Jeans and Trousers and don't forget your Shorts

"Why is it my jeans are a single item of clothing but the word is plural?

You say that your trouser leg is torn but you wear trousers.

Jean material. Why not jeans material. And you say this is denim material for jeans.

Aghhh..... "

(Lady goes off in huff because English is so silly.)

For crying out loud!

For crying out loud.......!

An expression of exasperation.

Nick Nack Paddy Wack - what is a 'wack' ?

The word "wack".

So where does the word 'wack' come from, how do we use it?

Wack. An action.
To wack someone around the head. Normally implies with an open hand but might also be with a pillow, or a club type weapon.

Wack. From a nursery rhyme.

Nick nack paddy wack give a dog a bone.
This old man came rolling home.

Wack. Used by Liverpudlians as a greeting.
"All right wack?

An expression of fatique.

'I'm all wacked out'.
'I'm totally wacked"

Need to know the origin? Try asking Marina here at HotforWords.

How many ways to use the word 'bay' ?

The Economist this week has the headline

Capitalism at bay.

It denotes an opinion that, referring to the money markets in particular, that capitalism has been backed into a corner by, presumably, hounds of some type.

But how do we use the word bay in the phrase 'at bay' when a bay is also a piece of shoreline?

Morecombe Bay for surfing fanatics. Bay Watch for a soap.

And we say that a hound 'bays' when others might call it a howl. Think of the baying Hound of the Baskervilles.

Pub names such as The Fox at Bay have an image on the pub sign of a fox cornered by the hunters hounds. The fox is snarling and snapping at the hounds as they attempt to tear it apart. I guess that is the image the Economist headline writer wished to convey. It's far from the truth but shows the art of the headline and copywriter. The leader itself (meaning the lead article in the newspaper for that issue) is interesting reading but remember shoul dyou read it that a leader article is an opinion pice, not 'factual reporting'.

Retailers are scared to say what they mean.

Go into almost any of the major retail chains in the UK and they, like many smaller shops and businesses, will have CCTV (Closed Circuit Television) installed to monitor shoppers.

There will be signs telling you that you are being watched. That's the legislation and rightly so.

But the supermarkets don't want to say 'we are watching you in case you steal'.

So they put up weasel-worded notices like this -

"For your safety and security we protect this area with CCTV"

They mean we are taping you and probably a security person is watching you live.

Why don't they be upfront and say something like 'we use CCTV to deter shoplifters'?

Banter. Why don't we say 'talk' or 'speech' ?

Banter doesn't seem to be used very much. Perhaps it's a 1950's word.

At least it was in a radio play from that period the other day.

Witty banter
Playful banter
Banter as a part of flirting.

The Free Dictionary definition

Just to confuse the issue for ELL (English Language learners) is the word canter.

Which is a pace that a horse moves at faster than trot but not as fast as a gallop.

Nick nack paddy wack Pt 2.

So we've dealt with wack.
This also threw up wacker, a regional expression for a work mate with whom one may not be on first name terms. "Okay wacker"
Also wacking as in wacking a bush with a stick.
Which put up thrash and thrashing.

...and then the question was what's the difference between wack and nack?

Pt2 is about the word nack. It sounds very like knack.

Knack, a small skill. As in I've got the knack of opening jam jars. Or my cat has the knack of opening bedroom doors. Truly. He leaves golden hairs on the navy blue duvet.

Nicknack. My mother has lots of nicknacks around the house. They are small mementos of holidays and places. Things bought back as a small gift. They are the very devil to dust.

Still don't know what 'nack' is however.

Thinking Box: What can you add on these words/phrases?

• If Nick Nack Paddywack is part of a nursery rhyme and many nursery rhymes are based on political and social events then was Nick Nack a politician who persecuted the Irish.
• The colour navy blue.
• Nicknacks.
• "The very devil to dust".

Bang-o-meter - made up words

Buying fireworks the other day and some copywriter has dreamt up rather a nice word to describe how much noise a firework produces.

Bangometer, or also seen bang-o-meter.

Nice little graphic in the speedometer dial format and coloured graduation from green to very red.

But what is loud. What's loud to me isn't loud to my nieces and nephews that's for sure.

The EU gray suits have not imposed a decibel level to be placed on each box - yet.

Off Subject & Overheard.
Man 1- Why are you spending 50 quid on fireworks?
Man 2 in response - Why do you spend nearly £4.00 on a packet of cigarettes?

Scrounge - is it a verb?

Scrounge and scrounger.

What's your definition?

I think it denotes asking for something, usually an object, as gift. That is not expecting to pay for it.

So -
Scrounge a sandwich from the kitchen
Scrounge the usable wood going into a skip

A scounger is someone, usually a bit unwelcome, who is always scrounging something from me.

'He's a right scrounger'

Thinking Box:
Skip - how did an action become the word for a waste container?

Clodhoppers - a regional word.

Clodhoppers.

Don't we have some great sounding words in English.

Imagine the perplexity of a ELL coming across this word.
While they might sort out the hop how would they know what a clod might be.

Clod. As in a clod of earth. A great wet cohesive lump of mud.

Clodhoppers. Heavy pair of boots. We wore ammunition boots. they were large, very heavy, steel capped and reinforced. Just in case we dropped a full shell casing on our foot. We called them clodhoppers. How on earth did we get this bit of imagery, jumping over the furroughs in a ploughed field, into our military slang.

Did clodhoppers in fact come from clog. The wooden shoe.

Thinking Box.
Hopper. How did an action, hop, also a plant used in making beer, hops, evolve into a word for a large container for flour, grain and also hops? Is there a clue there?

Portsmouth Slang - mush

I grew up in an area influenced very heavily by military, in particular navy slang.

One word, still in use, is 'mush', pronounced 'moosh'. {Short sound however not oo as in moo.

Right mush, lets get this finished.
Ok mush?

Where on earth does this single word have it's origins?

It's not mush, or mash.

Is the origin arabic.

Shoplifter - see the picture?

Why do we say shoplifter?

The meaning is nothing to do with lifting up a shop but 'lifting' goods from a shop. Stealing.

Thinking Box:
Careful of the phrase shirtlifer which means something else entirely.

Slang names for a sausage.

Lots of different varieties of sausages, and quite a few names.

Bangers
Snorters
What else can you suggest?

And don't forget bangers and mash with onion gravy. Staple diet.

Apparently in Australia a snag is a sausage.
With thanks to Ed Dale for that gem.
Follow him on Twitter here http://twitter.com/Ed_Dale

Thinking Box

A bunch of fives
Gen. Genuine information. 'Give us the gen'

A bunch of fives.

How many fingers on your hand. Five.
Well okay it's four fingers and a thumb but the phrase a bunch of fives does not refer to a bunch of bananas. It's used as a threatening expression.

Do you want a buuch of fives?

So a bunch of fives is a fist formed from the hand.

Also:
A punch up the 'snouter'. To threaten to hit someone on the nose.

Thinking Box.

Snouter. From snout, being a pig's nose. What other words for the nose?

Give me the gen...

Yet another example of confusing abbreviation in speech.

Give me the gen.
What's the gen?

As in give me the genuine information.

So why not 'please tell me'?

Also we abbreviated information to info