As most of you already know, I have been trying to sift all this out as I go along in an effort to evolve a list of words and phrases over time, which itself, hopefully, may evolve into an actual little humorous book.
I want to start trying to also post some of these words right here in this blog as I come across them, to get your professional opinions on them, so to speak. That is, I hope you will chime in and tell me (a) what the word means exactly; (b) whether it is in general use or whether it is pretty specialized or obscure; and (c) whether it is odd or clever or common or (whatever else the qualifications might be) enough to perhaps be a candidate for putting on our "short list" for such a book.
The first word so far today (although it may be a common expression I just haven't ever come across in my sheltered life) is "brazilians", provided by a post from Marmelade in her comment to the previous post. (Today, btw, I am putting my punctuation outside the punctuation marks. At least on this blog."--except when it is SUPPOSED to be inside, British Style, as right here.) :) I have also resolved to inundate you with smiley face emoticons to try and counterbalance my smartass American comments. :) :) :)
Another word I want to put on today's list is the word "pants", which I picked up for the first time on another website. Ok, it was on Claire's blog. It was in the context of "weather being disappointing bad". Claire herself, I think, is off on some sort of adventure today, so we may not have the benefit of her delightful input on this. I'm hoping one or more of the rest of you might explain to these poor American ears what the hell pants have to do with the weather.
And, as is the usual case, in my perusal of my reference books on these things, I am left more confused than edified. For example, with regard to (bad) weather, have any of you ever heard a British expression which includes the term "Brass Monkey"? If the delightful Candy happens to read this, she will be amused that it refers to yet another animal's nuts.
More on this later. Good morning, by the way.
I explained myself in a comment on your previous post. I believe the term is rather largely internationally used by most of the women population, and some gentlemen too.
ReplyDeleteWelcome, Marmelade. I had hoped you might drift by the window up here, attracted by the flag lure. :)
ReplyDeletethank you. i consider it a royal honor! (although i'm not really spanish, let's just say i'm european. we're one big country now :)
ReplyDeleteJust read your Bush post. Now THAT'S funny. If you are not American, I hereby bestow that dubious honor on your little red head! (At least it's little in your avatar.)
ReplyDeleteBravo! Bravo! You're Max's kind of sticky jam!
Ole! (Picture an upside down exclamation mark where it belongs. I have not clude what the key combination on my mac might be.)
Max is getting excited, and his dog claws are slipping off the keys again. (That's how you know when he's excited.)
ReplyDeleteSo I'll translate:
"I have not clude.." means: "O haxz no clue. z."
Max, don't get so excited, or I'll have to unleash my chinchilla on you. And no, it's not an euphemism for anything, it's my pet Kuki, who's been known to kick little dogs ass like you, once or twice. You can meet Kuki in my older posts.
ReplyDeleteno clue on the pants, mate, but the brass monkey is a device to transport cannon balls on a ship's deck The brass would shrink more when frozen than iron so the iron balls would fall out of it.
ReplyDeleteThe brazillian is an undoubtedly uncomfortable waxing of hair from one's private parts. I suppose once very popular with females from Ipanema.
It would no doubt be quite the interesting book based on your three posted terms. A best seller in the making.
David:
ReplyDeleteThank you for stopping by, David. And thanks for the info on the words. (By the way, if you think of any more, or if you stumble across any good tidbits in the course of your daily reading or conversations, keep me in mind and write them down for me!) ;)
The "pants" allusion is still a mystery, then. Perhaps someone will still edify me before the day is out.
The brass monkey thing is also interesting. I was trying to look up British slang terms under "weather" and, although I found no entry for "pants", there was another weather term related to a Brass Monkey. That's where I got that. It was rather vulgar though (as I'm finding much of this British slang to be!) so I won't tell you what that slang dictionary said here. (It had nothing to do with cannon, though!) :)
And thanks for your encouragement about the possible book! We shall see.
Pants is just a term for rubbish/a bit crap etc etc. I love the term brass monkeys haven't heard that for ages. It's certainly like that where I live at the moment, snow and howling gales, oh joy.
ReplyDeleteHello Allison. You can probably guess how much I cringe at making this comment, especially since I have kept a relatively civil (and relatively silent) tongue in my head all day so far. But it comes from an authoritative and more or less classy source (PBS/BBC):
ReplyDeleteBrass Monkey Weather: Noun. Very cold weather. From the phrase, 'cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey'. Cf. 'brassy' and 'brass monkeys'.
There, I've done it now. No, not the Brass Monkey. The two "Ls". Sorry. You can do whatever you want with me. I won't even cop out and try to blame it on Max's slippery excited claws.
ReplyDeleteCool David now I know where the Brass Monkey term comes from, I use it a lot when it is cold. I usually say it is cold enough to make the brass monkey go looking for the Super glue!
ReplyDeleteIn regards to "Brass Monkey", there are a few definitions but the most common refers to the weather, as in "It's cold enough to freeze the balls on a brass monkey."
ReplyDeleteAnd if there were any brass monkeys around here right now, I'm sure their balls would be well and truly frozen. I fucking hate our weather.
I hear you. It's been pretty bad here too, but starting to finally warm up a little in the daytime. Everybody thinks New Mexico (where I am) is always hot, but where i live we are at such a high elevation we freeze our brass monkeys off at night. They don't say brass monkeys here though. Or knackers, either. The call them cojones. I myself, of course, would never be that vulgar in any case, of course.
ReplyDeleteJust kidding about Lord Likely, by the way. I guess you knew that. In fact I wrote a mile long comment over at his house this afternoon. He's gonna shit when he reads it. He'll probably moderate it out for being so vulgar. Sometimes I make the Lord blush, I think. Thanks for stopping by!
Being a Brit in the US I still say Arse instead of ass and refuse to say aluminum (alu-ma-nem)because it sounds funny and say the correct aluminium (alu-min-ee-um).
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ReplyDeleteMost Brits will know that something a bit pants is something rubbish or crap, like Alison said. But it is also used to describe a pair of trousers and occasionally 'pulling pants', as in knickers or underpants that you wear when out on the pull :)
ReplyDeleteIt sure is hard to keep up with you, flitting from one post to the next. I guess I should just be happy you decided to spend 30 seconds here this week. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteYou have a lot of good stuff, Claire. The idea was for you to post them on BS2 rather than make me scour the regular blog to see if Claire had dropped any Gems today. No wonder the book is making little progress. I will hand carry these over to the other site. And I really DO thank you for these. Yours, for whatever reason, are among the most interesting. Perhaps when I find out what the rest of them mean I can tell you better then. You wear me out. I am up at your blog reading about truffles and you are down here running amok. And now you're gone again.
Stop posting so much then! grrrrr :(
ReplyDeleteIf I cut down anymore, there will be no posts at all.
ReplyDeleteOh. I get it. Finally.
You may be right.
See you all next week.
Nooo just give us chance to digest and figure out stuff on the other blog :)
ReplyDeleteOr just give me precise instructions, i work better that way.
Give you precise instructions?
ReplyDeleteYou work better with precise instructions?
Don't tempt me Claire.
You wouldn't be able to get into that position anyway.
:) :) :) :)
Crap. I forgot I wasn't allowed to talk like that anymore. I going to be out of here for sure.
ReplyDeletelmao :)
ReplyDelete