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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2009 10:43:12 GMT
Colloquial: Characteristic of or suited to the spoken language or to informal writing. Colloquialism: A colloquial expression.
I run across many colloquialisms here on the board and immensely enjoy learning them. Many I have never heard before and have to look up or inquire about. Some of my favorites I have adopted into my own language. Here is a thread to list or inquire about your favorite colloquialisms.
Where I live in a Southern region of the U.S. one of the colloquialisms I have adopted is 'fixing to'. As in ,I'm fixing to go on vacation. Preparing for or getting ready to.
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Post by lagatta on Aug 11, 2009 20:40:39 GMT
Another southern US one I like is "you all" - it is not vulgar like the "youze" one sometimes hears in some varieties of English. It reminds me of the Spanish vosotros and a term we use here in Québec (colloquially, not in written French) - "vous autres" - indicating that the "vous" is a plural and not a formal "vous" for one person. I'm wondering about the connection between these expressions.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 11, 2009 22:48:48 GMT
I think you have to include "youse" in that category. It's simply colloquial, hardly vulgar.
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Post by lagatta on Aug 11, 2009 22:53:40 GMT
I've always heard "youse" (not y'all) as rather substandard English, but that could be a lack of familiarity with people of some eddication using it.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 12, 2009 0:52:02 GMT
I think they are both regionalisms, even though educated people will say y'all. I've known educated people from the Bronx, etc., to lapse into youse, although not universally. I think y'all has the gloss of romantic southern gentility, whereas poor youse got the Bowery Boys treatment.
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Post by traveler63 on Aug 12, 2009 1:34:59 GMT
When I was growing up, I would hear my mother, aunt and grandmother use;
I'll be there in two shakes of a lamb's tail. Hold the phone (wait a minute).
They grew up in Texas. Is this what you mean???
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2009 5:10:12 GMT
My stepfather was a treasury of strange expressions, and I have to bite my tongue to prevent myself from using some of them, since they almost certainly wouldn't be understood at all by younger generations.
"That new shop is doing land office business."
"He was eating popcorn like it was going out of style."
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 12, 2009 5:23:10 GMT
Ha ~~ have to know your history in order to get "land office business".
I use the second one all the time. Guess I'm a fogeyette.
A seriously non-pc one that is more from my parents' generation: "I going to do such&such if it harelips the world."
That's really a variant. I believe the original is "if it harelips the Pope".
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Post by imec on Aug 12, 2009 5:32:00 GMT
My Dad used to say "I haven't seen one of those in donkey's years" - meaning a long time
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 12, 2009 5:47:34 GMT
From my mother:
"old as Methuselah"
"slow as molasses in January"
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Post by imec on Aug 12, 2009 6:02:58 GMT
My buddy on Vancouver Island says of someone not too competent:
"They couldn't manage a two hole shitter"
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2009 10:35:25 GMT
I loved the expression in the South that people would use to qualify ignorant people: He doesn't know shit from Shinola.
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Post by imec on Aug 12, 2009 12:25:21 GMT
"He don't know his ass from his elbow"
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Post by traveler63 on Aug 12, 2009 12:31:09 GMT
He or she isn't the sharpest tool in the shed.
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Post by traveler63 on Aug 12, 2009 12:32:45 GMT
Just thought of this one, she or he can't think their way out of a paper bag!
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 12, 2009 13:38:25 GMT
Yeah -- "shit from shinola" is a great one, and a true southerner gives it the perfect delivery.
Love "slap you down a rathole" -- never heard it before.
One from my dad about something done stupidly -- bass ackwards
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2009 16:35:50 GMT
The African mothers of my neighborhood have very colorful language, but it scares me sometimes. (They are perfect immigrants because they make a point of always speaking French to their children, while the Chinese mothers always speak Chinese.) More than once I have heard them say to their children, "As soon as we get home, I am going to mutilate you!" Considering a lot of stuff that has happened in Africa in recent years, perhaps it isn't a hollow threat.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 12, 2009 16:57:33 GMT
I doubt it means anything. My mother used to make terrible threats, but she never even smacked us.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2009 17:18:09 GMT
Did your mother come from a town with a lot of machetes?
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 12, 2009 17:50:48 GMT
No, but her most awful threat did not involve weapons: I'm going to rip off your arm and beat you with the bloody stump.
That sounds perfectly dreadful as I type it, but you'd have to know my mother. We pretty much laughed whenever she threatened us with corporal punishment.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2009 17:54:14 GMT
Didn't you wonder what the "living daylights" were when they were threatened to be whipped out of you? I certainly did.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2009 19:50:49 GMT
Is that how she says it, or is that just a PC version?
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 13, 2009 0:59:51 GMT
Thye doethn't have a lithp, I hope.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2009 2:17:13 GMT
Didn't you wonder what the "living daylights" were when they were threatened to be whipped out of you? I certainly did. I still do,what were(are) they anyway?
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Post by traveler63 on Aug 13, 2009 15:03:42 GMT
How about : You'd better straigten up and fly right this would precede getting a swat if I didn't do it.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 13, 2009 15:51:10 GMT
Yep, got that one from my parents, too. Your parents & mine are undoubtedly from the same generation.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2009 16:52:13 GMT
My stepfather had two nicknames for heavy and thin women. I just Googled both of them, and one appears to be of his own invention since it got no hits at all, while the other one even has a clothing line by that name.
Seeing two disparate women going by, he was capable of saying "Look at Two Ton Tatilla with Skinny Minnie over there!"
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Post by traveler63 on Aug 13, 2009 20:14:42 GMT
Here is another one. If you don't straigten up I'll slap you silly. Wait a minute, it seems that all of the ones that I am remembering have something to do with behavior, honest, I really wasn't that bad. ;D
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 13, 2009 21:40:22 GMT
Never heard two-ton Tatilla! "Skinny Minnie" practically has official noun status where I'm from.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2009 21:48:13 GMT
But I really like Two-Ton Tatilla. Especially since there were so many more occasions to use that term in the U.S. than skinny minnie.
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