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Language Difficulties

08:53 / 17.06.02

Just wondering: Between my flat and Finsbury Park there's a sign on the side of a building

"Fly Tippers will be Prosecuted"

Please explain what this means. It was embarrassing enough when I was bleeding at work and no-one knew what a band-aid was...

09:00 / 17.06.02

Just like Cow tipping surely?

Maybe it means tipping rubbish on the fly? As in slyly.

I think I'm making as much sense as the sign.

09:03 / 17.06.02

While i'm sure there are many potentially hilarious answers to this question, fly tipping actually mean the dumping of large scale usually industriual and sometimes semi-hadardous waste in derelict or wasteland locations so that contractors can cut the cost of proper waste disposal.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

09:34 / 17.06.02

And who on earth does Barry work with that don't know what a Band-Aid is?

10:10 / 17.06.02

The Brits call them "plasters" or "bandages". Bless them. If you think that's weird, try being asked for a rubber by one of the girls in your office, going bright red, and her then remembering you're foreign and in a very condescending tone adding "Oh. Nonono, I forgot, you call them erasers". A great start to the day.

10:18 / 17.06.02

Isn't the word 'band aid' actually a brand rather than a generic term?

10:22 / 17.06.02

Yeah, but the saem thing has happened as with Jell-O and Hoovers - the brand becomes synonymous with the item.

I think Lada actually meant that any British person with half a brain would know perfectly well that a Band-Aid means a plaster. Niceties of syntax are probably harder to cope with if one is not a native speaker, however.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:51 / 17.06.02

Fly tipping is to disposing of waste what fly posting is to putting up posters - doing so illegally, without authorization and thus, as the Sleazyboy says, cutting the cost of proper waste disposal.

10:58 / 17.06.02

Kit-katt part of the point i was making is that Band aid's might be so ubiquetous so as to have become a quasi-generic term in the states but the same has obviously not happened for that particular product over here- in the same way that few american's would know what english people were doing when hoovering as opposed to vacuuming.

This is aside from any debate we could have about the relative virtues of branding (and thus further comodifying) everday acts and the political/situationst implications of such.

11:03 / 17.06.02

But of course.

11:12 / 17.06.02

fly tipping, in the UK at least, can be an extremely good way of getting rid of large objects which otherwise you would have to pay for the council to dispose of

simply throw your old washing machine out in front of your house, then call the council in high dudgeon and complain that somebody dumped a washing machine on the pavement outside your house, it's disgusting, an eyesore etc. They have performance targets which they have to meet, they should get it picked up within the day.

If you call them up and say "I have a washing machine in my house that I need to get rid of" they'll not only charge you money but you'll have to wait at least a month, put it outside at the right time etc.

(used to work for a rubbish contractor)

07:39 / 18.06.02

Thank you.

...and I was working with Italians and a Ukranian and only 1 Brit, so there were always fun language difficulties.

16:04 / 18.06.02

Just for the record, I was under the impression that the term "elast-o-plast" (sp?) was also used for "bandage" in the same way we Americans use "band-aid."

And remember we also call those things with a bit of cotton on them and a cardboard stick attached, generally used to clean out ears and apply make-up and what-not, "cue-tips," so frequently that damn if I know what a generic term for that would be. I've heard the British term, which I'm thinking is perhaps cotton wool or something similar, and I guarantee most Americans at least would have no idea what you were talking about if you asked for one.

There are so many of these different terms it's fascinating to me at least. For example, it wasn't until I saw a sign saying "BILL POSTERS WILL BE PROSECUTED" here in London that I understood the origin of the suit. (By the way that's the equivalent of "POST NO BILLS" for my homies from the American continent).

16:10 / 18.06.02

Cherry: the trademark is "Q-Tips," after the Johnson & Johnson product of that name. The generic term is "cotton swabs," which is what our overseas cousins--and US people in the medical industry--call them.

"Cotton wool" is simply what us Yanqui dogs would call "cotton balls."

Less searchable M0rd4nt

21:56 / 18.06.02

Q-tips are known as cotton buds on this side of the pond. I'm not sure but I think that might originally have been a brand name too.

14:09 / 19.06.02

Mmm.

Jello.

14:12 / 19.06.02

[pedant] That's Jell-O. [/pedant]

14:15 / 19.06.02

I was going to write cotton buds last night, but I suddenly thought, what if it is only me that calls 'em that? Remember starting school in London, and getting the piss taken out of me for saying 'pumps' instead of 'plimsolls'. Of course, that is the accepted term in more northerly climes, but that did not help much. Also, always have to remind myself that most people do not call 'ice lollies' 'lolly ices'...

14:22 / 19.06.02

Yeah... I can never cope with the fact that Australians seem to refer to boiled sweets as 'lollies'. If someone offers me a lolly I expect a lollipop. Weird.

Isn't Elastoplast just a brand of plaster?

14:36 / 19.06.02

And if you ask for an ice lolly in New Zealand, they look at you very oddly. They call them ice blocks, which suggests a big grey lump of ice to me.

Oh, and if you ask for a hotdog, expect a grey mystery-meat sausage in batter, skewered lengthways on a stick and with tomato sauce dribbling down from the top. A bit alarming.

Ah! I know what I wanted to ask the American people here - every time I asked (in Boston) for a cheese and salad sandwich I would get some weird thing filled with mayonnaise and croutons and all sorts. My friend said that if I wanted lettuce, cucumber and tomatoes I should have asked for a cheese sandwich with "vegetables". Which sounds very odd to me and I'm afraid to try it next time in case I get cheese with courgette and brocolli.

14:51 / 19.06.02

Perhaps it's because in America nobody eats such things. A cold cheese sandwich with lettuce, sliced tomato, and sliced cucumber, yeah? Never seen anything even remotely like it.

You'd probably be best off just asking for "a cold cheese sandwich with lettuce, sliced tomato, and sliced cucumber." Yeah.

I find British sandwiches bizarre and amusing (a chicken tikka sandwich?): an Englishman may have invented the form, but I honestly think the Colonials perfected it. Yes, we have produced monstrous mutations as cited by Ariadne, but, more importantly, we've also done away with the practice of always buttering the fucking bread.

Listen--a roast beef sandwich (for instance) does not need butter. Salt and pepper, maybe a little lettuce and tomato; mustard, mayo, or horseradish, as you will; but not butter.

Honestly, I thought the butter-on-every-sandwich thing was some sort of myth—until, for my sins, I suffered the above-mentioned chicken tikka sandwich. With butter.

15:06 / 19.06.02

I couldn't agree more, butter is meant for toast. Butter and and kind of meat does not go together.

Butter up that bacon boy!

15:14 / 19.06.02

it's just like asking for a milkshake while in main...they'll hand you a small milk container that's been shaken up. One needs to ask for a frappe.

It's funny how most questionable item identity comes with food.

15:15 / 19.06.02

And all these years i thought forgoing butter in my home made sandwiches was just laziness on my part - instead of marking me out as one of the culinary avant garde... But Mr Fear I am affraid that I cannot accept that any society that routinely confuses a hamburger and a sandwich has perfected *anything*

17:51 / 19.06.02

Ariadne: And if you ask for an ice lolly in New Zealand, they look at you very oddly. They call them ice blocks, which suggests a big grey lump of ice to me.

In America, it's a Popsicle™ .
All about the brand names, we are.

Oh, and on the cheese sandwich thing, just ask for a cheese sandwich. Or a club sandwich, no meat.
Sandwiches default onto lettuce, tomato, & onions in all civilized establishments. And many uncivilized ones.

17:55 / 19.06.02

A cold cheese sandwich with lettuce, sliced tomato, and sliced cucumber, yeah? Never seen anything even remotely like it. – Jack Fear

We do have grilled (ie. hot) cheese sandwiches though. They are lovely with tomato, but I suspect the cuke & lettuce would get a little wilted...

Less searchable M0rd4nt

19:47 / 19.06.02

That's not butter. That's marge, and plenty of it. M-mmm! Taste those hydrogenated non-vegetable fats! Check out that fluro yellow food dye, not avaliable in any other EU country on account of what it made the rats turn into!

Butter's for ponces. Foreign ponces.

20:30 / 19.06.02

I stand corrected.

Rather, I slump-greenfaced-with-nausea corrected.

16:26 / 21.06.02

We do not put butter on sandwiches, 'tis true.

Mayonnaise, on the other hand, is quite often a necessity where I'm from. So far as I can tell, it really seems to be just about slapping a little fat onto the bread in both cases?

Sleaze, I have never heard of anyone confusing a hamburger with a sandwich. I will, however, take examples proving your point should you be willing (or, more likely able) to provide them.

I've had a cheese lettuce and tomato sandwich in the states. I KNOW I have. I'd just ask for cheese, lettuce and tomato. I hate cucumbers so I wouldn't ask for those, but I'm sure you can get them.

By the way, once you've experienced 3 and half straight weeks of Czech sandwich shop eating, you'll realize just how good the Brits and the Americans have it...

16:58 / 21.06.02

A hamburger is a thingy with a ground beef patty inside a bun, right?

And a sandwich is stuff inside two slices of bread?

Nothing like Barbelith for making you question what you thought you knew...

And if you lived in Wisconsin, you could eat butterburgers. Hamburgers with butter.

18:23 / 21.06.02

Ganesh, ZoCher, Ariadne: Why do you fry everything in Scotland? Pizzas? Mars bars? (okay, that last one might be a bit of silly season sensationalism)

And how do the three of you stay so slim?

18:30 / 21.06.02

Fried food tastes good! It's bad for you, and I avoid it now, but I do love chips and all things greasy.
I had my first non-fried pizza when I was about 10 or 12, and didn't like it much!

19:36 / 21.06.02

The North West of England isn't exactly health food paradise, but even I would balk at a fried pizza.

However, as with most things Scottish, I probably shouldn't knock it until I've tried it.