New answers tagged british-english
6
I think it's probably just because in British slang pull has that meaning independently of bird. From OED...
pull: trans. 12a: Brit. slang. To pick up (a partner), esp. for sexual intercourse; to seduce. Also intr.
It also occurs as a noun in the expression on the pull, and there's no reason why a couple of young British men shouldn't hope to pull some ...
0
I'm British. We used the term knocked up frequently when I was growing up in the 70's and 80's to mean a girl who had gotten pregnant. I am told that it is derived from the term prima nocta, a medieval lord's right to bed his serf's virgin daughters, but this may be apocryphal. The older generation used the term to mean wake someone up; don't know when the ...
4
I don't think there are any particular nuances involved here beyond "typical middle-class address".
It's not at all common, even in Britain, but in context most people would understand it even if they'd never heard it before. The earliest such reference to Acacia Avenue I can find is the play by Denis and Mabel Constanduros (English) called 29 Acacia ...
0
Military Phrase. Meaning used for real rather than in practice.
Suggesting that a military item (Gun, tanks etc) has not been tested properly unless it has been “Used in Anger” or in Battle.
Sorry another of a long list of “Britishisms” many of which the original meaning is lost in the “Mists of time”
We are as someone once said “Two nations separated by ...
9
You are correct, this does refer to snorting cocaine. There is an expression, "to drink [someone] under the table," which means one person's tolerance for alcohol is so high that, if two people drink the same amount, the other will end up unconscious under the table.
The version here, "to snort [someone] under the table" means the one person can handle more ...
1
From my experience of receiving such requests from colleagues in India, I would say that the idiomatic equivalent is either Please help, or Thank you. There really isn't a literal equivalent that anybody would write in the UK, in the same way that there isn't a British English equivalent of bon appétit.
0
As @Mitch has pointed out in his comment to the question, there is considerable discussion about the expression Please do the needful here.
The answers there, however, discuss two - what I consider to be different - meanings for that expression:
Do the necessary or Do what is needed.
I consider this to mean Take the appropriate action to achieve the ...
0
Close equivalents might be "please do the required" or "please do what is needed" or "please do the necessary"; all imply a certain background knowledge of the situation, i.e. that you know what do to and don't need it spelled out.
I'm not sure that "do the needful" isn't entirely inappropriate, though (I'm in the UK). In that way that certain archaic ...
4
For British English, numbers greater than 100 and less than 1000 always include and between the “hundreds” figure and the other part:
Three hundred and forty-two
Four hundred
Numbers greater than 1000 include and between any “hundreds” figure and the figure less than 100, and then state the multiple:
Five thousand, three hundred
Three hundred ...
1
Find out the result. All numbers numbers above 100 that are not divisible by 100 includes the word and.
1
I wish i as allowed to answer the answer before mine, but i can't yet, so I'll just incorporate it in this answer. The reason why British English absorbed the word from french surely does not date back to the Norman Invasion, as the fruit was known to Europeans only after the discovery of America. Whilst the family cucurbitaceae was cultivated everywhere, ...
0
Series in the UK is what Americans call a 'season'. We would say "Have you got Series 3 of Shameless on DVD" for example.
We don't really have one word that encompasses an entire run of every episode but then there's little need for one. If I'd seen every episode of a specific programme (even that's different , you say 'program' in the US) we would just ...
4
Likewise, in (colloquial) Australian English, bogan can be considered roughly equivalent:
The term bogan (/ˈboʊɡən/) is Australian and New Zealand slang, usually pejorative or self-deprecating, for an individual who is recognised to be from an unsophisticated background or someone whose speech, clothing, attitude and behaviour exemplifies a lack of ...
5
The previously-mentioned terms bumpkin (“a yokel;
a clumsy, unsophisticated person)” and yokel (“(pejorative) An unsophisticated person”, also “A person of rural background”) both appear in the British-equivalent-of-redneck virtuallinguist link given in a third answer. The linked page also states that “The words hick and hillbilly are used too (also ...
7
While I'd agree that Andrew Leach's answer yokel is a good word for this, perhaps you could also (for British English) consider bumpkin:-
An awkward, unsophisticated person; a yokel.
5
In British English there is the word yokel which has much the same pejorative overtones.
yokel noun
an uneducated and unsophisticated person from the countryside.
[ODO]
1
Here's an attempt at the answer: http://virtuallinguist.typepad.com/the_virtual_linguist/2008/09/the-british-equivalent-of-redneck.html
3
Self-explanatory:
AmE-2009, maybe, perhaps
BrE-2009, maybe, perhaps
English, maybe, perhaps
English Fiction-2009 maybe, perhaps
It appears that perhaps has always been more common, in AmE as well as BrE, though maybe seems to have become somewhat popular.
The trend in "English Fiction" shows that maybe is prevalent in informal writing (?because ...
2
Hit a nerve or struck a nerve are common in AmE too, as your research shows.
We don't tip people winks in the States though. We do tip someone off when we give them privileged information. Moreover, we may use a surreptitious wink to communicate something private or privileged. In that sense, He tipped me off with a wink sounds natural. (Actually, ...
-1
To answer the question in this post "What is the historical reason why there is this transatlantic difference?":
Zucchini - Italian word used in USA
As a result of the large wave of Italian immigration to the United
States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Italian and Sicilian
were once widely spoken in much of the U.S.
Courgette - French ...
1
I'm not clear whether you're suggesting that summer home/cottage suggests small buildings in gardens, or whether you're referring to cabin & camp in that respect. We certainly wouldn't use the latter two terms (unless cabin were an accurate description of the type of building).
[Edit in response to OP's comment: Summer house might mean a small building ...
3
The witch had a cat
And a very tall hat
And long ginger hair
Which she wore in a plait.
Julia Donaldson - Room on the Broom
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