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Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| For them Brits |
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| mwishka |
| 07/18/02 at 13:18:06 |
| Just a little experiment in linguistics which I thought would amuse bro khalid. Please translate the following commonly used English phrases: just to piece, piecin' muffler (he he you'll get this, but the NY people use some other um "girly" word...) toboggan squt (yup, not squat - is very different) goulash (a specific dish, not the original) kitty-corner catterwaulin' catawumpus harp (nope, not a harp) thumb piano mouth harp (he he yeah this IS a mouth harp! but what's that??) zither (nope, not a zither) the chapel Don't knows aren't allowed, if you're stuck please make an (educated) guess. (ayyy.......appalachian people're mostly just a bunch of formerly indentured celts - should have SOME similarity of language origin.... ;) ) |
| Re: For them Brits |
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| M.F. |
| 07/19/02 at 05:36:13 |
| Hey, are you sure those are commonly used English phrases? ??? :o I'm American and I don't have the slightest idea what any of them mean (at least not the "hidden" meaning. I know what a thumb piano looks like. :P |
| Re: For them Brits |
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| eleanor |
| 07/19/02 at 05:51:07 |
just to ----- Little girl 1: Why are you sticking your tongue out at me?" Little girl 2: just to annoy you" piece, piecin' ------ piecin' tranquility muffler --------- scarf toboggan-------- sleigh squt ----- very small? as in a squtty little man? (In Ireland we'd say scut) goulash ------- stew? kitty-corner ------- part of the kitchen where the cat sleeps? catterwaulin' ------ singing very badly? catawumpus ------ enormous? harp (nope, not a harp) --- to harp on about something? to complain? thumb piano ---- guitar? (coz you strum with your thumb?) mouth harp (he he yeah this IS a mouth harp! but what's that??) the little twangy thing zither (nope, not a zither) ---xylophone? the chapel ---- goin' to the chapel and we're gonna get ma a a ried |
| Re: For them Brits |
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| mwishka |
| 07/19/02 at 11:52:32 |
| well, sis MF, these are all common english in the appalachian mountains, and even the foothill regions. and even then, there are dialects within dialects. as bro khalid would say.... [i]It's amazing. We think we speak the same but oh my is it a different language!![/i] that's exactly my point here - the US is so huge and has about a billion (42 billion?) dialects, and we really can't understand each other always... ya eleanor, the girly equivalent of muffler, eh? and yeah, one a them li'l twangy thangs.... (um, no, people where i come from don't say "ya", and you'd hear "huh" for all of my "eh"s..... but, my mother was determined that we would not be taken for dumb hillbillies when we moved to florida, so we were conditioned NEVER to say "huh", "ain't" for is not, "don't" for doesn't, "thems" for those are, and, of course, you see my "you all"s here which was the best i have been able to do to avoid "y'all" - he he it's the formal, proper version, if there could be such a thing.. but, as it turned out, many of those expressions i just mentioned are also cracker talk.... :) ) actually, i was thinking i gave examples that were waaay too easy, thought i should have picked even more "remote" words or phrases - he he geographically, that is... hmmm.....maybe i was wrong.... i included a bunch of musical instruments because - even though my own family is pretty um a-musical - music is the equivalent of oral poetic history in the mountains, key to most community activities. (i know that's alien here......but um knowing names of instruments isn't wrong, is it?? eh oh..) mwishka (who grew up confused about whether the power and strength of a mountain cataract or the slow gentle lapping of gulf waters was her native mode of orientation to the world....:( ) |
| 07/19/02 at 12:12:42 |
| mwishka |
| Re: For them Brits |
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| Fatimah |
| 07/19/02 at 20:56:52 |
| [slm] I only knew about half of these ;) [quote]kitty-corner ------- part of the kitchen where the cat sleeps?[/quote] This made me laugh, good guess though... :D |
| Re: For them Brits |
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| mwishka |
| 07/19/02 at 21:58:03 |
| sis fatimah, from where you hail? sis eleanor, your scut as in small is one sense of this, as in no bigger'n squt, which is about the same as knee-high to a grasshopper... but i'm thinking of a use that relates to cooking.... i'm kinda likin' this idea of a kitty-corner.....like when...ophelia pushes things on the floor one by one, watching to be sure i notice because she needs my attention, maybe i could tell her she has to go to the kitty-corner. or when giant gabriel chases tiny ophelia because he's being jealous, i could tell HIM to go to the kitty-corner....... :D mwishka (who would actually never send either her cats or her kids to any corner, ever...) |
| Re: For them Brits |
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| haaris |
| 07/22/02 at 08:58:05 |
| [slm] Okay, here goes: [quote]just to [/quote] The number of meaningful political parties in the US and the UK. [quote]piece, piecin' [/quote] Giving salaams (in English) to your brothers and sisters. [quote]muffler (he he you'll get this, but the NY people use some other um "girly" word...) [/quote] What they do in those old black and white gangster movies when they're kidnapping the girl. [quote]goulash (a specific dish, not the original)[/quote] What Hungarian ghosts eat (he, he old but gold). [quote]kitty-corner [/quote] The venue for some fine catterwaulin'. [quote]catterwaulin' [/quote] That annoying noise that next door's feline makes at two in the morning, outside your bedroom window. [quote]catawumpus [/quote] ... when the west of the neighbourhood's cats join in ... [quote]harp (nope, not a harp) [/quote] How I explain to my next door neighbour just how annoyed I am: just harp on at him. [quote]thumb piano [/quote] An unpleasant gesture that he makes when my back is turned. [quote]mouth harp (he he yeah this IS a mouth harp! but what's that??) [/quote] An unkind face he pulls at me directly afterwards. [quote]zither (nope, not a zither) [/quote] Musical instrument played by snakes. [quote]the chapel [/quote] Used by customer service representatives to fob people off: "Oh, you need to speak to X department, the chapel fix it for you there. But, hey, what do I know? I'm only an ignorant Brit ... Wa salaam |
| Re: For them Brits |
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| se7en |
| 07/23/02 at 02:25:25 |
| as salaamu alaykum, [quote]to fob people off[/quote] :o :-/ :-/ :-/ bro haaris somehow I don't think this means the same thing in the US and the UK.. |
| Re: For them Brits |
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| haaris |
| 07/23/02 at 06:14:44 |
| [slm] [quote]bro haaris somehow I don't think this means the same thing in the US and the UK.. [/quote] :o Ooops, please tell me that I haven't inadvertently said something inappropriate!! ??? In the UK "to fob someone off" is, like, to pass them on to another person or another time (i.e. "come back tomorrow" not "begone, to 1825!"), to avoiding dealing with a difficult situation now. Bros Kashif, Hanif, et al back me up!! Please!! Salaam |
| Re: For them Brits |
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| se7en |
| 07/23/02 at 07:49:44 |
as salaamu alaykum, no no, nothing inappropriate.. "fobbed off" here (at least amongst the Muslim crowd I know) refers to getting hooked up with a bro/sis from "the mother country". ('fobbed' coming from fob - a term referring to someone 'fresh off the boat') just thought it was funny.. wasalaam :) |
| Re: For them Brits |
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| mwishka |
| 07/23/02 at 23:19:25 |
| wow, now i don't even want to tell the real answers because brother haaris' answers are so funny the real ones will seem quite dull by comparison. and i could NEVER be as funny as brother khalid, in revealing the true meanings of his british terms... so, um sorry....here they are, dull, no story.... :( just to------ as in, you're leaving your child's room to go back to your own room after comforting her from a bad dream, and she says "no, mommy, don't close my door - i might need you again. leave it just to." piece, piecin'------ as in, your mother says "we won't be havin' dinner until four - everybody can just piece until then." or....."if you kids don't stop piecin' you'll never eat your dinner!" muffler (he he you'll get this, but the NY people use some other um "girly" word...) long warm thing to keep your neck warm in winter ;) toboggan-------like a beret squt (yup, not squat - is very different)----any kind of dish made of a bunch of mixed up ingredients: e.g., brown betty/apple cobbler = apple squt goulash (a specific dish, not the original)-----tuna, peas, wide egg noodles covered in cream sauce. on top of stove or baked. (almost squt...) kitty-corner-------at a diagonal from, 45º angle from. "post office is down about two blocks kitty-corner to the gas station." catterwaulin'-------sound arisin' from a barney with her 'indoors, if folks are out of control. could also be used for bad singin' or cat night-singin'. catawumpus-------at a diagonal from, 45º angle from. hee heee i thought maybe some people'd figure this one out. harp (nope, not a harp)-----autoharp thumb piano------also called a kalimba. flat stiff metal prongs arranged in a "keyboard" shape across the opening of a small wooden resonance chamber. played with thumbs. mouth harp (he he yeah this IS a mouth harp! but what's that??)---oval shaped metal frame fits in your mouth, has single protruding slightly stiff wire "twanger" you play with one finger or the side of your hand, uses your mouth as a resonance chamber. mouth shape and openness determines sound produced. zither (nope, not a zither)-----hammered dulcimer the chapel---place for privacy and contemplation, also known as an outhouse. (this term would never be used by some people, but is not considered blasphemous.) |
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