Having a joke at the other’s expense. Otherwise known as ribbing, kidding around, etc.
Also, going out to empty the bedpan.
I’ve always wondered how this usage arose. I’ve just come up with a WAG: Someone who is very full of himself, proud, enthusiastic, etc., is said to be “full of piss and ginger.” Thus, if you deflate someone with a trenchant remark, you “take the piss out of him.”
So, whaddya say? Any points for that one?
It’s a very good guess, and one I thought when I first heard the phrase myself. There doesn’t seem to be any definitive answer, but there are a few theories which tend to agree.
Up to a certain level of “want” yes, but… pub glasses are cheap, and they budget for a high level of breakage/loss/theft. So if it means that the punters get out at closing time, the staff don’t usually mind. Plus, it save on the washing up 
During the last World Cup, Carlsberg supplied the pubs with some rather nice commemorative pint glasses. I had a pint, as is my wont, and took my glass back to the bar for another round. The Manageress just looked at me – looked at the empty glass – back at me again.
“What?” I said (I was in fine form that day, bantering-wise)
“That’s the first one we’ve had back – all the other bugger’s just knick them”.
I lived in Japan for 7 years - discovered that there is no such thing as a job performance review, if they like you, you can stay as long as you like and noone will ever comment on how much or how little you work.
In a family where there are only girl children, the oldest can marry a man who takes on her family name but there is stigma attached to this - he is thought of as hen pecked etc.
Children and growing up, learning about good and bad behaviour and societal expectations is exactly the opposite to how Westerners learn.
In Japan, children have few rules and order their parents around, they are not taught to say please and thank you etc. The older they get, the more rules there are, starting with primary school. By the time you enter the workforce, you have learned most of society’s rules and strictly apply them.
Yep. A former local of mine was a sedate family-meal type place, and even there, the landlord said that a supply of anything other than regular pint glasses would last only a few days.
I just want you to know that after reading this post, you have a very particularly lovely accent now in my head. Not “lovely” as in posh, but lovely as in gritty and interesting. There are very few Dopers who have a specific"voice" in my head, and now you’re one of them. Bravo!
(Oh, and thanks for answering my question, as well!) 
Well, the metric system is the official one here. When the US government officially switched to metric sometime in the 1970s, an enterprising Arizona senator actually got the change put into effect (all signs in metric) for about 120 miles worth of road between Tucson and the Mexican border. AFAIK that’s the only place in the US where metric reigns supreme. (Edit: Other than college science departments.)
Not really. Most people I know are in love with their debit cards and many use them compulsively. I suspect that the banks that don’t charge fees for almost anything (like Washington Mutual) can afford it because of overcharge fees from debit card users.
IME, everyone and their mother calls bathrooms bathrooms here. “Restroom” is a euphemism used in restaurants and retail stores. I don’t mean to disrespect your experiences, but I have a hard time believing that there’s an English speaker in the US who doesn’t know what a “bathroom” is.
That’s plenty true here. I eat square pizza every Friday night. I fondly remember a pizza place in the Chesapeake Bay area of my youth that served gigantic square pizzas.
In Israel, Hebrew, Arabic and English (in that order) are all official state languages. So every single road sign everywhere (IME) is actually one tall signpost with three different signs: Hebrew on top, Arabic right below and English below that.
Cigarette vending machines are everywhere there, BTW. (Although I vaguely remember seeing a cigarette vending machine in the US; I must’ve been really little.)
Most Americans don’t have any interest in using “creamer” either; a lot of diners use it to save money, I guess, and hungry customers acquiesce. Seems like it wouldn’t be too hard to get some milk if you asked for it, though; surely they have it around in some quantity.
And then there’s The Original Pancake House, which serves the best diner coffee I’ve ever had and brings you a cup of heavy cream to go with it!
I don’t know if this varies by state, but in my neck of the woods, imported products get a sticker with the nutrition info in English on the box (or bottle, as the case may be; me, I’m hooked on Mexican Coca-Cola).
People ask. You’re pretty much expected to remember all of your friends’ birthdays, and forgetting one is mildly offensive. When you become an adult (ie your parents don’t throw you birthday parties anymore) you drop hints around your friends, and at least one of them is generally expected to get the idea and throw a party for you. When you’re 20, your friends (women especially) ask you to remind them when your birthday is several times, and then the people who would be most amused by watching you make a fool of yourself take you bar-hopping on your 21st. They buy all of your drinks and pay for the requisite taxi rides, of course.
Only if you’re already there for groceries. If you’re just buying liquor (and maybe some smokes, snacks, and sodas) you go to a liquor store.
Me, I just like my sauces chilled. I can’t tell you why, but I like mustard, ketchup, soy sauce and hot sauce cold.
Though most Americans would gravely misunderstand your name for it, the general concept AIUI is pretty common among male friends here.
Surprisingly, perhaps, English actually is not an official State language – only Hebrew and Arabic. For example, official ducuments will sometimes include instructions in hebrew and Arabic only. Of course there’s always an attached “explanation sheet” that includes translation into English (and Russian, and Amahari, and quite likely French and a few more… but I digress)
Road signs all generally have English (actually, Latin Character) names on them as well because… well, as a tourist, how would you like to run into signs with nothing but squiggly incomprehensible runes on them? :eek: :smack:
Haven’t seen one in ages here, either. Maybe still on Army bases, but I’m pretty sure those are disappearing, too.
Interesting. I guess that makes more sense, but I kept hearing that English was an official language while I was over there–must’ve been not-entirely-literal. Anyway, it might as well be an official language. The place is crawling with Americans and Britons, both tourists and residents, and it seemed like the majority of civilians (particularly in the service industry) spoke pretty good English.
How odd. I was there in 2004 and I remembered seeing lots of 'em. Then again, it could’ve just been that seeing a single one was so shocking to my American conscious that it affected how I perceived the whole country. I know that at the very least I saw one in the hotel at Kibbutz Hagoshrim, right by the front door. I don’t know if that’s near any really major city, but I know it’s practically within hand grenade range of Lebanon and the Golan Heights. I heard when I was there that the kibbutz underwent some serious bombing in the 80s.
True; Israelis tend to speak passable or better English – just as most other Technological Societies nowadays do. It’s the universal Lingua Franca
Dunno, really – as a non-smoker in a society that (still) doesn’t really care one way or another whether or not somebody smokes, it would definitely be “meh” to me whether or not they exist on every street corner. In Tel-Aviv, at least, they don’t, however.
They also got it but good last summer 
Fair enough, but I’ve always heard that competency in English is higher in Israel than a lot of other non-English-speaking countries, because of the incredibly high number of American tourists. I mean, we’re the last developed theocracy, meaning the whole country is full of people who dream of Jerusalem their entire lives and actually have the money to go if they can get over the popular conception that you can’t walk a block in Israel without getting personally suicide-bombed.
Fair enough. I certainly don’t remember seeing any in Tel-Aviv. One thing that did blow my mind in Tel-Aviv, though, was that specific cigarette brands had entire storefronts. I mean, I grew up a couple hundred miles from Marlboro County and I never thought I’d see a store that was actually owned by Marlboro and proudly said “Marlboro” on the front!
The other thing that made me giggle was the store in Safed that advertised Nestle “motta”, or ice cream. I always figured you’d be more likely to find mota in a hookah than a freezer in Safed!
Was anyone hurt? Was the kibbutz damaged? Man, there were some good people there, and such a beautiful area too–not to mention cheap and good wine from the Golan Heights, plus a pretty waitress who said “stoned” instead of “drunk” and served me my first olives with pits in them. I’m sure she doesn’t remember the expression on my face when my teeth slammed into hard olive-core, but I remember the look on hers!
That brings me to the other thing about Israel–I really like you guys’ more nonchalant view of death. Americans are so terrified of dying, but in Israel it seems like everyone knows at least one person who’s died in a war or a terrorist attack, and the way one local put it: “It’s OK to mourn on Friday morning and go clubbing on Friday night.” It’s terrible that unnatural death is so common, but the resulting worldview is very down-to-earth.
Actually, English is formally an official language. The only law regarding official languages is a mandatory law from 1922 that declared English, Arabic and Hebrew as the official languages. In 1948 a correction was passed that removed English from its privileged position.
More changes were made later on, but English was never formally revoked as an official language. Hebrew wiki on the lingual policy in Israel says English position is not clear: it is still legally official – but only legally. For example, some Knesset laws allow (or require) English use in formal actions, but a MK may not make a speech in the Knesset in English.
Where do you live? I’ve only heard the phrase as “full of piss and vinegar.” Most likely it’s another of those regionalisms that varies widely.
Why? In 20 years of living in California and being old enough to drink, I think I went into a “liquor store” once. It was more expensive than the grocery store, and had a smaller selection of tequila and good beer.
Why? Because all grocery stores card, and not all liquor stores do. (I can see why this would be more important to some people than others, though. )
And liquor stores are more convenient sometimes. A lot of my friends’ homes have a liquor store within walking distance, whereas you have to drive to get to a grocery store.
No, I just remembered it wrong. The expression is not native to my dialect. I think I’ve read it only in British sources. So, vinegar it is!
We get some of that too here, and I don’t know what determines which products get a sticker and which don’t, but I get the feeling that it is whether or not the manufacturer themselves have a distributor here (and can therefore create or alter packaging to suit local laws), or whether the product is imported directly by the store or a general import company. It seems like the stuff that doesn’t have the nutritional labeling is also the stuff that either has the description/ingredients on a small white label on the package, or doesn’t have any English at all.
Oh, and we don’t get any of that high fructose corn syrup-laden stuff here. Just good old fashioned sugar.
In Canada yeas ago, it wasn’t uncommon for small mom 'n pop variety stores to have the majority (if not the entirety) of their store sign occupied by the logo of one cigarette brand or another. Excepting well-known chain stores like Mack’s or 7-11, there were probably more generic “variety stores” that had no real name to go by than there were stores with names. Just big backlit signs for DuMaurier, Players, Export A or whatever. I’m guessing they got kickbacks from the brand for that.
Not kickbacks, but the cigarette company paid for the sign and the installation. There was always the name of the store somewhere on the sign–although “Player’s” etc. was the predominant message, there would also be something like “Pop’s Variety 555-1234.”
I knew a guy who owned a variety store years ago. He had a couple of pinball games, and we’d all congregate there after school to play. Anyway, we kids got to know him quite well; and we’d often see the reps from cigarette companies, from soft drink companies, and from daily newspapers after him to take their sign, which they would gladly pay for. He never went for it; he liked the original painted sign that came with the business when he bought it. But you’re right, there were many such stores that were simply known to the neighbourhood as “Player’s,” “Export A,” or “Toronto Daily Star.”
As soon as I crossed the border from British Columbia into Washington state last year on a trip, I found something very interesting. In every washroom you go into (and trust me, I go into a lot 
) there was some sort of plastic contraption on the wall. I had no idea what it was, but shrugged it off - I had everything else I needed, that being the toilet, toilet paper and sink.
After about the third place, I realized what it was. It’s the toilet seat cover dispenser. Seriously, it just mystified me. I had never been in a bathroom in my life with that gave out those seat covers. Even the little ghetto diners in the little ghetto towns had them! I was starting to think there was a state law or something requiring them until I went to a big restroom at a mall that didn’t have them. But it was just so odd. Around these here parts, if there’s pee on the seat you suck it up and wipe it off, unless it’s totally all over and then you just go into another stall.
Is it like that in most states?
Crikey. Thanks, Sis. How odd to have an accent in written form. Gritty, though… I can deal with that.
Oh, and while I’m here…
uurgh.