We do export a lot of horses for meat though - a considerable percentage of the New Forest Ponies end up this way - not sure about the ones from Dartmoor.
Horses aren’t nearly as cute as rabbits though, are they? (cuteness isn’t a very reliable indicator of table-worthiness, IMO)
Here in sweden, “hamburgarekött” (literally, “Hamburger Meat”) is made from horse and looks nothing like hamburgers. It is more like processed ham.
Dear Miss Magicball,
First of all may I congratulate you on your taste. Edinburgh is a wonderful city.
A Canadian girlfriend of mine who has been in Edinburgh for a couple of years now has developed an occasional but delightful mixture of Edinburgh and Toronto accents. I don’r know what a Yellowknife accent sounds like but I suspect it is probably closer to Scottish English than for example the English spoken in Dallas. =;^)
I would hope that the Edinburgh students are a little more informed about Canada, it does after all, have a department of Canadian Studies
http://www.cst.ed.ac.uk/ ( useful for attacks of homesickness?)
BTW. Yellowknife is a only couple of degrees farther north than the north of Scotland although the climate is slightly different =;^)
Have fun
pony =:^)
pony = pony & trap = crap
:o Sorry.
From what I’ve read, until the mid 1960’s that prices were often quoted in shillings even if the total value was over a pound. They’d say something costs 30 shillings, instead of 1/10/0. One example I remember is that an LP (vinyl record) cost 30 shillings.
Just shows you what inflation has done.
To make things really confusing, “dollar” was also slang for a crown, or 5 shillings. Which is just about right. When both countries were on the gold standard, a british “dollar” was about the same size as an American silver dollar, and worth a little bit more.
Nope, you’re not mistaken, they were real enough although they went out of circulation in 1970. (Full) crowns were only minted for special occasions since WWI though. Slang for a half crown was “half a dollar” because that’s what they were worth for a long time.
Yes, that’s also true. BTW, the farthing (which finally disappeared at the beginning of 1960) was exactly the same size as a modern penny. I assume they had some blanks left over and decided to reuse them, although recently-minted “copper” coins are made of steel with a bronze coating.
Thanks for clearing that up - I don’t want to start any rumours about us eating horses. I was just wondering whether we shared rhyming slang, but it seems our countries have evolved seperate terms.
I’m never quite sure how much rhyming slang is real and how much is just kept going by websites.
Apparently “horse” is slang for “sauce” over here too, but I’ve never heard it myself. Lot’s of rhyming slang changes with popular culture references, so I would’ve guessed that “Inspector Morse” might have been used instead, but that’s just a wild guess on my part.
Somebody mentioned that the minor denominations were resized to a smaller dimension a few years ago. It’s amazing how that can be done in other countries, but if anyone suggests reforming the currency in the U.S., the screams of protest can be heard around the globe.
My screams of protest have been audible round the globe since 1971. I still want my dodecagonal threepenny bits back. They were cool.
What is it with the whole “rhyming slang” thing? Jeez. At this rate I’l spend my whole 4 years there confused.
And Steve Wright, have you seen our Canadian Twoonies? now They are cool.
http://www.coin-newbies.com/worldimage/canada/can19962d.html
I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. Here in London I’m supposed to be in the heart of rhyming slang territory yet I hardly ever hear any, and it’s even rarer in Edinburgh. You might very occasionally hear the odd word or phrase, but you won’t need a separate study course just get by.
Steve Wright: I needed a threepenny bit every day for my bus fare to infant school. Without googling, what flower appeared on the reverse face?
I think this one’s rather common in Scotland, at least everyone I know there uses it:
“I haven’t got a scooby”
(scooby doo = clue)
They have scooby doo there?
I know that sounds kind of niave and what-not, but I always thought they had thier own cartoons.
Ummm … the way I remember it, it’s not a flower at all, it’s that heraldic portcullis sort of thing, possibly the same one they use for the Houses of Parliament, but I could be wrong.
Most of them did have a portcullis on, but a few old ones had a thrift plant. Worth knowing when there’s a pint a stake.
They do, but you’ll be appalled at how much American TV they also have.
Funny… we don’t have any british TV shows… well, theres “Worst witch”, and a few years ago there was “ocean girl”, but thats about it that I’ve seen.
Don’t worry about the rhyming slang. You will find it used very little and no-one uses the cockney stuff in any seriousness, especially in Scotland. Londoners just like to bang on about it 'cos the tourists find it fascinating.
However, if you’re going to Edinburgh Uni you’ll need to perfect how to say “Yah”, as the place is full of upper class English who didn’t make it into Oxford or Cambridge.
