There’s another factor: the political one. The various factions in the Tory Party are jockeying for power and the players here are David Cameron, the PM; Boris Johnston, the Mayor of London; and Theresa May, the Home Secretary, who has the final word. And the citizenship requirement is one she is refusing to waive. Either she is cocking a snook at Cameron, or she is providing him with plausible deniability in his battle against Boris. I’m insufficiently Machiavellian to decipher it.
Please translate.
Just a guess, but it might be in reference to drawing the pool cue back before taking the shot, which in this case would be to snooker someone.
Declan
Most of the foreign nationals I know who teach in the UK do it through agencies, even some that are working full-time jobs that seem exactly like regular permanent jobs. That might be worth looking into if you’re really eager to migrate.
Showing that you do have control over your own actions and don’t need to kow-tow to someone in authority, nyer.
Not only Irish citizens, but also those of any Commonwealth country.
Translate into what? The expression (and the gesture it describes) isn’t specifically British. To cock a snook is to hold your thumb to the tip of your nose and then spread your fingers wide. It’s a gesture of mockery and defiance, and is widely understood as such throughout the Western world.
It may not be specifically British, but it isn’t American. Most Americans aren’t that familiar with the gesture, either.
Having grown up watching American TV and not infrequently seen that gesture used, I must question the veracity of your claim – at least the second part of it. (The name for it I didn’t learn until I was much older, though I suspect British people are equally unaware of it.)
We are, but we call it the much more straight forward “thumbing your nose” at someone.
I am familiar with the gesture, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard the term “cock a snook,” and I have more than average familiarity with British pop culture.
Again, the term is not a British regionalism—at least, it’s not marked as such in any American dictionary I’ve checked, such as Merriam-Webster. The closest concession I’ve found is in the American Heritage Dictionary, which claims that the term “is more widely used in Britain but is not unknown in America”.
“Not unknown in America” isn’t saying much.
Neither is “more widely used in Britain”.
Well, now I don’t know what you’re arguing. Are you saying that I’m pretending not to understand the phrase?
No, I’m just agreeing with you that the American Heritage Dictionary’s statement is extraordinarily vague. “Not unknown in America” could well mean that only, say, 2% of the population there is familiar with the term, but “more widely used in Britain” could just as easily mean that 3% of the population there is familiar with it.