Regional sayings

[JonGirl]

Exactly, it's rather tricky to fall on your fanny in Australia

Not if you do it properly.   

[Mental Magpie]

Harking back to the driving references do young men in other areas do "bog laps". I'm not sure if this is just a West Australian thing or the whole of Australia. Basically it means guys in cars (sometimes hotted up, sometimes not) do loops on a certain stretch of road, just circling around, up and down, usually only going a distance of a few hundred metres (yards). Often this is in front of clubs or cafes and when you see them you say "Look at those idiots doing bog laps".

Both major places I've lived (Colorado and Pennsylvania, so different sides of the country), we have called that "Cruising the *Name*".  One place I lived, there was a diamond all of about 100 yards long; driving around that diamond again and again and again and again, sometimes slowing down to whistle or holler at someone you know or don't, was called "Cruising the Diamond".  Another place I lived, you "Cruised the Park", which was about a mile stretch where you could turn at each end, and you just kept driving the loop looking out for people you knew.

[Aoife]

I'll agree "youse" is rather rare in NYC nowadays.  On the other hand, I think just about every New Yorker knows (if not uses) Yiddish phrases.  Oy vey!

Youse is very common in Northern Ireland (Norn Iron in my best broad Belfast accent) but I think it's derived from our accents rather than Yiddish.

We also have mineral for fizzy drinks, which can be baffling to a visitor - " Do you want a mineral with that?" "Umm, no I'd like a coke please." "Mineral coming up!" 

My two favourite (I think they're regional) are "Catch yerself on" as in "wise up" and "Away and feel yer head" which is similar but more along the lines of "don't be daft I don't believe you".

[oz diva]

Harking back to the driving references do young men in other areas do "bog laps". I'm not sure if this is just a West Australian thing or the whole of Australia. Basically it means guys in cars (sometimes hotted up, sometimes not) do loops on a certain stretch of road, just circling around, up and down, usually only going a distance of a few hundred metres (yards). Often this is in front of clubs or cafes and when you see them you say "Look at those idiots doing bog laps".

Here in Melbourne, we'd just say "look at those hoons".

[Thipu1]

Then there's 'uff dah' that's fairly common among people of Scandanavian descent in the Upper Middle West. 

We've never gotten a satisfying explanation of what it means. 

[Pippen]

Harking back to the driving references do young men in other areas do "bog laps". I'm not sure if this is just a West Australian thing or the whole of Australia. Basically it means guys in cars (sometimes hotted up, sometimes not) do loops on a certain stretch of road, just circling around, up and down, usually only going a distance of a few hundred metres (yards). Often this is in front of clubs or cafes and when you see them you say "Look at those idiots doing bog laps".

Here in Melbourne, we'd just say "look at those hoons".

You guys are lucky. Here the unhygienic looking 'yoofs' in their Nissan Skylines or Subarus call themselves "Car Enthusiasts". Most people have another name for them but I can't say it here. One idiotic thing they do which the police let them get away with is something stupid called a 'drive train'. Basically it involves around 80 to 100 of them and their skanky girlfriends driving around doing about 70km/hr on 100 km/hr roads looking like a bunch of tools. Good luck to you if you get stuck behind one of these stupid things for 30ks as you have no hope of passing them. They all drive so close together it you are at a roundabout you can basically be there for 10 minutes waiting for the cars to go through.

The only thing worse is getting stuck in the middle of one by accident. I did once and had to drive through my towns entertainment strip with everyone in the bars going 'here come the morons again' and mocking them and thinking I was part of the stupid thing. The shame.

[Sapphire]

Everyone I know calls backpacks and bookbags interchangeably, with a few people saying knapsack (that one I never understood the root of, but its a normal enough word here). I had a friend from the Quad cities (Illinios) who called it a rucksack, never heard anyone else say that!

In general anything can be a bag: a grocery bag, a backpack isa bag, a purse is a bag, a garbage bag is a bag, a tote is a bag, etc. But a "sack", unless part of a compound word, in my experience is a shapeless bag like Santa's sack or a potato sack, or using a pillowcase as a Halloween sack.

I'm in the UK here and we would always say rucksack, never backback or knapsack.

Also, here, a purse is always the small thing that you keep your money in which you keep in your handbag. A handbag may be shortened to bag, but never to purse.

Grocery shopping is packaged in carrier bags which are plastic and free (or, these days, sometimes charged a small fee) from the store or shopping bags that you bring yourself from home.

[WillyNilly]

See I never use the word "handbag" because well... well I use it but not in reference to myself and my family and friends because rich and suburban women use handbags, as they have a free hand to carry it.  My daily bag is my purse, or just my bag or maybe even my pocketbook (how that makes sense I have no idea  its just a normal word around here) but its got straps long enough it can go on my shoulder, because I need my hands free to commute via public transportation.  So to call it a handbag just IMO is a misnomer as its not held in the hands (again though the word pocketbook is somehow to me not a stranger misnomer even though it should be).

The word purse though certainly could mean a coin purse or a card purse, which would be more like a wallet in size and use, just slightly differently shaped (more bag-like).  My small fancy party bags are always referred to as purses though, either just purse or cocktail purse.

[baglady]

I'm old enough to remember when kids carried their books to school in either the briefcase-looking book bags a PP posted a picture of, or cloth sacklike things with drawstrings (the terms "book bag" and "school bag" were used interchangeably for these), or loose in their arms. In the third case, boys carried them in one arm hanging straight down, while girls held theirs horizontally at waist level, elbow bent. You risked teasing if you were a boy and carried your books "like a girl," or vice versa.

This was in elementary and junior high, when kids generally didn't have big stacks of books to take home each night. Homework was lighter (heck, in my district it was policy not to assign any homework until fourth grade!) and much of it could be done in study hall.

Carrying books in a backpack (we called them knapsacks) came into vogue when I was in high school.

I've seen bookstraps, which were rubber straps about an inch wide that you buckled around your books to hold them together on the trip to/from school, but they were passe by the time I came along. Never actually saw one in use.

Here's Baglady's bag breakdown:

Bag = Any soft-sided thing you carry stuff in

Sack = Shapeless cloth thing that Santa carries, and that potatoes and flour used to come in

Grocery bag = Paper bag without handles, or plastic bag with handles that you get your purchases packed in at the grocery store

Shopping bag = Paper bag with flat bottom and jute handles that you get your purchases packed in at upscale department or clothing stores.

Tote bag = Cloth bag with handles of the same material as the bag itself. If used for shopping, it's generally owned by the purchaser and presented at checkout for packing of purchases.

Pocketbook/Purse/Handbag = Soft-sided bag with handles generally carried by women and containing the stuff they need/use daily (money, makeup, phone, comb/brush, etc.). Can be made of leather, cloth, vinyl or other materials.

Change purse: Small pouch for coins only (although some people carry bills in it as well)

Wallet: Contains paper money, credit and other cards, and may also contain photos and other keepsakes. Women's wallets may also have a built in checkbook and/or change purse, and live in the pocketbook, if she is the pocketbook-carrying kind. Men's wallets, aka billfolds, do not have change purses and live in the hip pocket.

Clutch/clutch purse = Small handbag either without handle or with a wrist strap, used by women on formal occasions. Wildly impractical, if you ask me.

YMMV as always. I have had fun picking my own brain about these definitions!

[finecabernet]

What does chuffed mean? As in "I was chuffed to learn...." I heard a British actor say it recently.

[Iris]

What does chuffed mean? As in "I was chuffed to learn...." I heard a British actor say it recently.

Not British, but I've always interpreted it as pleased, but with a personal pride twist. So you would be chuffed to learn that someone you respect has said they admire you, but you would be pleased to learn that you won a raffle (no personal achievement involved).

[CakeEater]

What does chuffed mean? As in "I was chuffed to learn...." I heard a British actor say it recently.

Not British, but I've always interpreted it as pleased, but with a personal pride twist. So you would be chuffed to learn that someone you respect has said they admire you, but you would be pleased to learn that you won a raffle (no personal achievement involved).

Good definition!

[Thipu1]

Here in NYC, a fairly close equivalent to 'chuffed' would be the Yiddish 'Kvell'. 

You can kvell when your child gets into Harvard.

The two terms are very close but not exact in meaning. 

[Shopaholic]

Here in NYC, a fairly close equivalent to 'chuffed' would be the Yiddish 'Kvell'. 

You can kvell when your child gets into Harvard.

The two terms are very close but not exact in meaning.

So kvell is when something good happens, and kvetch (=complaining) is the rest of the time?

-An Israeli with very little Yiddish.

[Snooks]

Harking back to the driving references do young men in other areas do "bog laps". I'm not sure if this is just a West Australian thing or the whole of Australia. Basically it means guys in cars (sometimes hotted up, sometimes not) do loops on a certain stretch of road, just circling around, up and down, usually only going a distance of a few hundred metres (yards). Often this is in front of clubs or cafes and when you see them you say "Look at those idiots doing bog laps".

Is bog short for bogan?

Is there a common term elsewhere for being able to see the top of someone's backside over their trousers?  In the UK we call it builder's bum but I heard someone on a podcast call it a plumber's crack, is that the common term or a one off?