Wordwizard

Neil How zit goin, eh? I guess in the broader sense we are all North, South or Central Americans. I think your question comes from the fact that ,up here anyway, "American" is used exclusively to refer to someone from "The States" ( I'm not even sure if the term "The States" is OK, anymore). While w...

Is anyone familiar with the phrase "up Mike's"? I'm pretty sure I have a grasp of what it means but I wonder how it started. I heard it said,often,in the "Maritimes"(Canadian for Nova Scotia, P.E.I., and New Brunswick). I suspect it has a UK origin,as that area is heavily influenced by Scottish, Eng...

Curious. I had always thought, without giving it much thought, that the word carried a somewhat criminal slant to it. "Burn" is sometimes used, in my circles,to mean steal. If you go to a peer to peer site and download someone elses material, then copy it to a disc without their permission,you have ...

Wow! 50 points for everyone (almost everyone). Somewhere around the second page, I was beginning to regret having ever stirred this pot. In the end, I wound up with many more answers and a few more questions than I could have wished for. There's so much food for thought that I fear that some of it m...

I think Isaac needed to get out more often.

"Could/couldn't care less" is used interchangeably around here. The split seems to be around 50-50. The explanation I was given was not mentioned in this thread. I'm not surprised. I was talking about this with two friends, both of whom "could" while I "couldn't". The first fella explained. "It's sa...

Hey Wiz
July 1st. It's our birthday. I won't reveal how old we are. Bring beer.

Hand cars were later replaced with the railroad Velocipede ( what a splendid word! I'll be keeping that one in my pocket for later use). It looked like a bicycle that ran on one rail and had a third stabilizing wheel that ran on the opposing rail. Not the old three wheeled bike,again? Perhaps, a lit...

I'm not being a smart ass. We always called them exactly what you described them as. Pumper cars.

Can't help myself. Sometimes I just get a little mushy.

Are we polarized? Now you're making me blubber

No mens rea? No crime (or,at least, a much lesser one). Anyone want a tort?

Thanks for yor help, everyone. If a word or phrase is not, in and of itself,offensive it only becomes a slur when used in that way. I did not feel the urge to rush to the aid of some of my fellow countrymen when I recently read them being referred to as Eskimos by several people in a recent post. I ...

Why ask why,indeed. I can't just accept everything as it seems. Point taken on my examples,though. You are correct. Even yet, Walesman dosen't seem much of an insult either. Really, it was an honest question. I know it doesn't "seem" an appropriate term and I hadn't intended on using it. Maybe it wa...

Too right, James. I miter known someone would point that out.