I was aware of the story last week, the Times is late to it

You could blame the Disney corporation for disrupting these 250 jobs; or you could blame the US Government's H1B Visa program which permitted it, and which has disrupted approximately 750,000 careers in this country, including mine.

This story is GRRRREAT!
 

Because tigers can often be found chillin' in a driveway in Grand Rapids. I suppose it could be Richard Parker.

http://wate.com/2015/06/03/officers-...stuffed-tiger/

Looks kinda real, if you squint.

I know an animal control officer who gets called out frequently for rubber snakes and reptiles.

Nope, Chuck Testa!

This just in from Buckinghamshire's premier journal of record, the Bucks Herald.

No doubt heads will roll at the New York Times because they missed this scoop. A poop scoop I suppose you could call it.

My parents will be glad to have missed that excitement.
I did have a good laugh at Mr Lucas taking his share of responsibility though :lol:

It really is 'parish pump' stuff, isn't it?
It's quite bizarre what is published in the BH on an almost weekly basis, but they've excelled themselves this time.

Our next door neighbour got in the Bucks Herald years back. She bought and paid for her shopping in Sainsbury's, but when she got home she realised she hadn't got her fishfingers. So she called the store, but no-one had alerted the lady at the checkout. It could only therefore be presumed that the next shopper had capitalised on Maureen's careless bag-packing and walked off with a free box of fishfingers.

She sent a letter for publication, but the Bucks Herald was so moved by her plight that they sent a reporter and photographer round. I seem to remember her posing with a similar item and a cross look on her face, but that might be a false memory from all the mock-ups my brother and I made up (and laughed ourselves quite weak about).

Slow news day maybe?

Fishfingers. I first saw that as 'fishfingerers'. WTH?

I'm assuming they're what we'd call fish sticks, and what I call fishdicks.

Google images for 'fish sticks' shows exactly what we call fish fingers.
Hit the nail on the head, Grav.
I wonder why the different names?

Speaking of names, I wandered into a supermarket in Torrington, Wyoming, looking for familiar sustenance and my gaze was drawn to what we know as fig rolls.
Amusingly, they were called 'Cobblers'. I say amusingly, because 'Cobblers'! is an expression which can be loosely translated as 'I do not agree with your hypothesis my good man. Kindly trouble me with it no further'.


Cobblers!

I'm totally stealing this. I can imagine many situations when this is perfectly applicable. I hope the subliminal message is received when the surface message is spoken.

Kindly trouble me with it no further.

Amusing indeed. :D

It's from cockney rhyming slang btw.
Cobblers' awls = balls.

Quite a few words we use have ruder meanings if you know their origins, although some are benign. For example barnet, meaning hairstyle, comes from Barnet Fair = hair.
Butchers, meaning to check something out, comes from Butcher's hook = look.
Bottle however, meaning courage or pluck, is from bottle and glass = arse. So if you say someone's lost their bottle, you're suggesting they pooped themselves in fright.

I'm not sure how well travelled even the contractions are outside of London.

Back to weird news (and local "news") it turns out that cats in Wharfedale now have opposable thumbs.

That so? Awesome. I had always just assumed it was the idea of courage found in a bottle - like dutch courage - so if you'd lost your bottle, you'd lost your nerve.

That's one of the things that always fascinates me with slang - often they have an actual meaning, a metaphor, or rhyme, well-understood by all at the time they came into currency, then that original meaning fell away yet we still understand the point. We just attach another likely meaning to arrive at the same place.

'tenter hooks' is the classic example, for me. I know we've talked about it before. We all instinctively know what we mean by tenter hooks despite that production process no longer being part of our landscape - most people wouldn't really know what tenter hooks were (or indeed tender hooks - which somehow conveys exactly the same sense ) but the image the word now conjures is just as effective in conveying the same meaning as the original.

I remember an awesome episode of Star Trek Next Gen, where they encountered a race that communicated entirely through metaphor and allegory. Fascinating really. So much of our day-to-day language and expression is indirect.

...... sorry ....bit of a tangent. Just smoked something marvellous.

Was it a kipper? Will you be back for breakfast?

It was (it wasn't) and I will (I won't).

Why can't you Brits speak English? :crone:

DanaC her eyes uncovered (DanaC her eyes closed), DanaC and Sundae in Weird News.


DanaC and sexobon in the Cellar.

Ha!

Sexobon - you are a class act.

I say! Steady on old chap! ;)

A few weeks ago I made a rare visit to Reddit where a topic was based on a report in the Daily Telegraph.
An American contributor said he couldn't take seriously reports in international journals with spelling errors.
I read it and the spelling was completely correct.
What must he have been thinking?

I remember that one...Didn't Jean-Luc finally get through to them using the epic of Gilgamesh, or something?

I was shocked that the escaped zoo animals walking round Georgia hadn't been mentioned on here. Then realised it was Georgia the country, not Georgia the American state.

Not that it makes the floods or the roaming wild animals any less important for the local inhabitants.

Link to BBC article above, including footage of a bear huddled on a windowsill, a hippo wearing a tranquiliser dart as an earring, and a mercifully brief photo of what I think is a drowned tiger :sniff:

[quote=Sundae;931137]I was shocked that the escaped zoo animals walking round Georgia hadn't been mentioned on here. /QUOTE] There is already a movie about it. Of course, they Hollywooded the facts and venue.

Fig Rolls are Fig Newtons :/ never come across them called cobblers -that's like fruit pie with no base.

What's the etymology of "bloody" and why is it so rude?

FOLLOWUP: Apparently, Mickey didn't like the publicity he got! --

NY Times: In Turnabout, Disney Cancels Tech Worker Layoffs

Maybe it wasn't just the publicity.
It's amazing how quickly the threat of a legal action puts ripples in the pond.

... from your link above:

To be sure, because I made a "dey took er jerbs!" post,

I would like twice as many people to be allowed visas and to come here and legally work. I would just like them to be evenly distributed across all professions, not just targeting certain ones.

I was right over there you motherfuckers!! Nobody asked me!! I would work for fuckin' Disney!!!

"By his blood," as in Christ's hands and feet on the cross. Often seen in Shakespeare as "'Sblood" before the S got dropped. Also where "zounds!" comes from, shortened from "by his wounds."

As for why it's so much ruder than "Christ on a handlebar" or similar such vanity-taking, I dunno. Culture is weird.

There's a lot of dispute over the word bloody. It is likely it has multiple origins - depending on usage.

Clod's example is one of the possible origins, another is By'r Lady, again used often in Shakespeare and appears in various other places. There's also a dutch word, irrc that is similar to bloody and fits the usage more closely - I'll have to wiki it.

ok - yes, wiki'd:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody#cite_note-2

What we Americans must understand is that the word must be pronounced as rhyming with "woody", and it must be followed by "ell" so closely as to make it one three-syllable word.

It's best as a stand-alone ... or a pull-chord to start your brain

They've spotted a Penguin, happy & healthy, 60 miles downstream.

Here, as I know a man of your travel is aware, it rhymes most closely with muddy. At least where I come from.

And termed with hell it can even become a two syllable word. Best rendered as "blu'll".

I have to watch my mouth in polite conversation, because despite the fact that neither of my parents swore in front of us growing up, some of Mum's phraseology is very rude. Especially the simile "like/ as... buggery". I know I've mentioned it before. Not knowing exactly what buggery was, it seemed quite natural to say things like "burnt to buggery" or "bled like buggery". In her defence, she didn't mean it in a literal sense either - at some point, someone in her past must have used it as the ultimate extreme. Maybe Cousin Tommy who was shut up in the glasshouse during WWII for stealing from his superior officer and going AWOL to be with his knocked up girlfriend (!)
Crims in the family; I got them.

Thanks Bruce, I missed that.
Penguins. Bless.

You're in Yorkshire now Sundae, things are different now

muddy rhymes with woody now

That was great hah.

The lass on the right reminds me a bit of my eldest niece. Always makes me smile when the girls slip into a broad West Yorkshire accent. So different (to a Brit's ears - for others the two may sound similar) to the Lancashire accent.

Though my own accent has drifted towards Yorkshire after so many years here. I don't hear it in myself til I have to go back to Bolton or Manchester for a visit.

With the legacy of the Civil War in the news, this is interesting:

Wow

Harold Evans, former editor of the Sunday Times, once said that the perfect newspaper headline would be 'Sex change vicar in mercy dash to Palace'.
The rationale being that you get sex, religion and Royalty all in one story.
This report is a good runner up.

http://s7.postimg.org/6pxefsehn/CIQJ..._jpg_small.jpg

I have a sick and twisted mind, I need a spanking. BAAAAA

CNN confuses sex toy banner for ISIS flag at Pride

:lol2:

What the fuck, man?!?!

Dispatcher tells 911 caller, 'deal with it yourself'

Nice job, Philly. Really nice job.

:mad:

Driver stopped with sheep in car tells police 'I was taking it to McDonald's'
 

A motorist in North Yorkshire who was travelling with a sheep in his boot tells police he was taking it out for a meal

http://s13.postimg.org/r5bc6u8lz/She...t_3399274b.jpg

Police who stopped a motorist were stunned to discover a sheep in the boot (trunk) of the car – which the driver claimed he had taken to McDonald’s for a treat.

The incident occurred in North Yorkshire when officers from the local roads policing group stopped the driver of a Peugeot 206 on suspicion of driving with two bald tyres.

But when they looked more closely at the vehicle they notice an unusual passenger in the hatchback boot of the car, a fully grown sheep.

When questioned why he was travelling with the animal in a family hatchback the motorist explained that he had taken it to a nearby McDonald’s restaurant for a meal.

A spokeswoman for North Yorkshire Police said: “He told the officer, ‘some people take their dogs in their cars, I take my sheep’. He [the motorist] just wanted to go for a drive-through at McDonalds.”

The driver is thought to have been stopped shortly after a visit to the fast food restaurant at Leeming Bar services on the A1 in North Yorkshire.

Daily Telegraph

Cheap date.

But wool she put out?

I can se it through the rear window, so it's not in "the boot" :eyebrow:

A. What, pray tell, is a "roads policing group"? Are they cops, or, not cops?

B. Someone saw the amount of tread on a moving tire attached to a moving car?:eyebrow:

C: They saw the amount of tread on a traveling tire, but, failed to notice the sheep in the back seat until the car stopped?

I fear something is rotten in North Yorkshire...

Naa-aa-aa, probaa-aably not.

FIFY.

The parcel shelf behind the rear passenger seats, and above the boot, can be removed to accommodate taller loads, eg: sheep. ;)

Re A: Roads Policing Group is part of the North Yorkshire Police which deals with traffic offences, accidents etc.

The Police in the UK do like a bit of self-aggrandisement from time to time. They used to have squads but then moved on to branches, via commands to directorates.
Mind you, I'm not sure where 'groups' fit into that particular hierarchy.

Re B: There was probably more to it than that. Many of the cars are equipped with number plate recognition cameras which can interrogate vehicle and driver licensing records and also police systems where the car might be of possible interest to them. They probably stopped him for an unstated and unrelated reason.

Re C: I can't help you on that one!

Sheep dip.

Thank you, kind sir.

Izzat a dance, of some kind?

Should have worn white. Until the publicity, I wonder if any of the spectators noticed? Probably not.
Red pants, plus sweating runners usually have several shades on any garment they wear.

I'm not disgusted or offended, but I do question the value of the gesture.
I'm not sure if she was running for charity, but the cost of her running shoes would probably have paid for plenty of feminine hygiene products. I know that's a bit of a straw man response, but I'm never really impressed with "raising consciousness".

I mean, would she have run with poopy pants to "raise consciousness" about widespread dysentery, which actually kills women (and men, and an enormous amount of children)?
Did she drink while running, or was she "raising consciousness" about dehydration, another huge killer in countries where they have no access to safe water?

Everyone is entitled to choose their own battles, but as a woman who's gone home with a wadge of toilet paper in her knickers so as not to ruin her nice work clothes, I'm not sure I'm impressed with this one.

Yeah well I'm raising consciousness for bloodborne pathogens.

Arrest her, but do put down a towel in the back of the police car.

Bioterrorism? :lol2: