Bananas and Nuts

Delta · 2010-09-01T16:21:31.000Z

Oh, yeah. Knock on wood. I guess I should have got that, too.

TimElhajj · 2010-09-01T16:23:59.000Z

Hey, hey, hey. There’s knock wood and there is TOUCHING wood. You can’t just use them interchangeably.

“Mom, he touched my wood!”
“Don’t touch your brother’s wood.”

JM1 · 2010-09-01T16:24:07.000Z

Look we’ve loaned you the language, the best you can do is try not to butcher it too much.

And don’t get me started about “could care less”. Shudder.

Cosmic_Hippo · 2010-09-01T16:43:40.000Z

Hey! That’s not an American thing, it’s an idiot thing.

Zylon · 2010-09-01T16:47:31.000Z

JM:

And don’t get me started about “could care less”. Shudder.

Innit though?

Mike_O_Malley · 2010-09-01T16:49:08.000Z

Now you’re taking the piss.

I love that one, it makes absolutely no sense to me.

JM1 · 2010-09-01T16:51:17.000Z

Zylon:

Innit though?

“innit” being a contraction of “isn’t it”, used by people from a certain part of England. Mostly round here. It sounds horrible when it’s used but at least it’s logical.

Bit different to taking a saying, changing it and losing the original meaning, then blithely using the new version without stopping to realise that what you’re saying doesn’t actually make any sense.

p.s. It’d just be “innit” - no need for the though. Innit is a multi-purpose word, innit.

JPR · 2010-09-01T16:51:31.000Z

I’ve heard plenty of Americans say “touch wood.” And not in the bullshit anglophilic way they might say “arse” or “shite.”

JM1 · 2010-09-01T16:52:51.000Z

Mike O'Malley:

Now you’re taking the piss.

I love that one, it makes absolutely no sense to me.

If you look it up there some fairly interesting and amusing variations of the etymology of that phrase. Boatmen!

TimElhajj · 2010-09-01T17:00:33.000Z

JPR:

I’ve heard plenty of Americans say “touch wood.” And not in the bullshit anglophilic way they might say “arse” or “shite.”

Maybe they were suggesting something other than what you imagined?

JM1 · 2010-09-01T17:02:21.000Z

Yes Tim, we get it, you find dick jokes funny :)

Zylon · 2010-09-01T17:10:20.000Z

JM:

Bit different to taking a saying, changing it and losing the original meaning, then blithely using the new version without stopping to realise that what you’re saying doesn’t actually make any sense.

You mean, like saying “We need to decide what to do about that now innit”?

PS-- “Different FROM”, dammit.

JM1 · 2010-09-01T17:17:54.000Z

That would be the multi-purpose bit I mentioned afterwards. I wasn’t being entirely serious when defending chav language, but I guess that was a little too subtle.

Different from? No. Different to. Sorry!

Zylon · 2010-09-01T17:19:57.000Z

Subtlety? From an Englishman? Now I know you’re carbuncling my lorry whiskers!

JM1 · 2010-09-01T17:23:27.000Z

Yes, that’s us. Internationally renowned for being incapable of subtlety, irony, or wit.

Uh.

RepoMan · 2010-09-01T17:29:28.000Z

Your Mother:

I’m pretty sure that’s been done, either as a mod or an ill-conceived attempt to counterbalance violent games. Either way, it was stupid and horrible.

No mother would ever say that.

…Well, Angie might. But not your mother.

mouselock · 2010-09-01T17:41:44.000Z

JM:

Bit different to taking a saying, changing it and losing the original meaning, then blithely using the new version without stopping to realise that what you’re saying doesn’t actually make any sense.

Unless you’re going to go into an etymilogical derivation, you’re going to have to work much harder than that to make me believe there’s more sense in “touch wood” than “knock on wood”.

JM1 · 2010-09-01T17:42:42.000Z

mouselock:

Unless you’re going to go into an etymilogical derivation, you’re going to have to work much harder than that to make me believe there’s more sense in “touch wood” than “knock on wood”.

Uh. We were talking about “could care less”. :)

mouselock · 2010-09-01T17:44:11.000Z

JM:

Uh. We were talking about “could care less”. :)

Ah, well then. No excuse for that, other than the same bastardization that led to “Should of”.

JM1 · 2010-09-01T17:45:50.000Z

Oh god. Proper nails-on-blackboard phrase.