Dropping Foreign Language

[KeithD]

Have I mentioned stalking?

 

[PennameWombat]

Ah, good to know. I had 'tits' originally but then removed most of the American guy's swearing (being a nice young man in a foreign country on his best behaviour) and figured the minced oath ('wick' version) would be more likely than gratuitous use of tits. Clearly not.

A large proportion of my commenters and followers are Australian, presumably because there's much less of a language barrier.

It'd be harder for me to comment on current American English slang amongst the 'youth' but for my younger days "tits" was an odd word. As a rule, using it to directly refer to a woman's, um, endowment, was rude but not beyond the pale. My main high school girlfriend was normally somewhat proper in her language but she had a female friend who attended another high school who had the largest breasts I'd ever seen (well, unfortunately I never saw them except through clothes , but still...)

Anyway, one day someone asked my girlfriend about her friend and the question was a veiled one about chest size and my girlfriend simply said "yeah, she's got some tits on her."

And the phrase "that (or 'he/she') gets on my tits" wasn't exactly proper but would've been used as a mild invective in many mixed crowds. And no one would've thought of 'wick' as a euphemism for any body parts.

Now ElectricBlue - I can guess what you mean by 'light a candle', but it's not a phrase.ive heard in that kind of context.

I do use 'off my tits' meaning 'off my face' on any substance. Love the use of Mexicans to mean them lot south of the border - I've heard it in Northern Ireland and possibly Scotland.

"Off my tits" is another phrase I recall from my youth, with the same meaning you have here, as well as "off my face."

The first time I visited Australia (1990) my then-wife and I were talking to a local in Sydney. He told us "anyone from Victoria is a Mexican" (Victoria is indeed south of New South Wales) and "anyone from Queensland is a banana bender." But I've not heard those phrases more recently since I've spent more time here.

 

[KeithD]

And no one would've thought of 'wick' as a euphemism for any body parts.

"Dipping his wick" was pretty much a standard phrase in the mid-Atlantic U.S. states at least in my high school days.

 

[PennameWombat]

"Dipping his wick" was pretty much a standard phrase in the mid-Atlantic U.S. states at least in my high school days.

Which is why asking "Do Americans ..." and expecting any single answer about most things is not a useful question

I do know that phrase but it's come from my later years... when, hmm, I was in New York. Not the mid-Atlantic region but much closer.

 

[oggbashan]

Which is why asking "Do Americans ..." and expecting any single answer about most things is not a useful question

I do know that phrase but it's come from my later years... when, hmm, I was in New York. Not the mid-Atlantic region but much closer.

It is equally true if asking a question about British usages. What might be current in London could be meaningless in Newcastle and vice versa.

Edited for PS: Each year (except last because of Covid) my extended family go to the Hackney Empire for their annual pantomime. A lot of the repartee and jokes are told in Jamaican patois. Three of my family work in Hackney so they understand it, as does the majority of the audience even if they're from Bangladesh or Pakistan. After several years of attending, I don't need a translator...

 

[KeithD]

I often could use a translator just to watch a BBC-production program on Masterpiece Theatre.