write me call me - Wordsmith.org

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#75628 - 07/11/02 04:54 AM Re: write me call me
FishonaBike veteran Registered: 10/11/00 Posts: 1346 Loc: Sussex, England	write a letter to me fax the results to me D'oh! They get bollixed around Here's an interesting (??) thing, MG - Brits would say "bollocksed [sic, I think] up" or (more frequently) "ballsed up". Occasionally "bollocksed/ballsed about". But I've never heard "bollocksed around". I was thinking we'd maybe say "buggered around", but it's the same story there, I think. Opinions from other Brits? 'Don't let's' - it's a contraction of 'Do not let us' Amazing. I've used "let's" loads of times, but never thought about what the "'s" was short for. Of course I'd have guessed it was short for "us", but that just makes it even more weird. I suspect more people would say "Let's not" than "Don't let's". Which is a contraction of a contraction, come to think of it.
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#75629 - 07/11/02 10:35 PM Re: don't let's
slithy toves enthusiast Registered: 01/29/02 Posts: 320 Loc: Sarasota, Florida, US	In the old Bette Davis flick "Now Voyager," the one where Paul Henried was always lighting two cigarettes and handing one to Bette, her final line was, I believe, "Oh, don't let's ask for the moon. We've already got the stars." Everyone loved hearing her say stuff like that, even though no one in the US audience would ever say it that way. Meanwhile, she taught us kids how glamorous it could be to take huge drags on a king-size filter-tip.
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#75630 - 07/12/02 04:19 AM Re: don't let's
FishonaBike veteran Registered: 10/11/00 Posts: 1346 Loc: Sussex, England	Everyone loved hearing her say stuff like that, even though no one in the US audience would ever say it that way Yes, slithy. Maybe when Now Voyager came out people in England would actually have said "don't let's", but it sounds quite old fashioned - albeit quaintly upper-crust - these days. The phrase has a touch of public schoolgirl about it somehow, which has (naturally) led to its occasional abuse by a certain type of older Englishwoman. Cue that wonderful phrase "Mutton dressed as lamb".
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