I'm fascinated by today's citation: how does one "secure a contestant's seat"? Is this a phrase in common usage? And why is this a prime pursuit of trivia buffs? Is it, perhaps, a reference to some adhesive (like "Tarzan's Grip" here in Australia)? Do tell, please.
I think it's just a reference to the latest American TV craze, "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?". Each new player in this most trivial of all trivia games is chosen from a pool of ten (seated in a bunch off on the side of the stage) through the stratagem of being the quickest to answer one (1) question. So just to qualify for this 1 in ten opportunity, you have to "secure a contestant's seat".
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The phrase used here from the same programme is taking over the everyday vocabulary here. Here's an example from my daughter's school, only last week.
Usual school scene - teacher notices boy staring blankly into space. She asks him if he knows the answer to her last question. Realising that he hasn't heard the question he looks to his friends for a clue. He gets no help. Panic. Facing his desperate situation he thinks hard. A smile crosses his face as he asks the inevitable question ...
(what happened next?
- answers by e-mail to this site)
"...can I use a life line ????"
More likely "can I phone a friend?" and does he then get his mobile phone out.
Talking of Australian adhesives do you still have a brand of sticky tape called Durux?
I guess you mean Durex, Philip, and yes, it still exists and remains something of a problem for OzPersons shopping in the UK.
rgds, lusy
'Durux' what a silly typo or is my unconscious to embarrassed to ask for condoms. There's a brand of paint called Dulux which features an old english sheep dog in it's adverts (has done for decades) these are now referred to as durex dogs in my family since an unfortunate slip by my sister many years ago.
this thread begs two questions (sorry, couldn't help myself :)
1) Oz? Australia? Old Zealand?? some *other imaginary place?!
2) this Durex stuff, is it anything like 'Duct tape'?
thanks, in advance
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dogtide
Good try - nearly right but you stop at only £250,000.
Philip
Spot on - take the £1,000,000!
tsu (is the diminutive OK?)
Oz is definitely Australia. I imagine it comes from Aussie to Ozzie to Oz but willing to be corrected by a real native. There was a magazine called "Oz" in the sixties (or was it seventies) but I don't think there was a connection.
I've never seen the Australian Durex but I gather it's a transparent cellophane type tape like Sellotape in the UK. In the UK Durex is a brand of condoms made by the London Rubber Company (I kid you not. Rubber is not a slang british term for condoms.)
>tsu (is the diminutive OK?)
let's see... the supreme universal... yeah, that works for me. besides wm® is prolly too formal. (but we digress :)
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Regarding Philip's last posting -
hence the problem British children have when they ask an American child if they can borrow a rubber (eraser).
> but we digress :)
so what's new :)
Very interesting thread, this. To tidy up a little loose end for me, tsuwm, I think your "duct tape" is the same as the Oz (and presumably UK) "gaffer tape". Can you confirm this?
Re: <BTW, got any hunches as you approach the century mark?>
Surely the most likely promotion for a journeyman is "master". If this is so I hope you would not consider it a demotion!
Rgds, lusy
Some people, especially in Europe, use the term "gaffer's tape" in reference to duct tape. This use is incorrect. Gaffer's tape is, in fact, a completely different adhesive. It is more clothlike, usually black (though sometimes white), and its sticky stuff melts easily. In general, gaffer's tape is evil. [It would be just like the Brits to have a completely different name for duct tape (i.e., gaffer tape) to completely confuse both products. ed.]
BTW, germaine to this thread, duct tape could certainly be used for securing contestants' seats.
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no, wouldn't consider this a demotion... merely exiguous recognition.
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Personally I think gaffer tape is wonderful. It's easy to tear pieces from the role and it can be removed with some ease. These properties make it a great favourite with musicians and theatres for temporary holding of microphone leads &c. in place. However, I don't know the origin of it's name. I know gaffer is a term for a leader of a group of workers and particularly in modern use a chief electrician and I suppose this is where the term comes from with regards to the tape. But where does gaffer originate and what is it's relation to gaff.
MWC:
Etymology: alteration of godfather
Date: 1575
1 : an old man -- compare GAMMER
2 British a : FOREMAN, OVERSEER
b : EMPLOYER
3 : a head glassblower
4 : a lighting electrician on a motion-picture or television set
probably unrelated to gaff
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Shorter Oxford gives 'gaff' as any public place of amusement … popular theatre, a music hall (mid C18 -- and also known as 'penny gaffs') so there may be a link with the entertainment industry -- perhaps the 'gaffer' (foreman) was in charge of the tape.
P L Fermor: Peasant girls, bewildered gaffers with tangled beards [punctuation is correct!]
This is the kind of gaffer tape I have always used in the theatre - it is a bit cloth-like and tears easily - good for holding coils of LX stuff, comes off easily when you need to uncoil them. I've not heard of duct tape - is it the same stuff that I would call insulation tape? - usually in thin rolls, you can use it when joining wires together, presumably because it has good insulating properties.
Funny for a nation which is so sure about "goat cheese" to use "gaffer's tape" when we say "gaffer tape" - there just ain't no logic with some folks!
A little trivia relating to the tv programme.
I hear that the insurers of the American version were thinking of pulling the plug on it as they thought the questions were too simple. Didn't someone win $1,000,000 on a really easy question???
My US friend thought the UK version (unlike most of our television which she finds quite soporific) was much better - Chris Tarrant is very genuine - he makes the programme spin out to it's required length by offering contestants plenty of opportunities to change their mind but he does really appear to want them to win. No-one has won £1,000,000 yet, so it looks as if he's keeping the insurers happy.
The site has been accessed 32491 times
Sad!
The host of this program in Australia is a guy with his thumb in many, many, MANY different media and television pies. He stretches out telling contestant whether they are right or not to such an extent that it becomes truly painful. I don't think he cares if they win or not, because he is still getting paid... alot!
>The site has been accessed 32491 times
I'm a little surprised it's that low -- the Red Green Show is arguably Canada's most popular current TV export.
keep your stick on the ice...
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Painful is praising this guy up.
One thought I have about WWTBAM is why do they "ask the audience" or "phone a friend" and then ignore their advice? Seems like a waste of a lifeline to me...
Having said that, I didn't know that The Spanish Riding School was in Vienna...
...and another thing: the Aussie host has an annoying pronunciation difficulty where he pronounces the double L as a W... "miwionnaire". It drives me absolutely batty. It's an Australian thing, I think, and also a South Australian accent where they do it as a matter of course.
Kinda like some other Aussies who say "shtreet" for "street" or, worse, "Aushtraya" (3 syllables)for "Australia" (4 syllables).
I will put my soapbox away now...
miwionnaire - we've got a few of those too, I didn't realise that it was South Australian, I like to collect accents.
> "shtreet" for "street" or, worse, "Aushtraya" (3 syllables)for "Australia" (4 syllables)
I sound a bit the same after too many tinnies (spelling?)
(could progress to Ashtray-a over time (or is Austria already pronnounced that way?)
I stumbled across this whilst cleaning out my mailbox; it relates to Red Green and duct tape and deconstructionism...
<g>
Tonight, in the Handyman's corner, Red showed us how to fix a toaster (he
sprayed WD-40 into it in massive quantities) and how to install air
conditioning in the van (it was a household window AC that he found in
front of someone's house - he first made a step-up transformer out of a
tire rim and then duct-taped the AC into the passenger side window).
In the "male room" segment he answered a letter which
questioned why there were never any women on the show: "They've all
said no so far."
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Is it a bit like "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"?
It sounds worth emigrating to Canada for - I'll bear it in mind.
We have "Ground Force" and "Changing Rooms" but they don't sound quite so deep.
<A HREF="http://www.bbc.co.uk/changingrooms/" target="_new">http://www.bbc.co.uk/changingrooms/</A>
<A HREF="http://www.bbc.co.uk/groundforce/index.shtml" target="_new">http://www.bbc.co.uk/groundforce/index.shtml</A>
http://www.bbc.co.uk/groundforce/index.shtml
On the other hand, does Red Green have the redoubtable Charlie Dimmock on his show? I find it amazing that we have become almost post-PC in the UK, with the lad/ladette culture (as exemplified by FHM, Maxim and the like), that 'Ground Force' has become a mainstream success because of her propensity for going bra-less! (Is there a more euphonious word to refer to this phenomenon of 'sisters doing it for themselves'?)
cheer
the sunshine warrior
'post-PC'ness was inevitable. PC has taken on a
very pejorative sense here. This happens to any cause which becomes strident, but stridency is required to gain notice in the press -- it's a vicious circle.
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Shanks - Don't we just love her.
We'll have to swap Duct Tape and Ground Force Videos with twu to see which has the most to say to the modern world.
I think my problem in being understood is that I'm pretty "post everything", I think I'm getting more existential than anything - certainly to sleepy to make it as a real ladette - all that drinking and nightclubs!
Tinnies is correct. There was a time, during the 70s, when they were also called "tubes" (or to use the phonetic spelling - "choobs"), during the time of a film about an ocker Aussie on safari in London called "The Adventures of Barry Mackenzie" starring Barry Croker (for the UK readers he was the singer of the original "Neighbours" TV show theme!). Not quite the advertisement for our country that I'd endorse, but an exposé of the chundering (under)belly of Aus culture.
BTW the collective noun for a carton of 24, or more recently 30, tinnies is a "slab"; as in "Give us a slab of VB, mate". We also have beer in 375ml (13 oz for the Americans) bottles called stubbies, and 750ml bottles which are referred to as longnecks. I had a friend who could drink a case (12) of longnecks and a half-bottle of Southern Comfort before dinner - an iron constitution (and a spongey liver).
Thanks for the info about stubbies, slabs and longnecks - I'll try to drop them into conversation. I have fond memories of many tubes of Fosters.
Isn't there some saying that you can tell what is important about a culture by the number of words that it allocates to certain topics.
The Inuit hold the record for the number of words for snow (soft, slightly wet snow; firm but not quite frozen snow ...)
I wonder what item or concept would claim the record number of words in Australia?
I don't know about Australia but the long list of terms and euphemisms for the male sexual organ says a lot about how male centered the UK is.