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chuff |tʃʌf|

verb [ intrans. ]

 

To deposit vast quantities of snow on an inclined surface for the purpose of enabling one to slide down said surface with a humungous grin.

 

e.g. It chuffed big style last night, no friends on a power-day, see ya!

I really hope it chuffs all season long.

I can't see my hand it's chuffing so much.

 

 

 

p.s. you heard it here first.

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the good "Aussie" expression...raining cats and dogs.....eh I don't think the Aussies have claim to that, thats a widespread saying. Also JA, people in the UK will say bathroom for toilet, in my experience the Americans will say restroom.

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Originally Posted By: thursday
gas is short for gasoline, not gas as in gassy old fart bag.


so, where did gasoline come from? The stuff comes from petroleum oil. Why not call it petrol, like most of the civilised world?
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Not wanting to be a "brit". just I'm old enough to remember when words had meanings that everyone understood. Then along came someone who, for example, decided that "gay" != "happy", but something else entirely.

 

And, I'm not US-bashing. I just wish there were simple universal rules for English - which happens to have come from England - without changes made for who knows what reason.

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Words had meanings everyone understood !? - Should read "Use and Abuse"

more like " most people misused but they thought they understood "

I look at language as common denominators with a strong musical influence.

First get over the accent, then we have how it's used. Wouldn't it be boring when books are written all the same, and which period and local English shall we use? We can argue USA manhattan English maintains the language that was spoken at the time of the first Brits arrival in the New World. Shall we speak Tudor? OxBridge? personally I like how they speak in Southern States of USA.

We can talk about plain boring stuff with "everyone sounds the same Aussie accent plain talk" or put some " educated and round about beat about the bush" and do they make any difference?

At least, people have preference in music so it's natural it is so in how it's spoken or sung.

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JA, you make it sound like the English language was static for hundreds of years and then all of a sudden someone started perverting it and splitting it into different varieties. That's not the case. I guess it might seem that way because with modern technology and globalization we suddenly have much more contact with people who speak different varieties of English. Years ago on the other hand, you might have seen the odd American movie but really, you didn't communicate much with people outside your own language community. The fact is, langauge has always been evolving and if anything, the different varieties are actually converging towards some kind of standard these days, precisely because of globalization and technology.

 

As far as judging one variety of English as being better than another.... Maybe it's a matter of personal preference as Jynxx seemed to allude to (I think he might have said that...) but people who actually study these things (ie sociolinguists) are not interested at all in judging. Just describing. And the more colourful the usage the more interesting.

 

(Off-topic. Sorry to dump on the thread. Or jizz on it or whatever we were talking about)

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Don't want to see this thread snowed under with irrelevancies.

JA, I fully understand and to a great extent share the angst.

Language is a living, untamed beastie, and we're not happy when it pees on our particular rug -- especially when it's a rug that really tied the room together.

Anyway, that's just...like, my opinion, man.

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