Re: Phrases from where you live

Posted by Gary Bartram on December 15, 1999

In Reply to: Phrases from where you live posted by Gary Martin on December 12, 1999

: Are there any phrases that originated where you live?

: Here in Sheffield the phrases 'nose to the grindstone'
: comes from the early steel industry, where grinders lay
: face down on platforms over grindstones to sharpen and
: polish cutlery.

: 'The Full Monty' has also become associated with
: Sheffield as the eponymous film was located here,
: although that's a much earlier phrase of course.

: I see lots of traffic to the site (2,000 people/day)
: and wonder where you all come from. Many from the
: USA of course. Looking at the log files it seems
: that the most common location is (if memory serves)
: Vienna Falls, Virginia. I'd guess that this is
: where an ISP like AOL hangs out rather than where
: any of you are sitting.

: Anyway - where are you, and what phrases come from
: there?

: Gary
: Virginia

S.W. London - and, maybe, other places

I've encountered a new phrase which I believe to be of recent origination. The word "Centrifuged" is used to preface nouns such as News, Announcements, Statements, etc. to indicate that they have been 'spun' and hence few undistorted facts or truth remain. It may well be transitory but seems to have developed in the last year or so and is most regularly used to indicate the quality and believability of government announcements.

An example of a "Centrifuged Announcement" was made by Mr Blair (our beloved P.M.) and some of his ministers recently when, on radio and television, they proclaimed an increase in funding for education of 19 billion pounds over a 3 year period. What they had in fact done was to take the increase of 'X' billion in the 1st year, 'Y' billion in the 2nd year, and 'Z' billion in the 3rd year and arrived at their total by counting 'X' 3 times, 'Y' 2 times and Z once (3X+2Y+Z). The actual total increase over the 3 year period was revealed to a radio journalist, after prolonged probing, as about 10 billion pounds when the normal rules of arithmetic were employed

As we sometimes say "If you torture statistics long enough they will tell you anything you want to hear."