New answers tagged british-english
0
In the religious/ritualistic sense, the verb is "to anoint [oneself] [+ with]" (Anoint can be transitive or intransitive.)
OED:
To smear with an unguent.
To smear or rub over (medicinally or cosmetically) with oil or unguent; to oil, grease, apply ointment to. 1611 Bible (A.V.) Rev. iii. 18 Anoint thine eyes with eye salve, that thou ...
0
"We decided to take a nap" sounds more correct to me.
1
Essentially, there is no difference. Depending on context, to have can have various meanings, one of which is "take".
He has a car - has = owns; possesses, etc.
He has a headache - has = is experiencing; is suffering from
We had a shower - had = took
We had a shower - we used to own a shower
0
to be thrown free of something that is holding you
to be thrown clear of something that is holding you [more usual]
It means that vehicle or horse that was holding you, no longer holds you because the blow pushes you away from the vehicle or horse. To be thrown free or clear means: you are ejected by the force of an impact from a position to another another ...
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The first sentence(What have we learned today?) is correct.
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First time I ever heard the phrase ‘...knife’ was in Tolkien’s “The a Hobbit” which was written in the 1930s and contains quite a few rural Englishisms.
2
The word “unticked” is found defined in the Cambridge Dictionary but not in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. It is not used in American English and the equivalent word is “unchecked”.
Normally you would say either,
I left the tick box unticked. BRITISH
OR
I left the checkbox unchecked. AMERICAN
It may be regarded as strange by many ...
1
"unticked" is a valid adjective.
"Accounting: A Practical Approach" Valarie Wilson, Suellen Freeman, John Freeman - 2015 - Page 295:
b Unticked items in the cash payments journal or cash book represent
unpresented cheques...
0
An Australian here, three years late. We were taught, at least up until the 1960's, that medsen was what you studied, medicine was what you swallowed. However, very few Australians use the pronunciation medsen. Just the evolution of the language - the upper-classes not dominating university, a multiracial society with English now a second language ...
0
"don't get hung up "is to do with the front of a canal barge getting caught in a lock which could cause the boat to capsize. IE don't get hung up or you'll drown.From England in the 1700's.
4
Her majesty's government has a legal definition of a childminder. It is someone who is paid to look after someone else's children in their own home. This is distinct from a babysitter or nanny who looks after someone else's children in that someone else's home.
3
The use of what is sometimes referred to as the emphatic do expresses the speaker's personal desire that the command be performed. It seems to re-frame what would otherwise be a simple command as something approaching a request. Thus, one might say "Do sit down" to a guest in a situation where "Sit down" would sound rude. (Modern American speakers might be ...
3
It is a participle. You can tell this because it qualifies (describes) "they", the subject of the verb. Being a participle, it is a kind of adjective: a verbal adjective. that is, it is an adjective formed from a verb base - in this case, hear.
Now in the following sentence, hearing is a so-called gerund.
Hearing the sound was the most significant ...
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Yes, "a" is correct. It's a random triangle which you see for the first time, it was never mentioned before in any context. There can be many triangles with these sides (yes, I understand it's unique "mathematically speaking", but not when talking about grammar)
However, I feel like you're confusing this with a different scenario where using "the" with this ...
3
Use of the article 'a' is correct because when triangle is used, it hasn't been previously introduced; the specification follows after the subject.
The sentence is wrong, though, because of number: "whose side is 3cm, 14cm and 7.5cm." wrong because there are three sides (and three measurements). "whose sides are..." would be correct.
2
No.
For example, in the 2004 printing of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (for the British market, by Bloomsbury, the British publisher for the series), something is repeatedly hyphenated (pp. 46, 73, 135, 141, etc.)
1
It means exactly what it says.
The speakers hopes that when they are in a car accident rather than being 'trapped' by the seatbelt they are thrown out of the vehicle, somehow miraculously avoiding injury in the process.
As the quote says, "a view since proven as wholly terrible".
-2
Not so much an answer, but I was brought up to consider that a second vowel (particularly an "e") after a vowel-consonant combination changes the pronounciation of the first vowel, thus
initial -> initialled ok
initial -> initialed not ok
as this second case would be pronounced "initial-Ale-d" rather than "initial-ud". This is perhaps somewhat related to ...
0
No, a table wouldn't be colonialized.
To colonialize a group of people, you use a combination of aggression, threats, attacks, lies, bribes and ingratiation, to set up a colonial, corrupt system.
We were seduced into playing along with the new "supports" for agriculture. We've been colonialized. We can't escape now. We've become dependent on their ...
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Colonialized would not be used in this case. "Colonial Style" would be better.
This is one of those dangerous words that has wildly different connotations depending on speaker and listener.
Straight forward: To have formed a colony -- an offshoot of the original culture in a new place.
Connotation: Hardship, privation. Suffer while building a new ...
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The Oxford English Dictionary has a significant entry on the various uses of colonial. Sense 1b relates exactly to the American meaning of "from the colonial era".
1b. Belonging to, or characteristic of, the period of the colonies,
esp. of architecture or furniture. North American.
1886 Harper's Mag. Oct. 668/1 The building has rather a ...
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The word ‘colonial’ in the sense you mean is I think the one which refers to a particular set of colonies, namely, the those in the Caribbean and much in evidence along the Hawaiian Keys.
Provided that context (if my inference is correct) is made clear, yes: there is nothing wrong with using this slightly metaphorical sense of colonialisation, preferably ...
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In town and to town are stock phrases meaning in/to our nearby town/city. It used also to be used of London, as in the former BBC radio programme In town tonight. As @HotLicks implies, there is no logical reason for this (except that, in London, the City refers to the business district).
-2
The word with asterisks is a word for urination that rhymes with "miss".
As for the meaning of the word when made into a compound word with "take", according to Wiktionary, it means "a parody" or "an unpleasant situation that is comparable to a parody".
39
The Oxford English Dictionary has this definition:
piss-take n. colloquial (chiefly British, Australian, and New Zealand) a parody, a send-up; an instance of mockery
Related to this is the earlier attested expression take the piss (out of):
colloquial (chiefly British, Australian, and New Zealand): to make fun (of), to mock, deride, satirize
(Ibid.)
3
GDoS suggest a possible origin from medieval French roussin:
Rozzer:
(also rawser, razzer, rosser, roz)
[? Rom. roozlo, strong or roast, a villain; B&L suggest rousse, roussin, a policeman (from Medieval. Fr. roussin, a warhorse or hunter)]
a police officer; also attrib.
1888 [UK] Sporting times 26 May n.p.: Up walks a rozzer and ...
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