"Manners maketh man" A short tale.

I'm southern British. :)

I'm glad to hear it. Francophiles can be very helpful. For example: When I was doing my National Service in the army, we had a Staff Sergeant who happened to be a Francophile. I was supposed to get driver training, but it just wasn't happening. And I was very keen to get it. Anyway, I eventually was put on a driving course, but some blasted Corporal decided that I wasn't good enough (poor night driving), and took me off the course. I was very upset about this, and told that Staff Sergeant about it. He said to me that he would personally test my driving and that if he felt that I was good enough he would arrange to have me put back on the driving course. I turned out to be good enough, and he kept his promise.

Sylvain.

Sylvain.

No, you are French.

Zooterkins!

It wasn't about making seats for the public to use or advocating carrying around your own personal chair.

It must therefore have been a post about making men. Or one of them at least.

It explains why women took umbrage. I wouldn't fancy the OP applying his version of a diy sex change on me too neither.

Blimey =Blind me, Cor blimey = god blind me,

These are still used. I still use the word "Blimey", myself.

Being of French origin, I know that one: The exact translation is "Holy blue". But I didn't know about that deviation.

Yes, I've heard of these two words also; both exclamations, I believe.

I've not heard of that one.

and Tarnation = damnation :-p

Another well known one.

I wonder how/why you know about all this? I'd be willing to bet that no one in this group has that amount (if any, at all) of this "specialist" knowledge.

Sylvain.

..and you'd be wrong.

You can start by reading "Mother Tongue", by Bill Bryson.

If you are going to go to the trouble of posting a message here, can you please ensure that it can be understood by the average person. I can't make any sense out of it. If you're being ironical (which I think you are), please make it a little more obvious and understandable. Otherwise, you're wasting your time and mine.

Sylvain.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Phil L" saying something like:

Oh, do f*ck off. They were simply descriptive and added to the setting of the scene in each case.

Huh?

I stand corrected. But I haven't read a book for many years, and I'm not about to start again now. I read "Which" consumer mag., "Which" computer mag., "Computer shopper" mag., and possibly a few other similar ones.

Sylvain.

Your loss. You miss out on an awful lot by scorning the printed word.

clive

Wonderful book that.

And this is something to be proud of?

And this is something to be proud of?

You're a barbarian.

Calm down d*****ad, don't get your knickers in a wad, they were irrelevant to the story...unless he was comparing races and manners, which he has already stated he wasn't....try reading a few replies before spewing your s**te all over the place.

A lot of them are almost anagrams, or they have been 'cleaned up'...gadzooks was often shortened to just 'zooks', like zounds, by those not wishing to incur the wrath of god presumably

There's many variations, including dang (damn) darnit (god damn it)...although many other words have become similarly mangled, like critters (creatures) and vittles (victuals)

I wouldn't say it was specialist knowledge, it's just an interest, I like words and like to exlpore their origins, many of ours come from Latin but some are purely Indian, like Bungalow (in the style of, or from Bangalore), pyjamas, jodhpurs, shampoo, khaki, sandals and verandah - all Indian words which have found their way into our dictionaries.

I am not "scorning the printed word". I realize that most of our knowledge is passed on with the help of books. I used to read a lot. When I was in children's homes (early lights-out), I used to take a book with me and go to the toilet (where I could swich on the light). I was a bookworm when I was a teenager, and my father called me a "fanatic". I was a frequent visitor to our local Central Public Library. Nowadays, fiction no longer attracts me. P.S. French was my best school subject in France, and in the French Lycee in London (where I stayed a short time). I actually won a book prize there. Believe it or not, English was also my best subject in an English school, and I also won a book prize there. You don't achieve this without reading books.

Sylvain.

Exactly. Thank you.

Sylvain.

There's more than fiction out there which is interesting reading. There's also some rather good modern fiction - what was the last you tried?

It's sad to see you lose your way - it sounds like you had it right, then abandoned it. The fact you say "not about to start again" implies you're not even giving books a chance nowadays - there's been a lot worth reading which has appeared in those "many years".

clive

Not to mention juggernaut & thug.