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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. 15923. Linnea - 7/22/2005 6:22:07 PM Yes, Pelle, that's exactly what "over the hill" means. What it doesn't mean (and what my friend was trying to express) is being through with the hardest part of some ordeal, like getting over an illness. That's "over the hump" in English. 15924. PelleNilsson - 7/22/2005 6:48:13 PM Aha. I have missed you Linnea. I hope you will avoid work some more. 15925. Max Macks - 7/22/2005 7:43:28 PM I used to be able to communicate rather well in German
Trouble is that Spanish would be more useful to me now. Where I hear Spanish every day
and German hardl ever.
But I have often wondered what I actually sounded like
to a German
One seldom thinks of accents as causing problem
only grammer or wrong word .
but I remember once when I took my car to have
glass replaced and the man kept saying
about something that
"it's only kos'-ma-tech"... until I realized
(accent on kos), until I realized he was saying
cosmetic. 15926. Magoseph - 7/22/2005 8:52:48 PM There are still words that I never use if I can help it—such words as SHEET and TEETH, for example, because they are bound to distort for many people the meaning of what I want to say. 15927. judithathome - 7/23/2005 9:29:15 PM Pelle, is it your birthday? Happy Birthday, you sweet curmudgeon, you! 15928. anomie - 7/23/2005 9:32:12 PM Ah yes...Happy Birthday and thanks for all the memories...as someone once said.
Great pics from Pelle in Escapes. 15929. anomie - 7/23/2005 9:42:50 PM And a big hello, Judith. So rare to find someone on when I am. Hi also to Arky if she's here.
I am enjoying the food and sweet tea here in South Carolina, and the people I work with are tremendous. Makes doing time easy enough. One more year....God save me from this humidity... 15930. judithathome - 7/23/2005 9:48:06 PM You'll probably miss some of that humidity when you move back to the desert. At least the southern belles look good, right? That humidity keeps their pores plump and dewy...whereas, in the desert, they look like dried out apples. 15931. anomie - 7/23/2005 9:51:14 PM Ha! I'll have to take note of the skin conditions, now that you mention it.
Or...stock up on Jergins lotion.
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