IN FRATERNAM MEAM: INFORMAL ENGLISH: CURIOUS WORDS AND PHRASES OF NORTH AMERICA

IN FRATERNAM MEAM

Friday, October 28, 2005

INFORMAL ENGLISH: CURIOUS WORDS AND PHRASES OF NORTH AMERICA

Here are some examples of Informal English, Puncture Ladies, Egg Harbors, Mississippi Marbles and Other Curious Words and Phrases of North America still being spoken and used:

** Columbia Leprosy - A euphemism for some disease, probably syphilis. (Scargill, Canada)

** Colluvies - A collection of filth; excrement. (Worcester)

** Brick in the Hat - A drunken man is said to have a brick in the hat, the allusion being to top-heaviness and inability to preserve a steady gait. (new England)

** Break the Road - The person breaks the road who is first to pass over the road after a snowstorm. (Nebraska)

** Breeze of Luck - A period of prosperity, good luck. (Craigie)

** Berdache - From the evidence available, the word means hermaphrodite when applied to animals, but homosexual when applied to man. Coward (Mississippi Valley)

**Betting the Eyes - A term used by gamblers when a "sucker" looks on at a game but does not bet. (Matsell)

** BIg Dog of the Tanyard - The name often given to an overbearing person who will allow no one else to speak or differ from his views. (Schele de Vere)

** Biggity - Consequential; giving oneself airs (a Negro term)

** Blacberry Baby - An illegitimate child. (Northwestern Arkansas)

** Anxious Mourner, Anxious Bench - Persons who are peculiarly excited to a consciousness fo their sinfulness and the necessity of seeking salvation. (Southern Indiana)

** Apple-palsy - Plain drunk, caused by too much drinking. (Burlington, County, New Jersey)

** Easter Before Lent - This was an expression used by the Creole folk to indicate that a baby had been born too soon after the wedding. (Louisiana)

** Fence-corner Peach - Any good-lloning country girl may be called a fence-corner peach, but the term often implies a low-class family background or questionable paternity. (Randolph and Wilson)

** Fill one's shirt - To eat heartily. (Southwestern Eisconsin)

** Fine as a frog hair - Extra fine. (Arkansas)

** Feel pale - A humorous way to say someone is sick.

** Fiddle-faced - Sorrowful, sad; gloomy. (Weseen)

** Gossling Patch - The period in which a boy's voice is changing. (Western)

** Got a Mash on - In love with, (North Carolina)

** Grab-gutted - Greedy, selfish (Sourthern Illinois)

** Granny grunts - Stomach aches (Eastern Alabama)

** Gravels for my Goose - A man in search for sexual satisfaction. (Randolph and Wilson)

** Mizzy - A negro expression for stomach aches .(Louisiana)

** Mockbeggar - A house that looks well but gives no hospitality (New foundland)

** Moose Face - A rich, ugly faced man. (Matsell)

** Red in the comb - When a mountain man says of a woman that "her comb is red", he means that she is in a state of sexual excitement. (Southeastern Missouri)

** Skeezix - A man not to be trusted (Philadelphia)

** Slangander - To slander in a silly manner.(Barrer)

** Tetnit - A child born of elderly parents. (New Hampshire)

** Talk Iron - To talk low and indistinctly. (Cape Cod)

(Source: Informal English by: Jeffrey Kacirk)

posted by infraternam meam @ 8:52 PM

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