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describing the gentleman interrogator the next day as "that little prick".She obviously knows something we don't....... 
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Benson and Hedges - a not very funny comedy partnership who'll have you gagging.
not heard of these but they are also a brand of fags, or did i miss a joke?
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.....but they are also a brand of fags, or did i miss a joke?
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Carpal Tunnel
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describing the gentleman interrogator the next day as "that little prick".
She obviously knows something we don't.......
Ha! Sounds like the interviewer knew his stuff. I've never heard the expression losing her rag before, but it's obvious what it means. Is it related to being "on the rag", I wonder?
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to being "on the rag", I wonder?
heh, don't think so Jackie! The funny thing is I had not realised this colloquialism was at all exceptional, but a quick googlehaul shows only 33 examples of the feminine variant to 145 of the male's tendency to lose their temper ;)
What's more nearly all the hits are UK sites, with an Aussie one thrown in too; what's more more is that most of the references seem to occur in discussions about football (soccer).
I still have no clue as to the phrase's origins, so over to the detectives...
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Verrry interesting, as there are all sorts of potential connections here.
The closest equivalent to losing your rag is simply losing your temper, and my first thought was that the phrase may be a corruption of "loosing your rage". However, it feels [very scientific again, Fisk] more closely related to "ragging" as in winding up or taking the piss, i.e. someone rags you and you lose your rag (which is implicitly not the reaction of a good sport or gentleman).
As to ragging=winding up, that's probably related to teasing/playing with animals like dogs (especially) and bulls (like a red rag to a bull).
The more I think about it the more the dog connection seems appropriate. If you manage, by some miracle, to pull a rag out of a dog's mouth, it'll go for you like a mad 'un. And a big dog that's not been raised as a family animal will be genuinely dangerous (and angry) if teased past a certain point.
usual disclaimers apply
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Very rarely you'll hear a Dubliner saying he's 'on the rag' tonight. Most people just say 'on the piss'. They both mean to go out drinking.
We do also say 'losing the rag' but there's no connection.
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and do USns and antipodean cousins use the phrase Rag Week for licensed mayhem at university/college?
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For my part, at my alma mater, "licensed mayhem" (I love that turn of phrase, mav) was confined to Blue Monday every spring. It's a little more complex than that, being that it was the final stroke in an inter-class competition wherein bets were paid off and the losing class was relegated to walking the Mill Stream. The preceding week was called Glee Week, Glee being a tradition specific to my university - teams representing each class year would write and perform a song based on a theme, culminating in the inter-class competition on Friday night. Seniors had the opportunity to lampoon the events of the school year in Senior Skits, and seniors also wore beanies (traditionally the purview of freshmen, but it's not classified as hazing if a class is wearing them willfully). Kind of a quirky tradition of the school I went to, and realistically the mayhem lasted all of Glee Week and through Blue Monday - but Blue Monday was the only *condoned* expression of said mayhem. Never heard the term Rag Week until you mentioned it!
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Rag Week for licensed mayhem at university/collegeHeck, but that takes me back, mav! There was often a "Rag Mag" too, which usually consisted of a great many bad taste (and Viz-like) jokes. Such as a cartoon I remember quite vividly - In the foreground is a flattened cat with four bones sticking out of its back at leg positions. High up above it is a bridge. A couple of kids are peering over the side of the bridge. One says to the other: "I told you they always land on their feet". 
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