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Comments
+30
Sep 21, 2012
Slang by its nature tends to be limited to a certain group. The size of the group varies from a few people or a profession (then we call it "jargon") to a country or beyond, of course. But as some other posters have pointed out here, different countries have very different slang, and although you're speaking the same language as someone else, you can totally fail to communicate. For example, in America, if I say "He's really p i s s e d", it means he's quite angry. In Britain, the same, exact words mean the guy is quite drunk. Few in America know what a Brit means when he says he's "taking the p i s s" which has several meanings, but often means you're mocking someone or you're just joking and not serious. Also few Americans know what "telling porkies" means (to tell lies), but those expressions are common in England and probably other former colonies. Slang can be very colorful and descriptive, but it can sure be confusing, too.
-13
Sep 21, 2012
What seems to have been overlooked in the discussion up until now is the fact that PHB, in his attempt to use office jargon/slang to indicate a job poorly done, has mixed his metaphors. Asok's comments in the third frame clearly show that.1) PHB used "choke the pooch" which is somewhere between "screwed the pooch" and "choked the chicken". Although both have a sexual reference, one is literal and one is inferred.
- "Screwed the pooch" means a job poorly done or left undone.
- "Choked the chicken" is a reference to self-gratification.
2) It would seem that Asok's research led him to a definition leaning more towards the meaning of "Choked the chicken" - hence his guilty disposition in the third frame. I think we can all safely assume that Asok gets no action and has frequently had to "pull the goalie".
+22
Sep 21, 2012
@girlbertAnd we Americans have just as hard a time with many British expressions, not to mention Aussie expressions and others.
+73
Sep 21, 2012
We had a project manager who liked to use expressions from Alice in Wonderland ("We running down a rabbit hole", "This mess is getting curiouser and curiouser", etc.). The consultants from India would just blink their eyes and stare at each other. I introduced them to WikiPedia so they could have a reference to what he was talking about it. Finally, during one meeting, one of the consultants said "We don't fully understand what you said but we will look it up on Wikipedia after the meeting".
+20
Sep 21, 2012
@Moorkhjee, actually PHB's expressions (including the sanitized "choke the pooch") are not ultra-esoteric expressions to anyone in the US. They are widely understood, if not used in everyday chat by everyone. I get your situation though, and work with a very international group. It is sometimes amusing when non-Americans really get into out slang and like to try it out. Sometimes missing the mark. Fluency is not the same as one's own tongue. Subtext and underlying meaning are much tougher to grasp.
