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

(Oops - don't know what happened there!)

Hey, DJ - nice to hear from you again!

I am trying to develop my own stiff upper lip. You know, all that reserve and icy coolness. I just can't get the accent right!

I saw a trailer for a Brit movie coming soon, called 'Purely Belter', or something like that. If it's not subtitled, I'm going to need a translator, please.

In Britain, rather than sucks, a new word has just come into use. We say something we dont like is "pants". That is a new expression and is only really used amongst teenagers at the moment, but I'm sure it will catch on!!!

You're right, K, its a horrible expression (to Brit ears) but heaven knows why. Where does it come from?

Au contraire - I have been using the expression "pants" since I was a teenager which makes it in common (N. Lincolnshire) use for well over a decade. It has become more universal since it was used in the pot noodle advert though...and I think I have quite succesfully introduced it here, so it might go into the "Dublin English" article one day .

Other expressions for bad we had seem to have been less persistent:
"Spikey" was my favourite, with good being "Fluffy".

I don't know - everyone says it!

So what things didn't you understand from the trailer for this cinematic delight?

And dosn't pressing the wrong button kinda suck

Well, given the other expression "blows", I'd imagine its origin is sexual. If it isn't then the reason us Brits have a problem with it is that we think it is...

(It sucks when you press the *right* button, but the wrong thing happens!)

I can't believe that 'sucks' has any sexual connotation in the context I described.

As for the bits of the trailer of 'Purely Belter' I didn't understand: I've seen it twice, so I get the idea it's about watching soccer. But they talk so fast, it's hard to keep up.

And as for what the title means, it seems to have something to do with swimming butt naked. I think.

I think I need to see the trailer then to discuss it further.

Correct - smeg was an abreviation for smegma.
Glad to report that 'garn' is now more often pronounced 'gawn' - how language evolves!
As for scooters, yes, the plague has arrived in the dear old UK. Even my adopted county, dear down t'earth Yorkshire, is blighted.

Wass up?
Were did this anoying
thing come from.
ITS REALLY GETING ON MY TITS!
Wass up!

I think you will find 'Purely Belter' is nothing to do with skinny-dipping but comes from 'Its a belter', meaning very good, excellent etc. So you might translate as 'Absolutely Fabulous'.

The film is set in and around Newcastle, so you really need a geordie to give a definitive translation.

Incidentally it comes from the same team as 'Brassed Off' which was as good a portrait of Brits (working class northern) as I have seen. Far better than the subsequent The Full Monty.(imho)

I've seen 'Billy Elliot' twice already, so I'm well on the way to becoming an expert!

Talking of that, have we done 'brassed off' as meaning 'cheesed off' or even 'pissed off' in modern parlance?

Then there is 'Brass Monkeys', as in the weather, meaning very cold.

And 'brassic' meaning skint, broke or otherwise impecunious (Cockney rhyming slang Boracic Lint = skint)

In 895 posts, we have covered fairly much - including "Freezing the balls off a brass monkey", but I don't believe we have a source for "cheesed off". Any ideas?

Also "ticked off"?

I imagine it has something to do with ticks on cattle. Farmers getting ticked off taking the ticks off as it were.

And cheesed off, as in the milk has gone off so much that it gets to be cheese.

But don't distract me. I'm interested in following the strand of 'Northern' films. There seem to me to be two types, those that are reasonably honest portrayals of life as it is, e.g. Kes, Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Brassed Off, Get Carter, even East is East, then those that use the 'North' in a rather condescending way, as in The Full Monty. The latter type I find difficult fairy tales (as a Southerner), the former type move me as much as any film can. I hope this new film (Billy) is of the first type and thus deserving of the accolades it is collecting.

I wouldn't say "Brassed off" was anything but cliché - good none the less, but caricature casting.

How about "Our Friends in the North" (FilmFour?)...that's a good one. Further North - how about "Trainspotting"?
My landlord when I was in Nottingham was a memeber of the group of strippers which had inspired the film (alledgedly) - to say that this made for an awkward tenancy is an understatement

Perhaps Brassic comes somehow from brass farthing (little coins with robins on) rather than the cockney.

Well, I'm not sure about your cliche comment. Perhaps, but there was, for me anyway, a greater honesty about it than TFM. It certainly chimed more with my friendships and sojourns in and around Barnsley and Bradford.

I completely missed Friends, and Trainspotting - well you must be (a lot) younger than me! (Wasn't that Edinburgh, a different thing altogether)

For 'cheesed off', my dictionary says 'origin unknown'. Well, that's settled, then!

I don't supposed there's any meaning to 'cheesed on'?