Things you were shockingly old when you learned

my neighbors and uh, sorta unofficial godparents almost? from mid 20th century bkln, very italian american, often said "close the light," which baffled me. i never asked them about it.

Another amusing direct-translation fail, from an old roommate from Equador: apparently the Spanish word for "namesake" can be used to address someone that actually is your namesake, so if he wanted to greet someone who happened to have the same name as him, he'd say "hey namesake, how ya doing?" He did that for years before learning that doesn't work in English.

eu usage of frown is a totally new on e on me

John Prine says “Cathy was closing the lights” in Far From Me, so maybe it’s not just a Quebec thing.

There's actually a wikipedia page for Quebec English (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_English) full of expressions I hear all the time, though not generally from people whose first language is English.

I've been known to use: 'delay' (in the sense of 'délai'), 'soft drink' (all the time, I would never say 'soda' or 'pop'), 'pass' (occasionally, when talking about the bus), 'dep' (it would be extremely weird not to if you live here), 'metro' (instead of 'subway' – always, without exception), 'stage' (instead of 'internship' – sometimes), 'terrace' (pronounced à la française, obviously – 'terr-uhss' is utterly alien to me), 'take a decision' (had to force myself to stop saying that one when I was younger), 'we're Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, etc.' (sometimes), I drop the 'do' when asking questions (sometimes, in colloquial settings), I definitely distinguish between 'marry' and 'merry', I pronounce all place names like a local (duh), and that's about it, really. Also, 'all-dressed' and 'cégep' are hardly false cognates.

I never use 'close the lights' because it was drilled into kid me that you're not supposed to say 'fermer la lumière' either.

grew up hearing close = humid from my coal-mining elders in western pennsylvania, which may well have come from their coal-mining elders in the uk

xp I would never say 'soda' or 'pop'

or 'pepsi'?

I mean, if it's an actual Pepsi, sure. Unless you're talking about the obsolete slur, in which case… no, definitely not.

he'd say "hey namesake, how ya doing?" He did that for years before learning that doesn't work in English.

it works even if it's not a thing, and anyone who didn't enjoy him doing it to them is lame and dull

'terrace' (pronounced à la française, obviously – 'terr-uhss' is utterly alien to me)

Where I live this word is pronounced "terr-iss," which is also how you pronounce "terrorist."

Montreal anglophones say “make dodo” to kids— “go to sleep” which I understand comes from French.

lol

yeah it’s “fais dodo” in french

Where I live this word is pronounced "terr-iss," which is also how you pronounce "terrorist."

Does it describe the same thing (bar/restaurant/café outdoor seating)? I'm guessing not, since ime everyone says 'patio' outside of Quebec.

"terrace" = balcony or rooftop area with seats
"patio" = bar/restaurant/café outdoor seating (ground level)

It also bears noting that, barring a handful of notable exceptions, Quebec English is remarkably un-Frenchified given the context, whereas Quebec French is chock-full of anglicisms. It's never been a two-way street.

xp ah, interesting, so it's not completely off either.

Huh, I picked up a habit of saying "shut the light" years ago and couldnt work out why, but it must have been the Quebecois ex.

Well, you shut the lights off don't you?

In fact...

"Shut the light, shut the shade
You don't have to be afraid
I'll be your baby tonight"

... and that's a Nobel Prize winner there.

I could never get with the idea that some people in the construction industry referred to switches as "rockers" as in "maybe it's a faulty rocker". Like maybe just say switch instead because that describes what it is and what its function is perfectly.

You frown with both imo

>:(

xxpost I think that's a thing where laypeople just think of rocker switches as switches, whereas electricians deal with a variety of switches and don't consider how weird it sounds to laypeople when they refer them as rockers.

you frown with your butt

Metro / boulot / dodo

(Commute/work/sleep)

xp - the "rockers" for switches thing I've noticed in several industries, where they refuse to adopt the lay term. Like how computer manufacturers until recently insisted on calling portable computers "notebooks", even though everyone calls them "laptops". I hear telecom industry people speak of a "wireline"; to everyone else it's a landline.

Curious about the "metro" for subway thing though. I've from the Washington DC area where the local subway is usually called the "metro" too (parts of it literally aren't a subway as it pops aboveground in the suburbs), but I've always considered "metro" the name of *this* subway, not any subway. Just like BART is the San Francisco subway or "the tube" is the London subway or the Boston subway is sometimes "the T". I almost always call the DC subway "the metro" but would never call the London or NYC subway that.

In French, it's always 'métro', which is why even anglophone Montrealers call it that in English.

Beyond that, however, London's Metropolitan Railway inaugurated the history of rapid transit in 1863 so it's likely that the abbreviated version stuck even in parts of North America.

Bit of whiplash in the last minute as I went from realizing, on seeing the abbreviation FKA elsewhere, that the FKA in FKA Twigs stood for 'formerly known as', to discovering that in fact, despite her being known as just Twigs for a time, the FKA doesn't stand for 'formerly known as', according to her anyway, and is just "a selection of letters that sounded quite kind of masculine and strong".

i do not believe that at all

does that mean my pronunciation of "fucker Twigs" is correct after all?

Of course, somebody in R.E.M. once claimed that the name didn't stand for anything, they just liked the dots.

Boss likes dots

dots man gets paid?

Irmin Schmidt used to tell people CAN stood for Communism Anarchism Nihilism.

Political Unrest Stabilize Society, YES

KMFDM really means what I think it means and nobody will ever convince me otherwise.

That the first word in King Kong is the royal title and the name of the ape is simply Kong. I guess it's understandable that it wasn't translated into Norwegian, as "kong Kong" might look a bit silly.

In clearly specious name origin claims, there was also “ In an early promotional interview, Vedder said that the name "Pearl Jam" was a reference to his great-grandmother Pearl, who was married to a Native American and had a special recipe for peyote-laced jam.”

There's a whole lot of speculation about that name, another origin (from Jeff Ament) gives Neil Young credit for the "Jam" part:

Neil Young, of course, would go on to be one of Pearl Jam’s biggest mentors.

And on this one night in 1991, the three band members watched in amazement as Young stretched a few key songs on and on for hours. “He played, like, nine songs over three hours. Every song was like a fifteen- or twenty-minute jam," Ament told Rolling Stone in 2006. "So that's how 'jam' got added on.”

Ament soon turned to his longtime bandmate Gossard and simply said, “What about Pearl Jam?”

it's cum

https://www.xxlmag.com/shelley-fka-dram-interview/

Thin white rope was already taken.
As was 10cc.

Lovin spoonful too.

God, rock is awful

Do we need a 'bands whose names are probably references to semen' thread? I think we almost certainly do.

the jizz is on mary chain

Threads you were shockingly old when you clicked Remove Bookmark

jesus, had never made that connection with 10cc or lovin spoonful, ick

Cream was actually named after Jack Bruce's family's dairy farm iirc

what do u think the "Wall Street Shuffle" alluded to