Re: "write him" was Re: More questions

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

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