British English is treated badly

Greg, is there a French expression that's like "put your shoulder to the wheel" (to work vigorously at something?)

Je handen uit je mouwen steken
(To stick,your hands out of your sleeves)

Je schouders er onder zetten
(To put your shoulders under it)

We gaan wat zweet kweken
(We are going to grow some sweat)


All mean (that your going to ) work.

I always associate "rolling up your sleeves" with someone ready to punch you out - a sign of aggression.

"Pulling ones socks up" is doing better in something or an expectation by someone or oneself to do better.

This is what one website says (http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/20/messages/165.html):

Re: Pull your socks up

Posted by masakim on April 03, 2003
In Reply to: Re: Pull your socks up posted by ESC on April 03, 2003

: : I was surprised to not find this saying in the database. I know what it means, of course, but I'd be interested to read anyone's views on the exact origin of this saying.

: : Thanks

: Well, I've heard it as an obscene call to readiness: drop your ****s and pull up your socks.

pull up one's socks v phr by 1893 To correct one's behavior; look to one's performance; = GET ON THE BALL: "Whittingham was terminated after having failed to pull up his socks enough during six months on probation" --Toronto Life
From _Dictionary of American Slang, Third Edition_ (1995) by Robert L. Chapman
----------
*pull one's socks up* is an idiom cliche used to mean to make an effort to do better. It is often children who are at the receiving end of this cliche, as "If you don7T pull your socks up you will find yourself repeating the year," although its use is not confined to them. In origin it refers to smartening oneself up by pulling socks up that have slipped round one's ankles, a common problem for schoolboys wearing short trousers.
From _Cliches_ (1996) by Betty Kirkpatrick

The only expression I've got in mind is Fr <travailler d'arrache-pied> but I'm not quite sure it's equivalent to En <put one's shoulder to the wheel> because it's the first time I've seen the latter. Fr <travailler d'arrache-pied> means 'working hard and the best you can (to get something)".

I googled the English expression and found this : Fr <mettre la main à la pâte> which just means 'help get things done or participate in a (collective) task or work'.

We definitely need the help of other Francophones and Anglophones there.

What about "pedal to the metal"? That could be colloquial for "get moving".

This is an interesting website for anyone who is interested in colloquials-

http://www.freesearch.co.uk/dictionary

I'm slowly catching up on the threads while I was away in Cornwall for a week..that place really came up to expectations! It REALLY is quite different from anywhere else in England.....I felt a Celtic affinity with it....a sort of bonding...quite weird really. The weather was crap (this IS the UK after all! LOL) except for one day.....and the surfing was fantastic, and the pubs were a great place to meet real Cornish peeps, nice ale as well and great food....especially the fish.

Many of them down there really don't believe they are part of "England Proper" and I saw plenty of the St Pirian Cornish flags flying from the moment we crossed the border over from Devon. I honestly felt that they liked the idea of a distinct Cornish identity, and a feeling of "separateness" but I never heard one single word of Cornish and nobody I met could speak it, except one or two who knew a few basic words. That disappointed me really.

The placenames were really strange.....we've discussed those in this Forum before....again not like anywhere else in England. We even went through Indian Queens...only saw the village from a distance as it's a very busy highways interchange.

As for the title of this thread...British English is treated pretty badly in here in Britain itself! ..no messing.......just you believe that one guys.... we mustn't go blaming it all on exterior influences! A sort of Linguistic suicide? :-)

Awfully interesting that the expression "to pull up one's socks" is virtually unheard of in america. If any americans were to be at the receiving end of a Singaporean teacher to "pull up their socks" in the case of falling grades, I am sure they'd be bloody confused as hell. Lol.

Proof that British English is treated badly here in Britain itself.....a letter to the London Sunday Times (no less) today 29/05/05 in broad Cockney (nah..it ain't Estuary, mite!):

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-1631980,00.html

Shouldn't "what it owns" have been "wha' i' owns"?

And I thought I understood English. :-/

Oo’s vis snide git Rod Liddle dissin’ Debrett’s (review of The Done Thing, Books, last week)? An’ why’s ’e miss aht ver aposhtroff, ’postrophy, well anyway vat raised comma fing you bung in between a fing and ver uvvver fing what it owns? Ow’d you like it if I wrote “Sunday Time’s” like it was a bag of tom’s on a market stall? Don’ ’e know John Morgan, orfer of Debrett’s Guide to Etiquette and Modern Manners, fell aht a winder of ’is posh flat in Albany? Show some respeck, Rod, and don’t p*ddle, beg pardon Liddle, on ’is grave. Or we mite ’ave to come rahnd your place one nite, an’ it won’ be ter say ‘ow do, you can bet.

Nah DEBORAH....it ain' Estuary, althaoo I loike ya pahs of observ-eye-shun! Good inni'?

But I though saying glo'al stops instead of Ts was a Cockney habit.

On the topic of Estuary...I just watched "Bend it like Beckham" the other day and I was wondering if Parminder Nagra and Keira Knightley's accents are typical middle-class "Estuary" accents...anyway, I enjoyed the movie and the accents. The movie really hit home, because my hometown here in California (Turlock) has a lot of Sikhs, and my Sikh friends of my generation (especially the girls) are constantly straddling the expectations of two different cultures. I remember a Sikh friend I had in high school and when I had to call her house I would have my sister call because her parents would answer the phone and didn't want to hear a boy calling for their daughter. My family's next-door neighbors in Turlock are Sikhs, and, not to stereotype, but the interior of the house in movie looked a lot like theirs!

DEBORAH....I onfused ypou! So sorry...aye, you're right really..both Cockney and Estuary do the glo'al bi' I guess. I'm only a Sco'..wha' do I know abou't these ma'ers anyway!

God. I'm going loopy! Must be the enforced Sunday night incarceration! :-(