Discussion Groups / English Usage / February 2004

Does anyone know the origin of the expression Montezuma's Revenge?

Do hipsters, thugs, gangsta wanna-be's, kids and ghetto-dwellers in England use
the latest American ebonics and ghetto lingo like "phat," "hood," "bounce,"
dawg" "SUP" and "hoe" (sp.)? What about older words and expressions that became
widespread in the '80s like "word up," ...

Somebody -- I think it was Dena Jo -- commented recently on
the futility of trying to foil harvesters of e-mail
addresses.
A trick I've seen at a certain Web site suggests what may be

Was it a mammoflop or a mammapop?

Diane Mott Davidson
I don't know why I torture myself by reading this lady's books, and I
won't go into the many reasons I have for disliking them, but I'd like
to know whether the stuff below is a genuine pondian difference, or

Which one below is standard usage?
I was caught speeding; as if I have not had enough tickets already!
or
I was caught speeding; as if I had not had enough tickets already!

Cites from a couple of reference books:
From the OED2. I give only the first quote here, the one from 1766:
[quote]
cracker [...]

From last night's Yorkshire Evening Post, which I have only just got round
to reading. Obesity and problems of overweight are very much in the news, in
Britain, at present.
To find out whether you are normal, overweight, or obese, you need to

The following eBay link is posted for reference only, and should not be
taken as a solicitation (not my auction):
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2227745922
The token being auctioned is a patriotic token from 1863, made during

Does strewth mean blimey?

Years ago, an erstwhile highly respected AUE regular wrote a
Perl script to count numbers of postings to AUE by each
person.  He had the good sense to see that routine use of it
and publication of the ratings would encourage some people

I came across the following use of "dawdled" by Joyce Carol Oates.
Connie blushed a little, because the glasses made it impossible for
her to see just what this boy was looking at. She couldn't decide if
she liked him or if he was just a jerk, and so she dawdled in the

What does the phrase "honey-do list" imply?

Was watching the news last night. It had an item which included a segment of
an Al-Jazeera recording.
Arabic text was scrolling sideways along the bottom of the screen, CNN
style. It was going from left to right. Which makes sense, as I understand

I work in a German research centre, and as one of only two native English
speakers, I'm frequently called upon to proofread and correct scientific
and technical articles written by my German colleagues.  Over time I've
noticed that they tend to make the same mistakes over and over ...