Well I'll go to the foot of our stairs!

This made me laugh.  I need to find many ways to weave 'great googley moogley' into my conversation.

Now, if you live in Lancashire here are some suggestions of my own:

*Shock - "Well I'll go to the foot of our stairs!";
*Anger - "Flippin' Nora!";
*Bemusement - "Yer Daft Appeth";
and my favourite,
*Frustration - "Standing here like piffy on a rock bun!".

Purses vs purses

In Britain, this is a purse - it holds money and is small enough to fit in your hand:

This, to us Brits, is a handbag:


However, from my intense research (i.e. watching American TV programmes) I have learned that in the USA, this is a purse:


So, my American blog-pals, what do you call the thing that holds money?

I just wondered.

British English Word of the Day!

Codswallop


When one is neither convinced nor impressed with something one might exclaim, "What a load of old codswallop!"

British Word of the Day!

Blather

Apparently it is of Scottish origin from Old Norse Blathra.

A lot of my blogging is 'blather' :)

So just how much is that?

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Her Majesty keeping an eye on the numbers

Here's an interesting British English/American English difference that if you are a high powered banker could get you into trouble.

British English: Billion = a million million (in US trillion)
American English: Billion = a thousand million
British English: Trillion = a billion billion
American English: Trillion = a thousand billion

So I will be putting my trillion into a British bank, because otherwise it might end up less than it ought to be. ;)

Words, word, glorious words...

Slice of Life has just passed on a couple more words...

US English: hutch = British English: dresser (welsh dresser)

US English: credenza = British English: sideboard

That's funny. For me a hutch is something a rabbit lives in.

Has anyone got any more interesting transatlantic differences?

So here I sit

surrounded by pine needles.

I've finally removed the tree and have lost the will to clean. Carrying the tree out of the living room and through the hall has left most of the tree on the floor. The remaining twig is in the back garden and I need to sweep up the tree.

School is closed today due to the inclement weather. It's a bit brighter today, although we are getting an occasional snow flurry. So there is a cacophony symphony of children's voices upstairs. My grand plans have once again been foiled. I really need to get into the village today but I'm not walking 2.5 miles in deep snow with whinging delightful children. Lol, it's Squidge, she does not do cold feet. No amount of thick socks and wellies will protect her delicate little toes and after about 15 minutes she moves into auto-moan. And after another 15 minutes she starts skriking.

'Skriking' now there's a word. Pamela mentioned it in my comments the other day. It's a dialect word used round the Lancashire area, which means crying. "Stop tha' skriking tha's bein' a reet mard!" It's an Old Norse word, the language spoken during the Viking age. There were various settlements around the north-west of England and some words have stuck as dialect. Skriking in Norwegian also to mean to cry or shriek.

So, back to the snow. Here are some pics taken the other day when went out sledging:

Chatterbox setting her sledge up

Yesterday we had one of Chatterbox's friends over for tea. Her mum was telling me that they went sledging on this hill. Chatterbox's friend whizzed down and took her Dad clean off his feet, up into the air, and landed on his shoulder and ended up having to have a week off work. Lol - but a sympathy lol of course.

The canal

There's a couple who live in a canal boat who have visited our church a couple of times. I wonder how they're doing with the canal all frozen up?

So I must be away to vacuum and then the wise men are making their appearance.

They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the LORD.
Isaiah 60:6b (RSV)

Collect:
O God,
who by the leading of a star
manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth:
mercifully grant that we,
who know you now by faith,
may at last behold your glory face to face;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Things you might hear in Lancashire

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Me tea's a bit fortnight!

Fortnight = two week, i.e. I'm afraid my tea is too weak.

Fortnight from Old English fēowertiene niht 'fourteen nights', Oxford English Dictionary (also fēowertyne niht).

Some British English food names...

You know that I'm fascinated by language. The differences between American English and British English can be quite amusing. If I told you that I had a lovely drink of squash, would you know what I meant? Or would you think I was drinking marrow? :)

Hundreds and thousands

Swiss Roll

Crisps

Chips

Squash

Ice lollies

Sweets

Fairy cake

Scones

Muffins

Biscuit (being dunked in a brew)

I find it interesting anyway!

Shiver Me Timbers!

I am rarely surprised by the weather. And yet here I am talking about it. But I'm English. It's what I do...

Have you noticed the link to the Met Office Weather Warnings in my sidebar? And have you noticed that it keeps warning about extremely wet weather in the North West? Well durrr. Really it's a given. November + North West + Pennines = rain. Shocker.

However, we have had a few brisk storms recently. We've not been too bad, but apparently it's been pretty breezy down south: See here at Times Online (the comments are often amusing - I particularly like 'A storm? In November? What next?' Pretty much what I was thinking, but hey-ho if you have column inches to fill and one is British what else can one do but discuss the weather?). On one online newspaper article there was a photo of some chap at a beach flying supermanesque in the very strong wing blowing in off the briny waves.

An aside, here are some sea distress signals:

Distress signal = MAYDAY (from French venez m'aider 'come help me') denotes immediate danger of loss of life or vessel.

Urgency signal = PAN PAN (pronounced 'pon pon', from French panne, which generally refers to a mechanical breakdown or failure. As an aide mémoire manuals teach 'Possible Assistance Needed' as a way to remember the correct words to use). Denotes difficulties but not immediate danger to life or vessel.

Ahhahhaarr Jim-Lad, tha' durst not be wantin' to be droppin' down into Davy Jones' Locker now.

Yep, just finished watching a season of Deadliest Catch matey.

Have a grand day me hearties!

Pease pudding hot...

Pease pudding hot, Pease pudding cold,
Pease pudding in the pot - nine days old.
Some like it hot, some like it cold,
Some like it in the pot - nine days old.

~Traditional English nursery rhyme, c. 1760

And some would like it fresh - thank you very much!

Pease pudding is traditionally a sort of thick soupy type dish made from various vegetables, but mainly yellow split-peas - it's served with ham or bacon. Most popular now though is green pea and ham soup. We Brits like to call savoury dishes 'pudding' just to keep you on your toes (think Yorkshire pudding, steak and kidney pudding, etc). Here's a pease pudding recipe.

The word 'pease' was the correct word for pea; 'peasen' was the correct plural of 'pease'. However, the word 'pease' was often mistaken for the plural of 'pea'; thus we now have 'pea' singular and 'peas' plural. This is known as back-formation in language. See also Online Etymology.

Words are great.

It said 'inflammable' so why is it on fire?

The two words flammable and inflammable mean the same thing, they aren't opposites. Unlike 'efficient' and 'inefficient' or 'articulate' and 'inarticulate'.

From the Merriam Webster online dictionary:

flam·ma·ble
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin flammare to flame, set on fire, from flamma
Date: 1813

: capable of being easily ignited and of burning quickly

in·flam·ma·ble
Function: adjective
Etymology: French, from Medieval Latin inflammabilis, from Latin inflammare, to inflame.
Date: 1605

1 : flammable
2 : easily inflamed, excited, or angered : irascible

From etymology online:

Inflame
1340, "to set on fire with passion," fig. use of L. inflammare "to set on fire, kindle," from in- "in" + flammare "to flame," from flamma "flame" (see flame). Literal sense of "to cause to burn" first recorded in Eng. 1382. Inflammable "able to be set alight" is from 1605. Inflammatory "tending to rouse passions or anger" is from 1711. Inflammation "redness or swelling in a body part" is from 1533.

As you can see, 'flammable' is actually a much newer word:

flammable, inflammable These two words are synonymous. Flammable is a much newer word, apparently coined in 1813 to serve in a translation from Latin. In the 1920s it was adopted by the National Fire Protection Association in place of inflammable. Underwriters and others interested in fire safety followed suit. The reason given for its adoption was the possibility that the in- of inflammable might be misunderstood as a negative prefix.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage

The confusion over the 'in' in inflammable is because often the prefix is used to denote 'not' or 'without'. Like 'ineffable' means the opposite of 'effable'; it basically means not effable.

However, the 'in' in 'inflammable' has its root in another prefix. It is the prefix 'en', which is used to add the meaning 'cause to be' to a word. For example, 'entangle' means 'cause to be tangled' or 'enrage' means 'caused to be full of rage'. ' Inflammable' therefore means 'caused to be flammable' that is the object has the ability to be flammable. Rather like 'inflame' means 'cause to be on fire'.

Yay. I love the English language, it makes no sense whatsoever!