usually of person) be absent, be missing; tu me manques I miss you, I'm missing you; il me manque I miss him, I'm missing him; elle me manque I miss her, I'm missing her; venir à ~ to run out, run short; ~ de to lack intelligence, be short of money (b) elle me manque I miss her; mon pays me manque I miss my country
French speakers ~~ other uses of this which might translate into "mankey"?
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Post by patricklondon on Oct 3, 2009 17:44:40 GMT
Yes, that's still pretty current. My old OED cites various uses of "cob" to mean anything large, or anything like a lump or something rounded (including testicles). So I suppose it's an index of excess either in quantity or size.
A vulgar comparator might be "peeing hot conkers" to indicate excessive nerves or anxiety!
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Post by patricklondon on Oct 3, 2009 17:48:20 GMT
Manky means dirty, tatty, mucky, so I don't think it's anything to do with "manquer". Something about those particular sounds seem to have those connotations in English, e.g., "minging" (rhymes with "singing"), which means much the same (and also smelly). Whereas a "minger" (rhymes with "singer") means someone physically unattractive, but not necessarily with any connotation of poor hygiene.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2009 0:11:21 GMT
Rhyming slang is pretty much beyond the grasp of most of us non-Brits, fascinating as it sometimes is.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2009 11:36:20 GMT
One that I have run across in several British novels (Evelyn Waugh in particular) is the expression "hard cheese".
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 13, 2009 16:31:13 GMT
When I read Kerouac's post about The Cockatoo Inn, this instantly sprang to mind:
in its heyday
Does anyone know the origin of that?
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Post by hwinpp on Nov 16, 2009 6:56:06 GMT
Make hey while the sun shines.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 16, 2009 7:10:30 GMT
HW ~~ the phrase is "make hay while the sun shines". Now does it make sense?
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Post by hwinpp on Nov 16, 2009 7:16:31 GMT
Hmmmm... yes, it does.
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Post by Kimby on Nov 20, 2009 0:06:04 GMT
So have we discussed "halcyon days" yet.
While we're on the subject of days. (in its heyday)
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 20, 2009 16:43:31 GMT
ha ha, Kimby -- you left out "... of yore".
I actually know what halcyon days are. When I was in high school my family lived in a subdivision named Halcyon Bluff. This was in Savannah, so who knows where the bluffs were -- "savannah" being a big clue to the actual terrain.
Halcyon is generally used in the sense of ideally peaceful, although I didn't know the root of the word until I looked in Wikipedia. I also didn't know that it was a type of kingfisher, which would make sense for a name in that region.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 21, 2009 4:49:45 GMT
Probably my constant viewing of Two and a Half Men is making my childishly dirty mind even worse, but .......
I just dashed off a note to someone and ended it with "Enjoy yourself", then stopped dead. That sounds awful! Also, does it really make any sense?
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Post by komsomol on Nov 23, 2009 21:50:01 GMT
Where does --wholesome-- come from ? I understand the --some-- part I think : lonesome, handsome, winsome. It seems to validate the first part of the word.
--Whole-- makes it good ? Not incomplete ? More is better ?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2009 6:08:12 GMT
I am suddenly wondering about "at the drop of a hat."
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Post by patricklondon on Nov 24, 2009 16:48:27 GMT
wholesome - I'm not at my dictionary, as it were, but my guess is that "whole" in this sense derives from the sense of health and healthiness (as in "hale").
"Hard cheese" - well, it's a pretty graphic way of indicating something unpleasant you're given, but just have to put up with.
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Post by Kimby on Nov 24, 2009 18:46:30 GMT
Where does --wholesome-- come from ? I understand the --some-- part I think : lonesome, handsome, winsome. It seems to validate the first part of the word. --Whole-- makes it good ? Not incomplete ? More is better ? Don't forget "toothsome" one of my favorites.
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Post by Kimby on Nov 24, 2009 18:47:47 GMT
Halcyon is generally used in the sense of ideally peaceful, although I didn't know the root of the word until I looked in Wikipedia. I also didn't know that it was a type of kingfisher, which would make sense for a name in that region. I actually knew that, from our Australia visit, where those kingfishers live.
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Post by imec on Nov 24, 2009 18:56:25 GMT
"long in the tooth... " It would be so very cool if someone like kimby catalogued these for us
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