Wordsmith Talk |
About Us | What's New | Search | Site Map | Contact Us | |||
Register Log In Wordsmith.org Forums General Topics Q&A about words As...as
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
dancing a merry tangent
Heck, that almost never happens here, alexis
a shambles, to me, is a mess, a cock-up, close to a disaster sometimes.
Yes, this is another situation where the Aussie (prob. meaning Australasian here, eh CapK?) meaning of old slang is almost exactly the same as the Brit meaning.
The stuff about butcher's and/or fishmonger's benches was to do with supposed origins of the word.
For a disaster we'd talk about an "absolute shambles", though it would still be more like a huge cock-up than a genuine disaster. Thinking about it, "shambles" rarely relates to a physical mess, it's more of an organisational/administrative mess. Does that apply elsewhere?
Fisk
Moderated by Jackie
Link Copied to Clipboard
Forum Statistics Forums16Topics13,915Posts230,127Members9,198 Most Online4,606
Sep 17th, 2025
Newest Members testawad, Bill_L, achz, MAGNVSTALSMA, Burlyfish
9,198 Registered Users
Who's Online Now 0 members (), 1,791 guests, and 2 robots. Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Top Posters(30 Days) A C Bowden 12
Top Posters wwh 13,858Faldage 13,803Jackie 11,613wofahulicodoc 11,032tsuwm 10,542LukeJavan8 9,968Buffalo Shrdlu 7,210AnnaStrophic 6,511Wordwind 6,296of troy 5,400
Forum Rules · Mark All Read Contact Us · Forum Help · Wordsmith.org