Buffy ,'Potential'
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This is how much I'm avoiding reading Locke's Essay on Human Understanding
Thank you much, dear. I've always been particularly puzzled by "big girl's blouse" because I tried to analyze and came up with "wrapped around the body of a girl, particularly the bit with the tits--how is that bad?"
You're welcome, Connie. I'm fairly sure it's a "you have the attributes of something feminine" insult-- probably "you're like a girl's blouse" (frilly and lightweight?) comes first. Though your rendering does make grammatical sense.
"big girl's blouse"
It's not a rhyming slang thang?
I'm fairly sure it's not rhyming slang. For one thing, while it might be used anywhere in England now, I think it's a Northerner's phrase originally, rather than Cockney. For another, I've a fair bit of rhyming slang (my great-grandfather is reputed to have spoken it natively and the family is fond of dropping it into conversation) and I've never met it in that context.
ETA: and the use of 'big' at the start of the phrase would be atypical.
OK, so explain "go all pear-shaped" ??
Also, a co-worker just reminded me of the Brit slang "poofter" and I'm wondering if it's from the Greek "pufti" (homosexual, derogatory) or if the etymology is the other way round.
On the basis of nothin', I'm thinking that it's the other way round. I can remember Monty Python using "poofter" in the late 60s, so the usage could have spread that way.
'Go all pear-shaped' is a mystery to me, Raq. I've heard a couple of explanations so unconvicing that I've forgotten them, and that's all. I guess it's a case where folk entomology goes all pear-shaped.
Amchau, how's it going? Are you enjoying school? I can't recall, are you at Nottingham, or am I misremembering?
ISTR that "go all pear-shaped" came from tedious penmanship lessons, when eventual fatique and boredom made the practice "O"s turn out pear-shaped instead of circular.
folk entomology
I'm now picturing ancient tales of the ant and the grasshopper being told around campfires from generation to generation.