Roundup of small things

[simont]

I was referred to as an ‘Englishman’ yesterday on a newsgroup. That startled me. Initially I wasn't sure why it startled me, since it wouldn't particularly surprise me to be referred to as English, and it's been some years since I had that reflexive am-I-sure-I'm-grown-up-yet hesitance to think of myself as ‘man’ rather than ‘boy’; after a bit of thought I decided that the reason is analogous to the way ‘girlfriend’ has a specific meaning distinct from ‘girl’ + ‘friend’. It wouldn't cause me cognitive dissonance to think of myself as an ‘English man’, but an Englishman is a stock character in Englishman-Irishman-Scotsman jokes!

I was listening to some Mesh the other day. A thing I keep meaning to mention in here is that for some years I've been unable to hear their song ‘Safe With Me’ without giggling, because the very first line, sung with almost no instrumental backing, is ‘This is my space, no-one can ever get in here’. I think I managed to take that vaguely seriously the first couple of times I heard it, but now I'm unable to parse it as anything other than ‘This is MySpace’.

Like last year, Sainsburys stopped stocking grape juice over the Christmas period, so I had to resort to temporarily buying it from Asda. To my increased annoyance, Sainsburys have now come back out of Christmas mode, and still aren't stocking white grape juice; it isn't in the online catalogue any more either, so as far as I can tell it's been permanently discontinued. (They still do red grape juice, but it's not the same.) So now I'm probably going to be making a special trip to Asda every month or two just for that. Gah.

Comments

[angoel.livejournal.com]

Or you could buy lots-and-lots of grape juice and make it an annual occurrance. I don't think that grape juice has that short a shelf-life that a monthly trip is required.

[simont]

The immediate limiting factor is the amount Asda has on the shelf at once.

(The limiting factor after that would be the amount of my kitchen I want to give over to storing my long-term stock of grape juice.)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Or make an order, etc. (Though still limited by space depending how much you drink.)

Or drink wine, and uh, I don't know what.

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

My sewing website described one of their interviewees as an Englishwoman last month. That boggled me. I keep forgetting the Web is US-centric.

Also, grape juice: Aldi have it, and I go there most weeks. Tesco also do it and I end up there rather more than I want to, too. Just shout if you want me to get you some :)

[simont]

Tesco do it?! News to me. I've looked several times in the Tesco near work, and once or twice in Bar Hill, and never seen it. Perhaps I'll look again.

Which Tesco have you seen it in?

(In fact, Asda is relatively convenient to drop into on my way home from work; probably more convenient than it would be for you to come to me or vice versa. It's just a shame I can't do it in the same stop as all the rest of my shopping any more. So thanks for the offer, but I doubt it'd be an improvement.)

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

Milton. It was in the litre bricks of fruit juice aisle, not the chiller cabinet.

And it's not the convenience I'm thinking about, it's the doing something for someone I care about :)

[ptc24.livejournal.com]

Bah! I occasionally got slight MySpace twinges myself but not to bad, but when I heard in the pub that you were parsing it the same way the MySpace reading became a lot more dominant.

[metamoof.livejournal.com]

At least you *are* an Englishman.

One of the regular problems I have is trying to get my non-British friends to differentiate between the English and the other peoples of the United Kingdom. I regularly have to correct people when talking about a Welshman or a Scotsman, and referring to him as "Un Inglés" or "Un Anglais". They maintain it's of no consequence, but for me, it is.

[simont]

Now you mention it, I can't remember whether many European languages even do have a well established term for "British" as opposed to "English". I remember learning words like "anglais", "Inglese", "Englisch" etc. in language lessons at school, and the impression I got at the time was that those were the generally accepted terms for UKians in those languages. (Though I don't remember stopping to get the point clear at the time.) Have they all become up to date now, so that there are better terms in widespread use?

[metamoof.livejournal.com]

The terms certainly exist, in French (British, Scottish, Welsh, Irish):

Les Britaniques, les Écossais, les Gallois, les Irlandais

(We should not confuse the Welsh with cigarretes)

In Spanish:

Los Británicos, los Escoceses, los Galeses, los Irlandeses (through you could probably get away with "los Norirlandeses" for the British lot)

The Spanish have an obsession with Demonyms ("Gentilícios"), and every little town and village in spain has its own demonym, some les obvious than others, as well as major international locations, such as London (Londinense) and Edinburgh (Edimburgués), and even manage to differentiate between someone from the USA (Estadounidense) and the continent of America (Americanos).

That being said, the use of such demonyms for the Scottish and Welsh is not common in day-to-day use, and people prefer to just refer to the entire population of the United Kingdom as "The English" rather than the more correct "British".

And whilst the Welsh don't have much to crow about, most languages have a word for Scottish, as that's where the whisky comes from.

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

The English, the English, the English are best; I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest ;)

[simont]

Not very surprisingly, the same thought came to mind last time I mused on Englishness :-)

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

Naturally.

[kaet.livejournal.com]

Stocking Grapes are so last season, :).