Two phrases I finally have down, although the first one requires active visualization to be sure I have it correctly for any given use now:
"the inside lane" - This always meant the lane furthest from the sidewalk or nearest to the median to me. A trawl of a few US sites mostly backs me up on this. This is the exact opposite of what it means in the UK. Here, in the UK, it refers tothe slow lane the lane furthest from the median. So confusing! So dangerous to be able to confuse the two!
"What am I like." - Not actually a question, but a rhetorical phrase after doing something silly or flighty or accidental. Can also be used in the second person, i.e. "What are you like." I don't yet know if it can be used for any persons. First encountered twice on Sunday in Britannia High, followed up tonight, coincidentally, by the first instance I've noticed C. using it.
"the inside lane" - This always meant the lane furthest from the sidewalk or nearest to the median to me. A trawl of a few US sites mostly backs me up on this. This is the exact opposite of what it means in the UK. Here, in the UK, it refers to
"What am I like." - Not actually a question, but a rhetorical phrase after doing something silly or flighty or accidental. Can also be used in the second person, i.e. "What are you like." I don't yet know if it can be used for any persons. First encountered twice on Sunday in Britannia High, followed up tonight, coincidentally, by the first instance I've noticed C. using it.
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owlfish- S. Worthen
- S. Worthen
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Now, speaking as an Aussie, that confuses me. *Our* slow lane is the one nearest the sidewalk or furthest from the median (ie, the very leftmost lane). We drive on the same side of the road as the Brits, but perhaps we have different fast/slow lane conventions?
In Britain - slow lane = lane furthest from the median = inside lane
In American (as I know it) - slow lane = lane furthest from the median = outside lane.
So regardless, the slow lane is the one furthest from the median/closest to the sidewalk/pavement. The difference is whether or not it's called an inside lane.
But the slow lane
Now I'm confused.
Worse: I wrote the exact opposite of what I meant to say. Fixed now. See? I'm confused about it even when I'm trying to share it with others.
Edited at 2008-10-28 11:36 pm (UTC)
The inside lane in both North America and the UK would be the inside for the left turn. Perhaps this is the origin of the term.
I'm now curious about this use of "What am I like." It sounds intriguing, I can't remember ever encountering. So it does not have the sense of a rhetorical question, "What am I like...[crazy]?"
Inside lane: always the slow lane/lane nearest to the edge of the road. This is how it is used in road signs.
"What are you like!" as a rhetorical question is pure Manchester in my experience; it usually comes when the listener has done something strange, and I heard it all the time (yes, directed at me, why did you ask?) when I first moved to the Manchester area. In all the decades I lived in the London area, I never heard it once.
I'm quite sure I've never heard "What are you like." in London in all my time here. What interests me is that several other commenters from other parts of the North also hear it regularly; so if it's originally from Manchester, it's spread a bit since. (Or they were hearing Mancunians use it and extrapolated?)
And I say 'what're you like" all the time, with occasionally 'what's she like' thrown in, so good chance on it being northern.
I don't think I want to know what Britannia High is; it sounds like a teen drama about a US High School that just happens, for completely convoluted reasons, to have all British pupils....
Oh wait - you didn't want to know that, did you?
Of course it could well have arisen in Manchester since I left. The language she never stands still.