Annpan, I think I am correct in saying that the Mother Hubbard type of dress was introduced by missionaries to the women in the South Sea islands who were happy to go about in a 'state of nature' much to the embarrassment of the disapproving wives trying to bring some 'culture' into the lives of the population.

Of course no-one would suggest your local priest/vicar/minister made you follow suite as I'm sure you wear them for practical comfort. :-}

Vee, Quite right! I saw the style in a catalogue years ago and found them so comfortable for casual wear I kept ordering a couple whenever they were featured.

I bought nightdresses when in the UK from the same company, which looked like surplices, not at all glamorous but oh, so comfy! I brought eight with me but they did wear out eventually and I have never found that style again.

When I was young and shapely I yearned for pretty lingerie which I couldn't afford but now I could, I opt for comfort!

While reading The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman I came across I word I've never seen before !

" Elizabeth had taken a look through all the financial bumf.............."

yoyo, bumf means all those old letters, bills, papers, trash that comes in the mail and really should have been thrown out years ago.

It was originally 'school-boy' slang for toilet paper . . . short for bum-fodder. And bum is the English slang for behind, backside, bottom . . . Bum was a word we were never allowed to use in my Mother's hearing; she considered it the height of vulgarity!

But somehow bumf is not considered 'rude'.

Great explanation ! Thanks Vee :0)

Vee, what is a "wold"? And what is a "weald"? And is there a difference?

woodnymph, as far as I know 'wold' referred to bare-ish uplands used for grazing sheep and weald was land that was largely wooded/forested. So we have the Cotswold Hills or the Lincolnshire wolds where the houses and walls were/are built of stone . . . though less sheep farmed now, and the wealds of Kent and Sussex where timber was used for building material and where, before the Industrial Revolution the wood was turned into charcoal to be used in the iron-making process.

I think both words have Anglo-Saxon roots.

This author, Richard Osman, comes up with some baffling British banter

( like that threesome ?).......

Elizabeth says " ....I have to stop banging on like Bernard....."

In the US, other than pounding on a door , the slang use of banging is like "shagging".

Except when golfers shag a ball, which has nothing to do with the British idea of shagging !

Also,,,, " Ian had clocked the photo....." which I take to mean nicked as the Brits would say.

In the US if you clock something you probably are timing it.......or in slang if you clock someone you punch them and knock them out ! We also have an expression " I'll fix their clock." ( in other words, get even for some past offense)

yoyo, in this context 'banging on' just means talking too much usually about a particular subject

"Ian has clocked the photo" means Ian has looked at/noticed the photo.

What about the 'threesome'?! Did I miss something?

nb 'shagging' is an indelicate word and not used in polite society .

Vee, I am aware of the indelicacy of "shagging" across the pond. However, did you know that here in South Carolina, there is a quite innocent dance called the "shag"? It is quite popular with all ages.

Thanks for your explanation of wold vs. weald.

Vee....threesome refers to the alliteration of "baffling British banter " :0)

BTW...if I ever find myself in polite society I promise not to use the word shag !! LOL

Not even to refer to the carpeting?

Not even to refer to some dated hair cut !!

The carpet can be referred to as Shagpile safely!

Regarding vulgarity, a lady in my UK complex was upset that someone was playing a rude song but she couldn't find who it was. I found her skulking near my door trying to trace the culprit. She asked if I had a CD player!

Later I realised that what she had heard from someone's TV was an advertising jingle for Clover margarine which had reused a popular song sung by the military in WW2! I knew it from hearing it sung, coming home with my mother from a family visit, on the late night bus but being a child never understood the innuendo.

Frequently when crews are working on a home in the neighborhood, they will blast their radios to amuse themselves when they are working. This can be a huge problem because what these young men hear as normal language can be really offensive.

I usually ask that any workers that I hire do not play music......just get the job done.

Yoyobon, I swore I would never live in a condo again after we bought one and found so many things irritated us! We had to stay a year before we could sell it or pay a heavy tax but once that year was up we were gone!

However we rented a flat in the UK building where this woman lived and she was a pest! Luckily we were on the lowest level and rarely saw her, only when she was meddling with the washing machine settings or prowling looking for the person who was playing the vulgar song!

I am renting in a Retirement Village now and like not having to worry about repairs, gardening, annual pest control and smoke alarm battery renewals etc. I have quiet people around. That is nearly all I want now.

What about the term " grassing somebody up " ???

or the verb " to grass" ?

This is to tell on someone, usually used in a criminal sense.

"I didn't grass you up, it wasn't me!'

A 'grass' is another name for a tell-tale or a snitch.

Here's one I haven't been able to figure out. What is a college in the UK and Ireland? In the US, college and university are synonymous in that they mean the four-year education after high school. But it seems to mean something different across the pond, younger students? This has caused me communication confusion in emailing people 'over there'.

Ginny, this was something I knew about when I lived in the UK but never thought about the distinction! A College is where you went for training rather than for academic qualifications at a university.

I could have gone to a secretarial college when I turned 16 but chose to get a paying job instead.

Vee would know if that status has changed nowadays.

Thank you, Ann. It's very confusing when the same word means two different things in different countries!

It is also confusing when the meaning of words changes. I like reading classical novels but have to work out what the author was saying. eg. Jane Austen referring to relatives as "friends" and "a different country" when she means "county".

I don't quite know what she means by "genius" and "resources". I think it implies a person's intelligence and hobbies.

Ginny what Annpan says is correct . . . although many of the older universities (eg Oxford and Cambridge) are made up of separate colleges that combine to form a university. And until recently we had 'colleges' for art, teacher training, aspects of health care. agriculture etc. Now they all seem to have been converted to university 'status'. Some schools (or what you in the US call High Schools) also have 'college' in their title . . . Eton College comes to mind (top boy's school for pupils from 13 - 18) Very expensive and where William and Harry studied.

BTW our universities usually offer a three year course leading to a BA/BSc etc degree. Over here 'school' doesn't finish until a student/pupil is 18 years old.

It is often considered by us 'oldies' that a degree carries far less weight these days as so many people get on to university courses in a wide range of subjects with 'dubious' titles (often ending is an 'ology') almost no academic rigour required and little prospect of finding a decent job at the end of it.

Thank you Vee and Ann. That helps a lot. Regarding age, here in the US too, the typical high school graduate is 18 altho it can vary. I was among the youngest in my class at 17; others are 19.

Colleges and universities are not the same in the US.

This link will help to explain the many differences :

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2018-02-14/understand-the-difference-between-a-college-and-university-in-the-us

I do know the difference in the US but actually everyone uses the words interchangeably and only a few know the actual difference as it doesn't exist, for all practical purposes. It's the UK and Ireland that have had me befuddled.

There seems to be a great importance in the US for people to have a college fund in place for a child.

Where does a student go who wants to learn a trade?

It probably depends on each state. In New England, there are public schools called vocational or technical schools at the high school level that teach the various trades. It's a very good option as skilled trades people--carpenters, electricians, plumbers etc--do very well financially. They are in short supply. But people can also apprentice to licensed trades people and learn that way.

In my county, the two-year community college program offers various degreed trade courses as well as traditional ones.

Over here there is also a lack of skilled craftsmen ('though plenty of cowboys) Nor does there seem to be the same interest in 'family traditions' of son following father into the same line of work. I can understand that young men . . . and it seems to be males rather than females . . . who want to get the sort of jobs that come with a car or a comfy seat in an office rather than getting their hands dirty with manual work.

I often wonder if some of the blame could be directed at their teachers who, because they had received a 'formal education' thought it was the only way for their pupils to go, or as in the case of my long-ago school days, we were told "If you don't finish your homework/get good grades in your maths/English, you will land up working as a hairdresser or (worst of all) serving behind the counter of Woolworth's".

What is a holibob ?

A slangy word for holiday! I have never heard of it either but found the meaning from a Google link.

I wonder why the "holi-" is paired with "bob" ?

Never heard 'holibob'! Yoyo where did you come across/read it?

I have been trying to find more about holibob and it seems to have been around for some years but I can't find the original source.

There is a travel agency of that name but was that the first to coin the word? Like going for a "Cook's Tour" went into common use. Did Holibob come from that, perhaps?

The other night I was watching an episode of 'Lewis', the Inspector Morse sequel, when I barely caught a word--'gaudy'. Something like 'They're having a gaudy.' I was puzzled for a minute but then remembered the Dorothy Sayers book, Gaudy Night, which I read and enjoyed a very long time ago. I googled it and it's a British word meaning a celebratory class or school reunion. From the Latin for 'rejoice'. Very different from our usual meaning of gaudy as an adjective. Has anyone heard this use of gaudy before?

It means 'holidays' but it is very informal usage of it

''1 week to go, and then I'm on my holibobs! ''

While reading the Ngaio Marsh mystery Death and the Dancing Footman, I came across the word 'brummagen', used jealously to describe a specific type of ladies’ man. I couldn't find it in any dictionary, but Wikipedia came up with 'Brummagem' as an old dialect name for Birmingham and, by extension, 'brummagem' (with various spelling variations) as a descriptive term for cheap and shoddy goods, which makes it a good descriptive for the man in question.

The Wikipedia article mentions specifically that the term is archaic in British English, but „…persists in some specialist areas in the US and Australia“. I guess New Zealand can be added to that, since that's where the author came from.

netla the word Brummagem or 'Brum' for short is a very common name for England's second city of Birmingham. A person from that place is known as a Brummie and the Brummie accent was once voted the worst accent in the country, though if I had to vote I would give it to Liverpool!

I wouldn't consider it to be an archaic word. And was what I grew up hearing, as I lived about 20 miles South of that city.

If any of you have watched the TV show Peaky Blinders you will get a feel for the sound of the 'tongue'. Or listen to aging Rocker Ossy Osbourne . . . if you can put up with him!

Ginny I have never heard the word 'gaudy' used in any context other than balls/parties etc at Oxford University . . . and then only in books.

Thanks, Vee. That's very interesting about 'gaudy'. It fits with the two times I've encountered it--in a Dorothy Sayers book and on the TV show 'Lewis', both with Oxford settings.

Some trivia...Gaudi Afternoon by Barbara Wilson is a novel and movie which plays on the Sayer's title and the Barcelona setting.

The book was interestingly about a life style I was not familiar with! I haven't seen the movie.

Ann, that’s funny. Good for you for making the connection.

Ginny, I have only heard "gaudy" used to describe something overly flashy, but I've sung lots of Latin choir music with the word "gaude" used in the context of rejoicing.

Donna

Yes, you're right. Gaudy usually is an adjective that means overly flashy and it's not a compliment! But the use I was asking about is a noun used by some in England that has a very different meaning. And you're right, the Latin verb is in a lot of church prayers, hymns and more. Gaudete Sunday, for instance, is the third Sunday of Advent and means 'Rejoice' in anticipation of the birth of Christ. Just one example. Gaudete is the plural of gaude in Latin. Too much information, sorry :)

A little early for Advent/Christmas. Below a recording of 'Gaudete Christus est natus . . . ' performed by Steeleye Span. Perhaps not so polished as a professional choir but probably more as it would have been heard 'back in the day'.

Gaudete means " rejoice".

Jumping back a year ago to Vee's comment, a stoop is a concrete landing outside an entry door, sometimes with one or more steps leading up to it, and usually without a roof over it.

Stoop is a New York term, derived from the Dutch word stoep. New York was a Dutch colony called New Amsterdam til the British took over in 1664 and renamed it for the Duke of York. Using stoop for the stone steps leading to a front door, often with a landing at the top, marks you as a New Yorker. And I'm proud to be one!

Rosefolly, I don't think that photo illustrates what New Yorkers would call a stoop. A stoop has more steps and allows several people to gather and chat on a warm day or evening. Just google 'new york stoops' for lots of images and info. I have some wonderful family pictures on stoops, one from the early 20c of my great-grandmother's house in Brooklyn with some of her grandchildren posed there. I am delighted that that same stoop is still there today with the original cast iron newel posts.

In the USA we refer to this as Murphy's Law: If something can go wrong, it will go wrong and at the worst possible moment.

Sod's law

Sod's law, a British culture axiom, states that "if something can go wrong, it will". The law sometimes has a corollary: that the misfortune will happen at "the worst possible time". The term is commonly used in the United Kingdom. The phrase seems to derive, at least in part, from the colloquialism an "unlucky sod"; a term for someone who has had some bad experience, and is usually used as a sympathetic reference to the person.

Finagle's law of dynamic negatives (also known as Melody's law, Sod's Law or Finagle's corollary to Murphy's law) is usually rendered as "Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment."