What do you call this?

Discussion of natural languages, or language in general.
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Zaarin
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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Zaarin »

Vijay wrote:
KathTheDragon wrote:Boringly, "not show up".
I would probably use the same. I would also accept "flake out," "ghost," and "stand me up."
To me, "stand someone up" specifically refers to a date.

"Not show up" for me, too.
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Re: What do you call this?

Post by cabinet_cat »

Are you referring to ice cream that is two flavors? If so, here on the west coast we do not have a name for that.
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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Travis B. »

Zaarin wrote:
Vijay wrote:
KathTheDragon wrote:Boringly, "not show up".
I would probably use the same. I would also accept "flake out," "ghost," and "stand me up."
To me, "stand someone up" specifically refers to a date.

"Not show up" for me, too.
Same for me as well.
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Axiem »

Zaarin wrote:
Vijay wrote:
KathTheDragon wrote:Boringly, "not show up".
I would probably use the same. I would also accept "flake out," "ghost," and "stand me up."
To me, "stand someone up" specifically refers to a date.
To me, it's a date in the more generic sense, of a scheduled event that someone bailed on at the last minute: "Cindy and I were going to meet up to see Star Wars this morning, but she stood me up so that she could spend more time with her new boyfriend." It also has a bit of a malicious connotation, in that it ascribes more malicious intention on the person who didn't show up.

"Didn't show up" is pretty neutral, as though they didn't have a choice, while "stood me up" implies "they intentionally led me on about doing this and then cut out at the last minute".

Being stood up at an altar for a wedding is "being jilted".

"Ghosted" isn't in my dialect. Someone "flaking" is, however, and it has the connotation of being a character trait of being unable to follow through on commitments. Someone who flakes isn't malicious, they're just not reliable.

To say something like "she bailed on the plans" would also work for it. But yeah, back to the original question, if it was a totally neutral thing with no other context, "She didn't show up" would be how I'd say it. Or, I might shorten it to "she didn't show", probably with a shrug. Though in today's world of texting, it's pretty rare that I actually have a friend who simply doesn't show without adding further context.

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Vijay »

I would never say "she bailed on the plans." I would say "she bailed on me."

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Travis B. »

I would say "she bailed on my plans", even though "she bailed on the plans" does not sound exactly right to me.
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Axiem »

Yeah, now that you mention it, using the possessive sounds better, though I would pluralize it: "She bailed on our plan". Both "plan" and "plans" sound fine to me, though, and I can't figure out if I have any different connotation in them.

"She bailed on me" to me implies that she and I started doing our plans: for example, we met up and had dinner together, but then contra our original plans, she left before going to a movie. When kvetching to my spouse, I'd possibly say something like "Dinner was nice, but she bailed on me before the movie."

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by linguoboy »

The act or result of drivers slowing down to view the scene of an accident.

In Chicago, this is called a "gapers' block". In other parts of the country, it's "rubbernecking" and apparently the drivers themselves are referred to as "looky-loos" in some localities.

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Vijay »

I'm pretty boring about this, too. For me, it's just something like "looking at the scene of an accident."

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by KathTheDragon »

Yeah, no special word for this either for me.

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Soap »

I've heard "curiosity delay" on radio traffic reports and I think that's it's only meaning so I would be understood if I called it that.
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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Travis B. »

I don't have any special word for this either.
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Axiem »

I would understand "rubbernecking" to be this behavior, and I've heard people around here use the word, but I can't offhand think of when I used it to describe what was going on. More often than not, when my spouse wonders what took so long to get home, I just say "there was an accident".

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by finlay »

linguoboy wrote:New question: You make plans with someone and then they don't show up. What verb(s) would you use to describe what they did?
flaking out, being a little bitch, etc

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Zaarin
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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Zaarin »

Not a word I've ever used, but I've heard my dad use the term "rubbernecking."
"But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by alynnidalar »

linguoboy wrote:New question: You make plans with someone and then they don't show up. What verb(s) would you use to describe what they did?
"They no-showed." Alternately, they flaked out or skipped out.

Upon reading everyone else's responses, "X bailed on me"/"X bailed on the party" would also be normal for me, although it wasn't the first thing into my mind.
linguoboy wrote:The act or result of drivers slowing down to view the scene of an accident.

In Chicago, this is called a "gapers' block". In other parts of the country, it's "rubbernecking" and apparently the drivers themselves are referred to as "looky-loos" in some localities.
Rubbernecking for me as well. I have no special term for the drivers, the accident itself, or the resulting traffic jam, however.
I generally forget to say, so if it's relevant and I don't mention it--I'm from Southern Michigan and speak Inland North American English. Yes, I have the Northern Cities Vowel Shift; no, I don't have the cot-caught merger; and it is called pop.

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by linguoboy »

You are standing in line/in a queue at a service counter. Somebody who was not standing in line/in the queue when you arrived shows up and takes a place in line/in the queue ahead of you. They have just ____?

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Vijay »

Cut in line or cut in front of me.

I remember when I was in kindergarten, in the middle of the year, I had a new classmate who was monolingual in Russian, which motivated me to try to learn Russian at the time (I was even allowed to spend some time doing this on my own in school, at the end of the day IIRC). One day, we were lining up, and she cut in front of someone, so I felt I needed to explain to her the concept of how Americans don't like it when you're expected to be in one position in a line and you assume a different one instead, but when I tried to get her to go back to where she was earlier in line, she yelled "[nʲeːː]!!!" and I was like "okay, whatever."

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Axiem »

linguoboy wrote:You are standing in line/in a queue at a service counter. Somebody who was not standing in line/in the queue when you arrived shows up and takes a place in line/in the queue ahead of you. They have just ____?
"butt in line" or "cut in line". The former is more colloquial than the latter (I remember it more from my school days than from adult usage)

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by linguoboy »

Axiem wrote:
linguoboy wrote:You are standing in line/in a queue at a service counter. Somebody who was not standing in line/in the queue when you arrived shows up and takes a place in line/in the queue ahead of you. They have just ____?
"butt in line" or "cut in line". The former is more colloquial than the latter (I remember it more from my school days than from adult usage)
Same. What prompted this was recalling shouts of "NO BUTTING!" from when I was in grammar school. I'm wondering just how regional that is.

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Vijay »

I mean, "butt in line" doesn't sound that different from "cut in line," so it's not like the meaning is unclear, and I might have come across it before. I don't remember ever hearing "no butting" before, at least not to mean 'no cutting in line'.

Btw the anecdote that I mentioned in my last post took place (in my last year) in St. Louis.

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by alynnidalar »

"Cut in line" or "cut in front of me" for me. I would understand what "butt in line" meant, but wouldn't say it myself, and might be a little surprised to hear it. The context I think of when I hear "butt in" would be someone butting into a conversation or event--inserting themselves into it, even though they weren't invited.
I generally forget to say, so if it's relevant and I don't mention it--I'm from Southern Michigan and speak Inland North American English. Yes, I have the Northern Cities Vowel Shift; no, I don't have the cot-caught merger; and it is called pop.

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Imralu »

In school, we said "push in". I don't think I have a natural phrase to say anymore.
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Re: What do you call this?

Post by Vijay »

"Push in" actually makes more intuitive sense than any of these other terms to me.
alynnidalar wrote:"Cut in line" or "cut in front of me" for me.
Interesting, I wouldn't have expected to have the exact same two phrases as someone from the other end of the country! :)

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Re: What do you call this?

Post by linguoboy »

This question is specifically for speakers of those English varieties in which the primary meaning of "torch" is "electric torch" (i.e. NAE "flashlight"):

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