Huh. Paint the town to me has always evoked images of gallavanting around town in a beatup blue Chevy pickup, with at least 3 people in the back, one of whom isn’t conscious, looking for the next party to crash. In other words, loud carousing as opposed to refined entertainment.
As Larry Gonick pointed out in his Cartoon History of the Universe, “How many languages even have a word that means “Kill Every Tenth Person”?” (Referring to “decimate”, in Greek.)
How about “Tie one on” or “Fuck shit up”?
Just to demonstrate that this is not an across-the-pond difference, my perceived connotation of this phrase is similar to yours.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TVeblen
Twee.
Uff da.
Please educate the monolingual among us. Or is it just me? :o
English, French, Italian, German, Portugese and Greek, off the top of my head.
I know, I know. I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist.
Twee: quaint, moded, annoyingly cutesy.
Uff da: The Norwegian (I think?) equivalent of “Oy vey”
I’ve never heard the first, and the second would have different connotations for me. But I think you guys are kind of missing the point here. This phrase was found in a relatively small, far from comprehensive Irish-English dictionary. I would take that to mean it’s a fairly common phrase (at least in the Ulster dialect which the dictionary favours), not just some random bit of slang which anyone can come up with.
esprit de l’escalier.
It took me a while to think of that reply, ironically enough.
I recall learning in my eighth- or ninth-grade French class (about 20 years ago) that French has the verb phrase faire le pont, literally “make the bridge,” but figuratively used in a very particular set of circumstances:
It refers to when one has a holiday from work/school on a Tuesday or a Thursday, and takes a day off the corresponding Monday or Friday to make a four-day weekend, thus “making the bridge” between the weekend and the vacation day.
Even back then, I thought it was really cool that French people enjoyed their leisure time enough to have a commonly accepted figurative phrase to describe this.
A lovely example, jackelope!