alt.english.usage Google Group

Re: at Michigan

2010-03-13T00:01:03Z

You didn't by any chance know Sid Koslow (EE) or Tom Garceau (Aero)?

Re: For crying out loud

2010-03-12T23:50:48Z

Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal (a bit too much royalty there,
Shirley) was famously reported to have told photographers to 'Naff
off' when under stress while taking an unexpected dip in an equitative
(equitational?) water hazard. That's so not 'Fuck off' that it can't
be anything else.

Re: For crying out loud

2010-03-12T23:46:16Z

On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:52:45 -0800 (PST), "sjdevn...@yahoo.com"
"Frag" is close to "frig":
[link]
verb (frigged, frigging) vulgar slang
1 have sexual intercourse with.
2 masturbate.

ORIGIN originally in sense "move restlessly", later "rub,

Re: For crying out loud

2010-03-12T23:41:44Z

English Jove rhymes with Hove, to brighten your day.
I've forgotten exactly how Latin Iuppiter is declined, but the
genitive is Iovis, so presumably Iove is the ablative form. It occurs
to me that Iove and Yahweh can sound quite similar. One of those
tempting coincidences that mean nothing, I suspect.

Re: For crying out loud

2010-03-12T22:52:45Z

"Frag" is also used in Babylon 5, Shadowrun, Farscape, etc. It's a
fairly standard sci-fi euphemism.
I always associated it with the military slang "frag" (from
fragmentation grenade), but I don't know if they're actually related
etymologically.

Re: For crying out loud

2010-03-12T22:50:36Z

Don't know about the comic, but the Battlestar term is "frak".

Re: Cooking with gas

2010-03-12T22:46:18Z

On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:00:28 +0000, Alasdair <m...@bobaxter.coo.uk>
wrote:
My father, in Pennsylvania, named after the British subject William
Penn, born in 1892, used to say, "Now you're cooking with gas".
Because yes, a gas stove or oven in an improvement over coke or
charcoal or coal or wood. It's faster, easier, cleaner, and better.

Re: "The Late"

2010-03-12T22:39:52Z

On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:02:00 -0500, Bill McCray
But there are a whole bunch of people who have more than one SSN.
Also a whole bunch of people whose SSN is all zeroes.
Hard to believe but I have it on good authority.
I don't blame you for not wanting to have my name determined by
someone else, even after we are 10 years old.

Re: "The Late"

2010-03-12T22:36:21Z

We never lived in the same state after 1952, and he died in 1969.
Bill in Kentucky

Re: For crying out loud

2010-03-12T22:18:23Z

And of course Farscape's "frell".
Brian

Re: "The Late"

2010-03-12T22:01:58Z

But there is the social scene! Especially if you two are in the same
town. See Post. Or Manners.

Re: For crying out loud

2010-03-12T22:01:08Z

Interesting, thanks. I had not heard any of these. There's a
related phrase in Eastern Europe, that hasn't made it accross into
English. It is "bird's milk", and means something rare and hard to
obtain. For instance, if one were to say that a grocery sells bird's
milk, it would mean that the store carries every product that one can

Re: Cooking with gas

2010-03-12T22:00:19Z

On Mar 12, 1:41 pm, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <m...@peterduncanson.net>
wrote:
Or coal. Those huge black iron things that had to be thoroughly
cleaned every day and have "blacking" applied? One very old cookbook
I've seen begins a recipe for one breakfast item: "When you light the
stove, two hours before breakfast..." It took quite a while for the

Re: For crying out loud

2010-03-12T21:56:05Z

Now where did I read that the name was originally Yehoshua, that
Yoshua is the earlier Hebrew shortening and Yeshua the later Aramaic
shortening? Was it a good source?