In this instance it refers to attempting to get away with something. "Don't take the piss!" or "You're taking the piss!" would be the response to these actions.
I understand that the YMDC section of Dakka is full of examples. This post is an example because piss is somewhat meaningless in the US so I can swear to my little English heart's content by saying piss.
George Spiggott wrote:In this instance it refers to attempting to get away with something. "Don't take the piss!" or "You're taking the piss!" would be the response to these actions.
I understand that the YMDC section of Dakka is full of examples. This post is an example because piss is somewhat meaningless in the US so I can swear to my little English heart's content by saying piss.
"He said it again!" - Monty Python
Taking a piss in the US means that you're urinating. You can say it all you want and we'll think you have a bladder problem.
And then there are the multiform uses of Bollocks.
From the simple singular usage, usually to express mild to severe disappointment/annoynace 'Bollocks'. The volume and aggression the word is spoken with is a good indicator to the swearers state of frustration.
Then adding the adjective 'it's' specifies that something is not very good. Example...
Person 1: I watched that Deep Blue Sea film the other night
Person 2: Was it any good?
Person 1: No. It was Bollocks.
Can be enhanced with the addition of further adjectives and verbs, such as 'utter bollocks'
Then we have the real confusing one, of a specific combination of words, the Dog's Bollocks. This is actually a good thing. Example...
Person 1: I watched that Hellraiser last night.
Person 2: Was it any good?
Person 1: It was the Dogs Bollocks mate.
If you would like the learn the further, finer points of turning the air blue and making the Vicar blush, please feel free to PM me.
Welshisms are nothing compared to the Essex, and sadly Kent, double negatives.
'I didn't do nuffink (nothing)' which taken literally means that they have done something, as the statement is a clear admission of having done something, as doing something is the opposite of doing nothing. Thus, to not do nothing, is to have done something.
And my favourite, which was actually said to me shortly after I moved south of the Border?
'You Scotch don't talk proper you don't'. Double negative, piss poor grammar, and an incorrect regional labelling. Oh the bitter pill of irony was swallowed whole that day!
Ah, English phrases and insults...making other Americans wonder what in chaos you're talking about, and why you're grinning like that. Did you just say something funny at my expense?
Okay, here's a question - just how bad of a curse is "bloody"? I picked it up from various BBC comedies and used to use it all the time. My wife (who studied in Wales for two years), though, gets mad at me when I use it - like I said f*ck or something.
Mind, she doesn't throw a fit when I use the Father Ted-ism (well, Father Jack, to be more precise), "feck".
In the Space Wolf forum a month a go a guy said he was "chuffed" at his performance in the UKGT and the Americans had to debate if that was good or bad.
I have never heard of this "cockney rhyming" before, but I think I heard Jeremy Clarkson get into a bit of trouble on Top Gear a while ago for saying "Ginger beer" and I think that means queer, and I wonder if it is that. I remember thinking that is was very strange when I heard it.
Chuffed is an expression meaning "To be proud of", so yeah its a positive thing.
And yeah, I remember something about the Beer thing. It's all in good fun though, considering the Slang was invented for the sole purpose of pissing off the Wardens in the jails, or as they were more commonly known, "Dem Berkshire Hunts".
Berkshire Hunt (I'll let you figure it out) is the root for the word "Berk", another delightful English word that is a milder form of what Berkshire Hunt is meant to be
of Course the one I love using to confuse the Americans is Pillock.
But they will, no doubt, bowl over and give it all that, all geezer and rude.
The someone else will say sumfink back and then someone gets a Glasgow kiss and there we are watching some guy piss claret all down his boat race.
It'll ruin his whistle.
Gwar! wrote:Most of british slang IS Cockney Rhyming Slang. Hell even the Phrase "Taking the Mickey" (a milter version of "Taking the Piss") is derived from it.
Micky Bliss = Piss
Apples and Pears = Stairs
Trouble and Strife = Wife
And of course any true British lad will get a chuckle when I say "FORK 'ANDLES"
Well I suppose I shouldn't have mentioned it.. /shakes head...
The Britishism that stands out to me is "a bit of work" or something when said
in reference to a difficult person. I read it recently in the Mark Haddon book _A Spot of Bother_,
and I realized I hadn't heard it before.
reds8n wrote:Would the phrase be " a nasty piece of work" perhaps ?
Meaning a ne'er do weller or a rum cove from the wong side of the tracks.
It's basically the opposite of someone who is "straight as the day is long" or "sound as a pound".
Sounds like me the latter part of that.
I'm as honest as the day is long. The longer the daylight, the less I do wrong.
A nice Rich Tea Biccie (none of this American Cookie nonsense. Bloody uppity colonials) for the first person to tell me where I pinched that from. And skank to it.
ixlar wrote:After reading this thread, I feel like I need a Guiness or Boddingtons and some Bangers and Mash or Fish and Chips.
Wow, now thats a Faux Pas and a half. Confusing an Englishman with a Scotsman or a Welshman is forgiveable, but calling an Englishman an Irishman will result in a swift beating.
ixlar wrote:After reading this thread, I feel like I need a Guiness or Boddingtons and some Bangers and Mash or Fish and Chips.
Wow, now thats a Faux Pas and a half. Confusing an Englishman with a Scotsman or a Welshman is forgiveable, but calling an Englishman an Irishman will result in a swift beating.
Will the beating be coming from the Englishman, or the Irishman? Aren't they pretty much the same thing?
(Ducks for heavy cover, and hopes he can make his save)
Defiler wrote:I skipped the second page, but doesn't "taking the piss" mean someone is making something lighthearted or in a jocular manner?
No, Taking the piss means you are being deliberately asinine or confrontational.
ixlar wrote:Will the beating be coming from the Englishman, or the Irishman? Aren't they pretty much the same thing?
(Ducks for heavy cover, and hopes he can make his save)
The beating will be coming from both sides. In fact it's the one thing the Brits and Irish Agree on. It's a lot more bitter than say, the US/Canadian or Ozzie/Kiwi thing, too much bad blood too recently. Hell I remember growing up in the 90's, where we were given school lessons from the age of like 6 telling us to watch out for Unattended bags on Buses/trains.
come up with a 2 word phase which rhymes with it e.g. butcher's hook
in all future conversation omit the actual rhyming word and just use the first e.g. 'ere 'arry 'ave a butcher's at these lovely new models.
butcher's = butcher's hook = look
some other ones that actually get used
loaf = loaf of bread = head
ruby = ruby murray = curry
dog = dog and bone = phone
having said that I'm from Yorkshire which is less about dialect words and more about the very strange way we pronounce the English language. the letter h is band from the start of all words. The word "the" is entirely omitted and at best replaced with a 't' noise. "us" can be any pronoun that you want it to be except for when we use thee, thou and thy and the letter E (or eeeeeeee) can be any exclamation you want it to be. The longer you say it the more you mean it.
hence the commonly used expression in winter time
"eeeeeeeeeee love it in't alf brisk. Fetch us, us coat and put t kettle on an we'll ave us a brew."
although the best expression for being cold ever is "eeee it's brass monkeys out there"
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:If you would like the learn the further, finer points of turning the air blue and making the Vicar blush, please feel free to PM me.
Gwar! wrote:Wow, now thats a Faux Pas and a half. Confusing an Englishman with a Scotsman or a Welshman is forgiveable, but calling an Englishman an Irishman will result in a swift beating.
Will the beating be coming from the Englishman, or the Irishman? Aren't they pretty much the same thing?
Gwar! wrote:Wow, now thats a Faux Pas and a half. Confusing an Englishman with a Scotsman or a Welshman is forgiveable, but calling an Englishman an Irishman will result in a swift beating.
Will the beating be coming from the Englishman, or the Irishman? Aren't they pretty much the same thing?
Only if he's an Orangeman...
Um, the Orangemen are not Englishmen at all, they are Irishmen who are loyal to the Crown (although that's a stretch since they are descended from Scots/Englishmen for the most part) but still.
What is funny is how small England is and yet they have so many regional dialects.
In the US we have region dialects, but they are in huge regions, i.e. Midwest, Southern, New York, New England, etc.
I saw them joking about about all of Ricky Gervais's characters have a Reading accent, but the funny thing is that they all sound the same to Americans. In fact, I would wager that 95% of American can’t tell an Australian accent from an English accent.
Naval Reference, the "Brass Monkey" was a triangle of brass upon which cannon balls were stacked, in particular cold weather the brass would contract sufficiently as not to hold the balls in place, therefore "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey"
I was recently at a meeting with one of our Chinese clients, she asked if we were all from the same area in the north of the country, there was some spluttering and polite explaination as one guy was a scouser, one a Yorkshireman and one a Brummy, 3 more distinct and seperate dialects you could not imagine!
And as for differing dialects, I used to live in the shadow of a place called "Clee Hill" in Shropshire (also known at "The Tump") it had its own recognised dialect derived from cornish called "Tumpish" which developed when the hill was a tin mine and pretty much isolated.
Dialects develop when you get people isolated and imobile for a period in a single location. In England over the last several hundered years this was often the case. However in America people have been considerably more mobile in the last 300 years, spreading about and moving arround etc, so small area dialects don't develop.
Add this to modern technology, the mobility of people today and pop culture and the regional dialect is dying out, which is a shame to my mind!
I'm a Yorkshire man too. Taking the piss can be acting out of line, but it can be a bit of light hearted banter with your mates too as in "Taking the piss out of someone".
I tell thee, there's nowt as queer as folk. You daft ha'peths.
Blimey is a contraction of the phrase "God blind me".
More traditionally said as "Cor blimey".
Crikey and cripes are both similar contractions of Christ. Think saying "Oh God" and you're on the right track.
Would you guys say "Christ on a bike" btw ?
I live in prime Cockney Rhyming Slang area. In fact, my local pub is "The Bow Bells", but I hear no more rhyming slang here than anywhere else I have lived. Not that I notice, anyway.
I speak Japanese with an accent 'cos I lived in rural Miyazaki for two years when I was first learning Japanese. Nothing extreme, but people mention it from time to time.
My friend, I hav e read the Viz Strip entitled 'Christ on a Bike' for Christ was the luckiest Messiah in the Holyland, and with his faithful friend Mintsauce the Lamb of God, rode his Chopper to help others!
Don't I know it... I came from the mountains and I don't think we actually spoke english. It'd be like comparing Standard British English to Middle English--remotely similar... Kind of.
So your uncles a geordie but none of the rest of your family? Hows that work? Did your grandparents dump him there and relocate somewhere else to bring up your parent?
Right on the 2nd attempt. But they are no longer married. But he's still my Uncle and a good laugh.
Apparently, he knows the Sunderland Mafia, having broken the nose of the now big cheese in primary school. Not sure I believe him though, but am scared to say so just in case he is...never know what retribution organised Geordie's can wreak!
I wouldn't be calling a mackem a geordie if I were you, especially if they are in some sort of mafia (although personally I find the concept of organised crim in sunderland quite funny). For the record, mackems are from sunderland, geordies from newcastle. Although people from gateshead, hexham andsometimes durham are kniown to call themselves a geordie aswell.
I think the North east gets a bad rap when it comes to inaudible accents, esspecially when places like cumbria and dumfrieshire are just nextdoor. Places where someone could count to ten and you'd think they were talking spanish (edit: rough german, spanish is too generous).
whatwhat wrote:I wouldn't be calling a mackem a geordie if I were you, especially if they are in some sort of mafia (although personally I find the concept of organised crim in sunderland quite funny). For the record, mackems are from sunderland, geordies from newcastle. Although people from gateshead, hexham andsometimes durham are kniown to call themselves a geordie aswell.
Geordie mafia? Get Carter (the original film) is set in Newcastle, the book's set in my home town of Doncaster.
whatwhat wrote:I wouldn't be calling a mackem a geordie if I were you, especially if they are in some sort of mafia (although personally I find the concept of organised crim in sunderland quite funny). For the record, mackems are from sunderland, geordies from newcastle. Although people from gateshead, hexham andsometimes durham are kniown to call themselves a geordie aswell.
Geordie mafia? Get Carter (the original film) is set in Newcastle, the book's set in my home town of Doncaster.
Oh yeh I'm not doubting it's existence. I just find the whole idea of a mafia in sunderland fairly humorous. And once again, a mafia in sunderland would be a mackem mafia not a geordie one.
