7 entertaining tam-tam answers
Not at home? Please leave a message on your answering machine, but this time let it me memorable 🙂 Here are some suggestions:
7. Hi! Jan’s answering machine is broken. This is his refrigerator. Please speak very slowly, and I’ll stick your message to myself with one of these magnets.
6. Hello. This is Ron’s answering machine, Marvin, and I’m SO depressed. I have 50,000 times the memory capacity of my owner, but all I get to do is answer the phone. Life. Don’t talk to me about life. Just leave your name and number after the beep. Here comes the beep, God how I hate that beep, it’s so cheery sounding.
5. Hello, this is David. I don’t live here, so if you were trying to call me, you’ve dialed the wrong number. On the other hand, if you were trying to call John, Jim, or Eric, please leave your name and number at the tone. I don’t guarantee that one of them will call you back—only that I won’t.
4. Greetings, you have reached the Sixth Sense Detective Agency. We know who you are and what you want, so at the sound of the tone, please hang up.
3. Leave a message or I’ll send 30,000 volts through your phone. I am an electrical engineer. I can do that.
2. Thank you for calling Soviet Embassy. No KG… Er, no diplomats are able to answer phone, so at sound of capitalist tone, leave name, telephone number, and short description of secrets you wish to sell.
1. Hi. This is John:
If you are the phone company, I already sent the money.
If you are my parents, please send money.
If you are my financial aid institution, you didn’t lend me enough money.
If you are my friends, you owe me money.
If you are a female, don’t worry, I have plenty of money.
Like more of them? Please, help yourself at:
I’m home right now but cannot find the phone. Please leave a message and I will call you up as soon as I find it,
10 British slang words, kindly translated for Americans
(B)
Barmy – If someone tells you that you’re barmy they mean you have gone mad or crazy. For example you’d have to be barmy to visit England without trying black pudding!
Bees Knees – This is the polite version of the dog’s bollocks. So if you are in polite company and want to say that something was fabulous, this phrase might come in handy.
Biggie – This is unusual. A biggie is what a child calls his poo! Hence the reason Wendy’s Hamburgers has never really taken off in England – who would buy “biggie fries”? Yuck – I’m sure you wouldn’t buy poo fries! The other meaning of Biggie is erection. It just gets worse!
Blimey – Another exclamation of surprise. My Dad used to say “Gawd Blimey” or “Gor Blimey” or even “Cor Blimey”. It is all a corruption of the oath God Blind Me.
Blinkered – Someone who is blinkered is narrow minded or narrow sighted – they only see one view on a subject. It comes from when horses that pulled carriages wore blinkers to stop them seeing to the side or behind them which stopped them from being startled and only let them see where they were going.
Bob’s your uncle – This is a well used phrase. It is added to the end of sentences a bit like and that’s it! For example if you are telling someone how to make that fabulous banoffee pie you just served them, you would tell them to boil the condensed milk for three hours, spread it onto a basic cheesecake base, slice bananas on top, add some whipped double cream, another layer of banana and Bob’s your uncle!
Box your ears – Many young chaps heard their dads threaten to box their ears when I was a littlun. Generally meant a slap around the head for misbehaving. Probably illegal these days!
Budge up – If you want to sit down and someone is taking up too much space, you’d ask them to budge up – move and make some space.
Bugger all – If something costs bugger all, it means that it costs nothing. Meaning it is cheap. If you have bugger all, it means you have nothing.
Butchers – To have a butchers at something is to have a look. This is a cockney rhyming slang word that has become common. The reason “butchers” means a look even though it doesn’t rhyme is because it is short for “butchers hook” and “hook” of course, does rhyme.
Your uncle,
Reading equals life
Passion. Hunger. Need.
I wake up and one motion I do – a book I reach out for. Eyes still closed, I caress its cover, my door to imagination. The first thing in morning, the last thing at night. More than love. Sometimes an obsession. Reading is what gives me the drive, the motivation, the strive to live. Another world I submerge into. Hundreds of thousands of billions of ideas, of minds, of stories. In some of them I may find just a teeny-tiny piece of useful information, others could read my mind and expose me head to toe, naked to them, as if they had been written for myself and only me in the world. Good books tell us what we already know but hesitate to confess – our deepest concerns, fears, loves and hopes. Our selves. Â
I dream about libraries and the soft, vanilla-like scent of books, centuries talks about life and the adventure of living and loads of dedicated to writing souls to show you the way.
I do not care about night clubs or posh meeting places, as long as I had a nice reading, blanket (and a cuppa tea).
Take books away from me and I will feel lost and confounded. Alone. Deserted.
Bring them back and I will breathe and smile again.
What does reading mean to you?
Shhh, I am taking a book,
so please write silently
Cat, don’t look at me
A cat may look at a king.
It certainly can and it most probably may, why not? But if you are not a native speaker and/or you are reading the magnificent “Through the looking glass” there is a good chance that you miss the figurative meaning of the phrase.
‘Who are you talking to?’ said the King, going up to Alice, and looking at the Cat’s head with great curiosity.
‘It’s a friend of mine — a Cheshire Cat,’ said Alice: ‘allow me to introduce it.’
‘I don’t like the look of it at all,’ said the King: ‘however, it may kiss my hand if it likes.’
‘I’d rather not,’ the Cat remarked.
‘Don’t be impertinent,’ said the King, ‘and don’t look at me like that!’ He got behind Alice as he spoke.
‘A cat may look at a king,’ said Alice. ‘I’ve read that in some book, but I don’t remember where.‘
‘Well, it must be removed,’ said the King very decidedly, and he called the Queen, who was passing at the moment, ‘My dear! I wish you would have this cat removed!’
What it actually means is “An inferior isn’t completely restricted in what they may do in the presence of a superior. “,
or the proverb in simpler words: “even a person of low status or importance has rights.”
A little bit but now you know it 🙂
Wandering through Englishland,
Sources:
Did you know? No, really, did you?
Bet you never stopped to think about it. 😉
- The most commonly used letter in the alphabet is E (1 out of every 8 letters written is an e).
- Â The least used letter in the alphabet is Q.
- Â Dreamt is the only word that ends in mt.
- Â The first letters of the months July through to November spell JASON. Read More…
(I said) Betyghtbouhn
My favourite tongue-twister 🙂
Betty Botter bought some butter but, said she, the butter’s bitter.
If I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter.
But a bit of better butter will make my bitter batter better.
So she bought some better butter, better than the bitter butter,
put it in her bitter batter, made her bitter batter better.
So ‘t was better Betty Botter bought some better butter.
Say it fast and then even faster. 🙂
How’s your tongue? Twisted? That should mean…mission complete 🙂
Boughthbitiouthi,
Tip of My Tongue
It happens to me all the time – I am thinking of a word – not exactly thinking but chasing it through and across my mind while it enjoys hide-and-seek games, jumps on the tip of my tongue and then back outside reach.
You better watch out, words, I found a butterfly net for your dodger comrades 🙂
CLICK and CATCH
Gotcha, mischievous word!
Your dishevelled,
How British people greet you at the airport
Ok, you guessed it. I yield. I am fond of everything British.
Sharing is caring…so, tell me are you not moved by these ads? I am, every single time. To tears. Maybe because I travel a lot and am homesick more often than not, but nevertheless…
The public reaction to this:
One more dance (my treat):
Would you care for a welcome like that?
Please share it in the comments below because I am eager know your thoughts.
Your maudlin,
AWARDS
Just English 