|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Good thought-provoker, bel! Meanwhile, what is "green onion" in French?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 508
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 508 |
Les hosties de calices de tabernacles.
Sounds more ecclesiastical than blue, belM. Is there a colloquial, blush-producing translation? Just asking...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475 |
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?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
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! 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
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
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 79
journeyman
|
|
journeyman
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 79 |
In reply to:
Les hosties de calices de tabernacles.
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!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
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.)
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 36
newbie
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
"had the radish"-?? Why on earth?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
formerly known as etaoin...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
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...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
|
|
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?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
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!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 36
newbie
|
|
newbie
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 36 |
In reply to:
a course, that's them up there in the Kingdom. we'd never say anything like that down here in civilized Central Vermont...
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.
Ron.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 36
newbie
|
|
newbie
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 36 |
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.
Ron.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
Harrumphbut I used all them smileys and winks!! great poem, Ron.
formerly known as etaoin...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 555
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 555 |
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
What do you call the men who patrol the meters? Or don't you have 'em?
You put radishes in salads. Hmmm.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
What do you call the men
meter readers
radishes in salads
where else do you use them? perhaps a garnish, I suppose...
formerly known as etaoin...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
radishes in saladswhere 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
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
adding radishesoften sliced, or at least cut in half, unless they're little bitty ones...
formerly known as etaoin...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
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
Bingley
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636 |
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...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
I seem to remember a couple of teen-age girls in The World of Henry Orient who expressed a desire to be radished by the Peter Sellers title character.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
You are right about the word, Faldage. I LOVED that movie when I saw it--I was about the same age as the girls in it--, so much so that not too long after we got a VCR I got the video store to special-order it for me. And I still like it. They are pretending to be war nurses, not wanting to be discovered for fear of being "radished". Utter innocence, wonderfully portrayed.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 477
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 477 |
What do you call the men who patrol the meters?
In Oz, they're called Brown Bombers. When they changed their uniforms, they just got re-named to Blue Bombers. Not sure why the "bombers" bit though.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 475
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 475 |
In town there is a huge nightclub called The Ritz, it is aged and scuzzy in the extreme. Every one who grew up in Manchester who has ever been to a nightclub went there first. This is due to it's relaxed door and everything a pound pricing policy (I think the average age is about fifteen). This has resulted in ritzy meaning not posh, but grim, in a sticky-underfoot-teenage-bedroom-stinks-of-lynx type way.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467 |
In 1986 I vacationed on the Gold Coast, in Australia, in a delightful city called Surfers Paradise. (no apostrophe, if I remember correctly.)
The downtown merchants association has hired tall slim blonde ladies (of whom Australia had FAR more than their fair share I might add), dressed them in gold lame (with that funny little mark over the e) bikinis,and paid them to go around putting money into parking meters so tourists shopping downtown would not be inconvenienced by a ticket. IMy firends who live there had told me about them, but I didn't believe it until I actually saw them.
Darryl's nephew, about 18 at the time we visited, was son entranced by one of these ladies that he fell off a roof and broke his arm.
Somewhere I have a postcard showing two of these winsome lasses caressing a parking meter, and I think they were just called meter maids.
TEd
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
Down-town Montréal (note the e with the funny little mark ) merchants tried that for a while but with a clown. The clown got ticketed for hindering justice. Handing out parking tickets is a money-making scheme for the city and they are not shy to admit it - and to take steps to protect it. They say the money goes to keep the streets clean. They have to get the money somewhere so I guess it's alright - but it does suck to get a ticket. Ah, the wishy-washyness of life.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636 |
Same here, Gin. My daughter once was threatened with arrest for doing the same thing in Kalamazoo. She was running just ahead of the parking Nazis
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,334
Members9,182
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
1 members (1 invisible),
723
guests, and
1
robot. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
