English Language - what "Does your head in" ??
Re: English Language - what "Does your head in" ??
Automatic Lover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTFCwKvlKZo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTFCwKvlKZo
Mick F. Cornwall
Re: English Language - what "Does your head in" ??
...For the People.
Re: English Language - what "Does your head in" ??
Fish Cakes... Neither fish, nor cake!
Re: English Language - what "Does your head in" ??
More football gobbledygook...
"He's an absolute joke of a player" (now being said as a compliment)
"He's an absolute joke of a player" (now being said as a compliment)
We'll always be together, together on electric bikes.
Re: English Language - what "Does your head in" ??
How on earth do they get to call it a pudding!
Re: English Language - what "Does your head in" ??
Pudding only came to mean something sweet in, I think, the late 19th century. Prior to that it referred to anything steamed or boiled, or made from batter. And originally to a sausage. From the French boudin.
Similarly cake refers to the shape. Think of a cake of soap.
Similarly cake refers to the shape. Think of a cake of soap.
Re: English Language - what "Does your head in" ??
'Caketastic' seemingly a word invented by our local vicar for his regular fund raisers.
It gives me the burn!
It gives me the burn!
Re: English Language - what "Does your head in" ??
Mick F. Cornwall
Re: English Language - what "Does your head in" ??
What's a calling bird? They're colly birds....
Christmas is twelve days ............................. not ninety+ days.
Partridge
Turtle Doves
French Hens
Calling Birds
Gold Rings
Geese
Swans
Milk-Maids
Dancing Ladies
Lords Leaping
Pipers
Drummers
...
Jonathan
Re: English Language - what "Does your head in" ??
A calling bird is a bird that calls. A canary or budgerigar would be a traditional example. What's a colly bird?
Re: English Language - what "Does your head in" ??
Re: English Language - what "Does your head in" ??
I see. Well I'll go with Henderson 1879 just to be different!
Re: English Language - what "Does your head in" ??
Like language, traditional song lyrics move on with time.
Re: English Language - what "Does your head in" ??
I often welcome change in language, as may be obvious from this thread. And it doesn't bother me what other people choose to sing.
Calling bird is fascinating. It looks as if it's a back formation from colly bird, possibly because people didn't know what a colly bird was. But what bird was in the mind of the first person who sang calling bird as a present? Budgerigars and canaries chirp or sing, but I don't think of them as calling. But a couple of tawny owls...
Jonathan
PS: There had probably never been a budgerigar in Britain when the song originated! : -)
Last edited by Jdsk on 14 Oct 2022, 11:11am, edited 1 time in total.