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15903. arkymalarky - 7/21/2005 9:16:40 PM Dadgum, what a morning, Mags! 15904. Ms. No - 7/21/2005 9:36:42 PM Ah, the curmudgeon technique! I need to work on that myself --- actually, of late, I think I may be finally ready to fully commit to my curmudgeonly tendencies.
15905. Magoseph - 7/21/2005 9:39:57 PM That is certaily late, Mac--what happened at your plant that you have to be there?
Arky, I never finished clearing out the unnecessary stuff in the chest drawers I took out this morning. I am in the process of taking out some bedroom chests of the house. There are ten of them, far too many for us. We are going to enlarge the living room, thereby eliminating one of the bedrooms. 15906. arkymalarky - 7/21/2005 10:52:51 PM When you're done that will be really nice, Mags. I like living space. Bob and I switched studies--I'm downstairs and he's upstairs now, and it's nice to change the environment. It just makes everything seem a little better somehow. 15907. arkymalarky - 7/21/2005 10:57:53 PM I may have overdone the curmudgeonly tack, but it certainly does work. I can't remember what it was now, but something they were wanting to ask me to do at work a while back that I never got wind of, and I learned much later from a good friend that no one wanted to be the one to step up and ask.
It doesn't work on Bob and Mose, though. 15908. arkymalarky - 7/21/2005 10:59:19 PM Where's Judith? 15909. judithathome - 7/21/2005 11:21:08 PM I'm here...I've been out most of the day. I'm not in a very good mood because Keoni is working late, YET again.
But I did call the kennel and reserve an extra night for Klaus so it looks like we will leave Thursday around noon.
I can't wait to get out of this city. Today, I went to get my hair cut and what usually takes me a 20 minute drive at most ended up taking almost twice that long. I was amazed at the number of rude drivers with fish on their bumpers, too...they act like letting you move over a lane will cost them their spot in heaven or something.
This town is getting so congested...I feel like I'm living in India. All we need are cows wandering around the roads. I never used to have to wait twice to get through a signal light...traffic is awful. 15910. Ms. No - 7/21/2005 11:21:14 PM I was just wondering that very thing.
15911. arkymalarky - 7/22/2005 12:17:27 AM Oh my, Judith.
People are so much worse in cars during the summer.
One week, and no traffic here!
Right after I posted here lightning knocked out the electricity. We were thinking this summer was extra-dry before the hurricanes started kicking in and stirring the atmosphere up around here. 15912. Macnas - 7/22/2005 9:53:19 AM Ms.No
I'm working on productivity stats at the moment, which I loathe. These things seem to take forever when you don't like doing them.
Worse again, it isn't even my task. My boss made a hames of it, it got sent back to him by his boss, and now I have to correct his work of fiction. It just makes me tired. 15913. Magoseph - 7/22/2005 1:45:07 PM Well, Mac--you will go home early in a little while, won't you? 15914. judithathome - 7/22/2005 3:00:19 PM I woke up way too early. Going back to bed... 15915. Macnas - 7/22/2005 3:13:28 PM I'll go home on time at least Mago. 15916. Magoseph - 7/22/2005 3:35:43 PM Well, that is good, Mac, and you will have a restful and enjoyable weekend with the Missis and kiddies—not to be trite, there is nothing like it to restore one’s soul. 15917. robertjayb - 7/22/2005 4:49:16 PM Macnas,
My boss made a hames of it,
The meaning is perfectly clear but could you translate the word "hames"
15918. Magoseph - 7/22/2005 4:59:16 PM Found the following, Robert:
: : Anytime we really messed up, we would hear, "You really made a hames out of that!" I have searched, but cannot find the origin. What is "hames?"
: Here's one meaning; hames are two parts of a dray horse's harness. The word usually occurs in the plural. Some pubs have the name "Hamemakers Arms", others have a similar name "Homemakers Arms". The names may be derived from both hames and home, or may both be derived from one of these. Why it should be used for a mess or a hash, I don't know.
Yep. Dolan's Dictionary of Hiberno-English has, in part:
HAMES: the wooden or metal pieces forming the collar on a horse, to which the traces are attached; fig. a mess, in the phrase 'to make a hames of,' to make a mess of (possibly because it is difficult to put the hames on a horse the right way up.)< ME 'hames' 15919. Linnea - 7/22/2005 5:09:22 PM Just popping in here to avoid work. I have an interlinguistic funny:
An 70ish friend of mine was in the hospital. Another friend, whose first language is German, described his condition by saying "He's over the hill."
Apparently, that's a direct translation of the German idiom which corresponds to the American-English "he's over the hump" or "he's out of the woods". My German-speaking friend now knows what "over the hill" means in English, and a good laugh was had by all. 15920. arkymalarky - 7/22/2005 5:20:09 PM Hey Linnea! That's very funny. I wonder how many similar things have happened across the languages.
We had a good discussion on the value of public broadcasting in the Politics thread not too long ago. I think it's still linked on the left on the front page. 15921. PelleNilsson - 7/22/2005 6:00:58 PM In my opinion "over the hill" is perfectly good English and might be said of anyone who is past his or her prime, in particular of someone persisting in doing whatever he or she was once good at. 15922. Linnea - 7/22/2005 6:16:48 PM Sometimes there are differences in idiom even within the same language.
For example: in England, if you say "I'll knock you up in the morning", it means you'll literally come knock on the person's door, doesn't it? In America, it means "I'll impregnate you."
When I lived in Philadelphia, I learned that the word "hold" means something slightly different in black English than it does in my dialect. I first heard the phrase "Can I hold your Trans-pass?" which made sense to me. A Trans-pass is a card that gives you unlimited rides on the city's public transit for a week or a month, and you do hold it up to show the driver when you're getting on a bus. But then one day at the gym, I heard one woman ask another "Can I hold your shorts?"
Apparently, "hold" in this context means "borrow". At least I hope so.
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