Funny, Interesting, Unusual English Words -- Like Sardoodledom

Seems like Chelsie, London, and Southwick must form a contiguous bunch.

There is a small part within this called "The City Of London" but for most purposes when you just refer to "London", you would mean the whole area enclosed by Greater London. In this sense, Chelsea and (I think you mean) Southwark are in London.

Looking at a map of the Boroughs of London, "Kensington and Chelsea", Southwark and "The City Of London" do not form a contiguous group as the first two are separated by Westminster.

I guess one could also debate whether Southwark belongs as unlike the others, it is south of the river Thames?
 
Oh, Southwark

In American popular culture, the names Chelsea, Kensington, London, and Southwark, are separate places; or they are all part of London depending on the time period and who is talking.

Americans think that during Sir Thomas More’s fight with Henry VIII, More lived on an estate upstream from London at Chelsea.

Kensington is important to American tree huggers because they see it as the first national park. Henry VIII bought Kensington because he wanted to hunt, but except for deer, it preserved flora and fauna in a natural state, which is a good thing IMO, and it warms the arteries and veins of a tree hugger’s heart. When reading about American national parks or Yellowstone National Park, Kensington is sometimes mentioned as being the first, real, national park.

London gets a mention in history books all the way back to the Roman Empire. I think that in seventh grade I read that the Romans built the first bridge across the Thames. That made it a natural place to have a city.

Southwark, to the American mind, is the first suburb. I thought it was also south of the river. And in the United States we pronounce it Southwick or is there also a Southwick? Bishop Wilberforce, the vigorous opponent of evolution, is somehow connected with Southwark. Also I thought Shakespeare’s Globe Theater was in Southwark. Whenever I hear about The Globe, it is almost always associated with being south of the river. It is almost like a literary reflex. But if Southwark is north of the river, then The Globe was not in Southwark.

Interesting collection urban myth.
 
Yep, period of time would make a difference. Cities spread out and sort of absorbed what were separate towns, etc.

Southwark is south of the river.

An earlier former Royal Hunting Ground is the New Forest
 
verderer -- a judicial officer of a royal forest

Well cowabunga, I thought it was Joe Green, the guy who wrote all those operas.
 
corpse
-- a dead body, especially of a human being rather than an animal. Not the same as corps, a subdivision of an armed force in the field, consisting of two or more divisions. (A spelling that I learned the hard way.)​

For Halloween I was a copse. My little sister (actually my father’s little sister) and I were pushing up daisies which we attached to our faces and costumes. We took some of our younger cousins trick-or-treating. I love watching a four year old boy or girl waddle along in a state of ecstasy as unusually magnanimous neighbors pour forth largesse (another word along with ecstasy that is easily to misspelled).

I almost roll over laughing when I remember the first time it happened to me. I had recently come to the United States. I was so overwhelmed with the treasure I had so suddenly gained that I refused to let my parents take the bag. I sat in a corner all night guarding it. When I finally passed out, they took it and checked the candy like any parent would.
 
verderer -- a judicial officer of a royal forest

Well cowabunga, I thought it was Joe Green, the guy who wrote all those operas.

Ah, Giuseppe Verdi.

I think the only sort of full blown opera I got to see was The Barber Of Seville (Rossinni) when I was a kid. My parents took me to see the WNO doing it in Llandudno. While not generally a fan of Opera (and often referring to Operatic sopranos as "squeaky-squalky"), I seem to remember it as quite a spectacle.

Perhaps I could also say a similar thing of smaller local jobs and things like musicals. Not been to anything like it in years but your local amateur dramatics group putting something like say Oliver on could be a pleasant surprise. Like I say, it's been years but whole live shows are more than just the singing.

Anyway, a word is needed so I will give

factotum.

 
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Ah, Giuseppe Verdi.

I think the only sort of full blown opera I got to see was The Barber Of Seville (Rossinni) when I was a kid. My parents took me to see the WNO doing it in Llandudno. While not generally a fan of Opera (and often referring to Operatic sopranos as "squeaky-squalky"), I seem to remember it as quite a spectacle.

Perhaps I could also say a similar thing of smaller local jobs and things like musicals. Not been to anything like it in years but your local amateur dramatics group putting something like say Oliver on could be a pleasant surprise. Like I say, it's been years but whole live shows are more than just the singing.

Anyway, a word is needed so I will give

factotum.

Mr Botardy, there you are. Like Sol said to Moishe when Sol opened his wife's closet, and he found Moishe inside. So Sol said, "Moishe, why are you in there?" And Moishe said, "Everybody needs to be somewhere."

Seems like I just learned about how a factotum is a person and not a thing, but I don´t remember where. I go to school with a boy who played Oliver in a seventh grade production. He's kind of a shrimp, but he has a voice like King Kong.

Now that I think about Operas, I think maybe the movie versions of Andrew Lloyd Weber's works are the only Operas that I know about. I played a Harem girl in our middle school version of Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat. Our version was definitely not an opera, and I was in it only because they wanted my labor to build sets. I had so much fun, I am sitting here swaying in the chair as I think about it.

And, I'm so glad to hear from you again.

My words are capitalism, socialism, and communism, which we studied in school last week.

Ms A told us to make tokens by cutting paper in pieces. We played Rock, Paper, Scissors, and we exchanged tokens depending on who won. The person with the most tokens won the game. That is capitalism, something like in Hong Kong when the Britain controlled the city. Then Ms A said that the person with the most tokens had to share with the person with the least tokens. That is socialism, and in my opinion that is what we have in the United States. Then Ms A collected the tokens and gave one token to everyone in the classroom. That is communism, something like they have in Cuba or North Korea.
 
Mr Botardy, there you are. Like Sol said to Moishe when Sol opened his wife's closet, and he found Moishe inside. So Sol said, "Moishe, why are you in there?" And Moishe said, "Everybody needs to be somewhere."

Seems like I just learned about how a factotum is a person and not a thing, but I don´t remember where. I go to school with a boy who played Oliver in a seventh grade production. He's kind of a shrimp, but he has a voice like King Kong.

Now that I think about Operas, I think maybe the movie versions of Andrew Lloyd Weber's works are the only Operas that I know about. I played a Harem girl in our middle school version of Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat. Our version was definitely not an opera, and I was in it only because they wanted my labor to build sets. I had so much fun, I am sitting here swaying in the chair as I think about it.

And, I'm so glad to hear from you again.

My words are capitalism, socialism, and communism, which we studied in school last week.

Ms A told us to make tokens by cutting paper in pieces. We played Rock, Paper, Scissors, and we exchanged tokens depending on who won. The person with the most tokens won the game. That is capitalism, something like in Hong Kong when the Britain controlled the city. Then Ms A said that the person with the most tokens had to share with the person with the least tokens. That is socialism, and in my opinion that is what we have in the United States. Then Ms A collected the tokens and gave one token to everyone in the classroom. That is communism, something like they have in Cuba or North Korea.

Not sure what King Kong sounds like ;-)

We never did anything like that in school. I think the most I did was in primary school for the Christmas concert where a couple of us had to read something, eg. "And in that region there were shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night...". I have in the past been on stage many times though, mostly as a "floor singer" and at one time part of the "resident group" in folk clubs.

I think I'd need to explain those terms in the context of a folk club to you. One common format (there are several formats within folk music and variations on each theme...) is that the folk club has a "resident group". They might for example do the opening sets of songs and sometimes do the closing set (perhaps most commonly on "singers nights"). This type of club often has "guest nights" and "singers nights". The "guest night" is one where you have booked an artist or group who will usually provide most of the entertainment for the evening. The "singers night" is one where people are invited from the floor to come up to the mics to do a set (I've never been to one of these but I'd guess it has fair bit in common with what is called "open mic" for other music). Those that volunteer are the "floor singers".

I'd put the US as capitalist although it may incorporate some socialism within it. I think that when looking at countries like the UK and the US, one might need to try to work out where the centre position would be. Although I'm not familiar with American politics, my perception of the US is that its mid position is further to the right than that of the UK (and I think our own centre position shifted to the right with Tony Blair...). I do not want to attempt to get into a discussion in the merits or otherwise of the different systems (neither being expert enough or feeling it the right place) but I'd like all the same to suggest that perceptions as to what is left and right can be influenced by where one draws their own middle line.
 
King Kong?

Does he make any sound? I remember that Fay Wray screams, but I don’t remember about Kong.

In American slang, hitting a ball like King Kong means hitting it a long way. Babe Ruth, probably the most famous American baseball player, could hit the ball like King Kong. Fortissimo singing means singing like King Kong. Susan Boyle sings like King Kong.


I think that the United States, with the exception of Hong Kong, must have been the most capitalist country during the twentieth century, but the United States has a socialist side as well

I found a really cowabunga cool example of how that works.

In my Great Grandmother’s stack of books, I found a book about a family which had lived in a housing project in Washington DC for three generations. Like many of her books, it sucked me into its vortex, but I don’t remember the title.

The author was a reporter for the Washington Post. The family had lived on the American welfare system for fifty years. The grandmother, who had been a sharecropper, had come to Washington DC in the 1930’s. She had raised her children and her grandchildren in the housing project. None of them had ever been employed or worked for wages.

Cowarbunga, It sounds so grim, but he found candles, burning beacons blazing bright not really on a bluff, more like hidden in a barranca.

One Sunday, he went to the housing project to interview one of the family members. When he arrived, he could not find a parking space because Cadillac, Lincoln, Chrysler and all manner of luxury cars filled the streets. Of course he wondered how people, who could not earn their own rent or food, could afford luxury cars. He found a surprising answer to that question.

The luxury cars did not belong to people who lived in the project. They belonged to people and the children of people who had lived in the project, and they had left the project because they had successful careers, They came back to the project to attend the church, and in the process littered the street with their cars, the accidental signs of their success.

Clearly, he had written the book about the wrong people. Instead of writing about the family that lived and languished in the project, he should have written about the people who left to find a living in the world outside the project.

So anyway, the United States has an odd mix of capitalism and socialism.
 
"Made in Hong Kong" was a bit of a joke when I was young, some bit of plastic junk that might break when you looked at it. Of course now many Asian companies are capable of producing quality products.

"And now for something completely different" I will try to think of a word...

Or maybe not... Our stray cat has been through being Mcavity but seems to have been more responsive to being "Puss Puss" besides that, while he still won't let me get more that say 6 ft, he's less of a mystery cat now. We still want a name for him and have been through Mungojeri (as opposed to Mungo Jerry) and Griddlebone so I'll ask you to give him a name (pic may have been repeated in another thread. Have not taken a pic of him more recently).

stray.jpg
 
"Made in Hong Kong" was a bit of a joke when I was young, some bit of plastic junk that might break when you looked at it. Of course now many Asian companies are capable of producing quality products.

"And now for something completely different" I will try to think of a word...

Or maybe not... Our stray cat has been through being Mcavity but seems to have been more responsive to being "Puss Puss" besides that, while he still won't let me get more that say 6 ft, he's less of a mystery cat now. We still want a name for him and have been through Mungojeri (as opposed to Mungo Jerry) and Griddlebone so I'll ask you to give him a name (pic may have been repeated in another thread. Have not taken a pic of him more recently).

View attachment 1275


LOL " Chi Chi"
 
OK how bout Chilicat hehehe

I'll wait and see if Ghid has a suggestion to and maybe put it to the vote at home (and hey it's usually only tv animals like on Blue Peter when I was a kid usually honoured enough to get their name chosen in this way).

I like it, very easy to call in a sort of "here pussycat" type voice.
 
I'll wait and see if Ghid has a suggestion to and maybe put it to the vote at home (and hey it's usually only tv animals like on Blue Peter when I was a kid usually honoured enough to get their name chosen in this way).

I like it, very easy to call in a sort of "here pussycat" type voice.

My great grandmother had a cat that looks like your cat. She called the cat, Sylvester. If I had a cat, I might call it Teety Bird. :)
 
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My great grandmother had a cat that looks like your cat. She called the cat, Sylvester. If I had a cat, I might call it Teety Bird. :)

Actually a cartoon cat name could have some merit. He does a lot of that slinking, belly close to the ground "no one can see me" walking. Before meals anyway. Afterwards, he usually walks quite casually, pauses to mark "his territory" and then saunters off.

I'll put Sylvester and Chillicat to my parents. Thanks both.
 
Sylvester also would have kept us in with Norwich City Footballers, a theme we have used, as there was a Peter Sylvester who played for the club in the early 70s. That said, the stray is now officially Chilicat.

Anyway, I suppose I should get back to words now. Have we had MangelWurzel?
 
Sylvester also would have kept us in with Norwich City Footballers, a theme we have used, as there was a Peter Sylvester who played for the club in the early 70s. That said, the stray is now officially Chilicat.

Anyway, I suppose I should get back to words now. Have we had MangelWurzel?
Woot Woot!!!!! It does have a zing to that name LOL. Cool man :)
 
An embarrassing moment I had in ninth grade at school I've never shared with anyone. I was reading aloud to the whole class when I came across a word I didn't know and had no idea how to pronounce. The word was chaos, but I read it choose. The whole class laughed at me.

The moral of the story eludes me....
 
An embarrassing moment I had in ninth grade at school I've never shared with anyone. I was reading aloud to the whole class when I came across a word I didn't know and had no idea how to pronounce. The word was chaos, but I read it choose. The whole class laughed at me.

Pronunciation can be difficult with English and even though it's the only language I speak, I've made many mistakes.

A favourite of mine though came from a younger brother who told me the songs I sang were rubbish and the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem song book I had contained stupid words. It didn't help that the words were hyphenated to align with the music but the words (as he said them,) he picked out were:

milly-tia (militia) and fu-silliers (fusiliers)

I'm pretty sure if he'd have looked further, he would have found The Rare Old Mountain Dew which does contain a nonsense chorus, along the lines of "skiddly idle dum", etc. but he chose that one.

I recently suggested that if you pronounced it differently, one could suggest Lettuces was a famous Greek or Roman rather than something I grow in the garden.
 
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