Based not only on this product, I think crisps (in AmE, chips) are poised to make their mark in these parts.

In the UK, to have a pint means to have some beer with some mates. Could be a proper pint, could be a half-pint (unlikely), could be several pints, could be one or more twelve-ounce bottles. The usage appears to be catching on in the U.S., as witness:

“Beer guru picks the 10 best places in Michigan to have a pint.” Headline, Detroit Free Press, May 21, 2012

“Bethel Woods hosts its annual Chili Day in October, a chance to head out, grab a pint, grab a wooden spoon and go to town.” Middletown [New York] Times Herald-Record, September 29, 2011

“The Union pawning [Danny] Califf lifts his six-figure salary off the books but it also removed one of the few outspoken personalities in the locker room. Califf was a leader as much on the field as off, visiting hospitals and reading books at schools and known to have a pint or two with supporters.” Philly.com, May 17, 2012.

The last item, about the Philadelphia Union soccer team’s trading a player, reminds me that I have been promised a guest post by a well-known authority about football (soccer) terms that have caught on these shores. Presumably, “supporters” (fans) will be included. I frankly don’t know if pawn is BrE for our trade. I look forward to finding out.

From “In My Cult,” a song from the (American) band Jim’s Big Ego:

A reader named Stephanie Cerra writes:

I’m a book reviewer for a paid review site, so I read a lot of indie (self-published) novels. I’ve been seeing a lot of “bloody” in the British sense in American novels with American characters–most recently, a book where 10 widely different characters used “bloody” for emphasis. I get the impression that the writers are probably Monty Python/Dr. Who-type Anglophiles who feel it sounds more intelligent, more original, or more genteel than “goddamn” or whatever.

The OED’s relevant definition of bloody: “As an intensifier, modifying an adjective or adverb: absolutely, completely, utterly. More recently also as a mere filler, with little or no intensifying force (although generally implying some element of dislike, frustration, etc., on the part of the speaker).” The dictionary dates this from the seventeenth century, one of the first citation being this stage direction from John Dryden in 1683: “The Doughty Bullies enter Bloody Drunk.”

The OED has quite a lot of observations about the usage of bloody:

This word has long had taboo status, and for many speakers constituted the strongest expletive available. This is reflected in the regularity with which dashes, asterisks, etc., were formerly used to represent the word in print, and in the large number of euphemistic forms to which it has given rise, including bee n.³, bleeding adj. 5, blerry adj., plurry adj., sanguinary adj. 4, and perhaps blooming adj. 4. In the case of the adverb, the considerable public reaction to the utterance of the word on the London stage in George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion in 1914 (see quot. 1914 at sense C. 2b) gave rise to the further humorous euphemism Pygmalion adv.

The dictionary is referring to Eliza Doolittle’s line “Walk! Not bloody likely,” which created such a sensation that people started using the word Pygmalion as a substitute for bloody, as in this line of dialogue from the 1967 novel “Rendezvous in Rio”:  ” ‘Are you thinking of joining in?’ ‘Not Pygmalion likely,’ Bland returned brusquely.” Anyway, by no later than the mid-1950s, bloody had apparently lost its sting. In writing the book for the musical version of “Pygmalion,” “My Fair Lady,” Alan Jay Lerner didn’t use Shaw’s “Not bloody likely!” As I recently noted, his Liza shocks with another word when she says, “Move yer bloomin’ arse!”

Back to bloody‘s status as an NOOB, the OED says that after originating in the British Isles,  the use of the word as an intensifier “spread to most other parts of the English-speaking world, with the notable exception of the United States, where it has apparently only ever achieved limited currency, e.g. among sailors during the 19th cent.”

Is this now changing, as Stephanie suggests? Well, of the thirty most recent uses of bloody at the New York Times’ website, twenty-nine use the word either in its literal sense, that is, having to do with blood, or in a reference to the cocktail the Bloody Mary. The sole exception appeared in a May 15, 2011, blog post in which the author anthropomorphized a spring flower, then self-consciously noted the unusualness of the word in an American paper: “’Relax,’ the tulips tell us. ‘Soon you’ll be complaining how bloody hot it is.’ (If the tulips sound very European, there’s a good reason for that.)”

So no empirical evidence yet. But I have the feeling Stephanie is on to something, and I will be keeping my ears open.

“[Charles] Manson is scheduled to have a parole hearing at Corcoran State Prison in Central Calif., on Weds., April 11, 2012.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Romney Coming to Delco on Weds.” Headline, PoliticsPA.com

“Smokers asked to ‘Kick Butt’ on Weds.” Headline, Wwlp.com (Chicopee, Mass.)

For some years, I have been noting an increasing tendency to abbreviate Wednesday as Weds. rather than the (U.S.) traditional Wed. This annoys me. Wed. is shorter (always a good thing in an abbreviation), and Weds. elides two letters (ne), never a good thing in an abbreviation. There is, in short, no reason for it.

I had a hunch that Weds. is of British origin, and a Google News search for “on Weds” (you can’t just search wed or weds for obvious reasons) returns more U.K. hits than U.S. ones, but that’s hardly scientific. I consulted my go-to expert, Lynne Murphy, who kindly conducted a survey of British informants. The results: 67 percent favored Weds. That sounds scientific. Unfortunately, the sample size was three.

Wherever it came from, I wish it would stop.

Lynne Murphy alerted me, via Twitter, to this photograph posted on the UK website The Poke:

It inspired various thoughts.

1. Bloody good advert!
2. The Poke includes no text with the photo, but the sign advertising “NY State Inspections” suggests that is was taken, in fact, in New York.
3. The Poke (whose motto is “time well wasted”) appears to specialize in Photoshopped or otherwise altered photographs, so I am not sure if this is the real deal. I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has eyeballed it.

This slang term would be a useful NOOB, in not having a good U.S. equivalent. Pimply would be the closest, but that sounds kind of weird and maybe too clinical: the kind of thing that Holden Caulfield would say about Ackley. My sense is that in the U.K., spots and spotty can refer to all sorts of blemishes and markings on the skin.

I was interested, therefore, to pick up today’s New York Times and read theater critic Ben Brantley (who has made numerous appearances in these pages) mentioning “YouTube videos of spotty shut-ins making like divas in their bedrooms.”

But I had to go back to 2007 to find another use in the Times: a reference, in an article about skin care, to “half-hour Proactiv infomercials using ordinary people to recount their transformations from reticent loners with spotty skin into pimple-free social butterflies.”

On reflection, I’m inclined to doubt that spotty will catch on over here. To my ears, its teasing overtones (even when used about oneself) clash with the blue-sky self-esteem that our language, at least, insistently promotes.

 

 

I first became aware of bent as referring to something other than physical crookedness in 1980, when Martin Sherman’s play “Bent” (starring Richard Gere) opened on Broadway, and reviews explained that the title was a Britishism connoting homosexuality. I subsequently learned that it’s also a British adjective meaning crooked in the sense of dishonest or corrupt.

But I didn’t know which sense was meant in today’s New York Times article about the NBC comedy “Community.” The piece had a quote from Jim Rash, and described him as the actor “who plays the bent Dean Pelton on the show.”

To find out, I could have called up my daughter Elizabeth Yagoda, who loves “Community.” But clicking over to Wikipedia was easier. There I read that Dean Pelton

seemingly has a crush on Jeff, and uses him to improve the school’s fledgling extra-curricular programs, pressuring him to join the debate team, edit the school’s newspaper, and convince Troy to play quarterback for the football team. Among other hints at sexual proclivities such as late-night visits to truck stops and public restrooms, he has had a growing fetish for people in dalmatian costumes, which he believes he has pursued in secrecy, but seems to be common enough knowledge to the students and faculty.

So there you have it.