re: Eats, Shoots & Leaves page 11

I notice you're posting from Japan, by the way. Do you mind if I ask you where you're from originally, Gerald?

(snip) Ireland..g

Thanks, Gerald. Just wondered, that's all...

Christopher
My e-mail address is not 'munged' in any way and is fully replyable!

I gather that something similar is now happening in Dutch. ... disuse, it appears that people are spontaneously reinventing a genitive.

My Dutch is rusty but. As far as I can recall, "Jans hond" is still ok. If the dog belongs to Marie, it's "Marie d'r hond", which is "Marie her dog". But I don't know whose dog it really is.

Isn't there a disc on its collar?
"I am his Highness' dog at Kew.
Pray tell me, Sir, whose dog are you?"
Mike.

As well as the famous echo in the British Library. I know you guys.

Does that mean you've missed out on the famous whispering wall in St Pauls?

The poor kid doesn't even know about the Wailing Wall Game at Eton.

Mike.

Isn't there a disc on its collar?

Ask Peter, he's got the dog. My eyesight's not that good.

-ler

Thanks, Donna. I accept that mistakes and some occasional sloppiness ... readership I do think he gets the majority overwhelmingly right.

I have only read two of his books - both were a sort of travel book about countries I know ... contained an enormous amount of rubbish, but there was certainly enough to put me off reading anything else by him.

I find him very readable but I withhold judgement on his accuracy. My experience is that where he writes about something that I have independent knowledge of, there are often inaccuracies. In Mother Tongue, for example, he claims that Australians use "cookie" not "biscuit". I haven't got the book with me, but I think there was a cluster of these in that section.
This cookie/biscuit thing irks me. Where I were a lad, biscuit was the standard term but cookie is all over the packaging these days and is becoming more prevalent. I saw a sign at a coffee shop advertising "Byron Bay Cookies" of all things. Shirley "Byron Bay Biscuits" would have been infinitely better: alliteration and all that?
Richard Bollard
Canberra, Australia

I notice you're posting from Japan, by the way. Do ... he probably wouldn't be so nos(e)y in the first place!

Sticky-beak, are you, mate? Mike.

Now here's a question - how common is the term 'sticky beak' outside of Australia/NZ? I gather from previous posts you've spent time here Mike, and indeed the phrase is common as muck, but my wife had never heard of it until she moved here (from the US).
The usual usage I would say is "to have a sticky-beak", but "to be a sticky beak" is fairly common too.
Dylan

Now here's a question - how common is the term 'sticky beak' outside of Australia/NZ? I gather from previous posts ... usage I would say is "to have a sticky-beak", but "to be a sticky beak" is fairly common too. Dylan

Leftpondians
I don't recall ever hearing "nosy parker" in my fifty+ years in the US, but after acquiring it as an Ozism, I recently heard it in an American movie. Is it now common currency in the US?

Michael West
Melbourne, Australia

Michael West wrote on 20 Apr 2004:

Now here's a question - how common is the term ... "to be a sticky beak" is fairly common too. Dylan

Leftpondians I don't recall ever hearing "nosy parker" in my fifty+ years in the US, but after acquiring it as an Ozism, I recently heard it in an American movie. Is it now common currency in the US?

I've known it for years and years, decades, even, in the US. I read it and heard it long before I ever used it.

Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor.
For email, ehziuh htiw rehpycrebyc ecalper.

Sticky-beak, are you, mate? (to Chris Johnson)

Now here's a question - how common is the term 'sticky beak' outside of Australia/NZ? I gather from previous posts ... usual usage I would say is "to have a sticky-beak", but "to be a sticky beak" is fairly common too.

In my experience, the expression is uniquely Australasian. My mother, a non-slangy Victorian, says "sticky-nose", which lacks a certain je ne sais quoi, argot-wise. Curiously, my father, in off-duty moments a very slangy Queenslander, didn't use it much.
Mike.