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#35898 07/27/2001 11:16 AM
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I know what Yorks, Lancs and Geordie refer to, but what's/where's "Scouse"?


#35899 07/27/2001 11:57 AM
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I know what Yorks, Lancs and Geordie refer to, but what's/where's "Scouse"?

Scouse, of Liverpool, the Liverpudlian dialect
Scouser, a Liverpudlian.

A language all of its own, like Euskara

Edit: All mouth and trousers. General throughout UK I think, though I've no idea where it originated. Some sites suggest the meaning arises from the implication that there is nothing useful under the trousers, any bulge is just the cut of the cloth.
Rod


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Thanks, Rod - I had an intuition that the "trousers" bit had sexual implications - much London slang does have!

And "scouse" AnnaS - correctly identified as Liverpudlian by m'learned friend - is the name of an old local dish, which was a form of stew containing large anounts of potato and minute amounts of meat (the latter was optional in times of extreme poverty) which was ubiquitous in Liverpool in the late C18 and throughout the C19. The name comes from the Scandinavian, "scause" which means (more or less) "stew."


#35901 07/27/2001 12:24 PM
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Per M-W OnLine "a sailor's dish of stewed or baked meat with vegetables and hardtack"

Heard in an old sea chanty "He gave them a bowl of American hash, and called it Liverpool scouse."

Oder so etwas.


#35902 07/27/2001 12:41 PM
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You're always learning something in here...


#35903 07/27/2001 12:50 PM
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always learning something in here

Some of it is even true.


#35904 07/27/2001 1:20 PM
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is the OED at sea on this one? it claims scouse to be a shortening of lobscouse, which is in turn given as "Of obscure origin".


#35905 07/27/2001 1:51 PM
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When I was working in Norway (ah! many years ago!) "lobscause" was on the menu in the cafeteria most days of the week - it was, indeed a variety of stew, although I totally disremember the ingredients.


#35906 07/27/2001 2:01 PM
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Rhuby totally disremembers the ingredients

And parbly a good thang, too!


#35907 07/27/2001 2:41 PM
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and scouse is still popular as a dish in 'Pool - I think it is particularly in the tradition of the Irish Liverpudlians, of whom one was telling me last week his mum still makes scouse about once a week on average.

btw, an example of the typical Mancunian/Scouse divide came in the form of a lorrydriver's joke, also heard last week: "Why's a scouser like Batman? - 'cause he can niver go out without robin'!"


#35908 07/27/2001 3:17 PM
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Well, 'scouse me for comin' in a mite late, but I didn't know what scouse was, either. Thanks, everybody. Cute joke, Aunt mav--I did get Mancunian. (I think.)
Um--revealing another quirk of my strange mind, when I read the word lobscouse, I was for some reason put in mind of the word gobsmacked...
tsuwm, when you asked whether the OED was "at sea", were you thinking that lobscouse is lobster stew?


#35909 07/27/2001 3:30 PM
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at sea - A sailor's dish consisting of meat stewed with vegetables and ship's biscuit, or the like.


#35910 07/27/2001 3:33 PM
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Man·cu·ni·an (măn-kyū'nē-ən, -kyūn'yən)
adj.
Of or relating to Manchester, England.

n.
A native or inhabitant of Manchester, England.

[From Latin Mancunium, Manchester, of Celtic origin.]


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was interested in checking this to find another (comparatively rare) example of a Celtic word subsumed into Latin and thence into English, so thanks for getting me to look, Jackie!


#35911 07/28/2001 11:38 PM
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This from my Alabama-born grandmother via my somewhat-cosmopolitan mom:

"Honey, I don't care if it harelips the Pope!"


#35912 07/29/2001 10:05 AM
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In my region... I am from central/north jersey... I use the word mad to mean something quite different... I use it to mean very or a lot....

ex.. This food is mad good. OR That's mad different.

It is a regionalism that doesn't seem very distinct... some people use it, others don't... most people that use it outside of my region are black, but I am white... and I am nothing near the type denoted "hood" which is basically a person who dress and style is influence by the rap scene. I like punk and hardcore music... Outside of my area people think that I am strange or a "wannabe" but it is perfectly normal where I am from.

Later




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Just heard from a friend who lives in Maine and am reminded of the use of "wicked"
Examples :
This pie is wicked good."
"His new lobstah boat is wicked fast"
"She is one wicked awesome woman."
"This thread is wicked interestin'."




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This pie is wicked good.

For may father, who grew up in suburban Boston, if the pie was extra special, he would have said "this pie is wicked pissah!" A "wicked pissah" being something really great. I'm guessing "pissah" started out as the Bostonian pronunciation of "pisser", but he says it was spelled with the "ah".


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I'm guessing "pissah" started out as the Bostonian pronunciation of "pisser", but he says it was spelled with the "ah".
....wicked good guess, Flatlander.





#35916 07/30/2001 11:08 PM
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This isn't so much a local verbal expression, but a physical one. If you are a troll, in other words, you live under the bridge(Lower Michigan), you use your hand as a map of Michigan to point to where you live. I ,personally, was born at the base of the pinky-ring fingers(Traverse City)but now live straight downhill from there, just above the wrist(Kalamazoo).

consuelo

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A nice collection of regionalisms was published in the late 1980's, titled "Like We Say Back Back Home". My copy seems to have "migrated", but one I remember was, "She's as loose as a bucket of soot."


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Dear Keiva,
Welcome to the Board ... Delighted to have a new entry into the discussion. Do stay with us.
(book) titled "Like We Say Back Back Home". ....I remember was, "She's as loose as a bucket of soot."
your post reminded me of a few more in similar vein:
"Dumb as a bag full of rocks"
"Sharp as a bowling ball"
That's all I can remember off top of my head. Anyone?
Again, Welcome!!!




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How do I (and many other USA Southerners) pronounce "caramel"?

How do you pronounce it at all when the damned stuff has your jaw glued shut?

How do y'all pronounce "pecan?" As a kid in South Carolina, I heard, "PEE-can." all I hear now is "puh-KAHN." Where I now live, in Oregon, they used to grow filberts. Now they get hazlenuts off the same trees. Go figure...


#35920 08/06/2001 12:29 PM
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One of the books I'm currently reading is the Booker Prizewinning 'English passengers' by Matthew Kneale. Here's a fascinating passage of Manx invective (page 32):

"We called Gawne some names that morning, I can tell you. Scrissag. Scrawl. Sleetchy old scraper. Hibernator. Castletown snot. Fat muck of a fritlag. Big slug, all sitting on his shillings with his little crab of a wife, snurly and high as if they thought they were somebody."

There's a whole heap more in the Glossary as well.


#35921 08/06/2001 1:26 PM
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Scrissag. Scrawl. Sleetchy old scraper. Hibernator. Castletown
snot. Fat muck of a fritlag.


Ahh, so this is the TRUE source of Jabberwocky!


#35922 08/11/2001 12:50 AM
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A southernism used in a seminar this week: "Never slap a man who's chawin' tobacco."


#35923 08/11/2001 11:06 AM
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I've now finished 'English passengers' so, before I return it to the library, I thought I'd share with you from the book's glossary some words describing types of character, all of them viewed with disapproval.

Smooth, slippery people: creeper, click, clinker, cluke, crooil, reezagh, shliawn, slebby, sleetch.

Showy, boastful people: branchy, filosher, feroash, gizzard, grinndher, high, neck, snurly, stinky, uplifted.

Large blundering people: Bleih, bleb, dawd, flid, gaping, glashan, gogaw, gorm, hessian, kinawn, looban, ommidhan, slampy, sthahl, walloper.

Peevish people, especially small scolding women: borragh, coughty, crabby, cretchy, corodank, gob-mooar, gonnag, grangan, grinnder, grouw, huffy, mhinyag, pootchagh, scrissy, scrowl, smullagh, spiddagh, targe.

By the way, it's a fascinating book and a great read!


#35924 08/11/2001 2:07 PM
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Peevish people, especially small scolding women: gob-mooar

Intreresting ... gob, in Irish, means mouth.


#35925 08/13/2001 4:25 AM
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Gob is also coarse slang for mouth in England, most often heard in the expression "Shut your gob."

There is also a type of boiled sweet called a gobstopper.

Bingley


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#35926 08/13/2001 3:15 PM
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Gob is also coarse slang for mouth in England

or spit, and gobbing is spitting. Not the Nine O'clock news did a take off of the TV soccer competition "Goal of the Month" showing soccer players spitting (as they frequently do), and called it "Gob of the Month".

French has the words "gober" to swallow whole, and "gobemouche" = literally a fly swallower, someone who stands around with their mouth open. My POD gives gob (spit) from the French goube= a mouthful.

And gobble comes from the same root.

Rod


#35927 08/14/2001 4:12 PM
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Sparteye and I could use this list in it's entirety to describe a sloth on the bball board. Just what is the crux of the book, English Passengers??


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A hated local expression is the way overused 'over yonder'. Never ask where something is in central Alabama....

I do like the 'It's slap your momma good!' expression.


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As nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs
As busy as a one-legged man in an ass-kickin' contest


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As nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
As busy as a one-legged man in an ass-kickin' contest.


Love em! (I've heard the former as a long-tailed cat). Also:
As nervous as a reverend in a cathouse.
As busy as a one-armed wallpaper-hanger.



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Another local word that makes me chuckle is 'youngun'. I recently had a baby and frequently get asked 'how's the youngun' doin'?'. While growing up in Illinois I never thought I'd have a 'youngun'.

There are a couple of odd terms that I've learned since working in manufacturing realm....don't know if they are southernisms or just plain slang.
1) Pisser - word used for a trim squirt (a high pressure stream of water used to cut a trim off a paper machine.
2) Peckerhead - word for a junction box on a motor (this is where the wires from the motor connect to the pump)

Nothing like being female in a male-dominated industry surrounded by peckerheads.


#35932 08/16/2001 11:30 AM
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Hi Chemeng: Without giving away too much of the plot, the "English passengers" are three men travelling to Tasmania in the mid-1800s because one of them (a clergyman) believes the Garden of Eden was actually in Tasmania. The novel is narrated by some 20 characters of whom one is the ship's captain who, like his crew, is a Manxman.


#35933 08/16/2001 11:51 AM
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Gob is also coarse slang for mouth in England

and in northern Ireland (and also Glasgow, I think) a foul-mouthed person is sometimes referred to as "a gob-shite."


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As nervous as a reverend in a cathouse.

Or, as I've heard it recently, the converse:

Sweating like a hooker in church.


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