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General discussionNational/local weirdness(178 posts)(178 posts)
(178 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted October 05, 2015
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TheTrveFenris: Some argentinians have a quote for taking a dump: "Voy a despedir unos parientes del interior", it means "I'm gonna say goodbye to some inland relatives". The wordplay is in "Despedir", which means "release" and also "to say goodbye", and in "interior" ("inside of" and also "inland").
Yes, it's not as common here but someone might say something like "I'm gonna go drop off a dad" or replace "dad" with brother/sister or a person's real name. :)
Posted October 05, 2015
My new favorite thread of all time maybe?
Posted October 05, 2015
Three English phrases that I find illogical:

"I think I'm going to be sick." – If you're saying that, you're already sick. No need for the future tense.

Something tastes/smells "funny". – Funny? As in it makes you laugh? It makes you sick is more like it.

Saying "I don't know what you're talking about" in a nervous tone when accused of something, followed by a quickened pace. – A dead giveaway that you really did do something wrong.
Posted October 05, 2015
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Charon121: Three English phrases that I find illogical:

"I think I'm going to be sick." – If you're saying that, you're already sick. No need for the future tense.

Something tastes/smells "funny". – Funny? As in it makes you laugh? It makes you sick is more like it.

Saying "I don't know what you're talking about" in a nervous tone when accused of something, followed by a quickened pace. – A dead giveaway that you really did do something wrong.
"I think I'm going to be sick" could also be used to indicate that something is so putrid, foul, or grotesque that you can barely stand it and want to throw up.
Post edited October 05, 2015 by Maighstir
Posted October 05, 2015
Probably the Tokolosh. Every region has its fair share of weird superstitions, but what makes this one so funny is what people do to protect themselves from this little creature that carries you away at night: they elevate their beds by placing bricks beneath each leg so that the tokolosh can't reach up high enough to grab them at night. I don't think it's as common under the middle classes, though I could be wrong, and I don't know how prevalent it is anymore under the lower classes. I'm willing to guess that many people still believe it, if for no other reason that sangomas (witch doctors) are still being taken extremely seriously over here. When people employ workers for construction work or house renovation, then the recruiting pool is predominantly from the lower class, and there you'll often hear stories about how they refuse to sleep on beds that aren't additionally elevated in some way, either using bricks, rocks or cans of paint.

The tokolosh also frequently appears in the media as a joke, and sometimes not, and in the most successful local cartoon strip, Madam&Eve:
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img00559-2012041.jpg (64 Kb)
tokolosh.gif (35 Kb)
madam&eve_tokolo.gif (20 Kb)
jerm-nkandla-tok.jpg (163 Kb)
Post edited October 05, 2015 by Matewis
Posted October 05, 2015
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drealmer7: Carbonated beverages are called "soda" in some areas and "pop" in others.
So is it written differently on McDonald's restaurants across US on the price list? Somewhere it is written as "pop", elsewhere as "soda"? Or is it uniform in all US McDonald's restaurants?
Posted October 05, 2015
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Matewis: Probably the Tokolosh. Every region has its fair share of weird superstitions, but what makes this one so funny is what people do to protect themselves from this little creature that carries people away at night: they elevate their beds by placing bricks beneath each leg of their beds so that the tokolosh can't reach up high enough to grab them at night. I don't think it's as common under the middle classes, though I could be wrong, and I don't know how prevalent it is anymore under the lower classes. I'm willing to guess that many people still believe it, if for no other reason that sangomas (witch doctors) are still being taken extremely seriously over here. When people employ workers for construction work or house renovation, then the recruiting pool is predominantly from the lower class, and there you'll often hear stories of how they refuse to sleep on beds that aren't additionally elevated in some way, either using bricks, rocks or cans of paint.

The tokolosh also frequently appears in the media as a joke, and sometimes not, and in the most successful local cartoon strip, Madam&Eve:
For some reason this reminds me of the Faerie folk in British/Irish/European culture. Not the modern, romantic fables, but the gritty, Celtic strain. Nailing an iron horseshoe above the entrance to a building to protect from evil spirits, et al.
It is also believed that iron fixtures were used at Stonehenge (a Neolithic monument in southern England), to prevent evil spirits from disrupting rituals there.
Posted October 05, 2015
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CARICATUREKILB: For some reason this reminds me of the Faerie folk in British/Irish/European culture. Not the modern, romantic fables, but the gritty, Celtic strain. Nailing an iron horseshoe above the entrance to a building to protect from evil spirits, et al.
It is also believed that iron fixtures were used at Stonehenge (a Neolithic monument in southern England), to prevent evil spirits from disrupting rituals there.
I suppose it might be a general thing, that these creatures start off as malevolent in an attempt to make sense of all the hardships and unexplained diseases people suffer, only to steadily become more benign as life becomes more modern and comfortable.
Unfortunately, many millions in SA still life in miserable conditions, which is perhaps why the evil tokolosh persists. Every now and again you'll still see a serious headline in some paper about how a tokolosh is responsible for some other misfortune in a person or family's lives.
Posted October 05, 2015
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Charon121: Three English phrases that I find illogical:

"I think I'm going to be sick." – If you're saying that, you're already sick. No need for the future tense.

Something tastes/smells "funny". – Funny? As in it makes you laugh? It makes you sick is more like it.

Saying "I don't know what you're talking about" in a nervous tone when accused of something, followed by a quickened pace. – A dead giveaway that you really did do something wrong.
The third one is just a case of being a bad liar.

For the first, "being sick" refers to vomiting. "Sick" can also be seen in older forms of English as a noun meaning "vomit"; I suspect that this is a case of a word originally having a specific meaning and developing a broader one over time.

"Funny" can also mean "odd", "strange", or "unexpected" - often but not always in a negative sense - in addition to the "humorous" definition.
Post edited October 05, 2015 by Garran
Posted October 05, 2015
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drealmer7: Carbonated beverages are called "soda" in some areas and "pop" in others.
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timppu: So is it written differently on McDonald's restaurants across US on the price list? Somewhere it is written as "pop", elsewhere as "soda"? Or is it uniform in all US McDonald's restaurants?
I haven't been to a McDonalds (or any fastfood place) in about 10 years. My guess would be that there is no real need for such terms at any place out to eat because they list the specific beverages by name. If they have a menu for them with a title, it would probably be most universal under the name "soft drinks."
Posted October 09, 2015
I'll tell you one local weirdness. In an informal context, we call each other by our genitalia. "Pisha" (local pronunciation of "picha") for men and "shosho" (local pronunciation of "chocho") for women. Yeah. That's Cádiz to you.
Post edited October 09, 2015 by Ikarugamesh
Posted October 09, 2015
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Ikarugamesh: I'll tell you one local weirdness. In an informal context, we call each other by our genitalia. "Pisha" (local pronunciation of "picha") for men and "shosho" (local pronunciation of "chocho") for women. Yeah. That's Cádiz to you.
Whatever happened to pinga and culo? Is my Spanish out of date or something?
Posted October 09, 2015
"Pinga" is used in Mexico.

I have another local weirdness: the word "illo", which roughly means "dude", could be mean different things, depending of how many times is said: one illo means you're asking for the other person's attention, two illos mean you're threatening the other person, and three or more illos mean "dude, you're about to screw up/that's dangerous, stop it".

On a more global scale, I recently saw a video explaining that the word "cojones", which means "testicles" could have many different meanings, depending on the context. People who come to Spain and/or people who are learning Spanish say that we swear a lot (it's true), and swearing in Spanish is almost an art. We have lots of creative ways to swear or insult people.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionNational/local weirdness(178 posts)(178 posts)
(178 posts)