Men who say 'Poly Ethylene' like it's a rocket science piece of black tube. I'm building my courage to challenge this abuse of 'English.' Surely they mean 'polythene?' Best I check here first.. ...?
Depressingly accurate. The wonders of going out with a german. I once asked her not to spice me in the bedroom.
'Scuse my ignorance, but do Americans use the phrase 'Your round', as in "It's your turn to buy the drinks for everyone." ?
I've heard it in the US, but I think it's often a different drinking culture - less buying of rounds, from my observations. More likely for people to buy their own drinks, or all chip in for pitchers of draft or whatever.
Sorry, @big soft moose - that sounds far too much like an English sense of humour to me Thanks, @BayView - Although the setting goes unstated, I have to be careful with phrases that naturally fall out of my head, as they are likely to place the story firmly in the UK. I think I'll just use a universal phrase to be on the safe side.
I think if Americans were drinking in rounds, they'd probably use that term for it... I've heard "your shout", but that seems more British to me than "your round". But you may want to be careful about the actual act of buying rounds, is what I'm saying. I'm sure it's done in some places, but I don't think it's common. (It really only makes sense if everyone is drinking roughly the same thing and at roughly the same rate... possibly that's less likely to happen in the US? I'm not sure.)
It's pretty common from where I'm standing, but I think the issue here is demographic and social standing. As I get older, I'm more inclined to buy rounds (because I'm more financially stable) and I've noticed the same in my peers. So, I definitely think age plays a role in this, but when I do go out, people buying rounds is pretty common.
Just to put things in context, the line comes from a rather colourful character who, having just been paid a large advance for a job he's been asked to carry out, then has the cheek to suggest it's someone else turn to buy the drinks.
You might have heard "Oh come on" in your locality. Think of someone being delivered extremely exasperating news on a bad day and then yelling either phrase in a loud and/or frustrated manner.
I can vouch for that. I believe I once saw a brochure for Edinburgh that said "It's like Scotland without the heroin".
Perhaps I should be more specific? It's definitely used by English transplants here (Southern California). Offhand I've heard it from people from Manchester, & London. I've also seen it in one of the British detective shows on PBS, or it may have been Doc Martin. ETA: Usually accompanied by a gentle shove of your friend's shoulder. There's also a longer version, though I've only seen that one on TV. I think either Mrs. Pattmore or Mrs. Hughes used it on Downton Abbey: "Oh, go on with ya now!" As in, "stop kidding around, stop joking, stop exaggerating, etc.. It's rooted in the same idea as the way my English friends use it today.
I'm discovering topic about differences in UK/US/Canadian/Australian English via using this web vocabulary. It's hard enough but i want to get my English on a higher level! Web vocabulary helps me a lot with this, love doses of useful side options and abilities.
@matwoolf ; I'm not sure if anyone answered your question on polythene Vs polyethylene or polyethene. The latter names are the standardised names for the polymer as agreed by The International Union Of Pure And Applied Chemistry. Traditional and trivial names for polymers were retained: polyethylene is one such name. The CAS or Chemical Abstracts Service adheres to the same naming rules. There are many fields of chemistry (and other sciences) and as they are constantly developing a common scientific description 'language' is needed. This is necessarily very basic information on the question asked but I hope it is of some help to you.
I'm a big fan of the old 70's British show Fawlty Towers (John Cleese), and I notice quite often in their expressions the word just. For example, "I'm just going upstairs to bed." I'm an American and noticed right away this was uniquely British. Is this still used today, or has it been removed from everyday speech? Is it/was it found regionally? Thanks.
