It's an older version of "under" I guess. The weird thing is that the word "substance" has such a similar looking construction, because it literally means that which stands beneath.
English in general uses a lot of seemingly random direction words in phrases, like "party down", "man up", "buckle up", etc.
Which comes to English from Old English and its Germanic origins. 'Unter' and 'Standen' are the Germanic equivalents today, signifying the original intent, to stand together on something.
'Comprehend' from the Normans' French (and Latin before that) is much easier to grok für Ausländer in this case.
Sure, that's what I mean. We use it the same way (to borrow) and not the way he implied.
I'll disagree about it being rare; I hear the phrase at least a few times per week (I work in a place where people frequently ask other people for rides, so perhaps that's relevant)
I feel like it's very informal, I heard it in high school in the DC area, mostly when kids were talking about cigarettes. I haven't heard it much in adult life.
The other day I realized I hadn't eaten basic tier fast food in 15 years. That could be anecdotal evidence for some general trend ("fast casual! increasing consumer health consciousness!"), or it could just be me.
It really depends on who you're talking to and where you're talking.
I'd be willing to bet a totally irresponsible amount of money that if I went out to bars in Atlanta tonight, I would hear someone say "bum a cigarette" before closing time rolled around.
> I've never heard it mean anything else, and I've lived everywhere except the far west coast...
At least you've lived around. One of the things that amazed me when I first came to and was traveling the US is seeing Americans in one state say some phrase, only to go to another state and have those Americans claim it was never said in America.
People really like to absolutely generalize based o their ow necessarily limited experiences.
Agreed. Linguistics and etymology are fascinating to me, so I try to pick up what I can. Some things are hyper regional, especially accents. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh sound nothing alike, for example.
I didn't intend my comment to mean it doesn't exist, more that if it does, it's probably a very regional thing, based on not having heard it in the various cities I've lived in.
An opposite case of this is "nah, yeah" "yeah no" "nah yeah nah" etc, which is English slang in maybe 200 different places, all of which claim they're the only ones who say it.
"verbification" is a real thing in English (and not all languages), the point of which is that you needn't have heard it before to use it yourself that way, or understand it if you hear it, it follows rules and as a noun, that's what makes it a verb; which is why you had no trouble understanding what GP meant.
I once got very confused by some guy telling me all about his bird. Dude seemed obsessed. Which is cool, but at times it seemed like a very strange relationship with a pet. It took me around twenty minutes to put it together.
Certainly there are english words that are homophones for offensive words in other languages. There's something that always triggers my Armenian wife, but the word escapes me at the moment...
Thanks, I rate this the best example so far. As a native speaker, if I weren’t used to it, it would be super weird! Especially as dogs are supposed to be our closest pets.
I don't think "hot dog" naturally sounds tasty to native English speakers, either. Like, I think if you could somehow find an adult native English speaker who didn't already know what a hot dog is, and told them you'd invented a new meat food product and planned to name it "hot dog", they'd be like "WTF, ew, no, gross".
I think we just usually learn it early enough that we don't tend to think much about what the words mean individually. More like it's one word that just means the meat product, or same product on a bun.
I'm a Scottish transplant (to the US). I have a can when I visit Scotland. But just one. For those that have never had the "pleasure", it's sort of a combination of cream soda, citrus cola, and bubblegum.
Maybe it's more of an acquired taste, but I don't find it particularly refreshing or good, and only drink it for the nostalgia (which is really just nostalgia of family vacations - I only lived in Scotland as a toddler). I don't drink a ton of Coke (depending on year, Coke and Irn Bru alternate top soda sales in Scotland) either, but on a very hot day, after a long bike ride or run, a small Coke hits the spot.
That's an interesting take given there's not a jot of orange in it - it's actually full of banana, not that you can really tell with all the other stuff mixed in.
I'd say it's more of a light energy drink and more similar to Tizer and other "made up flavour " carbonated drinks.
English speaker, but I have to imagine things like 'almond milk', 'corn dog', and 'po(or) boy' would be confusing. I'm sure there are better, these are just the first 3 to come to mind.
There is actually a movement in the US dairy industry to only allow milk extracted from mammals to be called milk. Calling it almond "milk" would be illegal.
Let's not pretend that's driven by anything except protectionism of an existing industry. They simply don't want almond milk anywhere near cow milk in the grocery store.
Non-native speaker here. Can't think of any rude ones, but here are some odd ones:
"Sperm whale" always sounds a bit funny to me, but I don't know whether native speakers find it funny, too.
"You can't have your cake and eat it, too." I understand the underlying logic, but it always seems a bit weird, since 1). you can eat half a cake; 2) if you don't eat a cake, you will no longer have a cake in a few days anyway; 3) it's a very long phrase for a short idea; and 4) the fact that "have" can also mean "eat".
"blow job": seems to be the opposite of what the job entails.
"first off": Why the "off"?
"ladyfinger": I understand the finger part, but "lady" finger? A bit cannibalistic, isn't it?
* sperm whale: yes, this can also exact puerile giggling from native speakers
* "You can't have your cake and eat it, too": might be better phrased as "can't eat your cake and have it, too". The idiom is stuck in its given form, however.
* blow job: I have read this etymologically arose from "below job". there are occasional humorous anecdotes related to native speakers misunderstanding it as well
* first off: never really thought about this before. I would suppose it comes from metaphorically popping the first of many arguments off of the speakers mental list.
* ladyfinger: it meant long like fingers, the lady part meant to indicate slender or delicate. there was a plant called ladyfingers as well
Feces may indeed not be as repulsive in other cultures, especially Asian ones, if the origins of the infamous poop emoji and the related https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=58630 are any indication.
It's funny because feces is one of many examples of a common English language phenomenon of using Latin words to sound sophisticated, a legacy of the Norman conquest.
We can use Latin words like feces, excrement, evacuation, manure, bowel movement ... Or, good old Germanic roots: poop, shit.
Martin Luther's wife treated him with a manure blended "medicine" for his intestinal problems.(alas, to no avail) Maybe this was why he was so nasty tempered for most of his later years.
Interestingly, nowadays fecal transplant is considered an effective treatment for some conditions that can cause intestinal issues (eg antibiotic resistant C. diff)
They were desperate for something that would heal illness and very limited in their means to do so. Controlled experimentation had not been invented, yet. This is a problem with many traditional medicines. It is the tradition that matters and less so the results.
Reminds me of Hand Cheese (Handkäse), a regional specialty popular around the Frankfurt area. It's delicious, quite pungent but with a deep flavor. It gets its name because it was traditionally formed by hand (from Quark, a harmless dairy product similar to cottage cheese). Around these parts one can expect clean hands as well, so there really is nothing untoward about the final product -- except perhaps for its name. Give it a try if you happen to be passing through!
With all due respect for julian37, I suggest caution. I might amend "quite pungent" to "good God what the hell" and "deep flavor" to "tastes like it smells."
Perhaps I am betraying my American lack of culinary flexibility. Perhaps julian37 is just joshing us.
I very much miss living in Frankfurt, a wonderful city. However, I suspect that the local practice of recommending Handkäse to visitors is an inside joke and a harmless and amusing example of German humor.
From a quick google ‘Raclette’s most distinguishing feature is its aroma, which might charitably be described as pungent. (Actually, it smells like something left to rot for a few months in a gym locker filled with dirty sweat clothes.)’
There is a non-obscure fine chinese tea called "old duck shit" or something like that; as it's a drink, probably that's the fragrance they are referencing.
Single Tree Wulong | Don Cong | tea is originated from the Guandong Province of China. The lighter oxidation and lesser roast are characterized for this type of Wulong. The wide variety of taste and aromas is a signature of the Don Cong tea, from the pleasant sweetness of Mi Lan Xiang to the strong flavor of tobacco leaves of the Ba Ye Dan Cong; Wulong tea is an uplifting, good morning-tea that will boost your creativity.
disclaimer, I have no affiliation but have been to that shop, very high quality, had the tea, highly recommend. You should probably go there in person if you can, there are many fussy steps to brewing it right, temperature of water, moistening timing, etc.
I got a sample with a tea order recently, and thought 'duck shit' was an amusing name for a tea. didn't really imagine that it was a civet situation. was a pretty generic oolong.
There's a large coffee chain in Guangzhou called '猫屎咖啡', which literally translates to 'cat shit coffee': http://www.kafelaku.com.cn/
They offer Kopi luwak coffee as a specialty, which is supposed to be collected from the feces of Civets that ate coffee cherries, so the name is accurate but still more direct than I would have expected.
The reviewer wasn't a fan of the drink by itself, but one of the commenters notes that it's actually pretty good when eaten with the corresponding meal. It's made me wonder about the untapped potential of various food/soda combos, not unlike wine and cheese.
The tea from a region in Fujian has a great flavor that is referred to as "duck-feces fragrance". When people ask about the soil, the farmers say they use duck feces to deter others from stealing their soil.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 174 ms ] threadIt's an older version of "under" I guess. The weird thing is that the word "substance" has such a similar looking construction, because it literally means that which stands beneath.
English in general uses a lot of seemingly random direction words in phrases, like "party down", "man up", "buckle up", etc.
Which comes to English from Old English and its Germanic origins. 'Unter' and 'Standen' are the Germanic equivalents today, signifying the original intent, to stand together on something.
'Comprehend' from the Normans' French (and Latin before that) is much easier to grok für Ausländer in this case.
It can still mean borrow.
"fag" obviously has different meanings, but the phrase just wouldn't parse for most Americans.
I'll disagree about it being rare; I hear the phrase at least a few times per week (I work in a place where people frequently ask other people for rides, so perhaps that's relevant)
The other day I realized I hadn't eaten basic tier fast food in 15 years. That could be anecdotal evidence for some general trend ("fast casual! increasing consumer health consciousness!"), or it could just be me.
I'd be willing to bet a totally irresponsible amount of money that if I went out to bars in Atlanta tonight, I would hear someone say "bum a cigarette" before closing time rolled around.
"I was broke, so I bummed around Oklahoma for a few weeks..."
Kerouac's On The Road might be a good example.
But 99% of the time I hear "bum a ride" or "bum a smoke" and I have never heard a third (verb) meaning in America.
At least you've lived around. One of the things that amazed me when I first came to and was traveling the US is seeing Americans in one state say some phrase, only to go to another state and have those Americans claim it was never said in America.
People really like to absolutely generalize based o their ow necessarily limited experiences.
I didn't intend my comment to mean it doesn't exist, more that if it does, it's probably a very regional thing, based on not having heard it in the various cities I've lived in.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/verbification
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_(word_formation)#Ve...
and also, though it is attributed to UK
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bum
https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/01/25
In British English, the phrase means "have you got a cigarette (fag) you'd be willing to give me for free (bum)?"
I think we just usually learn it early enough that we don't tend to think much about what the words mean individually. More like it's one word that just means the meat product, or same product on a bun.
It's questionable as to whether it's nice or not.
Maybe it's more of an acquired taste, but I don't find it particularly refreshing or good, and only drink it for the nostalgia (which is really just nostalgia of family vacations - I only lived in Scotland as a toddler). I don't drink a ton of Coke (depending on year, Coke and Irn Bru alternate top soda sales in Scotland) either, but on a very hot day, after a long bike ride or run, a small Coke hits the spot.
It's in the same neighborhood as Irn Bru.
I'd say it's more of a light energy drink and more similar to Tizer and other "made up flavour " carbonated drinks.
- Toad in the hole
- bangers and mash
- bubble and squeak
And that’s before we even move on to Cockney rhyming slang nor other of the more extreme colloquials.
> - Toad in the hole
Sausages in batter. Not sure where the sausage==toad equivalence comes from - its not used anywhere else.
> - bangers and mash
Sausages with mashed potato. This one has the most meaningful name, assuming you know that bangers == sausages (which is a common equivalence).
> - bubble and squeak
Left-over potatoes and other veg, fried up. Again, this term is only used in this context.
All of these are classic Brit cuisine.
)
Why would a man eat a shark? Shouldn't it be the other way around?
Like the popular song by Hall & Oates, she's a man-eater.
"Sperm whale" always sounds a bit funny to me, but I don't know whether native speakers find it funny, too.
"You can't have your cake and eat it, too." I understand the underlying logic, but it always seems a bit weird, since 1). you can eat half a cake; 2) if you don't eat a cake, you will no longer have a cake in a few days anyway; 3) it's a very long phrase for a short idea; and 4) the fact that "have" can also mean "eat".
"blow job": seems to be the opposite of what the job entails.
"first off": Why the "off"?
"ladyfinger": I understand the finger part, but "lady" finger? A bit cannibalistic, isn't it?
* "You can't have your cake and eat it, too": might be better phrased as "can't eat your cake and have it, too". The idiom is stuck in its given form, however.
* blow job: I have read this etymologically arose from "below job". there are occasional humorous anecdotes related to native speakers misunderstanding it as well
* first off: never really thought about this before. I would suppose it comes from metaphorically popping the first of many arguments off of the speakers mental list.
* ladyfinger: it meant long like fingers, the lady part meant to indicate slender or delicate. there was a plant called ladyfingers as well
Also "could care less" actually means "couldn't care less" which is just as easy to say so why make the change? And how?
We can use Latin words like feces, excrement, evacuation, manure, bowel movement ... Or, good old Germanic roots: poop, shit.
It carried through Greek and Roman healing practices and was common in medieval European healing, as well.
https://homecookedharvest.com/duck-fart-shot/
Perhaps I am betraying my American lack of culinary flexibility. Perhaps julian37 is just joshing us.
I very much miss living in Frankfurt, a wonderful city. However, I suspect that the local practice of recommending Handkäse to visitors is an inside joke and a harmless and amusing example of German humor.
From a quick google ‘Raclette’s most distinguishing feature is its aroma, which might charitably be described as pungent. (Actually, it smells like something left to rot for a few months in a gym locker filled with dirty sweat clothes.)’
brb, will google... here you go
https://www.floating-mountain.com/
https://www.floating-mountain.com/tea-shop-online
Dan Cong Ya Shi Xiang | Single Tree Duck Shit
Lao Ya Shi Xiang | Old Tree Duck Shit
Single Tree Wulong | Don Cong | tea is originated from the Guandong Province of China. The lighter oxidation and lesser roast are characterized for this type of Wulong. The wide variety of taste and aromas is a signature of the Don Cong tea, from the pleasant sweetness of Mi Lan Xiang to the strong flavor of tobacco leaves of the Ba Ye Dan Cong; Wulong tea is an uplifting, good morning-tea that will boost your creativity.
disclaimer, I have no affiliation but have been to that shop, very high quality, had the tea, highly recommend. You should probably go there in person if you can, there are many fussy steps to brewing it right, temperature of water, moistening timing, etc.
if the headline asks a question, don't read the article, answer all the things you know! :)
They offer Kopi luwak coffee as a specialty, which is supposed to be collected from the feces of Civets that ate coffee cherries, so the name is accurate but still more direct than I would have expected.
The reviewer wasn't a fan of the drink by itself, but one of the commenters notes that it's actually pretty good when eaten with the corresponding meal. It's made me wonder about the untapped potential of various food/soda combos, not unlike wine and cheese.
It just tasted like a normal ice lemon tea with oolong.