Could be a Cross-Pond thing, but the BBC story headline... Fly-tipping costs Denbighshire council £1,200 in a week
baffles me. First, is it like cow-tipping? And, is the 1200 lb expense used for rehabbing the poor flies who were pushed off their feet?
@Pearl B4 Swine fly tipping is people, often cowboy builders or lazy householders, dumping rubbish on the fly - on the side of the road, in field entrances, on bits of land. The expense is removing said rubbish and cleaning up the area as often the rubbish is being dumped as it would cost to dispose of properly.
BBC again. Not a headline, but a sure stopper as you read about a French skier who has been missing since 1954. At least it brought me me to a dead halt. "There were some clues about the man's identity - such as clothing embroidered with initials and wooden skies, which at the time of use would have been expensive - but the investigators remained puzzled."
But..but... it's true the word 'ski' is difficult to handle; however a ski is not a sky. And 'skis' are not 'skies'. Imagine trying (or maybe trieing) to embroider with wood from the sky! Spell-checker must have stepped out for a while.
FWIW, I like the image of a wooden sky.
UK among worst for life expectancy rises
I was only a few sips into my first coffee today, whilst this headline from BBC News met me.
Remember, only ONE per customer. Get yours now.
And...about the box of alligators seized at Heathrow: I say send the illegal immigrants back to Malaysia. They're not welcome in Cambridge.
From the WaPo: In Texas, a man was shot by a woman, a Ms Crowson, because doing very naughty stuff. The report goes:
“Some guy pulled off his pants and pulled his pants open, playing with his thing,” she told KTRK, the local ABC affiliate, “and he ran up in my yard, and I told him to get away from my door, or I will shoot him.”
He didn’t stop coming, Crowson said.
But that's not all:
The woman’s neighbors told reporters they would have done the same thing in her shoes.
Well golly gee. Who knew? I thought they square-danced on the heads of pins.
Of course, it could be argued that whoever wrote that crawl has read Fahrenheit 451 a few too many times.
That reminds me of notice board I once saw for a local paper that read,
"Trowbridge man charged"
This may be lost on anybody who hasn't heard of Trowbridge. It's a nondescript small town in the west of England. That should be capable of serving as the universal fall back headline for every issue, capable of serving for every occasion when nothing newsworthy has happened.
It might be a "nondescript small town" but it's heartwarming to know their residents use credit cards like the rest of us.
Sorry to say what might sound stupid Amanda. I'm not sure whether you're being facetious or not. I'd taken for granted that the idiom was the same throughout the Anglophone world, and perhaps it isn't. 'Charged' in this context means that the first process has been taken against a person to prosecute them for a criminal offence. He is now an accused person.
It might be a "nondescript small town" but it's heartwarming to know their residents use credit cards like the rest of us.
Sorry to say what might sound stupid Amanda. I'm not sure whether you're being facetious or not. I'd taken for granted that the idiom was the same throughout the Anglophone world, and perhaps it isn't. 'Charged' in this context means that the first process has been taken against a person to prosecute them for a criminal offence. He is now an accused person.
Then it's a pond difference. Here, if we pay by card, we "charge [the item]." E.g. "I charged dinner last night" or "I went out to dinner last night but charged it."
There are also those who would say instead that they paid by card. Both idioms are in vogue.
So even though the headline doesn't specify what the gentleman from Trowbridge paid for by credit card, you can see how an American might interpret it. End of tangent.
@mousethief - I know you guys all charge cards; this side of the Pond we don't: it's one of those jarring things American authors get wrong when they write fiction set in the UK. I recognised the pun that @Amanda B Reckondwyth was making, but could see why someone else didn't because if someone says "charge it" here meaning "pay by card", they stand out as American or with strong American connections. The most common usage of "charge it" here, is people running at something, so talking about how to deal with an obstacle (car that needs moving, fence to be jumped, crowd to get through, drunken Bullingdon club types crying "charge it" as they try to barge into a night club).
We pay by card, all the time, but that's what it's called. "Put on the credit card", "pay by (debit/card) card"... Shipmeets everyone pays in their share - I carry cash in those situations. Whereupon three of us aren't carrying cash and want to pay their portion by card and have to get into negotiation as to how to put that through the machine.
Or we put things "on tab" or "on the bill" to pay at the end of the evening. So you'd go in and ask if we can set up a running account or tab buying drinks and ask to put it on the bill or tab.
Perhaps the Towbridge man just had his batteries recharged. Which he did legally, we hope - if not, he might get charged. But strangely enough, probably not with battery charges.
This headline isn't utterly weird, and in fact it's pretty transparent.
Bikini baristas must cover up
which decorates a local scandal sheet today.
(Somebody was going to open a coffee drive-thru where you'd get your coffee from lasses in bikinis. Local residents had the vapors and the permit is going to be denied. )
Those are endemic around here. I've seen one where they would have been shut down if the cops peeked inside. Their idea of "bikini" contained broad strokes of "indecent exposure." After that I made sure not to miss my regular espresso stand and be stuck going to the vulgaristas.
Comments
Fly-tipping costs Denbighshire council £1,200 in a week
baffles me. First, is it like cow-tipping? And, is the 1200 lb expense used for rehabbing the poor flies who were pushed off their feet?
Elon Musk's farting unicorn fight settled
Not what I expected.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44911905
Is this the rise of vegetable activism? As the following article points out, it isn't (but it's a great story).
"There were some clues about the man's identity - such as clothing embroidered with initials and wooden skies, which at the time of use would have been expensive - but the investigators remained puzzled."
Is that possible? Too much Keats, yes, but not Yeats.
FWIW, I like the image of a wooden sky.
Also from the Grauniad: Doubletake for me there! For a moment I thought 'moped' (moe-p'd) was an adjective, but I reckon it is a small motorbike (moe-paid) after all.
Firefighters put out blaze
Well golly gee. Who knew? I thought they square-danced on the heads of pins.
Of course, it could be argued that whoever wrote that crawl has read Fahrenheit 451 a few too many times.
I was only a few sips into my first coffee today, whilst this headline from BBC News met me.
Remember, only ONE per customer. Get yours now.
And...about the box of alligators seized at Heathrow: I say send the illegal immigrants back to Malaysia. They're not welcome in Cambridge.
Well...
Capitalisation is the poster's own.
Sainsbury's, Durex and Quorn are urgently recalling these products
Am I the only one that finds Durex and Quorn in the same sentence to be, well, inconceivable?
"Trowbridge man charged"
This may be lost on anybody who hasn't heard of Trowbridge. It's a nondescript small town in the west of England. That should be capable of serving as the universal fall back headline for every issue, capable of serving for every occasion when nothing newsworthy has happened.
There are also those who would say instead that they paid by card. Both idioms are in vogue.
So even though the headline doesn't specify what the gentleman from Trowbridge paid for by credit card, you can see how an American might interpret it. End of tangent.
Or we put things "on tab" or "on the bill" to pay at the end of the evening. So you'd go in and ask if we can set up a running account or tab buying drinks and ask to put it on the bill or tab.
Might have hoped she'd be successful on TV or film, not necessarily where they create "a cleansing or emulsifying agent formed by reacting natural oils and fats with sodium hydroxide or any strong alkali, usu. with added colouring matter and perfume" (from Oxford Talking Dictionary, © 1998 The Learning Company, Inc.) , as spectacular as it may sound. - Perhaps it's a side job? I know many actors can't live from their work!
I thought this completely misunderstood Marx's great work.
That is after I worked out that capital wasn't a class that some pupils were taking.
Bikini baristas must cover up
which decorates a local scandal sheet today.
(Somebody was going to open a coffee drive-thru where you'd get your coffee from lasses in bikinis. Local residents had the vapors and the permit is going to be denied. )