Specifically for the Aussies in the room: The word unit, as in "He's an absolute unit!" I've seen Australians use this word in similar phrasing, but I had a hard time finding the underlying quality that connected each thing being called a unit in those cases where I saw that word being used. Any illumination?
I've seen it recently in tweets from the MERL (Museum of English Rural Life) in reference to show animals who are extra big, strong, stocky, etc. But in Canada in the 80s or 90s, "unit" was short for "hurtin' unit" and meant that the person in question was pathetic, weak, etc. Australian usage for the tie-breaker?
While I'm not Australian, I've heard the phrase quite a bit, and I'm pretty sure it means someone or something that is big/stocky/muscular etc.
So, just for the sake of science (and to bring it around to humans), would the phrase "Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson is an absolute unit!" be an accurate statement?
Used like that it means well built … in the UK you also see C unit used as an alternative to the C word... as in 'Nigel Farage is an absolute C Unit' ( I believe this came in to common usage after the rapper 'G Unit' became popular)
Britain's not immune to changing language for change sake. Instead of saying Nissan how the people who make Nissan say it, we say 'Niss-anne'. It boggles my mind how the world says this car but apparently I'm in the wrong when I try and say Nissan. Instead of a GM or a Opel, we drive Vauxhall. Instead of Lay's, we eat Walker's. Instead of Brasil we say Brazil. Nike rhymes with like and bike in Britain and not the derogative pikey. We don't say airplane, we say aeroplane - fact. I don't think airplane's a word in British English.
While + -st. -st being an suffix that used to denote it as second person singular, but with changing language and all, now just means while. ETA: checked my school books and it could have also been while + -t, -t being a past participle, like in burnt and leapt.
Yeah, we don't do burnt or leapt here. It's burned or leaped. I've always wondered if you guys do things to be different than us or we did them to be different than you.
Considering Britain was around first, I'm going to assume that's on you. I mean, why else would you still not be using the metric system.
Me?!?! Goodness, no. Though I did go to school on Massachusetts, have a former wife from down there, and have (also former) in-laws in the Ozarks as well as some other family in Virginia. No, I'm unabashedly Canadian. Not like America wants me anyways.
That may be true in Ohio, but in most of the other areas of the US that I've lived in, "burnt" (usually in the past participle or adjective sense" as in "a burnt match") and "leapt" are in constant use. US English also interchanges "dived" with "dove" and "shined" with "shone" depending on the region and the context of the word.
Adjective - I am certain the entire world shall back me on this. Whilst one example that gives me grief is hanged/hung. From memory - 'hanged by the neck' but not hung unless you're a flower. You have to cycle through the tenses to understand this one, it's extremely technical and sorts chaff from weeds in literature scenes.
Yeah, I know... I was being sarcastic. The other poster was wrong about who invented cars, about using "you" when talking to you about referring to Americans, etc.
"Burnt" in that context is not a noun. It's an adjective. Honestly, you should probably stop trying to be an authority on grammar or word usage. That said, as long as you stick to the "I" statements, like "I wouldn't say I burnt myself," you're probably fine. You have an idiom, and you are the expert on that. It's when you expand to "we" statements, like "we don't do burnt or leapt here" that you get into trouble.
