American things

Duel

You don't say fool for fuel, after all.

hers

― The Pingularity (ledge), Thursday, June 20, 2019 3:09 PM (forty-three minutes ago)

how do you say masseur? mass oo-er?

― The Pingularity (ledge), Thursday, June 20, 2019 3:11 PM (forty-one minutes ago)

classic Britishism -- "if we bungle the pronunciation badly enough, maybe people will forget that it's a loanword"

(TIL about hyperforeignism)

I mean, there's no "r" there. Plus, it looks like Dr. Seuss.

I may have some exciting news for you about the pronunciation of American author Theodor Geisel’s middle name

classic Britishism -- "if we bungle the pronunciation badly enough, maybe people will forget that it's a loanword"

yeah, it still doesn't rhyme with moose.

68. 'erbs

― Video reach stereo bog (Tom D.), Sunday, 4 February 2018 23:57 (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

Although herb has always been spelled with an h, pronunciation without it was usual until the 19th century and is still standard in the US.

I do love how Americans pronounce bay-zil - especially being a neuroscience guy so it's a homophone for "basal ganglia" which always gives me a smile.

Anyway I came here for "padiddle" - who even HAS a word for a car with one headlight working, let alone something as loony as that?

not to be confused with the paradiddle

"padiddle" - who even HAS a word for a car with one headlight working, let alone something as loony as that?

not me. I've never run across "padiddle" ever anywhere, in conversation or in print, and I know a lot of words.

nope me neither

and I drive one

I have heard of “padiddle” but not as a word for a car with a headlight out but as something you say when you see one.

It’s a road trip game basically, I forget what the forfeit is if your seatmate says it before you.

here on Australia we have "spotto" which is what one says when one sees a yellow car; "hippo" is a variant for weird colours like purple

*in

no, spotto is a game where you are hunting for other humans in the bush at night with a handheld torch

true, I take it you were in the Scouts as well sic

scouts, DofE, a my-school-specific program called Adventure Country, etc

spent a weekend in the bush every two months or so from sixth grade. at 16 we were just getting dropped in the desert near the NSW/Qld border, with girls from another school and a map, with a rendezvous point to meet adults/vans at five days later. have to wonder if that still goes on in a cell phone era

that is frickin awesome

Australian things thread needed.

here on Australia we have "spotto" which is what one says when one sees a yellow car

‽

The regional variant I'm familiar with was 'perdiddle' and the first to spot and call one out gave the other a sock in the arm. Thanks for dredging up high school memories I'd thought were well and truly suppressed.

the fires of perdiddle

Had a feeling that my padiddle reference would not be universally recognized, even among Americans tbh.

When we see a Wallflowers car, we hit each other in the upper arm and yell "COCK-EYE".

Padiddle may be regional? In any case it is decently widespread but there are some families & communities that simply don't have that tradition and it just missed them in its distribution. I am not familiar with the variant where you get to punch someone, but I have heard of "punch buggy" where you punch someone's arm if you spot a VW Beetle. I think you have to say the color: "punch buggy blue!" To indicate that you actually did see a specific car.

I think I was a teenager before I heard of either of these. They all sound pretty stupid to me - even pointlessly cruel. But apparently in some circles it's a beloved type of juvenile fun, like yelling "shotgun" or "dibs" or "bags I..."

if you saw a lada you could stab someone

Fog lights do not count as a padiddle even if used as primary lights. There is no such thing as a double padiddle.

See also: Punch buggy

i remember learning about padiddles in high school -- i had never heard of it before, presumably because i was an only child? idk

i thought it was suuuuuuper weird that hitting/punching/socking someone in the car with you was a thing people did for laughs

name of your college with the year you graduated/will graduate in your twitter bio

just generally having a hard on for your alma mater - referring to the college you attended as your alma mater

still conflating nationality-american for nationality

i call my high school my alma mater, but i do it in a bullwinkle voice

- having a Bullwinkle voice

calling a toilet a “half-bath”

claiming to be middle class, no matter what you do for a living, or what your net worth is

ritualistic vehicular human sacrifice in the name of economic growth

This year 2,295 breweries submitted 9,497 beers to be judged in the competition. Only 283 of those breweries walked away with medals, 37 of those for the first time.

macaroni & cheese on bar menus

It was a thing for a while elsewhere, especially lobster mac and cheese now we’re all about the katsu sando. Maybe the next global hipster food trend can be non-shit buffalo wings. How hard is it not to bread the wings, bake or fry them very hot and drown in Franks red hot.

When watching sports on television I am exposed to advertisements featuring "buffalo wings", as conceived by several different corporate franchises. Such ads try desperately to make them look appetizing, using every trick of lighting, slow motion, action shots of wings spilling in profusion or floating through the air to majestic music. You name it.

Gawd, those breaded, glossy, candy-colored monstrosities look disgusting.

they are hella tasty tho

macaroni & cheese on bar menus

American things

Omg the most am thing in my eurotrash opinion: cheese cans. The fuck

If it makes you feel any better, the section of my supermarket that sells genuine cheese is approximately 100 times larger than the square footage where canned 'cheese' is displayed for sale.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFGH55fjBvI

different cheese sections for proles and bourgies, with the latter over by the salami: an american thing?

(i'm a tillamook man and they have the right idea working both sides of the street: motorcycle battery of cheddar over here, "we stuck some peppercorns into an ounce of also-cheddar and left out the food coloring, give us $9.50" over there)