Snot Cricket

Dictionary—

cricket 1 |ˈkrikit|nounan insect related to the grasshoppers. The male produces a characteristic rhythmical chirping sound. • Family Gryllidae: many genera and species, including the field cricket and the house cricket.ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French criquet, from criquer ‘to crackle,’ of imitative origin.cricket 2nounan open-air game played on a large grass field with ball, bats, and two wickets, between teams of eleven players, the object of the game being to score more runs than the opposition.Cricket is played mainly in Britain and in territories formerly under British rule, including Australia, South Africa, the West Indies, New Zealand, and the Indian subcontinent. The full game with two innings per side can last several days; shorter matches are usual at the amateur level and have become popular at professional level since the 1960s.PHRASESnot cricket Brit., informal a thing contrary to traditional standards of fairness or rectitude.DERIVATIVEScricketer nouncricketing adjectiveORIGIN late 16th cent.: of unknown origin.cricket 3nouna low stool, typically with a rectangular or oval seat and four legs splayed out.


I'm guessing Snot Cricket is that kind of cricket played on a slippery field. Pitch. Bowl. Whatever.


I have learned cricket from elsewhere on this blog in posts written by experts, so I will regale a bit.


"The male produces a characteristic rhythmic chirping sound." (In Georgia: Chirpin' sound.)


I can't relate that to wickets in the least. You'll just have to hold that thought about the male cricket players rubbing their legs together. Actually I didn't know females didn't make that noise too. Chirpin' I mean.


From criquer: 'to crackle.' Lordy don't THAT lose something in the translation? Stick to chirpin' and forget the French. Please.


"An open-air game played on a large grass field with ball, bats, and two wickets, between teams of eleven players, the object of the game being to score more runs than the opposition." Man, if THAT doesn't clear up the rules, you are pretty hopeless. What more could you want in the way of an explanation of the game of cricket? Nada. Zilch. What the hell about innings? He asks.


"Cricket is played mainly in Britain and in territories formerly under British rule...." Fair enough, but then they start listing all the countries formerly under British rule. What is the point of that? Some dictionary. An American dictionary, of course. It's like when I get those checks from my credit card companies every Thursday "to use for anything I want to buy" and then they make a list of all the things they can think of that money is good for. You know? RBS is the worst.


Well.


"The full game can last several days..." Bet it seems like YEARS, eh? Not to the English. Sorry. Btw, if you DO go back searching this blog for the REAL cricket posts, be sure not to miss the photo of the elderly English gent with all the hair on his back. Now, I am not trying to denigrate elderly British cricket fans who take off their shirt when they are sitting right in front of you - plenty of American men have too much hair on their backs too - I only mention it in passing so you will know there is something to look at during the match, besides the game, as the weeks between innings drag by.


Now, then, "Phrase Snot cricket": a thing contrary to traditional standards of fairness or rectitude.


So, if someone tries to break the rules, or bend the rules, and you catch them, you just yell out "That Snot Cricket!!" Or, if Jewish, "That Snot Kosher!"


I really AM learning this BritishSpeak stuff, but, God, sometimes it is like pulling teeth, you know?


Feeling extra old today. "Memory almost full" it says. And it's not talking about my computer.


Holy mackerel.

Remembering Banjo Paterson. Sort of.

[The above is not a picture of Banjo Paterson]

It's been ages and ages since we've done any Australian words on this blog. See how many of the following rather old Australian slang words you can translate, taken from their famous song...

swagman

billabong

coolabah

billy

jumbuck

tuckerbag

squatter

stockman

Matilda

waltzing Matilda

A tip o' the tam to Adullamite for triggering this post, in a roundabout way.

"Waltzing Matilda" has become almost the unofficial national anthem of Australia. It was written by Banjo Paterson, though many believe it was based on an older Scottish ballad.

For a larger sampling of Aussie slang (and regular words) click on the flag logo towards the bottom of the BritishSpeak sidebar. And another list here.

Listen to Jimmie Rodger's 1960 version of Waltzing Matilda.

Finally, is it just me or does Banjo look a lot like Steve Carell (in the movie 40 Year Old Virgin)?

Making new friends and influencing people of other lands

I have long ago abandoned the narrowness of my raison d'être for this blog, having expanded my interests to include the lasting effects of your language on many far-flung countries all over the globe. Canada. Australia. Some South Africa. Not NZ. Not India. Enough to where I feel I can expand even further and speak of Ireland.

Whoa.

Soon I shall. Just a warning shot.

I vow my usual painstaking attention to detail and accuracy. After all, this is a learning experience for me.

(I didn't mean you didn't have any language influences on NZ, only that I hadn't talked about them on this blog.)

Living in the UK

I was browsing Google today, looking for a government website that would show UK visa requirements. In view of the recent decrease in the percentage of "traditional" British in the UK, I wasn't sure if you actually required visas, but I looked.

I found a site that specialized in helping people emigrate from other lands to the UK, and it said it could help with visa knowledge, so I perused the front page of the site and here is how it started out:

"The United Kingdom is an exciting country which you can truly enjoy for a short visit or for a longer period if you decide to enroll in a course of study, work or even settle here."

Well, ok. I guess becoming a student is a pretty broad hint on how to stay, and, since the author used the word "here," I am assuming the article in question was written by someone who lives "here" in the UK. It continues:

"The country is experiencing a booming economy and has built a strong reputation for its diversified and cosmopolitan life attracting people from all over the world. There is a mix and match of cultures with more than 50 nationalities and as many as 300 different languages. As such one cannot help but feel welcome to live there!"

Here, I began to sense the author's main audience was perhaps not your average protestant descended from William the Conqueror. Also, the last word was "there!" so I began to lose my confidence the author lives in the UK after all. I have resisted the urge to add any punctuation in the quoted parts. After all, it would be American punctuation, anyway.

Here I must admit candidly that a lump was rising in my throat as I considered the 50 nationalities and 300 languages, and I began to consider starting a petition drive to move the Statue of Liberty over to Canvey Island or environs: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse from your teeming shore..." Like that. Especially with the booming economy, don't you know.

As I still hadn't been edified as to how wretched refuse obtain a visa, I continued to read on:

"Population Growth Led by UK Immigration" was the next subject heading. "Really?," I thought.

"... the population has grown by 394,000 in the span of one year. It seems that growing birth rates within the UK have been... due to a larger amount of migrant mothers are of child-bearing years and are already established enough to start a family. At the same time births to UK born mothers continues to fall... "

Once again, I think, thank GOD for that booming economy.

Okay, let's just pause a moment between visa prelude tidbits to indulge our cynical and sarcastic American self, says I. Let's run some of that through my auto-skeptic translator:

"... migrant mothers are of child-bearing years..." (Over age 12, eh?) "... and are already established enough to start a family..." I am guessing this means that "migrant" mothers have denied themselves until they have finished university and have an executive employment. In the U.S.A., "established enough" would mean they own their own cardboard box under the bridge and have signed up for food stamps. Not so in the booming economy that is the UK today. I had always thought "migrant" meant they move around seasonally and might leave the country again, well-established or not. Silly me. No, they don't ever leave.

Nextly:

"The United Kingdom Government is set to change immigration policies in order to better sustain both UK nationals and future immigrants."

Well, golly. Is that a pretty sentence, or what? Let this poor blogger translate this into base Americanese for you:

1. "The United Kingdom Government" means "MPs who are scared shitless of being voted out of office."

2. "Change immigration policies" means "cut off immigration, and cut it off damn fast."

3. "Better sustain UK nationals (that's you) and future immigrants" means "appease the masses until we can come up with a real idea but you can forget about the future immigrants part in any event." Comprende?

Here old Max leans back against the doggie wall and takes a couple laps of beer from his dish and conjures up an image of England having Mexico on its border instead of Wales. But it probably wouldn't matter, what with the booming economy.

FINALLY, the article begins to talk about visas, although I think they have been preparing me for the worst.

"The UK government is currently working on setting up a quota to cap annual immigration to the UK from April 2011 onwards. The cap would affect those skilled workers coming from outside the European Union. In the interim, a temporary, smaller cap is proposed to come in to effect on July 19, 2010."

Obviously, I am not going to learn about visa requirements on the website, so I give up. But right underneath that last paragraph, I swear to God, is a wide banner advert that says, "Skilled Workers Wanted: Live and Work in Sunny Australia." And it shows scuba divers exploring an undersea reef.

Sometimes you can't make this stuff up.

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Update: After reading this post over again, I can see where some readers would take the opinion that I am anti-immigration, and generally a smartass curmudgeon. The latter is probably true, but I am not anti-immigration. I am in favor of controlled immigration. I only want to point out the irony of the ineptness of most governments (not just the UK's) in handling the issue of immigration fairly and sanely.