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Frontage or Frottage?

Posted by Lewis on September 21, 2004

In Reply to: A fascade posted by platypus on September 19, 2004

: : : : : : : : : : Hello to you all,

: : : : : : : : : : Does anyone know what the "fronting" means?
: : : : : : : : : : I'm not *fronting*, but this cost me 200 dollars.

: : : : : : : : : : ThANK you

: : : : : : : : : I'm not sure what it means in that context. My New Zealand relatives use 'fronting up' to mean arriving, which they have just done for a family celebration here in the UK. I'm gathering lots of new phrases from the nether regions while they are here. 'Flag that away' seems to mean decline an invitation. Our accents are proving a bit of a barrier to communication. My NZ niece is recently qualified as a 'vit' and says her motivation for this was 'to make animals bitter'. They can't speak South Yorkshire and my mother (whose 90th birthday we are celebrating) only speaks broad Black Country dialect. Last evening the non-veggies amongst us ate, depending on country of origin, chicken/fowl/chuck. Flags might come in useful here.

: : : : : : : : It's not clear (a little more context might help) but it may be "putting up money in advance." Front money = an investment early in a process, before any return income is certain. Money to get something started. What makes me unsure is the word "but."

: : : : : : : There are several meaning of "front" in my Black English reference: A fraudulent person, someone who is not for real; to pretend; to confront someone about something they are supposedly are doing or should have done. Front on somebody: to deceive someone. Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the Hood to the Amen Corner by Geneva Smitherman (Houghton Mifflin Co., New York, N.Y., 1994).

: : : : : : : Could it mean, I'm not confronting you or making demands, but I'm just saying I spent $200.

: : : : : : I agree, it's confusing. If it wasn't for the fact that this person has just said, 'it cost me $200', I would have said they were refusing to 'front' or 'be responsible' for paying the money - so it seems to contradict.

: : : : : : In Australia you front the bill (ie. you'll take responsibility for the entire bill), you front for dinner or an appointment, (ie. you'll definitely personally be there), or you've got a lot of 'front', (ie. someone with a bold image, or who does something bold - ummm... say, if I were to crash a Royal party, I'd have a lot of front doing that.)

: : : : : : I love Gary's NZ translations. Your vit and bitter are spot on, but your 'chuck' cracked me up. I think both we and our NZ neighbours would call them chooks - although, I haven't heard your cousing speak and they're a weird mob over there - hehe.

: : : : : It's just occurred to me that your spelling and my spelling of chook/chuck, might result in precisely the same pronunciation. Many English people pronounce a 'u' in that situation as a short 'oo' (this is to my ears of course), so the fact I thought you'd spelt it wrongly, was probably wrong in itself, because it depends on where you come from and how you pronounce things.

: : : : : eg. With some English accents, my ear can only hear marginal differences between the pronunciations of luck and look.

: : : : This made me think of an expression. I guess it's from West Virginia. "Back a check." Means to sign it.

: : : ESC do you mean to sign the back of the check, or by signing it you're backing it, as in supporting it, or do you literally mean just to sign it? And no, I'm not being a smart a*** for a change, it's a genuine question.

: : Just to sign it.

: In the context of a $200 expenditure, "fronting" may indicate "putting on airs", showing-off. The front is a fascade, a boast.

"Who's going to front this?" - would be a business question.
when making a business case, you can have 'backers' and 'fronters' - backers supply the funding but do not particularly want to be managing or the public face of the venture, whereas people who 'front' a venture hold themselves out as involved. for example, when a syndicate want to make a bid, they need capital from backers, but also want to instil confidence by having 'names' fronting the bid.
'fronting' something for somebody usually involves being the public face of it.

when it comes to finance, fronting can also involve being the person seen to pay and that looks like the context of the question.

'fronting' can also mean providing the start-up expenses which later get repaid - for example somebody needs to pay money to pay registration and legal fees start up a company, but until the share captial exists, that person cannot be repaid, so that person has 'fronted' the initial expenditure rather than 'invested' it, as it is later returned.

I recall there is a verb to frot - to derive sexual pleasure by rubbing...

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