h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

and difficult to understand for a non-native speaker unless you offer an explanation?

for example, in Spain:
Since a few years ago, there´s a new meaning for an old and common word: cuñado (brother-in-law)

we also have cuñadismo.

a cuñado is now a man who mansplains to everybody. A person who has an easy answer to complex problems. A person who knows which are the right things, where to find them , how to do it, etc.

Usually, the cuñadismo ideology is machist and xenophobe.

I guess the use come from those family meetings where you have to suffer in-laws for the sake of keeping good manners, the Christmas spirit, and so on.

I know some trendy words, but by the time I hear them, they may already be out of date.

Actually, mansplain seems to be newish.

So - used pointlessly at the beginning of a sentence. Particularly when answering a question.

Like - used all over the place almost in the place of breathing.

However, it seems to me that the users of 'so' and the users of 'like' are separate tribes. The two don't seem to mix.

PP.

When Seamus Heaney published his translation of "Beowulf," the first word was "So," used in the same way as Pink Paisley suggests. I think it's okay to use "so" in this way.

Brexit.

We hadn't encountered this word two years ago and now it's used all the time.

I hate the word, not only for what it stands for, but I remain convinced that since these portmanteau words are generally used positively, having a term for leaving the EU and not one for staying (braying?) made some - albeit small contribution to the vote to leave. It oversimplified a hugely complex issue. It saved having to think or form proper sentences.

(I have negative feelings towards many other portmanteau words too. Staycation - yuk. Cineplex - oh come on, that's just a soulless cinema. Chavtastic - says it all.)

And they all fail the spell check on my computer. And I'm not adding them to my dictionary thank you very much.

I'm going to have to go and have a lay down now.

PP.

With the exception of words like 'e-mail', 'internet', 'website', 'text', 'Wi-Fi' etc I don't think my personal day-to-day vocabulary has really changed much in the last 25 years. There are lots of words that I know the meaning of but see no reason to use myself.

Conversely, there are words that seem to be dropping out of daily usage. Like 'dustcart'. No-one seems to say 'dustcart' any more. Or pram or perambulator, they're always called 'buggies'.

We went on a family trip to Hampton Court Palace about 9 years ago (but not on the day good King Harry got his Hampton Court) and I spent ages asking a guide where I could leave the pram while we went upstairs.

<BB<

Not surprised you needed to lie down after that, PP... I guess Bremain was the opposite of Brexit, but it didn't have the same ring to it, true...

A pram is different from a buggy, but it is true that prams are rarer these days than they once were...

I'm sure I use a few 'new' words in a joking way sometimes ('hark at me being down with the kids') but out of context I can't think of any just now...

A possible example is 'Man Flu' which means on the one hand a cold that is exaggerated by a man, whereas a woman would just get on with it, and on the other hand means a cold that is genuinely bad but not quite as bad as actual 'Flu, so that word needs an explanation...

Ugh, "Manflu" makes me wince.

I get it. I know plenty of men who can be whiny little babies when they feel sick. But the term worries me personally, because of the similarity it has with stereotypes about redheads and pain. There's a common misconception, shared even with many in the medical fields, that redheads have low pain tolerance. This misconception comes from statistical studies that do show that redheads often need higher doses of painkillers and ARE often more sensitive to heat and burns. But neither of those is the same as not being able to withstand pain. When I was in the hospital recovering from endoscopic surgery to remove a tumor, I wasn't given any pain medication for many hours following my surgery. They give you a chart of from to to , from 1 to 10 to describe your pain. I gave an honest answer of 7. My nurse ignored this and several more hours passed. She assumed that I probably only had maybe a 3-4 pain. I looked at that chart and gave what I considered an honest assessment. I assumed a 10 would be the kind of pain similar to being branded with a hot iron, or breaking a major bone, a gun shot maybe. 7 was damn bad, but not enough to make me scream. Later, this nurse gave me the wrong directions for using an incentive spirometer, that thing with the tubes and the ping pong ball to get you to expand your lungs and clear any fluids. She told me to blow into it rather than inhale. I had two balloons up my nose and trying to blow against a one way valve about did me in. My pain level went up to 8-9. My mother, herself a retired nurse, realized this and took this nurse out to the hallway for a discussion I would have loved to have had a "fly on the wall" seat for. Not only was I quickly (finally) given my first access to pain relief about 8 hours after my surgery, this nurse was also replaced.

Man flu is an odd one.

Men are more likely to ignore illness than women.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8154200.stm

An old study I know but still relevant.

PP.

Dustcart and pram have never been on my vocabulary list.

Everything that is good seems to be 'tidy' these days - in the UK that is.

Fine, I understand that we had similar other-words for such things when I was young too and indeed I still use them.

However, there is a burger joint here in Cardiff which makes 'super-tidy burgers'

No matter how nice they may be, that description makes me want to throw-up every time I read it. I guess I'm just not in the demographic they're aiming at :D

From the mouth of my overly-astonished seven year old grandson not long ago...

"Oh my days!"

Say what? Have we moved back into the regency period here. I await when he is angry and says..."Damn your eyes sir!"

Blame Peppa Pig

I was thinking about a trending phrase here in teh States.

I'm not sure where it started, but it's recent. When some tragedy strikes a community, local pride and unity is expressed with the motto "[locality] Strong!". For example, around here, following Harvey, I'll hear "Houston Strong" or "Texas Strong". With the latest mass school shooting it's "Parkland Strong".

The first version I can recall might be the #VegasStrong hashtag.

I wonder how long and far this meme will propagate?

It probably started from those Army Strong commercials.

Personally I always preferred "Be all that you can be."

It's catchy.

May be, may be.


I preferred, "Join the Marines, see the world, meet interesting and stimulating people of ancient cultures... and kill them."

It's honest.

I remember the "Boston strong" bumper stickers after the Marathon bombings in 2013 . I saw the movie "Stronger," which was very well done, though I want to satirize the whole expression as "Boston strange."

Did people add "strong" after cities before 2013?

Yeah...

The Boston Marathon bombing seems like a world ago now. But I do remember "Boston Strong" thing.

That was in 2013. This leads me to that this was preceded by "JerseyStrong" in response to hurricane Sandy" in 2012. Wikipedia suggests that this was inspired by the "LiveStrong" cancer campaign initiated by (now disgraced) cyclist Lance Armstrong.



I want to like Lance Armstrong again. I don't, but I want to.

Baron, I think you could be grateful to lance Armstrong's organization for banning smoking in bars and restaurants in Dallas.