Kamikaze : (Montréal, Canada) Small bulldozer used to clear snow off sidewalks. Called Kamikaze because the vehicle barrels down the sidewalk at speeds nearing 60mph, seemingly on a mission to hit anything not fast enough to get out of its way.

I was talking to someone today and she mentioned that she the sidewalks were not being cleared-off as well as last winter and that she hadn’t seen a single kamikaze on her street since December.

I knew exactly what she meant since this is a common term in Montréal, however, I’m well aware that anywhere else in the world, kamikazes were Asian suicide pilots.

Does anybody have examples of that type. Words that mean one thing to the world in general but have a completely unrelated, and un-guessable meaning in your region/area?

Another example in Montréal is Green Onion. Those are the guys that hand out parking tickets. They got the name “Green Onion” because they had a green uniform and, well, they stink. At least you think it stinks when you get a ticket . The uniforms changed a few years ago (the government hoped it would stop the name-calling by making them blue) but they are still called Green Onions.

Good thought-provoker, bel! Meanwhile, what is "green onion" in French?

Les hosties de calices de tabernacles.

I will NOT translate that for you as you shall turn beet red in embarrassement.

In comic books it would appear something like this !!*&%$$!#!@))! with little skulls appearing hear and there.

what is "green onion" in French L'oignon vert, literally. I don't know if there is a separate term for what we mean by green onion. Shallot is échalote.

Les hosties de calices de tabernacles.

Sounds more ecclesiastical than blue, belM. Is there a colloquial, blush-producing translation? Just asking...

A bit of trivia. Kamikaze origilly referred to a typhoon
that destroy Mongol fleet trying to invade Japan in 1281.
A divine wind.
It seems that profanity loses much in translation.

Jokes and swearing lose a lot in translation. But I agree, none of the words in and of themselves is blue. Is it New World French or Old World?

I recall belM telling me (us?) once that the above is a very naughty word in Canadian French. I forget why, though.

And Jackie, thanks for the "real" translation!

Oooo, verrry bad in French Québec. You're right though, swearing does not translate well into other languages. Essentially, these are religious things, the host, the tabernacle and the chalice, but they are used as angry swear words. You have the same thing in English with Jesus Christ. It is a highly regligious name but, used in anger and said with vehemence it is a swear word.

I was teasing though about what we French call the green onions. In French we don't really have a nic-name for them but the usual reaction to seeing them near your car IS swearing

In reply to:

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Les hosties de calices de tabernacles.

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At the end of her album "Les Lettres Rouges" recorded live in Paris, Lynda Lemay treats the audience to a humorous "petit cours de Québécois" - a lesson in Québec slang and dialect words, and she points out that if you want to be more polite, you distort the taboo words; thus "tabarnic", "ostifie", "caliboire", &c. Plenty more possible translations for your "green onions": colons, habitants, twits, raisins, and others that I won't risk typing because I will undoubtedly mangle the spelling!

NYC 's 'local' vocabulary includes the terms: IRT, IND, and BMT these initals are the 'names' of the long defunct companies that once owned various parts of the NYC transit system. (originally there were three private, competing companies.. but NYC has owned all three since before WWII)

there is almost no remnant of reference to them in the subway system, but many NYers still use them to define subway lines.. some out of towners/transplanted NYers even know for were they originated. tourist name lines by the colors used on new subway maps.. ('is this were i can catch the RED line?--(Sure, the IRT No1 stops over on that platform.)

all three lines are different.. (NYC has 3, count'em, 3 sets of rolling stock for the subways (and don't even mention the new 'Monorail to JFK-an other set of rolling stock!)) so you can 'learn the lines' by just looking at the subway cars. (IRT, cars are short (not as much headroom), wide and long) IND cars are High (great for basketball players)medium and narrow. BMT cars are the worst.. low, short and narrow.)

I don't know much about green onions, but here on Vermont's Canadian border, it's common to say that something badly worn, nearly used up, or otherwise approaching its natural end has had the radish.



Ron.

"had the radish"-?? Why on earth?

a course, that's them up there in the Kingdom. we'd never say anything like that down here in civilized Central Vermont...

>>Lynda Lemay

Wow, Hib, it's so suprising to hear someone speak about a Québec artist. See now, with that mini-course, you'd fit right in.

>>here in civilized Central Vermont
Oooooooooo, your in trouble now Eta !! Run...

I would have though the meter maids (blimey, there's an example of an "in mine not yours" term, I think) would be called "onions" because they make you cry, and not because they stink.

wwh: So, a Kamikaze of one kind or another sank the Mongol and then the U.S. Pacific fleet. Is there a connection?

Meter maid is also used in the UK (didn't it appear in a Beatle song? Rita the Meter Maid or summat like that?).

As for kamikaze, the WWII fighting force was named after the wind that protected Japan from the Mongols.

BTW the Mongols also tried to invade Java at about the same time (may even have been the same year) with similar lack of success.

Bingley

meter maid

It’ s an interesting sidelight on the process of language osmosis in modern times that I too had thought this an English usage dating from the early sixties. But no, it’s another familiar part of my lexicon apparently soaked up from my brethren over the pond…!


meter maid orig. U.S.
1957 in Amer. Speech (1961) XXXVI. 282 Surveys conducted in cities using ‘meter maids’ have found that their meter revenue increased. 1958 Britannica Bk. of Year 519/2 Meter maid,+a woman police official with the task of patrolling metered parking-sites and reporting parking offences. 1968 Harper's Mag. Feb. 41 A Meter Maid was soon watching me censoriously. 1970 S. Ellin Man from Nowhere xxx. 150 Some meter maid found him when she looked in the car where it was parked uptown. 1970 Sunday Times 3 May 28/7 Why do meter maids+never look glamorous at all?

OED2


and a sidelight on the French connection from Anu's feedback emails:

With typical Gallic humor, meter maids (as we call them) were first known as "aubergines", which means "eggplants", because their uniforms were purple. The name stuck, so much so that while living in France (3 years) I never learned the official word for meter maid. It was never used. Eventually, the government found the appellation "aubergines" sufficiently embarrassing that they changed the color to blue; whereupon the French immediately changed the name to "Gitanes", the name of a brand of cigarettes which come in a box the same shade of blue as the new uniform.

http://www.wordsmith.org/awad/awadmail36.html

This site http://www.beatles-discography.com/index.html has Lovely Rita Meter Maid recorded in Feb. 1967.

Bingley

NYC meter maids used to wear brown uniforms, and were called brownies.. they were often assaulted too, by unhappy motorist... now they wear identical uniforms to police officers, (with different 'insignia'), and they don't carry guns. assault have dropped signifigently.

they are horrid! one morning, as 9:30 approched,(OK, so it was 9:29) i got in my car to move it.
a meter maid in a patrol car came up and parked behind me, and the driver made a 'show' of look at his wrist watch. My seatbelt was mangled and it took a few seconds to get it straight.. by now the patrol car is inches from my bumper.. i really feet harrassed. Obviously, i was about to pull out. As soon as i did, the car raced down the street (in the parking lane, to 1 remaining car, and was out of the patrol car, writing a ticket, before the light had changed, i left the area. the guy was itching to write a ticket!

In reply to:

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a course, that's them up there in the Kingdom. we'd never say anything like that down here in civilized Central Vermont...

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Harrumph....

Here's something I wrote recently on the very same subject:

Sugar On Snow

Cynthia tells me about how
in trendy Stowe in April
the sugarhouses open up
their doors, invite the public
to sugar-on-snow, a local
favorite, with a pickle on the
side to temper the sweetness,
and home-made doughnuts.
The locals, she says, break out
their fiddles and their mandolins
and everybody has a little dance.
Over in the Northeast Kingdom,
where I live, I tell her, we like
to do things differently. We have
our sugar on our snow, a pickle
and a home-made doughnut, too,
but then we crank up the boom-box
and pass around the whiskey jug.





Ron.

I'm guessing it's because the radish, being often the smallest (& possibly least favored) part of the salad is often all that remains in the bowl after the feast; the bitter end, sort of.

As to just how regional the expression may be, I've heard mixed reports.

Ron.

Harrumph

but I used all them smileys and winks!!

great poem, Ron.

uh-oh!... the circley R police is gonna get the two of you..* now, you'd better *really run!

Green Onions took me straight to Booker T.

What do you call the men who patrol the meters? Or don't you have 'em?

You put radishes in salads. Hmmm.

What do you call the men
meter readers
radishes in salads
where else do you use them? perhaps a garnish, I suppose...

radishes in salads
where else do you use them? perhaps a garnish, I suppose...

We eat them just like that, sometimes, you dip 'em in salt. I've never seen radishes in a salad, or thought of putting them in there...which is odd for me cause I'm a big "assorted" salad fan. The usual, everyday salad will include:

iceberg lettuce
chopped spinach
sliced challots including the green shoot
garlic chips
chopped parsley
tiny apple cubes
green or red pepper cubes
grated carrots
tiny cubes of ham
grated cheddar cheese (mild orange or very strong white, depending on the mood)
Salt & pepper

Tomorrow, I'm adding radishes

adding radishes

often sliced, or at least cut in half, unless they're little bitty ones...

I'm with belM, on this one. Back home, we just ate radishes as radishes. I have seen them in salads, but it's not the normal way to eat them to me.

Bingley

Next time you make a potato salad, don't forget to add radishes

Here in Kalamazoo, we call our parking police the "Parking Nazis". There was this one guy, I haven't seen him in a while, you could just tell he wished he could carry a gun. He was the worst of the Parking Nazis. I heard that he had tested to be a policeman but had failed the psych test...

Radishes:

Sliced thin, covered with vinegar, salt and pepper.

Here's a definition of 'radish' from urbandictionary.com with one of the words censored by me to protect the innocent:

Term usually used in Panama City Beach, Florida, at Spring Break, meaning "really awfully drunk in a shi**y hotel." This term was coined by a large group of spring breakers from south Alabama and the "Radish phenomenon" has begun to spread rapidly.