3/4/09

Brit' Word of the Day

Today's BWOTD upon hearing, could make an American man panic!

"Can you knock me up at 7am tomorrow please"

'Knock me up' = Bang on my door / Get me up

This does NOT mean please can you 'impregnate' me at 7am tomorrow! So no need to panic and scarper if a British woman ever says this to you ;-)

However just to confuse matters we do also use the phrase 'knocked up' just like you, to mean someone is pregnant!

13 comments:

CJ said...

Ha ha ha.That is so funny.How the meaning changes one continent to other!

Anonymous said...

Yes, well we English have our strange expressions. I'm living in Sydney and certainly did not anticipate any problems. How wrong could I be? I still miss the
old country though,
Mary.

Lou said...

lol I have never heard that one Sarah

Reader Wil said...

Beautiful! Some expressions are really so strange for foreigners who are not native speakers of the English language. I knew of course the expression:" If you feel like...(followed by a gerund)" but an English friend, where I stayed said once to me:" If you feel like a plum, just take some" When I laughed, she said: okay,I should say:" if you feel like having a plum...".Languages change all the time.

Anonymous said...

ROFL!

That reminds me of the Spanish word for pregnant, which is "embarasado". We had some amusing moments in high school Spanish class with that one.

Sassy Britches said...

Eeeps! That's confusing!

Anonymous said...

You should try saying: "I'm going outside to smoke a fag" and see what reaction you get then!

Anonymous said...

Ha! That is so funny. Thanks for that one.

The Antiques Diva™ said...

I'm so using this phrase tonight just to yank my husbands chain! Ha!

Silverback said...

Two words today for the price of one........or have you previously explained scarper ??

Of course maybe it's used here as well.....I'm just so mid Atlantic now I'm not sure any more ;-)

Expat mum said...

I wrote about my mother's incident in my book - when I was first married she came to stay, turned to her new son-in-law and said "If I don't appear by 9am would you knock me up please?" Fortunately he had lived in England long enough to know what she meant, but she has never lived it down.

Polish Punk Chick said...

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA

Anonymous said...

Ha. I'm loving these. Been an expat since 1995 and I only go back to England once a year and always crack up when I hear this kind of thing.

I remember one time I needed to erase some pencil markings I'd just made. So, like you do, I went into a room full of Americans and asked if they had a rubber I could borrow.