A Lexicon of Transatlantic Prolixity

YANKEE INGENUITY (or, never use one syllable where several will do, and the more letters the better).

Fuelled in recent years by politicians' efforts to sound 'folksy', a trend started by Ronald Reagan, and which reached its bathetic nadir when George W. Bush referred to the perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist atrocity as "the folks who did this".

advocating for                        = advocating

affirmative                              = yes
all of                                       = all
alongside.                              = with

apartment                              = flat 

apple cider                             = cider

arrive into                               = arrive at
at the exact same time          = simultaneously

at this time                             = now

at this moment in time           = now

at this point in time                = now

attitude of mind                      = attitude
authored                                = wrote

automobile                             = car

available to buy instore now  = on sale
baby carriage                         = pram
back in (e.g. 2011)                 = in

back in the day                      = previously

backside                                = back

backstory                               = history

bagpiper                                = piper

barbershop                            = barber

based off of                           = based on
based out of                          = based in
be advised that                      =
beat out                                 = beat

better understand                  = understand
build out                                 = build

burglarized                             = burgled

caregiver                                = carer

cash rich                                = rich

catch on fire                           = catch fire

change out                            = change

chase down                           = chase/find

clothes iron                           = iron
creamer                                 = jug
crew members                      = crew

Do Not Enter (roadsign)        = No Entry

drop back                              = drop

expiration date                      = expiry date

face off against                     = face

family members                    = family
ferryboat                               = ferry

field hockey                           = hockey

finish up                                = finish

firecracker                             = banger

first up                                   = first

flashlight                                = torch

freedom fries                         = chips

free up                                   = free

furlough (US army)                = leave (UK army)
furloughed                             = laid off
garbanzo beans                    = chickpeas

garner                                   = get

gasoline                                = petrol
get ahold                               = get hold

gifted (verb)                           = given

gifted with                              = given

going forward                        =               

graduate degree                    = degree 

handed to                              = given

hating on                               = hating

have a nice day                     = good day

head in from                          = come from

head out from                        = leave from

head out to                            = go to

head up                                 = head

helmed                                  = led

Hide and Go Seek                 = Hide and Seek

horseback riding                    = riding
horse jockey                          = jockey

house party                           = party

impacting on                          = affecting

incentivize                             = encourage

ink pen                                  = pen

in lock step                            = in step

inside of                                 = inside

invest into                              = invest in

iteration                                 = version

laundry iron                           = iron

liquid water                            = water

listen up                                 = listen

marching in lock step            = marching

movie                                    = film
meet with                              = meet

meet up with                         = meet

multiple                                 = 's' suffix

multiple times                       = often                                 
necktie                                  = tie
night crawler                         = worm
obligated                               = obliged
off of                                      = off

oftentimes                             = often

on a daily basis                     = daily

on a regular basis                 = regularly

optimal                                  = best
ordinance                              = law

outside of                              = outside

parking lot                             = car park
park up                                  = park

particle board                        = chipboard
penned                                  = wrote

percentage points                 = %

pitcher                                   = jug

play catch up                         = catch up

power outage                        = power cut

prebook                                 = book

preorder                                = order

proactive                               = active

coin purse                             = purse

reach out to                           = contact
relocate                                 = move

report back                            = report

roadmap                                = plan
resolve (verb)                        = solve
role                                        = job

run afoul of                            = run foul of

sauté                                     = fry

sea turtle                               = turtle

sheepherder                          = shepherd

showcase (verb)                    = show

shutter(ed)                             = close(d)                                 
sign off                                   = sign

sign off on                              = sign

skyrocketing.                         = rocketing

smokestack                           = chimney

smoking pipe                         = pipe
speak with                             = speak to

step change                           = change

switch out                              = swap

take a listen to                       = hear

taxidermied                            = stuffed

tea kettle                                = kettle

tear up                                   = cry

teeter totter                            = seesaw
track record                           = record

transfer over                          = transfer
transfer into                           = transfer

underneath of                        = underneath

underscore                            = underline

up and running                      = working

upcoming                               = coming

urban legend                         = urban myth

vacation                                 = holiday

variety meats                         = offal

visit with                                 = visit
wait in line                              = queue
wait up                                   = wait
water turtle                             = terrapin

water fountain                        = fountain

worrisome                              = worrying
zero (as in chance)                = no

Defibrillated Frankenstein's Monsters of Fashion

From the BMC Superhero range

I'm noticing brown cars, which = the 1970s, and nearly everyone who wears one wears their baseball cap back to front, which = the 1980s (a recurring nightmare for Richard Dawkins). 

Brown T shirts seem to be popular, too. 

aka Pitkin in Albania

The seemingly never-ending tyranny of the skinny suit, too tight, and with sleeves and legs too short, worn with a pulled-down skinny tie with a strangled knot the size of a pea - a look pioneered by Norman Wisdom and taken up by Pee Wee Herman, now worn by everyone. 
Presumably a sick perversion of 1960s Madison Avenue/Mad Men suits worn by the Krays and the Sean Connery Bond.

For many years I predicted the return of the beehive hairdo - but this time as a male fashion. 

Jedward did their best, but in this case it seemed even my predictions were ahead of their time, until Justin Bieber showed the way.

Left: Having got rid of his trademark bowl cut, the beehive stands proud

(Yes, I know it's not Justin Beiber, and that's a pompadour not a beehive, but the photo that was here, of Miley Cyrus with more of a beehive, was removed because it infringed copyright.)

Stasi Salon

Seen in Essex Road, London N1.

Home visits always possible (often at dawn).

Architectural Urban Myths

I've just posted an example on my other blog of something that people like to tell each other even though it can't be true.

The demeanour when passing on one of these curious adult fairy tales, following a rhetorical enquiry regarding your awareness of the 'fact' in question, is usually that of condescension mixed with surprise at your ignorance.

If you refuse to play along by feigning surprise at your own lack of a sense of intellectual engagement with your environment, followed by rueful recognition of the strange circumstance you've failed to register and appreciation for its illumination, and can be bothered to point out why it can't be true, the demeanour quickly changes to truculence and disappointment at your lack of appreciation for their generosity, almost as if you've spurned membership of a club that they're proud to be part of.

The examples I'm going to give here are "buildings they built back to front", both major civic structures whose architectural significance is on a national if not global scale.

The first is St George's Hall, Liverpool, and the story goes something like this:

"Oh yeah, St George's Hall - you know they built it back to front? Yeah, and when the architect found out, he committed suicide."

I've been listening to that one since I was a child, and it's sometimes followed up with one about the lions in front having no teeth - apparently they were copied from the ones on Trafalgar Square, and by the time someone noticed there were no teeth, it was too late.*

The St George's Plateau set is completed by poking ridicule at the sculptor of the statue on top of the column to the north east of St George's Hall, sometimes described as being of Nelson, sometimes, correctly, as Wellington, for depicting his subject wearing a Roman toga with jackboots and a sword.

St George's Hall is a pared-down neoclassical building on a superhuman scale which presages the style favoured for public buildings in the 1930s in Fascist Italy, the Soviet Union, the USA, and most notoriously, Nazi Germany. One of the many crimes of the Nazi regime, albeit on a minor scale by comparison, is the damning of this ultimate development of classicism by association with rally grounds and militarism.

It was designed by Harvey Lonsdale Elmes in 1842, who did in fact die before it was completed in 1854, but from exhaustion, not suicide.

Aside from the idiocy of suggesting that Victorian surveyors couldn't use a compass, or Victorian builders follow a plan, and that the architect wouldn't visit the site before the walls were raised, there's nothing in the building's aspect or design that suggests it's the wrong way round. 

Here's an aerial view ©webbaviation

On the left is Lime Street, Liverpool's main thoroughfare, and St George's main entrance here faces Lime St Station, Liverpool's main railway station.

On the right is an ornamental garden with no vehicular access.

And the lions do have teeth, and they couldn't have been copied from Landseer's at Trafalgar Square because those were designed in 1866, eleven years after Cockerell designed the lions for St George's Plateau.

As you can see here, Wellington isn't wearing a toga either, although perhaps the cape might be mistaken for a toga from the back - but the statue is at the NE side of St George's plateau, with its front facing the city centre.

The other building I've heard people say was built the wrong way round is in Glasgow. 

It's Kelvingrove Art Gallery, built for the Glasgow International Exhibition in 1901.

Here's the front, on Argyle St, one of Glasgow's main thoroughfares, with a large porticoed entrance:

and here's the back, overlooking the River Kelvin, with no entrance:

For it to be the wrong way round, Glasgow would have to have been still living in the canal age in 1901.

 PS - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkdale_Palace_Hotel for perhaps the most celebrated example of this architectonic histeron-proteron delusion.

* An urban myth about Reading's Maidan Lion statue and its sculptor combines elements of the St George's Hall and associated lion statues myths: "It was rumoured that Blackall Simonds killed himself as the lion’s pose was not accurate. This is not true! He studied the movement of lions at London Zoo and it shows the moment when a lion is moving at speed. Experts from London Zoo have even confirmed that the pose is accurate."

Aged Comic Cast in Role of Rainforest Fauna Fancier

What did Bruce Forsyth say about the saucer-eyed arboreal primate?






"Nice tarsier, tarsier nice."

                                                                                

                                                

Now see here

You might be interested to see here what I have to say about the execution in Arizona that took two hours.

The Burning of The Midnight Lamp

Further to my earlier post, here's something else that they always get wrong on TV shows and films set in times or places without electric light. 

Paraffin lamps with glass chimneys (or kero-seen lamps in America) or hurricane lanterns (hurricane lamps, ditto) in such productions invariably have the glass coated with a thick layer of soot, so that only a dim glimmer of light penetrates. The wick is usually turned up too far as well, so that what light there is flickers crazily.

Paraffin or oil lamps with chimneys need to have the wick trimmed so it burns evenly when it's lit, and when the chimney is lowered into place, the wick must be turned down immediately, before it covers the glass with soot, because the increased draught produced by the chimney causes the flame to burn higher, producing more smoke.

Incidentally, the crops of rape which blanket the countryside, burning the retina with its violent yellow blossom and assaulting the nose with its glutinous aroma, nowadays in pursuit of EU subsidies for the benefit of the processed food and biofuel industries, and looking so alien and out of place in the landscape, were, surprisingly, previously a feature of the Victorian countryside. 

Before the oil and petrochemical industries existed, fuel for lamps was extracted from rape seed, known as colza oil (from the Dutch/German for 'cabbage seed', rape being a member of the brassica or cabbage family), and whale blubber, known as train oil (from the Dutch/German for 'tear', from the way blubber 'weeps' oil when heated).