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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
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.)
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Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 36
newbie
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newbie
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 36 |
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.
Ron.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
"had the radish"-?? Why on earth?
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
formerly known as etaoin...
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
>>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...
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
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?
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
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
Bingley
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
meter maidIt’ 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
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
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!
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