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Carpal Tunnel
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Max sez: "If this sounds like a desirable outcome, please feel free to facilitate it, by sodding off."His is an expression nowhere used in the Colonies, save by expat Brits who overestimate the linguistic sophistication of USAninians. For definitions of sod, sod about, sod around, sod-all, sodding, sod it, sod off, sod this for a game of soldiers, sod this for a lark and sod you, see: http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/s.htm
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Pooh-Bah
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>>His is an expression nowhere used in the Colonies, save by expat Brits who overestimate the linguistic sophistication of USAninians.<<
Beg to differ. I believe the linguistic sophistication of most USAnians is probably sufficient to let them to construe the meaning of "sod off" on first hearing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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If we do understand the meaning of "sod off," it is in the same way that we understand a Brit using the word "bugger", which we do not use here, either. It all seems rather quaint.
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Carpal Tunnel
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In Robert Harris' Enigma one of the characters invokes "Sod's Law," which from context means that what everyone has been waiting for will happen immediately after those waiting to respond have given up waiting and have been sent away. It's the transPondian version of Murphy's Law, I gather ("If anything can go wrong, it will.").
PS. He was right, of course; that's exactly how it unfolded, and Sod's Law operated precisely on schedule.
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Carpal Tunnel
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In learning to communicate with a chum in Lincolnshire, I bumped into his use of the phrase Sod's Law to mean quite precisely what I (and most all USAninans) mean when we say Murphy's Law. This adds a tiny bit of evidence to my argument that sod is not spoken here.
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Carpal Tunnel
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sod is not spoken here. What do you call matty grassy ground cover then? 
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Carpal Tunnel
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What do you call matty grassy ground cover then?
turf?
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Carpal Tunnel
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In reply to:
His is an expression nowhere used in the Colonies
Well, it's used plenty in this colony and the one next door. Both of which actually were "Colonies" of Britannia, unlike the vast majority of "those united states".
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Max is, as always, quite right. The greater portion of what is now the United States was colonized by the French, the Spanish, the Russians, the Dutch, and probably two or three others that slip my memory at the moment. None of them said "sod", either.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Given its etymology, you might want to reconsider your certainty that the Dutch (who gave us the word) didn't say "sod".
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And here I thought that sod derived from sodomy which derived from the Hebrew s'dom via the Latin peccatum Sodomiticum. Who knew that Sodom and Gomorrah were small towns in Holland!?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Since it's slightly earthy language, I turfed out the Biblical origin and went with the dirty one. "Ambiguity - the Devil's volleyball".
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Carpal Tunnel
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"Ah, ambiguity... the devil's volleyball!" - Comedian Emo Philips
"Well done, Max." -- Comedian Father Steve
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though I call strips of commercially grown grass used to re-turf a lawn sod, it is also a term I have used to descibe an overhanging belly. "nice sod."
formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Where'd you come up with that one, Father Steve? (Good thing in my case that you didn't reverse the first i and a.)
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In reply to:
an expression nowhere used in the Colonies, save by expat Brits who overestimate the linguistic sophistication of USAninians.
I think the circumstances in which the various expressions are generally used preclude a nice estimate of one's audience's degree of linguistic sophistication.
Bingley
Bingley
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the circumstances in which the various expressions are generally used preclude a nice estimate Is that what you actually meant? I should have thought the circs might more likely preclude the audience being estimated as nice, never mind its linguistic sophistication.
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somewhere in there (and I'm no longer sure where) I thought I detected a play on the enantiodromia of the word nice.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yup. Shall we put Jackie out of her misery, or make her LIU?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Oh...I, uh, had a reason for making that post that had nothing whatsoever to do with any kind of meaning...of anything. 
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Carpal Tunnel
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> word nice.
dunno bout that but I reckon J was playing an enantiodromic game with the word pure!
wicked girl, what's happened to our gutter police?! :)
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Carpal Tunnel
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>enantiodromic game with the word pure
what's the matter with *me today -- yours seems to be the first usage of the word pure (in this thread)?
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Carpal Tunnel
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This is all Bingley's fault! He tried to be Mr. Nice Guy, and created a pure mystery...
Looking back at the opening post, I suppose I could say, "Sod him", but that might be more of an insult than I intend it to be. For you Brit-speakers, where on the scale of insults does that one fall, please? Say one being not offensive at all, and ten being the ultimate outrage.
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Pooh-Bah
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Bing was very clear and witty.
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