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The strange, multicultural slang of Toronto’s teenagers: Toronto Mans | Izz

Edward Potter — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 02:39:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: The strange, multicultural slang of Toronto’s teenagers: Toronto Mans
Poster: Edward Potter
Post title: Izz

And don't forget Frankie Smith in The Double Dutch Bus

The strange, multicultural slang of Toronto’s teenagers: Toronto Mans | More slang

Philip Lees — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 04:37:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: The strange, multicultural slang of Toronto’s teenagers: Toronto Mans
Poster: Philip Lees
Post title: More slang

[quote]Michael Newton wrote:

In the United States, we have something called "pig Latin". [/quote]
See also "backslang":

[url removed]

And, of course, Cockney rhyming slang:

[url removed]

The strange, multicultural slang of Toronto’s teenagers: Toronto Mans | multicultural slang

Michael Newton — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 20:03:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: The strange, multicultural slang of Toronto’s teenagers: Toronto Mans
Poster: Michael Newton
Post title: multicultural slang

In the United States, we have something called "pig Latin". You remove the first consonant (or vowel) of a word and then append the first consonant followed by "ay". For example, "pig Latin" becomes: "igpay atinlay". There is something in French called "verlan" ("l'envers"-"reverse") which follows a similar them.

The strange, multicultural slang of Toronto’s teenagers: Toronto Mans | The "p language"

Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 13:19:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: The strange, multicultural slang of Toronto’s teenagers: Toronto Mans
Poster: Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Post title: The "p language"

Have you ever heard of the "p language"? I attended a boarding school run by Dominican nuns when I was a teenager. Around that time, came all of a sudden out of nowhere a secret code, which was extremely useful for talking among ourselves without the nuns realizing what we were saying (usually about boys). It consisted on adding a "p" to each repeated syllable. An example:

[url removed]

The strange, multicultural slang of Toronto’s teenagers: Toronto Mans | strange, multicultural slang

Michael Newton — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 07:43:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: The strange, multicultural slang of Toronto’s teenagers: Toronto Mans
Poster: Michael Newton
Post title: strange, multicultural slang

As we are dealing with the slang of a sub-culture, I can offer the following. Verbs in Japanese change, depending on who is speaking and to whom one is speaking. Women, men, subordinates, superiors, equals, they all have their special forms. But there is a special conjugation that is reserved for gangsters or "yakuza" if you will. It goes as follows: [verb root] + "agaru". So, "kui+agaru" is "gangsters eating", "shi+agaru" is "gangsters doing something" and so forth. We can see this in the Japanese translation of Jean-Luc Godard's film "A bout de souffle" ("Breathless") (1960). It comes out as "Katte-ni shiagare!" ("Do as you please, you SOB!"). If you see a samurai film, you might hear this form. Curses in Japanese are interesting. But that is another post.

The strange, multicultural slang of Toronto’s teenagers: Toronto Mans | Mongrel

Philip Lees — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 04:51:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: The strange, multicultural slang of Toronto’s teenagers: Toronto Mans
Poster: Philip Lees
Post title: Mongrel

Perhaps because of its relatively simple grammar - in contrast to a highly inflected language like Greek - English finds it easy to absorb words from other languages.

Just as English people are a mongrel race, so the English language is a mongrel language. Although its main roots are Latin and Greek, and other Germanic or Romance languages, it also boasts words from more "exotic" sources, such as Hindi (bungalow, gymkhana, shampoo), Arabic (algebra, ghoul, zenith), and Inuit (kayak, anorak).

This rich heritage is what makes English so great for such things as poetry, puns, and crosswords.

The strange, multicultural slang of Toronto’s teenagers: Toronto Mans | The strange, multicultural slang of Toronto’s teenagers: Toronto Mans - Thank you for the article.

Rosemere A da Silva — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 23:50:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: The strange, multicultural slang of Toronto’s teenagers: Toronto Mans
Poster: Rosemere A da Silva
Post title: The strange, multicultural slang of Toronto’s teenagers: Toronto Mans - Thank you for the article.

The article makes one thing very clear: the dynamism of different cultural styles and expressions. Words travel through time in different but continuous ways. Speech, writing, and the ways of transmitting them show that language is always in motion — it crosses borders, evolves, and, over time, becomes part of everyday life and each historical context.

In the past, American vocabulary influenced cities like London. Today, we can see a reversal of this flow. This shows that there are no fixed barriers to cultural circulation, especially with the resources we have today.

Thanks to cultural dynamism, knowledge is always being reinvented — not as a neologism, but as a new way of understanding the world of words and the meanings they carry.

The strange, multicultural slang of Toronto’s teenagers: Toronto Mans

Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 09:30:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: The strange, multicultural slang of Toronto’s teenagers: Toronto Mans
Poster: Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida

In a (vain?) attempt of lightening up this Sunday’s mood, here’s another article published in “The Economist”

“Crodies and gerberts

London rappers have an outsize influence

“That’s my crodie,” the teenage girl squawks loudly, slapping her male friend on the chest as she lets the final word of her sentence roll on: “-deeeeeeeeeeeee”. Passers-by in Jane Finch, a shopping centre in a downtrodden Toronto suburb, do not recoil at this strange pronunciation. They push past the pair into McDonald’s, where, slumped across seats, schoolchildren roll large spliffs. Their sentences are similarly strange, flecked with terms like “gerbert” and “two-twos”. Asked about Shoreham, a nearby estate, an aggrieved teenager exclaims “oppblock”.

This new dialect emerged from an impoverished cluster of public-housing projects in Toronto—namely Driftwood, Shoreham and Jane & Finch (a district as well as a shopping centre). It is known as Toronto Mans. Differing from Canadian norms through features like TH-stopping (saying “dis” instead of “this”), it is defined by rapid, intense speech, or “squawking” as one speaker puts it. It is, a teenager admits, used by gangs or “wannabe gangsters”.

Much of Toronto Mans is borrowed from the languages of immigrants: from Jamaican patois comes “ah lie” (meaning “right?”) and “two-twos” (“being honest”); from Somali there is “kawal” (to “scam”) and from Arabic “wallahi” (an exclamation, “by Allah”). The roots of others like “crodie” (meaning “brother”) and “gerbert” (meaning “immature”) may well be local.

Slang from Britain also packs the dictionary: “peng” (“beautiful” or “great”), “ends” (the area in which one lives), “oppblock” (an area in which one’s enemies reside), “wasteman” (loser), and “mandem” (a group of men). The “Mans” in “Toronto Mans” is a derivative of “mandem”. “We take a lot of inspiration from London,” says one Driftwood resident. “But we mix it up.”

This slang can be traced back to London’s rappers. Drake, a rapper from Toronto, brought artists like Skepta and Giggs to international audiences in the mid-2010s. Rappers associated with the Driftwood Crips, a notorious gang, now cite London rap to exude credibility. In the Jane Finch McDonald’s, a group of youths starts chanting lyrics to “Man’s Not Hot”, a 2017 song from Big Shaq, a London comedian: “Hop out the four-door with a .44. It was one, two, three and four.” It is not clear whether they realise the song is satire.

Part of the reason for this overlap in teenage lingo is that London and Toronto share similar immigration patterns. It is common for London MCs (of Caribbean and Islamic origin) to say “wallahi”. Celebrating Islamic identity has turned London’s MCs into tough-guy pin ups for Toronto’s Muslim youths. The word now even finds its way into the songs of Canada’s non-Islamic rappers: Drake uses “wallahi”.

Speakers of Toronto Mans disagree on whether the lingo is innate or performative. “The slang is part of me,” claims one youth. A nearby girl doubts this: “People just, like, forge it.” Derek Denis, a linguist at the University of Toronto Mississauga, says speakers of Toronto Mans (which he calls Multicultural Toronto English) “strategically deploy certain lexical or phonological features to make certain interactional moves”. Or, as one Driftwood resident puts it, “we have to switch it back and forth” so that people outside their district can understand them.

Either way, Toronto Mans is spreading. TorontoTide, a social-media channel, posts videos of teens speaking the dialect. Filmed in Yorkdale Shopping Centre, a fancy mall, these kids boast the loudest screeches. Their Jane & Finch counterparts say they are exaggerating for clout, and that many of them come from nicer suburbs like Vaughan. “There’s nothing going on in Vaughan,” tuts a Driftwood teen.

In Shoreham not everyone is enamoured. A young dad who speaks in the dialect says he will teach his child “proper English first” so they can succeed at work. Another forbids his daughter from using the lingo: “I don’t want to hear that in my household,” he says. What clearer marker of success than parental censure?" ■

[url removed]

[Edited at 2026-04-12 09:31 GMT]

How slang evolves | Scram

Tom in London — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 10:56:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: How slang evolves
Poster: Tom in London
Post title: Scram

[quote]Daryo wrote:

I wouldn't expect you to forget about these.

[/quote]

I did say "etc., etc." So what were you expecting?

How slang evolves | Not you!

Daryo — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 08:20:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: How slang evolves
Poster: Daryo
Post title: Not you!

[quote]Tom in London wrote:

Jargon used by translators:

Back translation
MT
CAT tool
Transcreation
Localisation
Post-editing

etc
etc [/quote]

What about 'context' - apparently an unmentionable dirty word for too many 'pros'? Not to forget 'target audience' ... treated like some weird esoteric concept, usually by the same lot.

I wouldn't expect you to forget about these.

Rant curt short before it starts getting too long.

How slang evolves | Translators' jargon

Tom in London — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 08:30:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: How slang evolves
Poster: Tom in London
Post title: Translators' jargon

Jargon used by translators:

Back translation
MT
CAT tool
Transcreation
Localisation
Post-editing

etc
etc

How slang evolves | Jargon versus slang

Philip Lees — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 06:00:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: How slang evolves
Poster: Philip Lees
Post title: Jargon versus slang

So slang and jargon are both specialised subsets of language, but one is associated with a social group and the other with a professional group. Right?

We could say that jargon is professional slang, and slang is social jargon. Each is a means of helping people identify with their particular group.

How slang evolves | Jargon and slang

Tom in London — Thu, 01 Jan 2026 16:22:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: How slang evolves
Poster: Tom in London
Post title: Jargon and slang

[quote]Philip Lees wrote:

Interesting article, Maria Teresa - thanks.

So, class, what's the difference between slang and jargon?

Discuss. [/quote]

Jargon: the specialist language used within any profession or trade.
Slang: common talk used by everyone, often within specific social groups.

I have to skedaddle now, so TTFN and CU L8r. Splitsville!

[Edited at 2026-01-01 16:23 GMT]

How slang evolves | @Philip

Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida — Thu, 01 Jan 2026 12:05:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: How slang evolves
Poster: Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Post title: @Philip

Happy New Year!

To start the discussion, I’ll say that jargon is a specialized set of terms for a specific group. When I was working at the EU, I had to learn the Community jargon, but I wonder what would have happened to me if I ever used slang in a EU translation…

How slang evolves | Slang versus jargon

Philip Lees — Thu, 01 Jan 2026 06:17:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: How slang evolves
Poster: Philip Lees
Post title: Slang versus jargon

Interesting article, Maria Teresa - thanks.

So, class, what's the difference between slang and jargon?

Discuss.

How slang evolves

Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 14:20:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: How slang evolves
Poster: Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida

I apologise in advance to anyone who is sensitive to slang or curse words, but we are all adults and I found this article on the evolution of slang, published in the latest issue of The Economist, rather interesting.

“How language evolves

THE SULTANS OF SLANG

From “strangle-goose” to “skibidi”, colloquial dictionaries struggle to keep up

In the beginning was the word. But what was it? For Christians, it was the divine logos through which God created the world. For the world’s leading expert on English slang, Jonathon Green, the first word is arse, or perhaps bollocks.

These are the oldest words for which there are citations in “Green’s Dictionary of Slang”. A thousand years ago, an Anglo-Saxon monk translated the Latin word nates as ears-lyre: the first written appearance of “arse” in English. Another Anglo-Saxon glossary-maker noted that the Latin testiculi was, in the local parlance, beallucas.
The English have been talking bollocks for at least a millennium.

In many languages, the most common slang words concern body parts, sex, money and intoxicating substances. Yet Mr Green does not think slang is trivial. In 2010 his dictionary came out in a door-stopping three-volume hardback edition. Since then, it has lived online (and free). It has expanded with new words, new meanings and new earliest-known citations. Mr Green says he finds a new one at least every couple of weeks.

One purpose of slang has always been to baffle outsiders. The best-known example may be Cockney rhyming slang, which was devised in the 19th century to confuse the police. But there are plenty of others. The first books on slang were “beggar books”. In the middle-ages the destitute relied on Christian charity. That led some chancers to try various wheezes to seem needier than they were—and chroniclers like Robert Copland to decode their insider cant. His book of the 1530s, “Highway to the Spital-House”, reveals that a clewner is a high-ranking villain, and the dance is a hanging. Bouse makes an appearance—another of the oldest slang words that is still in robust use today, says Mr Green, though it is now spelled booze.

The first true attempt to make a slang dictionary came shortly after Samuel Johnson’s great dictionary of standard English. In 1785 Francis Grose, a former militia captain so fat it was said he had to be tied to his bed to stop him rolling off, published the “Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue”, compiled by prowling London’s seedy neighbourhoods and jotting down gems such as strangle-goose for a poulterer.

Vulgar meant “common”, not “rude”, but slang allowed people to get round taboos. In Grose’s era the old names for the body parts had become unmentionable, with comically prudish results. In his slang dictionary bottomless pit is defined only as “the monosyllable”; look under venerable monosyllable and you find pudendum muliebre. This is Latin for a “woman’s shameful thing”, an astonishingly prissy circumlocution. Chaucer, writing four centuries earlier, would just have said “queynte”.

A common slang can bind groups together, as Eric Partridge showed by collecting soldiers’ vocabulary from the first world war. His intent was not to portray the men “as supermen or as whiners”, but as they were. Bored then suddenly terrified, soldiers used ironic detachment to deal with constant peril. Pip squeak and whizz bang were different kinds of shells for the sounds they made; a toothpick was a bayonet. As Blighty was England, a Blighty one was a wound serious enough to send the soldier home. To be a loaf of bread, a poignant example of rhyming slang, was to be dead.

Partridge, whose most ambitious work was a “Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English” in 1937, was inspired by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). This mighty tome did not just say what a word meant, but also where it came from and what it had meant at every stage of its past, backed by written evidence.

LEX, DRUGS AND ROCK ‘N’ ROLL

The OED was made by a team of scholars; Partridge had to rely on volunteer helpers, sending in proposed etymologies from their own areas of expertise (the Boer war, the merchant marine, and so on). He could not possibly verify everything he was told. He could not decide between several origin stories for OK, and so listed them all. (It comes from oll korrekt, a jocular American misspelling of “all correct”.) For Johnson used to mean “penis”, he gives the preposterous explanation that perhaps it came from Doctor Johnson, because “There was no one that Dr Johnson was not prepared to stand up to.”

For a young Mr Green, Partridge was a challenge to do better: “He can’t do sex, he can’t do drugs, and he can’t do rock ’n’ roll.” Partridge apologises for including sexual terms. Not so Mr Green, who came up through the 1960s counterculture. After Oxford he worked in underground magazines, even for a short time in “top-shelf” (that is, pornographic) ones.

In the late 1990s an inheritance and a publisher’s commission allowed Mr Green to dedicate himself completely to his magnum opus. When it was published in 2010, a reviewer called it “the best historical dictionary of English slang there is, ever has been or (in print at least) is ever likely to be".

Today many publishers see the dictionary’s ideal format not as a bound volume, out of date by the time it hits the shelves, but as a database that is constantly updated. That is what Mr Green has continued to do from his home office in Marseille. Like Partridge, he is a one-man band with occasional collaborators, volunteers who send him citations from their own reading.

During The Economist’s visit this year, he was taking into his dictionary new words and citations. One volunteer sends in slang culled from the papers of a 19th-century politician, such as rum touch for an eccentric, or Cyprian for a prostitute. Mr Green expands his lexis of gay terms by drawing on the work of Gary Simes, an Australian scholar who died before completing a dictionary of sexuality and slang. This includes a first citation for bone queen, a fellator. He works with James Lambert, another Australian academic, “who will take over when I pop my clogs”, Mr Green says.

It is not clear what the job of slang lexicographer will look like in the future. Technology allows a quicker, more accurate search for citations; but it also makes language harder to pin down. Social-media diffusion means that the half-life of a new term is shorter than ever before. Words race from the avant-garde, to a broader set of cool kids, to mainstream society and finally death when mum and dad start using them, all in a matter of months.

And there is more slang on display than ever before. Countless subcultures generate their own patois. Tony Thorne of King’s College London has collected the slang of gangs and of drill-music lyrics (such as matic for a gun, or nank for “to stab”). His sources are people who know each subculture well. But developing such sources is hard. They may mislead, unintentionally or intentionally, since slang is supposed to be unclear to the outsider. He recalls the time he told a radio audience that smh stood for “same here”. It doesn’t—it means “shaking my head”—but he had been duped by mischievous students.

Social-media influencers are keen to propagate their own new words, such as skibidi, a near-meaningless, briefly ubiquitous term that emerged from a series of videos about talking toilets. Such coinages are “designed to be transient”; by the time lexicographers catch them they could be gone.

Everyone with an internet connection now has access to all the world’s slang. The English-speaking nations have different styles. Mr Green gives the Australians top marks for creativity. Coinages introduced to Britain by Barry Humphries, a comedian, include technicolour yawn (vomit) and siphon the python (to urinate). Mr Thorne by contrast describes the particularly English native style: constantly teasing, terrified of self-seriousness, addicted to playful nonsense-sounds (rumpy-pumpy, naff, cream-crackered). Plenty of Britishisms have caught on in America, where locals sometimes underestimate how rude they are (shag, wanker). Slang—quintessentially insider language—is more global now than it ever was.

For all its richness, many equate slang with language thoughtlessly spoken by those who haven’t mastered the standard language. But Michael Adams of the University of Indiana insists that slang is not a bad copy of the standard language; rather “People have got other stuff to say, and the language they’re given doesn’t meet their expressive needs.” He’s a fan of the word delulu, which may have the same literal meaning as delusional but carries a humorous shrug that delusional doesn’t.

Slang is not only not less than “real” language. Arguably it is more. Many words in a standard dictionary have only specific, referential meanings; “lanthanum” points to a chemical element but doesn’t say much else. Slang words may refer to a much smaller range of things. But they also carry other channels of meaning: who the speaker is (a Gen-Z TikToker, a Cockney), how they see the thing they are describing (with affection, fear, desire or contempt), and even how they want to be seen themselves. Says Mr Adams: “It’s when the fountain of language overflows with meaning.”

By the way, I never use swear words in Portuguese, I use French instead, because for me, they don't carry the same weight. I wonder if this is also the case for other people who have lived abroad for many years.

In any case, Happy New Year to everyone, with or without slang...

How would you pronounce this word? what does it sound like? | [ʊ.zʌm]

Tira Kwele — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 06:19:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: How would you pronounce this word? what does it sound like?
Poster: Tira Kwele
Post title: [ʊ.zʌm]

oo-ZUHM.
Native English

Language game: how many languages can you recognize? | 10

Tira Kwele — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 06:16:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: Language game: how many languages can you recognize?
Poster: Tira Kwele
Post title: 10

I recognize a few scripts.

The great language game: how many languages can you recognize? | 850 on languagesquad

Tira Kwele — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 06:04:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: The great language game: how many languages can you recognize?
Poster: Tira Kwele
Post title: 850 on languagesquad

That one, the link is broken, here is a new one. I got 200, first time.

This one, the one I usually play, I got 850 at Medium difficulty just now.

Khaki Confusion | Khaki coloursnips in my conlang and my English

Tira Kwele — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 05:44:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: Khaki Confusion
Poster: Tira Kwele
Post title: Khaki coloursnips in my conlang and my English

I make constructed languages (conlangs), and one of my favourite parts is defining the colour terms.

In one of my languages, there is this term for 'desaturated, dark, warm greyish colour', its closest colour to 'khaki', and this is the range:

It covers what an English speaker would refer to as 'khaki', 'tan', as well as 'olive-drab', plain warm grey, and some pinks.

Personally, I consider it to be like this (my culture):

[Edited at 2025-07-30 05:45 GMT]

Khaki Confusion | Welp

Andrus Lauringson — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 16:49:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: Khaki Confusion
Poster: Andrus Lauringson
Post title: Welp

It's fine, as long as khaki colour does not get mixed up with caca colour (some languages/demographics are more prone to it than others).

Khaki Confusion | Growing up

Tom in London — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 14:35:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: Khaki Confusion
Poster: Tom in London
Post title: Growing up

Growing up in Ireland, I used to hear people who'd heard English people talking about "Khaki" pronouncing it "Karky". We didn't (and don't) have khaki in Ireland. I thought (and still think) it's some sort of military clothing.

[Edited at 2025-07-18 14:35 GMT]

Khaki Confusion | Don't start me on colour names

Daryo — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 00:30:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: Khaki Confusion
Poster: Daryo
Post title: Don't start me on colour names

I find names given to colours fascinating - some names are total mystery to me, as in: what kind of twisted/meandering logic could lead to giving that name to that colour?

Ah yes, the khaki colour ...

Pantone [the self-proclamed Bible when it comes to colours] says khaki is:
Hex Code #A39264
RGB Values (163, 146, 100)
CMYK Values (0%, 10%, 39%, 36%)
HSV/HSB Values (44°, 39%, 64%)
Closest Web Safe #999966
Pantone® 16-0726 TCX
[url removed]

but that's far from being a general consensus:

see: [url removed] where you can find for khaki:

The hexadecimal color #c3b091 has
RGB values of R:195, G:176, B:145
and
CMYK values of C:0, M:0.1, Y:0.26, K:0.24.

and also

Khaki Color – 18 Shades of Khaki and How to Use Them
[url removed]

Khaki Confusion | British Khaki

Novian Cahyadi (X) — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 16:35:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: Khaki Confusion
Poster: Novian Cahyadi (X)
Post title: British Khaki

There's this thing called British khaki/British tan, which is a darker shade of khaki with a yellow tint.

[url removed]

I have a pair in this color, though most Indonesian clothiers would call it “mocha.”

Khaki Confusion | Khaki

Novian Cahyadi (X) — Sun, 08 Jun 2025 06:47:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: Khaki Confusion
Poster: Novian Cahyadi (X)
Post title: Khaki

[quote]MollyRose wrote:
When they would require us to wear khaki pants, I wasn't sure what the color range was supposed to be, since people would wear much different colors, what I would call tan, beige, olive green, stone, etc. Maybe it's what they are made of (twill) plus drab colors in this group, as opposed to black, brown, blue, etc.
[/quote]

I've seen retailers labeling their products as navy khakis, which sounds wrong to me. Nor would I group stone or olive green within the spectrum of khaki color. But I suppose I'm just being a pedantic clothes horse.

[quote]Anton Konashenok wrote:
If you use the U.S. military terminology […][/quote]

Speaking of U.S. military terminology, I found this piece of writing to be quite amusing, irregardless of one's interest in the topic.

[url removed]

[Edited at 2025-06-08 07:57 GMT]

Khaki Confusion | Now I know why ...

MollyRose — Sat, 07 Jun 2025 17:16:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: Khaki Confusion
Poster: MollyRose
Post title: Now I know why ...

... I was so confused whenever people would use the word khaki. When they would require us to wear khaki pants, I wasn't sure what the color range was supposed to be, since people would wear much different colors, what I would call tan, beige, olive green, stone, etc. Maybe it's what they are made of (twill) plus drab colors in this group, as opposed to black, brown, blue, etc.

Khaki Confusion | Yes, the perception varies

Anton Konashenok — Sat, 07 Jun 2025 09:16:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: Khaki Confusion
Poster: Anton Konashenok
Post title: Yes, the perception varies

While the origin of the word has to do with dry mud - that is, something close to tan or beige, some cultures use "khaki" indiscriminately as "the colour of infantry uniforms", which tends to match the original khaki in the countries with hotter climate, but is much darker and greener in colder ones. If you use the U.S. military terminology, the former would be "coyote" or "tan", while the latter would be "olive drab".

Khaki Confusion | greenish beige

Zea_Mays — Sat, 07 Jun 2025 07:21:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: Khaki Confusion
Poster: Zea_Mays
Post title: greenish beige

I think it's a beige with a slight green shade, made of yellow, blue and black, where dark kaki can be quite greenish.
There is also khaki green (see wiki page).

[url removed]
[url removed] (with a helpful tip on how to calibrate your monitor)

[Bearbeitet am 2025-06-07 07:52 GMT]

Khaki Confusion

Novian Cahyadi (X) — Sat, 07 Jun 2025 02:29:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: Khaki Confusion
Poster: Novian Cahyadi (X)

Stumbled upon this conundrum while researching. I always thought khaki as the color of these pants (the guy in the foreground).

But it appears that everyone across the world defines it differently.

[url removed]
[url removed] #post-1186701
[url removed]

Now I'm curious. How does your culture define the color?

[Edited at 2025-06-07 02:40 GMT]

Danish versus Swedish | Depends...

Mijo Schyllert — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 15:16:00 +0000

Forum: Fun with language
Topic: Danish versus Swedish
Poster: Mijo Schyllert
Post title: Depends...

A Swede from southern Sweden (Skåne) will be more likely to understand Danish (gosh, we fought a guerilla war many years ago, because we wanted to be Danish rather than Swedish. We lost.) than a person from the Northern parts of Sweden. "Skåningar" will in most cases understand Danish better than Swedish accents from the North.
Either way, in general Danes and Swedes can understand each other - it's only people from Stockholm who don't understand anyone with a dialect from outside of the area code :-)