Where is that "something" that makes others think you are really good in language

Ishatu2 like the expression finagle a bagel.I'm not sure who you were referring to from the 60's.

Henry Kissinger,sorry, I had a senior moment,just couldnt remeber the old boys name :)

Haha, finagle a bagle,not one Ive heard :)

Incidently, want to know how to catch out even most native English speakers?

Ask them to say outloud * Ye Olde Shoppe"

Hint, it should be pronunced as The Old Shop, but never is,see, English is not set in aspic :)

Question,I didn't learn English from books or courses and I always thought that one can be good AT something.So good in English or good at English?

I thought you were referring to Kissinger,but your description of his voice through me off.Finagle a bagel means being able to get something done or make it happen.As far as I know this is a Bostonian expression or at the least it originated here.

The pedant in me says neither,but some other pedant will say .....oh,wait,thats a spoken only *joke*...
er...
You could be *good in English*
if someone has asked were you a good boy in school today and you answered, I misbehaved in math but I was *good in English*.

But, if you mean to say you have a certain skill in speaking and writing in the English language,no, dont just say * I am good in/at English* :)

But,then again,who am I to say? Maybe in the part of the world that you now live either of those ,in or at may be the norm,if so,its *correct*.

I know my written English is pretty poor, dyslexia and a general lack of inspiration because of that during English classes out side the Lit' parts will do that to a joe...

But, Ive always used my skills in spoken English to put food on my table so...
Grubas, yes, you can be good at something but you cannot simply say,for example. " Im good at Golf" without sounding like a Pleb or *special person*, " Im good at playing Golf" would be fine though.

Its insanely subtle sometimes but that is what seperates the pedents/overly educated native speakers from the rest of the world :)

Isthatu2,I imagine that in England there is slang particular to an area,like we do here.

We have slang in my town that is completly different to the town less than 10 miles across the moors :) The accent is also vastly different.

Some *slang* as hard as it is to believe is also ,literaly spoken Viking.
A narrow public foot path between houses/properties can be an Alley, a ginnel, a snicket and those three are just different terms from within a 20 mile radius of my house :)

Thats one of the reasons I dont like people being to set in their ways about what is or is not *proper* English.

Its just not that sort of language its always evolving,always changing and always wonderfully unique to the place and time you come from :)

Imagine foresooth if for happenstance we passing shadows on the earthly stage still had to converse in verily not divers ways but soley in the language of Shakespeare.......or all had to speak like Her Majness Liz no2 ....

My Grandma spoke both well educated officers daughter standard English but also the Glaswegian version of English she spoke as a girl mixing with her fathers employes children. Both were special,both were *correct*, just for different occasions :)

This is a fascinating series of documentries on the history of the English language,sounds dull as dishwater but is really worth a watch. The presenter is from an area where so many of the words and phrases date back to Old Norse

Isthatu2,thank you for your response and the documentary.We have slang particular to regions.

Your welcome.
Time for me to climb the wooden stairs to bedfordshire.
One other slang nugget.
The (slang speaking ) black tendency to say Aks instead of Ask is ironically a pronuciation that can be traced back to Scots Ulster Overseers on the plantations. Black british kids use this pronunciation without a clue where it came from.....

Isthatu2,Interesting.It's the same here.

I find that non-native English speakers have a problem with understanding 'irony'. They know what it is, (i.e. a dictionary definition), but can't get it when it is used to them face-to-face.

I can assure you that Poles use irony in their own language - maybe irony is expressed in too subtle ways for speakers of Polish to get in the English language

Grubas, your ignorance is sometimes overwhelming.

If you've lived in a country a paltry eight years and expect to know it as well as someone who's known that language their whole life, I scarcely know how to respond.

"Don't count your chickens before they hatch."

"A bird in the hand is worth ten on the roof."

I certainly hope your know THESE!
:-)

It's also never just saying "I know English better than you know Polish!", it's what kind of English do you know!

Yet another puff of the hot generalizing air. Why do some people here rarely see a difference between SOME and ALL?

How about googling any of the names on the list below, together with the word irony. Apparently those poets, novelists and playwriters are (or were) masters of irony, black humour and understatement. And they wrote mainly for the Polish audience, so evidently some Polescan get "irony" when it is used to them face-to-face. I think I am one of them, thank you.

But it's not too late for you yet. You may still learn something.

You may learn that Szymborska was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality". You may learn that Szymborska frequently employed literary devices such as irony, paradox, contradiction and understatement, to illuminate philosophical themes and obsessions.

You may learn that Mrożek is best known for his theatrical plays full of irony and absurdity written during the Communist period.

You may learn why Gombrowicz's writings are beloved in France, where they have long been available in competent translations... that Susan Sontag, in her introduction to the recent English translation of "Ferdydurke", his ironic masterpiece, calls him brilliant ...

ETC, ETC.

The quick list:
Wisława Szymborska, Witold Gombrowicz, Sławomir Mrożek, Julian Tuwim, Czesław Miłosz, Janusz Głowacki, Ignacy Krasicki, Antoni Słonimski, Cyprian Norwid, Stanisław Lem, ...

On behalf of all the Poles who may browse this forum in the future and read your merciless leg pulling, I have to correct that. It is of course "a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush".

phrases.org.uk/meanings/a-bird-in-the-hand.html

.. which translates into "Lepszy wróbel w garści niż gołąb na dachu" :-)

The other one is: "Nie dziel skóry na niedżwiedziu"

The French say two on the roof.

You do realise we have bravely prevented a generation of Polish people from making an embarrassingfaux pas at middle class British dinner parties in decades to come? The Queen should invite us in for a knighthood each.


But the saying there is about pigeons*, I believe. Ye olde English saying is about birds.

(*or rock dovesto give them their real name!)

in Brighton they call it a twitten

So if I want to refer to my back passage in Brighton, should I talk about my twitten?

just poppin up the twit.....

A bird in the hand IS worth "two" on the roof!

I guess this bird brain needs to stay off the bimber and keep looking at the rooves of houses, huh, he-he!

German says "Ein Spatz in der Hand ist besser als eine Taube auf dem Dach." = A sparrow in the hand is better than a dove on the roof.

Same idea, just a different spin (....and after all, that's what makes horse racing)

There is of course a Back Passage in London's City area, Passage being another term for alleyway, I think.

Would you like to live in Tickle C0ck Bridge?
telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7263112/Britains-rudest-place-names.html

Your ignorance is overwhelming not sometimes but all the time.


And where/when did I claim it?Huh,point to one post where I am saying that I know English better than a native speaker.All I am saying is that my English is LIGHT YEARS AHEAD OF YOUR POLISH and no sane person would argue about it.


It must be your hurt pride that you keep arguing but the truth is that whatever kind of English I speak/know it is still LIGHT YEARS AHEAD OF YOUR POLISH.


I recently learned expression "to Jew someone".Did you know this one?

Not forgetting Gropecountelane. There were plenty of those in Merrie Englande, including one in the City and one in Oxford, now known as Magpie Lane. Boring.

Tickle C0ck bridge sounds like a fun place, but my favourite town in the English Lake district is Cockermouth.

Sadly I do, Grubas! it was "sanitized", so to speak, into "to chew the price down". yet the vicious racism of the original intent comes through loud and clear.

We in America unfortunately are all too familiar with the expression "dumb Polak". Surely, this is as ugly as "Jew the price down", wouldn't you agree?

Pride? There is no ego in learning, only the absence thereof in the pursuit of it.

Of course it is.Not only in the UK but also in the US.
You are using some old expressions nobody's using nowdays Lyzko.Are you like 90 y/o or something?
youtube.com/watch?v=Yi7l_0L4m9I


This is not an expression."To go Polack" would be.


What do you mean?

Indeed!


You are of course correct and too polite to spell it the way it should be, which is the modern day expletive, although in history that word was as acceptable as any other non expletive AFAIK.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane

"Go Polak"??? Like "Going Rogue" (Sarah 'Baby' Palin!!!)??

Don't think so, Grubas. Good try thoughLOL

By the way, "dumb Polak" IS an expression, I must correct you here:-) It's simply not a verbal phrase, that's all.

Lyzko,how about "sharp as a bowling ball"lol.