Inspired by something I said last night when complaining about an achievement at work and the only way I could think to describe it was “pure frippery.”
Last week a coworker described a restaurant as being “kitty-corner” from our office. Took me forever to figure out what they meant
I occasionally hear “catty-corner” too.
I was always under the impression that was a similar expression to ‘dog-eared’, i.e. a bit beaten up. But maybe I’m conflating it with another phrase
Dog-eared means that a corner got folded down (making a diagonal) on a page as a bookmark. A dog-eared book isn’t necessarily beat-up beyond the damage to the corners of pages. Catty-cornered or kitty-cornered is adjacent to something on the diagonal, i.e. not orthogonally next to it like up, down, left, or right. So there is an argument to be made for a loose (coincidental) connection between those ideas, but I don’t think they come from the same roots.
I’m my area it’s said “caddy corner”, or you might hear the random old euphemistic “caddy-wampus” which means either “diagonal to reference position” or “all fucked up!”
I used the phrase “tilting at windmills” when discussing current politics and got looked at like an insane person.
No one reads anymore, apparently.
Aww I loved that book when we read it in school
Heh. Back in my youth in the 1990s I used dated slang ironically and now it is part of my daily vocabulary. Neither myself or anybody else can tell if it is ironic or not. Now I’m just a middle aged man speaking in a weird capitol city dialect in the second largest city, which by the locals is a crime on its own.
That’s shits tubular, yo!
Yesterday I learned the word Steez from my son in high school.
Still not completely sure what it means, but I believe it’s something between a dork and a douche.
So back in the 90s “steez” was your overall style. Like “this dude’s steez is off the chain.” But it’s not just style but also hutzpha, so “check this steez yo, fresh shells smoking a blunt on the street”
Idk what it means today but this old head used to have steez but then I got old and now I just sneeze rimshot I’ll be here all night folks.
Long post just to ask, is that still what it means?
Edit: forgot a part
I think it does still mean that, but, not in a good way.
The 90s celebrated Steez (which I personally never heard of back then) then it’s definition today is essentially “The 90s called and they want their style back.”
Definitely explains why he had to borrow some of my clothes for it. 🤦🏻♂️
Ha, isn’t that how it always goes? Like dope, if my dad called me a dope it was because I was being stupid. If I called you dope it was because you were cool.
I’ll be here all night folks.
In your bed, snoring, right?
Punchline
Because you are old
Nothing good happens after 8pm anyways
You know my steez
True indeed
Say it loud
Black and proud
Ain’t no time to hesitate at the gate
Do it now!
Are you the raw sugar cane, nutrasweet, never equal? If you were in Binzito or your mother’s Buick Regal would you get up like Chino shouting power to the people?
Yes, the first cut should be the deepest
To penetrate beyond the muscle wall’s inner regions
I’ve heard steeze in snowboard / Park rat culture. Though it’s a bit dated it means like, style/vibe/look
My parents emigrated from Aus/NZ just before I was born, so I inherited a bunch of weird down-under, outdated vocabulary.
“What are you fossicking around in the pantry for?” “Did you find a few skerrigs of chocolate?” “I need to use the dunny.” “That guy in car dealership was apoplectic.”
Lots of other turns of phrase, but - with the possible exception of “dunny” are legit words.
EDIT: OK. A few others, I still use ‘blasted’ as an adjective. If my kids do something ridiculous, “Jesus wept, child,” sometimes comes out of my mouth. Then a bunch of, “running around like a sprayed blowfly,” or, “wandering around like a lost soul.”
I’m a cultural Kiwi and don’t recognize half of these.
In the case of dunny, I was trained on calling it the loo.
Fossicking and skerrig are related to mining activities, so may be more localized to areas were the gold rush was big. I confirmed they’re actual words.
TIL there was an Australian gold rush.
Yeah, in between the gold rush in San Fransisco, and the gold rush in British Columbia.
My kids and I use dunny now because of Bluey.
apoplectic
Legitimately one of my favourite words.
I don’t personally think it’s wierd, but my partner told me I sounded like an old for using the word “flummoxed”
“an” old?
Today you may be a youth, but you will be an old someday.
I only recently realized that I am doomed to become that which I loathe: an old white man.
I used rigamarole in an email to a colleague today. And I regularly use kerfuffle.
Peripatetic = walking person. By “use” i mean read and looked it up im dictionary
No fair if you’re a nurse
One of my new favorites when trying to decide if something is worth doing - “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”
That’s gotta be very old
I use the phrase “wide-awake nightmare” kind of a lot.
At least I know where I picked it up from, the Screaming Skull episode of MST3k.
Shit of a beast
To use the word cozy as a verb. To coze or to be cozed.
Cozy is already a verb
verb
INFORMAL
-
give (someone) a feeling of comfort or complacency.
“she cozied him, pretending to find him irresistibly attractive”
Sure but that’s not coze or cozed.
-
Dropped a Tom Swifty on my wife… the other day.
“They want me to check in at the hospital…”
“She said admittedly.”
I got “the look”.
‘Spasmodic’. A boy walked in the sidewalk and he showed signs of having cerebral palsy… Somehow that word popped up and it surprised me how topical that word was and that I don’t realize how I know the word.
jimmanuel centennial carter
