I take it then, you’ve never heard the phrase “Two nations, separated by a common language” in reference to US/UK language differences.
I agree that “oh snap” it is synonymous with “burn!” to mean “my good sir, you have just been mocked and I salute he who mocked you for his apt wit.”
These three accurately describe my intent when I used the phrase in the thread the OP linked to.
I wouldn’t have had a clue what you meant, and if I were with anyone, you would definitely have been the topic of conversation on the way home. I am guessing that it is a regionalism, like soda and pop, or paper bag and paper sack.
Huh. I am surprised because, I am a native Chicagoan so I occasionally get comments or confusion if I use phrases or slang from home here in Seattle. However, the SDMB is a Chicago based board, so I assumed if someone here in the northwest did not understand a phrase I used, people here would pipe in that they are familiar with it.
All of my co-workers back at the grocery store, and my co-worker at a different, nonretail job today all knew exactly what I meant.
Let’s say you want this ice cream but you are worried it has transfat (or whatever you can’t eat) in it. You take the icecream with the rest of your cart, and while I am scanning and ringing your stuff up the following exchange takes place:
You: I can’t eat transfats, do you know if this icecream has transfats?
Me: Actually this store is transfat free, you definitely don’t have to worry. So did you still want to pick it up?
Even if you are not familiar with that phrase, I’m surprised that in that context an adult could not figure out that “pick it up” means “purchase the ice cream”.
This scenario gives me more context to figure out what you mean, so I probably would figure out what you meant. In the first situation, though, I would still be wondering why you were asking me to reach down and lift the stuff.
I’m surprised that the phrase “quarter of [hour]” is ambiguous enough to some people to have been the subject of not one but two threads where several people said they couldn’t fathom a guess as to whether it mean [hour]:45 or [hour]:15. Regionalisms are like that: perfectly understandable to the people who use them, and often baffling to those to who don’t.
Well, it’s not necessarily wrong, and it does also serve as an expletive substitute sometimes. I’ve occasionally heard “snap” used over the word “shit” in TV versions of theatrical movies-- Above the Rim was the first movie I consciously heard it in, as it was used a lot and in really odd sounding cases. Dave Chapelle has also used “oh snap” in some of his show’s skits in a manner which is pretty clearly “oh shit” rather than the more usual “oh, burn!,” but its use also seems to be poking fun at TV language restrictions. And, then in real world use, I do sometimes hear it where the “burn!” thing is clearly not meant… at the gym a while back, a guy near me said “oh snap” in response to our seeing a lady get hit by a car while walking up to the gym doors. (She was okay, by the way.) It was definitely an exclamation of shock… I think my own utterance was “fuck!”
All that said, the preponderance of its usage is the “burn!” thing everyone else has said.
No one I have ever heard has said “quarter OF (hour)”, everywhere I have been it’s “quarter to” (or as I would pronounce it “quarter tuh” 
) or “quarter til”. I would assume quarter of 5 means 4:45 if I heard it though, is that right?
I was startled the first time I heard “___ needs washed”
I think I should’ve given the context better originally and less people maybe would’ve been so confused about it, I don’t think I gave enough information. Kind of like you hear a somewhat obscure word on it’s own and can’t define it, but if it is in a sentence you know perfectly well what it means.
I always thought of “oh, snap!” as an onomatopoeic representation of someone’s head being snapped around by the metaphorical force of a verbal slap to the face.
I have never heard it in conversation. The few times I have heard or seen it have been on TV comedy sketches or on the SDMB. I assumed that it had something to do with the card game Snap:
As you can see, one shouts this if one sees two identical cards. I assumed that it means, “Yeah, you’re correct. You see the problem too.” This isn’t too far from the meaning given for the expression in the link I give. That says that it means, “Me too.”
Chrome uses it in some error messages. “Oh, snap! That file isn’t there anymore!”
Wow. Means neither to me! I’d have to ask you to rephrase if you said that to me - I only understand quarter to and quarter from.
I guess it really comes down to how she looked when she delivered her query.
Nevertheless, a short visit “across the pond” showed me several places where normal conversation halted because of a common phrase that was not understood.
My wife was baffled the first time some woman said to her “eat in or take away?” and she had to ask her to repeat it. Twice. (Americans say “is that for here or to go?”)
On more than one occasion I had a Brit storekeeper give me a puzzled look when I said “I’m all set.” Apparently that phrase is not as universal as I thought.
ETA: As for the OP, I only heard my teenagers using it as a gentle replacement for “Aw crap!” or something similar. And they were saying this ten years ago.
The dis usage was, IMO, the original. Minor expletive came later. I still think of it in the dis usage, though I :dubious: at “triflin’”.
I don’t think anyone’s linked it yet, so here is a funny picture:
Criteria for the proper tactical usage of the phrase: “Oh, snap!”: A flowchart
This fits with the “dis” usage. Non-American Dopers, this is “dis” as in “disrespect”, or more properly, an insult intended to put a foolishly and/or cockily arrogant person in their place.
“Get told” having the approximate meaning of “get put in their place” or “have their ego challenged and deflated”
“Quarter from” is new to me. I’m familiar with “quarter after” or “quarter past.”
I’ve heard “quarter of,” but I’m never sure whether it means “quarter to/before” or “quarter past/after.”
I’ve also never heard “quarter from”. “Quarter of” has always meant “quarter to” to me.
my husband is from the south side and I am from a northern suburb, and sometimes it was like we were from different countries! I’m sure I would have figured it out, but I would have been one of those who gave you a blank stare! 
I’m from the south side too so it probably makes sense why you can’t understand us upstanding southside gentlemen.
I somehow have the image of a large black woman saying something withering while her head does that side-to-side motion, which she then punctuates by extending her arm to side at about eye level and literally snapping her fingers. That’s where I figured “ohhh SNAP” came from.
Me, too. And that’s exactly why it always makes me laugh a bit when a guy or otherwise completely incongruent person says it. So thanks, Mellon.
BTW, Firefox’s spellcheck doesn’t know the word incongruent. So even computers are getting in on this act.