Must be a British thing. Spoiler cause it may offend:
They did change the name of that book.
But the whole phrase is very American - I think it relates to the underground railway.
Apparently it’s an old timey idiom from the US. Why a British politician would use an old timey US idiom I have no clue, I very much assume Britain has thousands of old timey British idioms that she could’ve used. I’m sure some would have the same meaning and be offensive.
Unless they’ve been banned by the EU? :D
This seems like a pretty big deal in the what-the-hell-does-Brexit-actually-mean game. I have to imagine that the EU side of the exit negotiating table took one look at this and drew a fat red line through anything that supports British ex-pats staying in EU countries.
Not sure that’s really the case. This is about whether or not free movement continues during any transition period, not about the future status of current migrants.The Brexiteers really are their own worst enemies. They’re so petrified of anything that might lead to backsliding (or I guess more accurately, that could be portrayed by UKIP challengers as backsliding), that they’re ruling out common sense, simple to implement proposals like, say, a fixed period of EEA membership after the formal Brexit date while Britain sorts its border shit out.
How old Brexit voters fucked over the young:
Oh, it was imported to England way back in the old-timey days and hence counts as an old-timey British idiom as well.
Re: the Agatha Christie book. Even in 1939 that title - which is how it was released in the UK, her home - wouldn’t fly in the US. So for here it was renamed And Then There Were None (which is a much better title anyway.)
My parents’ generation still use nignog and gollywog as a generic name for a black person. Neither ever gained connotations of being slurs over here, though they wouldn’t be considered acceptable now for obvious reasons.
Really? I’m in my 40s and I know no boomers who uses that language innocently.
Also there are plenty of Irish slurs used without even knowledge of their origin - “throwing a Paddy”, for instance, seems a common phrase used without any thought to its etymology.
I wonder how Irish people respond to a visit to an American bar where they serve Black & Tans.
They’d know better than to sully their Guinness.
I know no boomers and I would doubt there are any in Ireland who aren’t immigrants from the UK or USA. As a cultural thing, it barely touched anywhere in Europe outside middle class UK.
Plenty of my parent’s generation (40’s and 50’s) grew up in houses with no running water or electricity, 6 or 7 people to a room and wouldn’t have seen someone non-white until they were an adult (and even then). Innocent is just the word.
@Miramon we’re more offended by how bad the Guinness is in American bars than we are by Black & Tans or Irish Car Bombs. The culture of being offended is a very recent phenomenon in Ireland and thankfully only affects a minority of under 30 twitter users so far.
Boomers = baby boomers = born 1945-1970
Then came the best generation, Gen X.
How long before boomers just means the sounds the bombs make when they get us all killed?
Usually I see the transition date to GenX closer to 1960-'65.
Yes. This distinction means a great deal to those of us born in 64 who would much prefer not to be boomers… :)
Baby boomers refers to a specific generation and cultural movement that is inherently US-centric. It simply wasn’t a thing in most of the western world, and carries connotations (peak of the middle class, privilege, educational success etc) that simply don’t apply elsewhere.
So, in this week’s Brexit planning chaos, on Sunday the (Remainer) chancellor and the (hard Brexiter) trade secretary put out a joint statement saying the UK would be outside the customs union come March 2019. Today, apparently:
This reminds me a lot of a relationship I had back in college.
I decided I wanted to break up with this girl because although she was really great and good for me in almost every way, she had all these crappy “rules” about keeping my dorm room clean, and washing my socks every week so I smelled better, and where I could or could not puff on those crappy cigars that were all I could afford at the time.
So I told her I wanted to break up, because I figured I could do better. During the break-up negotiations, I suggested that I retain access to her vagina during the time between when we stopped dating and the point at which I found a new girlfriend.
She demurred, but it might be because my negotiation skills were a little lacking. Perhaps the Brits can do better.