Toodle-pip wot wot

[odycee]

The election result is as I expected - although the Lib Dems did do better than I thought they would. There was only a 49.1% turnout in my constituency. How pathetic is that?

I've just seen this article in The Independent: Get your mitts off our lingo (as they say in New York). It's about a British Airways advertising campaign in the US that has a Brit-Speak Dictionary. My favourite bit from the Independent article:

One feels a twinge of sympathy for the Harvard professor of Classics, at the concierge's desk of the Ritz, shouting, "I do not need this aggro. I am knackered from arguing. Get on the blower to your manager this minute."

The dictionary contains such words as blower (telephone), chin-wag (chat) and cracking (allegedly means good time). And they don't bother to mention that tinkle can mean you're going for a pee as well as making a phone call. I'm just imagining someone giving information like this over on hp_britglish - they'd be lynched!

Edited: Because tinkle does not mean the same thing as tickle...

Comments

[niennah.livejournal.com]

We all know that 'cracking' is slang for eating Big Macs.

Boy I'm knackered today! As I have been all bally week.

[blackgarden.livejournal.com]

"Tickety-boo"? Oh come on, they're just making stuff up.

[odycee.livejournal.com]

Wot ho old chap? I actually do say knackered all the time. *hangs head*

[odycee.livejournal.com]

I'm sure the only people in England that would use that phrase now are living in places with strangely soft walls and uncommonly long sleeves on their jackets. Perhaps I'll bring it back into fashion...

[niennah.livejournal.com]

Me too, me too. I'm knackered now, actually, and am torn between watching an episode of Smallville or going straigh to bed. I still haven't watched last week's Nip/Tuck either - I guess it's a double bill for me tomorrow.

[blackgarden.livejournal.com]

That's a word that needs to re-enter modern society!

When I visited England, I made up a bunch of words and told people it was common slang back in California. Pisky, vomitrocious, nawful, I told people we pronounced the "g" in "gnat" (and when I came home, I told my brother that the English did that -- got two jokes out of that one!), glisty, haterated... of course, none of that is nearly as good as tickety-boo.

[odycee.livejournal.com]

I think vomitrocious is a great word. I'm going to use it today. Along with tickety-boo.

I told people we pronounced the "g" in "gnat" (and when I came home, I told my brother that the English did that -- got two jokes out of that one!)

Ha! Why waste a joke if you can tell it twice?