Anything that comes to mind, really. There's gold in them there vocalizations.
Heard the 'guess' one in something I was watching and it just inspired me to ask. The German equivalent would be "Ich habe genau so wenig Ahnung wie Du." Means about the same but lacks the original's elegance.
There's so many extremely funny and thoughtful expressions in American English, they almost deserve their own sub.
You should make a sub about it. It is something I would try to contribute to on the regular.
Here are a few regional Shibboleths from the Philadelphia/South Jersey area that I always liked. Some of these are pretty old, and not in common parlance anymore
- "Going down the shore" - Self explanatory, but most Americans would say they are "Going to the beach"
- "How you making out?" - Equivalent to "How are you doing", but again, mostly said in South Philly
- "Getting all jammed up" - Getting upset, or emotional
- "Jit-bag" - Old-school Philly insult, means a used condom
- "Crumb" or "Crumb-bum" - used to be a classic Philly insult. Video (youtube.com) of the former mayor Frank Rizzo getting into it with a reporter and call him a 'Crumb"
- "It started getting dark early around there" - Black people moved in
Some of these are very obscure to me. Love them, thank you.
Sorry for the late reply, had to think a little and real life got in the way.
In the end, I decided to create that new sub. Working title is "languagegems", haven't pulled the trigger yet, though. What's another badly maintained special interest sub anyway?
Was looking for something that's easily found when typing into the search box but also not limited to any particular language and type of phrase or expression.
Your thoughts?
In the end, I decided to create that new sub. Working title is "languagegems", haven't pulled the trigger yet, though. What's another badly maintained special interest sub anyway?
Honestly, I think Poal would be better off with special interest subs, regardless of how they are maintained. It sometimes seems like all the major subs that get posted to are mostly identical in function, if not form. News this, Jews that, Blacks and shieeeet. It can get kind of boring, I can get racist/anti-semitic news anywhere nowadays.
What a like are the weird little niche subs that still get people to post. Like when @stupidbird posts about the HAM radios. Or when anyone, anywhere posts a poem, or a cool picture.
A sub that just focuses on colloquialisms and idioms would be fucking based. I always appreciate it when they come from different languages as well, those are always the most interesting. I heard that the Dutch, or possibly the Danes, always referred to having a hangover as "Carpenters in the Head". I don't know it that is true, but shit like that tells you so much about a society.
That being said, I think /s/LanguageGems would be an awful name, although I have no better suggestions at the moment.
It seems like a hard sub to title, because I feel like it should contain interesting idioms, colloquialisms, and etymology, but summing that up in a single sub title seems hard.
Let me know if you start it, I would love to contribute.
Best Regards,
-Theo
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