"favours" eg If someone favours a certain pen they own, that would mean they use it a lot. But if an athlete seems to be favouring her left leg it means she's using it as little as she can
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 17 December 2023 10:15 (four months ago) link
I thought favouring a limb meant using it more because the other one is injured?
― Honnest Brish Face (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 17 December 2023 10:58 (four months ago) link
It does... doesn't it?
― Free Ass Ange (Tom D.), Sunday, 17 December 2023 11:03 (four months ago) link
haha maybe i have always used this wrong
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 17 December 2023 11:08 (four months ago) link
historically it has meant what tracer says: that e.g. you protect ("favour") the injured leg by using it less -- favour as in you're being kind to it
however the apparent contradiction tracer highlights means that modern usage has become pretty confused = you protect the injured leg by using ("favouring") the other one more -- favour as in you prefer to put weight on it
― mark s, Sunday, 17 December 2023 11:10 (four months ago) link
yeah i don’t have any memory of it being used that way but no doubt today’s simpletons LIKE TOM D AND NV have once again ruined language for everyone
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 17 December 2023 11:12 (four months ago) link
every good leg deserves favour
― mark s, Sunday, 17 December 2023 11:13 (four months ago) link
time wounds all heels as the great man once said
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 17 December 2023 11:14 (four months ago) link
words mean exactly what I intend them to mean
― Honnest Brish Face (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 17 December 2023 12:05 (four months ago) link
that's just mean
― StanM, Sunday, 17 December 2023 12:15 (four months ago) link
it's the mean but it's not necessarily just
― Left, Sunday, 17 December 2023 15:06 (four months ago) link
resisting the urge to soapbox on "performative" again because social media has made it way too hard to use the word in a meaningful way without having to redefine it first
like I *wish* gender was just shallow surface posturing in the same vein as a brand's newfound wokeness. maybe it is that kind of thing just done really hard for thousands of years
― Left, Sunday, 17 December 2023 15:23 (four months ago) link
I didn't resist that hard
― Left, Sunday, 17 December 2023 15:24 (four months ago) link
drawing the curtains = opening or closing them. Dickens uses "undraw" for open, but I'm guessing that's obsolete everywhere, right?
― fetter, Monday, 18 December 2023 21:47 (four months ago) link
“fast” is a great onethe lex otm, tuomas offtm
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 21 December 2023 17:39 (four months ago) link
milk carton otms
― Ghidorah, the three-headed Explorah (Neanderthal), Thursday, 21 December 2023 18:04 (four months ago) link
apparently
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 22 December 2023 22:11 (four months ago) link
Probably been done upthread but (US) could care less = (UK) couldn't care less
― Zelda Zonk, Friday, 22 December 2023 22:19 (four months ago) link
"Could care less" is in colloquial use, but it's still "wrong."
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 22 December 2023 22:22 (four months ago) link
i could have sworn i already posted this. maybe i did it in the wrong thread fml. French has a couple of these, sorta“pas terrible” - literally “not terrible” but actually means irredeemably bad“fais gaffe” - literally “make a mistake” but actually means watch out, be careful, mind your step
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 27 December 2023 15:59 (four months ago) link
i think the meaning of "pas terrible" is closer to "Well, it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't exactly great either"
as for "fais gaffe", perhaps it has something to do with the literal definition of "gaffe", since you are generally in an attentive state of mind when docking a boat with a boathook?
― budo jeru, Wednesday, 27 December 2023 17:37 (four months ago) link
well the way my family uses it, it means “VERY terrible” - it’s tremendously counterintuitive which is why i included it here
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 27 December 2023 17:40 (four months ago) link
ah this page explains it. “terrible” in the archaic sense of “terrific”. so “not great”https://www.thoughtco.com/ce-nest-pas-terrible-1371144so it serves for english too! i had to double check the full thread and i’m actually mildly surprised no one’s suggested it yet. “terrible” = 1) quite bad 2) terrific
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 27 December 2023 17:47 (four months ago) link
I've definitely heard 'terrible' used to mean 'fantastic' in French. An uncle of mine (who is admittedly in his 80s) uses it that way.
― Zelda Zonk, Wednesday, 27 December 2023 21:35 (four months ago) link
yeah i feel like i've heard "terriblement" too like eg darling, would you mind terribly if i stayed the night with joan? i'd be ever so grateful for it
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 27 December 2023 22:46 (four months ago) link
Captain Terrible and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
― Ghidorah, the three-headed Explorah (Neanderthal), Thursday, 28 December 2023 00:47 (four months ago) link
good one, Tracer
― budo jeru, Thursday, 28 December 2023 01:25 (four months ago) link
not quite opposites but:https://i.redd.it/e8cjmmi3cwl21.jpg
― Philip Nunez, Friday, 29 December 2023 17:44 (four months ago) link
applause
― brimstead, Friday, 29 December 2023 18:17 (four months ago) link
Garbage man vs. garbage person
― CthulhuLululemon (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, 29 December 2023 18:53 (four months ago) link
xp amazing!
― budo jeru, Friday, 29 December 2023 20:07 (four months ago) link
the "terribly" thing has echoes in English I think, eg "She's terribly educated" vs "She was terribly educated"..?
― fetter, Friday, 29 December 2023 20:29 (four months ago) link
yes i think thats right
― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Friday, 29 December 2023 20:36 (four months ago) link
teddibly
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 29 December 2023 20:54 (four months ago) link
“peak”
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Monday, 22 April 2024 20:05 (one week ago) link
i need you to explain that one
― budo jeru, Monday, 22 April 2024 22:41 (one week ago) link
Peak means bad in British slang (I had to look that up)
― Josefa, Monday, 22 April 2024 23:08 (one week ago) link
no wonder coppers knew the Peaky Blinders were bad guys
― ain't nothin but a brie thing, baby (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 23 April 2024 03:50 (one week ago) link
I was wondering the other day if there was any opposite slang (is there a grammatical term for this? bad = good etc) where a positive means a negative instead of the other way round.
"Peak", to become weak, thin, and sickly, first recorded 1500, origin uncertain. Usually used as an adjective these days, "you're looking a bit peaky". Wonder if thats where the slang came from or not.
― ledge, Tuesday, 23 April 2024 07:37 (one week ago) link
the grammatical term is pejoration
― budo jeru, Tuesday, 23 April 2024 14:45 (one week ago) link
at least in the direction of positive > negative
i just learned a good example yesterday: "clambake" used to mean a hip shindig, and Tommy Dorsey even had a jazz combo called the "Clambake Seven" -- but by the '50s "clambake" came to mean a difficult or unproductive jam session, and the word "clam" persists today among musicians as a term for a wrong note or blunder
― budo jeru, Tuesday, 23 April 2024 14:49 (one week ago) link
Never heard of it.
― Not waving but droning (Tom D.), Tuesday, 23 April 2024 15:21 (one week ago) link
In any case, slang words that mean the opposite of their standard meaning, no shortage of those.
― Not waving but droning (Tom D.), Tuesday, 23 April 2024 15:24 (one week ago) link
well with the slang word peak I think it actually evolved from meaning "intensely amazing" - like a peak experience - and then pivoted to meaning "intensely bad" - like in both cases it means "super intense" but just slipped from good to bad
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 23 April 2024 15:33 (one week ago) link
― Not waving but droning (Tom D.), Tuesday, April 23, 2024 10:24 AM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
obviously. but it would be more fun if you listed your favorite examples
― budo jeru, Tuesday, 23 April 2024 15:37 (one week ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw1ZhGBDICI
― Pierre Delecto, Tuesday, 23 April 2024 15:41 (one week ago) link
It seems very rare now but "stupid" used to mean amazing in the '90s, I guess it evolved from "stupid fresh"
― Josefa, Tuesday, 23 April 2024 16:01 (one week ago) link
> Tommy Dorsey even had a jazz combo called the "Clambake Seven"
i think you're missing a more obvious clambake, the elvis waterskiing film
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clambake_(film)
― koogs, Tuesday, 23 April 2024 16:57 (one week ago) link
(oh, i put it in url tags to avoid the famous ends-in-a-) bug and it did the exact same thing anyway)
Click-me-do
― koogs, Tuesday, 23 April 2024 16:58 (one week ago) link
"peak" in contemp UK slang is closer to bad luck or tough shit, I think: That's peak (for you). certainly the way my kids use it. makes me think of pique.
― fetter, Tuesday, 23 April 2024 18:32 (one week ago) link