Ok, The Economist got me. I need Brit help in translating this sentence, please:
"When "Red" Ken Livingstone ran London in the early 1980s, he enjoyed cocking a snook at authority over everything from outsize public transport subsidies to Irish terrorism."
We don't c*ck snooks here. A snook is a very tasty gamefish that we catch in south Florida. We use bait.
Help, please?
'Cocking a snook' is applying the thumb to the nose and wiggling the fingers.
Leon
I should have mentioned a related gesture - applying the left and right thumbs to the left and right ears and wiggling the fingers. I don't know what that is called.
Leon
Needless to say, it's not a respectfull gesture, though I don't think it implies anything obscene.
Thanks, Ian and Leon. I wouldn't have guessed it. Sometimes I think The Economist does that once in a while just to remind us that it's a British publication.
Ed Huntress
Wiggling the fingers is actually optional, we used to do it as kids. Originally, the fingers were held extended upwards, like a c*ck's comb, which must be part of the derivation of the term. It probably meant something rather rude hundreds of years ago, as Rabelais mentions something like it in an account of a duel involving gestures between Panurge and Thaumaste, an Englishman:
"Lors feist l'Angloys tel signe. La main gausche toute ouverte il leva hault en l'air, puys ferma on poing les quatre doigts d'ycelle, et le poulse extendu assist suz la pinne du nez."
The above gesture has the left hand raised in the air with the fingers open, then the fingers are closed to make a fist, and the extended thumb applied to the nose, if I've translated it correctly (it's old french).
A lot more sophisticated than an extended middle finger. 8-)
Leon
I had no idea there was so much to learn about it. d8-)
Ed Huntress
From:
The definition isn't the most interesting part, though. The attribution is to "The Columbia Guide to Standard _American_ English [emphasis added]. 1993."
?!
R, Tom Q.
The mind boggles. Maybe they meant "cook a snook." They broil nicely.
Ed Huntress
I'll take your word for it. The last fish I tried to eat was a pickerel, therefore I haven't tried to eat any more fish.
Jeez, a person could starve to death trying to get nourishment from a pickerel.
Waitaminit - I think I see a new diet fad ahead - "The Pickerel Diet"! How does one find a publisher?
R, Tom Q.
Great idea. Guppies, pickerel, redside dace...diet food, all.
If you should decide to eat a pickerel in the future, filet the fish right through the lateral row of bones on both sides. Then find the row from the back side, and, with a very sharp knife, cut the filet away from those bones on both sides of the row. You wind up with two snake-shaped filets from each side and a narrow strip of meat full of bones, which you throw away.
Then disguise the pickerel with wine, bechemel sauce, or something to make you forget you're eating a pickerel. It isn't that they taste bad, they just don't have much taste. If you're not much of a fish eater, don't eat them at all.
Ed Huntress
WRT to the pickerel advice - I'll take it under advisement, although it sounds suspiciously like the carp + pine board recipe.
I'm obviously no fish connoisseur, but bullhead/catfish aren't too bad (which seems odd, considering their diet), and I'll occasionally order swordfish at a restaurant. I haven't tried many saltwater fish, though.
R, Tom Q.
Whoops - I posted too soon.
While I stand by my previous, smart-ass comments about pickerel recipes, I gave short thrift to Ed's filleting advice, which did address my main complaint with trying to eat pickerel - them damn bones!
I'll be archiving that post (and hoping I don't have to refer to it ), because it sounds like good advice.
Of course, if I choke to death on pickerel bones, I'd hope someone here will give Ed a hard time about it.
Thanks.
R, Tom Q.
It's a tip I hope you never have to use, Tom. With any luck, you'll catch something else while you're catching pickerel.
Ed Huntress
"Ed Huntress" wrote: (clip) Maybe they meant "cook a snook."(clip) ^^^^^^^^^^^^ Did you mean "snack?"
Nope. A snook. Centropomus undecimalis. A very cool gamefish, popular in south Florida, but found in many other warm waters as well.
Ed Huntress
"Ed Huntress wrote: Nope. A snook. Centropomus undecimalis. A very cool gamefish (clip) ^^^^^^^^^^^^ So, a snook IS a snack. I'd like to know more about "centropomus undecimalis." Seems to be related, somehow, to tenths. Is it metric?
A *big* snack. Very cagey fish. They are not schooks. They can do metric, but they don't usually bother. They're the "un-decimal" fish.
Ed Huntress
That should have been schnooks, not schooks. They are not schnooks. (What happened to my spellchucker, did it take a powder? Is there a word such as "schooks"?)
Ed Huntress
Wasnt that a class of single masted one designs by a famous small boat builder?
Gunner
The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of "loyalty" and "duty." Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute -- get out of there fast! You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed. " Lazarus Long
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