Pear-shaped? I love it. I think I’ll add it to my stock of metaphors right beside “ass over teakettle” and the like.
I don’t know anyone that calls it a carriage, it’s always been trolley (or for the old school a barra) around these parts.
Maybe in Kensington they call it a carriage but not north of the border.
I agree. “Gobsmacked” is another one that seems to be catching on. I’ve also heard myself use the phrases “we got it sorted” and “we binned it” within the last couple of months, not to mention the classics “wanker” and “right bastard.” Linguistic cross-pollination is a good thing, I think, although I have to wonder which bits of American slang have been polluting the English idiom.
I hear and use it frequently; I don’t think it’s been of predominantly British provenance in my experience. Maybe lawyers just picked it up a while before other Americans.
–Cliffy
blinkblink Pear-shaped isn’t common? I hear it quite a bit with the folks that I tend to hang out with online.
I always figured it was like the effect of, say, nuking a can in the nuker. Ominous bulge before the earth-shattering KA-BOOM.
Round here it has mutated. Something that has bollocked up is described as having “gone the way of the pear” or some such.
Plain pear shaped along with Pete Tong is a bit vieux chapeau.
Perhaps it’s a Sussex thing? I’ve got friends in that part of England.
I like barra. Sounds Aussie to me though. Don’t know why.