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Re: "write him" was Re: More questions

From:Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Date:Friday, November 28, 2003, 3:46
On Fri, Nov 28, 2003 at 12:05:32AM +0000, Stephen Mulraney wrote:
> _I'm after going there_: I mean "I've just gone there". Interpreted as > "I want to go there" (bizarrely phrased)
"I want to go there, bizarrely phrased" is exactly how I would interpret it as a native Leftpondian.
> _press_: I mean "cupboard" (which to me means a "kitchen dresser"). > Interpreted as... God knows what. The strangest connection that I've > heard someone make was to a device for storing tennis racquets in (I > believe I'd just told him that "the bread is in the press" or such :)
"Cupboard" = "kitchen cabinet" = shelves in the kitchen enclosed behind doors, usually built-in rather than standalone furniture. "Kitchen dresser" just sounds completely odd; chests-of-drawers are called "dressers" because they're where you dress, and I don't tend to get dressed in the kitchen. :) But as a noun, "press" to me is a piece of equipment for pressing; from a small French coffee press to the large monstrosities used to print newspapers, with a wide variety in between. I would have had no Earthly idea what "the bread is in the press" meant other than that you had been pressing your bread into mush for some reason.
> _pot_: I mean a "saucepan" (a word I can't bring myself to use - it's > like saying _spikespoon_ for _fork_). Sometimes understood. Thanks to > context, I've never had it taken as a reference to marijuana. But I'm > surprised it misunderstood at all.
As am I. Pots are those things that hang in the press with the pans. :) The term "crib-sheet" is well-known here. It's based on the verb "to crib", which generally means to cheat by reading someone else's work, but obviously instructor-sanctioned crib sheets are not cheating.
> And even English people don't seem to be able to agree on what "Warning: > Adverse camber" means on a road sign :)
What the heck is a camber?
> But it's a valve on the main water line into the house
Ok. That's the "main/primary water valve/cutoff/shutoff".
> Ah, I think _stop-cock_ *might* also refer to the "floating hollow ball > on an arm" thingy in a toilet cistern, too.
No, that's a different type of cock: a "ballcock". And since when do toilets have "cisterns"? You mean the "tank"? :) -Mark

Replies

Tristan McLeay <zsau@...>
John Cowan <cowan@...>