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Where Does It Come From? Origins Of Phrases & Expressions

(This line of discussion transplanted from the WTF thread and mentions of 'dupa' being Polish for 'arse'.)

Hmmmmmm......Whenever I ask my husband if my dupa looks big in this or that, he just says, 'What??'
He should say 'it's super-dooper'.
 
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He should say 'it's super-dooper'.
That means 'lovely bottom!' and was popularised by Brits who heard Polish airmen saying it about women in pubs during the war.

Polish people - comin' over'ere, flying fighter and close reconnaissance missions, helping defeat Fascism, teaching us funny phrases.
 
Polish people - comin' over'ere, flying fighter and close reconnaissance missions, helping defeat Fascism, teaching us funny phrases.
Yeah...bleedin Poles....comin' over 'ere with their strong work ethics, good food, sense of strong community and family values....how dare they
 
That means 'lovely bottom!' and was popularised by Brits who heard Polish airmen saying it about women in pubs during the war.
Do you have any good authority on this? It's hilarious if true. Of course the phrase precedes WWII, but that doesn't mean this origin isn't correct. Certainly this usage is believable.

I was surprised when I heard that the word "doozy" was supposedly a contraction of Duesenberg (the car) - although other explanations exist. I always thought it came from "duży", the Polish word for "big".
 
Do you have any good authority on this? It's hilarious if true. Of course the phrase precedes WWII, but that doesn't mean this origin isn't correct. Certainly this usage is believable.

I was surprised when I heard that the word "doozy" was supposedly a contraction of Duesenberg (the car) - although other explanations exist. I always thought it came from "duży", the Polish word for "big".
As far as I recall I read it in t'Guardian. A Polish colleague confirmed its native provenance. :)
 
Of course the phrase precedes WWII
Or maybe not. I thought it did because of its use in "Puttin' on the Ritz", but then I did some research and found that the lyrics were changed in the 1940s. The original, which was about living it up in Harlem, did not include the phrase, nor a reference to Gary Cooper.

Looks like the dupa theory is holding up!
 
He should say 'it's super-dooper'.
That means 'lovely bottom!' and was popularised by Brits who heard Polish airmen saying it about women in pubs during the war. ...

The Polish / dupa connection may be the reason it was popular in wartime Britain, but it's not clear this is the origin of the phrase.

"Super-duper" (American spelling) is an example of a rhyming compound / rhyming reduplication, where a rhyming term (often nonsense) is appended to a word for emphasis or alliteration.

It's often pointed out that the compound "super-duper" appears in the lyrics of modern recordings of Irving Berlin's Puttin' On The Ritz - written in 1927 and a hit recording circa 1930. This is sometimes cited as evidence "super-duper" predates the 1940 date usually given for its origin. However ...

The Puttin' On The Ritz lyrics that include "super-duper" are the revised lyrics Berlin penned in 1946 for the film Blue Skies.

https://genius.com/Irving-berlin-puttin-on-the-ritz-revised-lyrics

Rhyming reduplication in American slang certainly pre-dates the Forties, but I haven't found proof that this particular phrase pre-dated the war years.
 
Rhyming reduplication in American slang certainly pre-dates the Forties, but I haven't found proof that this particular phrase pre-dated the war years.

For what it's worth ... I found this quoted passage on a language / lexicon forum. It's apparently the reference for the 1940 attribution for the origin of "super-duper" / "super-dooper". Unfortunately, the person who posted this didn't specify which dictionary of slang (etc.) was being quoted.
1940 (advertisement for the movie ‘The Lion’s Roar’ starring Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland) “After seeing this new M-G-M SOOPER DOOPER musical smash, our little voice went pattering all over the house.”–‘New York Times,’ 27 September, page 17/7
SOURCE: http://wordwizard.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?t=19275
 
Did british women have lovely bottoms though? That seems important.
 
A recent UK survey identified a bunch of formerly well-known phrases that are falling out of use:
News story (with video)

Top of the tree is "casting pearls before swine", which seems oddly appropriate. To be honest, it seems about half the people asked knew what the phrases meant anyway, which is not too bad. Bit sad to see "Be there or be square!" slipping from favour, though. "Cold as a witch's tit" seems to be a strange one to inquire about.
A friend and I were talking about this the other day. When we were at school (70's) we had Religious Studies. I don't remember us actually being 'taught' bible stories, but we certainly picked up quite a lot of biblical knowledge that way. Nowadays Religious Studies tends to consist of a lot more Comparitive Religion and less actual christian based background stuff (which is not necessarily a bad thing). So if you mention someone who looks a bit ill as looking like Lazarus walking, kids nowadays have no idea what you mean. Most biblical allusion is being lost, so it doesn't surprise me that pearls before swine provokes blank stares in anyone under the age of about forty.
 
Did british women have lovely bottoms though? That seems important.
Seems that larger bottoms are getting more admired these days, at least where I'm living - whatever happened to the times of Twiggy, lovely thin, beautiful women, with gorgeous faces!
The British started that style with the one of a kind classy Twiggy!
 
In fairness, the 60s Twiggy, Shrimp(ton) and other such body images were really only reprising the straight up and down figures of the early 20s, which in itself were merely a reaction to the over emphasising of the feminine form from the Edwardian and the post Belle Epoque periods, with the daft bustles and corsets, etc.

All are equally unrealistic ideals, mostly unrelated to real women of then or now.
 
In fairness, the 60s Twiggy, Shrimp(ton) and other such body images were really only reprising the straight up and down figures of the early 20s, which in itself were merely a reaction to the over emphasising of the feminine form from the Edwardian and the post Belle Epoque periods, with the daft bustles and corsets, etc.

All are equally unrealistic ideals, mostly unrelated to real women of then or now.
Seems people from the 1960's were much thinner though, in general - looking at the photos of Woodstock, it is striking how slim almost everyone is, men and women.
Wonder if it's something relating to the food of that day vs. today? I know I avoid anything that lists as an ingredent 'corn syrup' or things of that nature. For instance, 'Rao's Sauce' for spaghetti is all natural, with vegetables as its only ingredients.
 
A friend and I were talking about this the other day. When we were at school (70's) we had Religious Studies. I don't remember us actually being 'taught' bible stories, but we certainly picked up quite a lot of biblical knowledge that way. Nowadays Religious Studies tends to consist of a lot more Comparitive Religion and less actual christian based background stuff (which is not necessarily a bad thing). So if you mention someone who looks a bit ill as looking like Lazarus walking, kids nowadays have no idea what you mean. Most biblical allusion is being lost, so it doesn't surprise me that pearls before swine provokes blank stares in anyone under the age of about forty.
I love the name Lazarus and wanted to call one of my kids that. Ex wasn't having it at any price. :chuckle:
 
A friend and I were talking about this the other day. When we were at school (70's) we had Religious Studies. I don't remember us actually being 'taught' bible stories, but we certainly picked up quite a lot of biblical knowledge that way. Nowadays Religious Studies tends to consist of a lot more Comparitive Religion and less actual christian based background stuff (which is not necessarily a bad thing). So if you mention someone who looks a bit ill as looking like Lazarus walking, kids nowadays have no idea what you mean. Most biblical allusion is being lost, so it doesn't surprise me that pearls before swine provokes blank stares in anyone under the age of about forty.
We had Religious Education which was actually all about Bible stories - I enjoyed the one about the woman who killed a bloke with a tent peg, as I'd been camping and was good with a mallet - but we didn't get the sayings.

Funnily enough though I was recently bantering with colleagues and the pearls came up.
Y'know, at the door - 'Age before beauty!' 'Pearls before swine!' and so on. :chuckle:

Alice Cooper has a song about the Devil which mentions casting pearls before swine. Had the album the week it came out and I quote that track often. Dunno what that says about me.
 
My Mum always used to tell me, "You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar"!
My Grandmother used to say, "Bob's your uncle" Never knew what that meant!
 
(This line of discussion transplanted from the WTF thread and mentions of 'dupa' being Polish for 'arse'.
Whit? Woah, woah haud on a wee meenitie here!!

In Scotland, us aulder fowk hae ayeways caa'd yir erse, yir "dowp" (an mebbies thi richt same wurd is uised doon in Yorkshire an Northummerlan? Bit am nae deid certin o' that kinna Doric ....).

'Moan yis ither feelow cairters fae thi norn pairts o' thi isle......! Aye, lykes o' @Frideswide / @Min Bannister / @Comfortably Numb (an @maximus otter oan yir mithir's side o' thi family, or siklykes kin tae ye).... Am a richt, or am a richt aboot this?
 
Mythopoeika said:
(This line of discussion transplanted from the WTF thread and mentions of 'dupa' being Polish for 'arse'.
________________________
Oh dear, look what I started!!
 
Whit? Woah, woah haud on a wee meenitie here!!

In Scotland, us aulder fowk hae ayeways caa'd yir erse, yir "dowp" (an mebbies thi richt same wurd is uised doon in Yorkshire an Northummerlan? Bit am nae deid certin o' that kinna Doric ....).

'Moan yis ither feelow cairters fae thi norn pairts o' thi isle......! Aye, lykes o' @Frideswide / @Min Bannister / @Comfortably Numb (an @maximus otter oan yir mithir's side o' thi family, or siklykes kin tae ye).... Am a richt, or am a richt aboot this?

Doric? Doric? My mother was from civilisation, i.e. Perth!

ln answer to your question: l never recall her referring to a “dowp”; it was always “arse”, or - if she was feeling particularly Scots - “erse”. Usually in the context of my face, which she likened more than once to a “well-skelped erse”.

We were never close…

maximus otter
 
Whit? Woah, woah haud on a wee meenitie here!!

In Scotland, us aulder fowk hae ayeways caa'd yir erse, yir "dowp" (an mebbies thi richt same wurd is uised doon in Yorkshire an Northummerlan? Bit am nae deid certin o' that kinna Doric ....).

'Moan yis ither feelow cairters fae thi norn pairts o' thi isle......! Aye, lykes o' @Frideswide / @Min Bannister / @Comfortably Numb (an @maximus otter oan yir mithir's side o' thi family, or siklykes kin tae ye).... Am a richt, or am a richt aboot this?
Aye ah ken dowp. :twothumbs:
 
My Grandmother used to say, "Bob's your uncle" Never knew what that meant!
Now there's a phrase I remember well from my upbringing in Glasgow - haven't heard it for years, thank you!

Jings, it wis only the other day I mentioned to someone a contemporary saying - a precursor to "whit the f..."...

"In the name o' the wee man...''.

I never discovered who that 'wee man' was. :cool:
 
Doric? Doric? My mother was from civilisation, i.e. Perth!
Coincidentally, or Forteanly otherwise!

MRI scanner in Aberdeen speaks in Doric dialect to comfort patients

29 January, 2022
BBC Scotland News

Patients having MRI scans in Aberdeen can now hear the instructions in the north east Scotland dialect of Doric.

The University of Aberdeen's MRI scanner has undergone a £1.2m upgrade, including new software which offers multiple language options.

(...)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-60069190
 
Coincidentally, or Forteanly otherwise!

MRI scanner in Aberdeen speaks in Doric dialect to comfort patients

29 January, 2022
BBC Scotland News

Patients having MRI scans in Aberdeen can now hear the instructions in the north east Scotland dialect of Doric.

The University of Aberdeen's MRI scanner has undergone a £1.2m upgrade, including new software which offers multiple language options.

(...)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-60069190



maximus otter
 
MRI scanner in Aberdeen speaks in Doric dialect to comfort patients
"...ye cannae change the laws of physics..."
1643813950271.png
 
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