suspension, chalk and cheese, taking the mickey

Hello friends,

This is a follow up comment to my post yesterday regarding the quote "You're in suspension." from the Sex Pistols' song. I thought that I should add that in the US, a student can be suspended from school for bad behavior and the same thing can happen to employees or athletes (it implies a temporary leave of absence as opposed to a permanent expulsion). We tend to use the adjective (suspended) more and the noun (suspension) less, so we may occasionally say that someone is "in suspension" (but I think very rarely, we are more likely to say that the person is/was [or has been] suspended). In any case, I hope that someone can shed some light with regard to the meaning of Mr. Rotten's (i.e. Mr. Lydon's) pronouncement.

I would also like to take this opportunity to talk about some misunderstandings (or complete lack of understanding) that occured during my teenage years when I would listen to songs by British artists. Here are some words or expressions that are not generally used or understood in the US which I misunderstood in songs from the UK:

Song/Group/Expression or Phrase
No Feelings/ Sex Pistols/ "You never realise I take the piss out of you!"
New York/ Sex Pistols/ "like cheese and chalk"
Anarchy in the U.K. / Sex Pistols/ "a shopping scheme"
Who are you?/ The Who/ "I took the Tube on out of town..."
Slip Kid/ The Who/ "I've got my vacuum flask full of hot tea..."
Cut My Hair/ The Who/ "Why do I have to be different to them?"
Saturday Night´s/ Elton John/ "My sister looks cute in her braces and boots..."
Alright for Fighting
Grimsby/ Elton John/ "The shingle beach did ring."
Yesterday's Rain/ Sweet/ "You know an ain't no ginger..."

Regarding the first one, most Americans have no idea what it means to take the mickey or to take the piss (I know now that it means to make fun of). We will say the slightly vulgar "I have to take a piss." meaning I have to urinate which I believe the British also say; but take the piss means nothing to us. Therefore I assumed that Mr. Rotten must have said "I'll kick the piss out you!" because that was the only thing that even partly made sense (especially since he followed with"I'll beat you black and blue").

Americans also don't use or understand chalk and cheese (we typically say "as different as night and day" or "apples and oranges" the latter having more specifically to do with situations or problems that are described as being the same when they're actually not. For that reason, I couldn't believe that Mr. Rotten was really saying cheese and chalk, so I assumed that he said "Cheech and Chong" (a well-known comedy duo popular in the 70's in the US who frequently talked about smoking marihuana, they also made a film or two).

The word "scheme" generally has a bad connotation in American English (it's like a devious plot). I suppose that Mr. Rotten was talking about what we would call a "shopping trip". In any case, I just ignored the reference to a shopping scheme because it didn't seem to be very important to understanding the song.

Sir Elton's reference to shingles and braces I found to be somewhat confusing, because shingles for us are roof tiles (and not beach pebbles as they would be understood in the UK), and I misunderstood the reference to braces (i.e. what are used to hold up trousers) to mean a brace for the teeth (which is what the word braces means in the US). The latter misunderstanding was especially more likely since we have traditionally considered girls (esp. young girls) wearing a mouth brace to be "cute". Regarding my confusion over the word shingles (which is also a skin ailment somehow related to the same virus which causes chickenpox), I simply dismissed it as being "one of those English things".

I likewise ignored Mr. Daltry's reference to "The Tube" and vacuum flask (what we call the subway and thermos respectively) because I didn't consider them important to understanding the meaning of the song and I dismissed them as just "English stuff".

Mr. Townsend's use of the preposition to ("Why do I have to be different to them?" - as said by the character Jimmy in the quasi rock opera Quadrophenia - when referring to his parents with whom he didn't get on well) I found somewhat confusing since in American English we would say "Why do I have to be different from them?" which led me believe that he was really saying "Why do I have to act differently with them or toward them?" which he wasn't saying at all.

Regarding (the late) Mr. Connolly's reference to ginger, I also ignored and dismissed as "one of those British things" (he was actually Scottish). I know now that he was saying "I ain't no queer..." because apparently the word carried that connotation in the 70's (a friend of mine who lives in London explained to me that ginger meant queer in cockney rhyming slang from ginger beer, and it's now more commonly used as a derrogatory way to refer to a redhead).

My most humorous misunderstanding of song lyrics had nothing to do with British English, just my poor listening skills (or perhaps my poor knowledge of the game chess when I was a twelve year old). When Elton John said in his song Someone Saved My Life Tonight "just a pawn out-played by a dominating queen", I though he said "just a pawn out-played by a darn and knitting queen! Haaaaaaaaaa!!! By the way, in case you didn't know, that song refers to the night that a friend convinced him (Elton) not a marry a woman to whom he was engaged and who he really didn't want to marry. However, he was to afraid to tell her this and decided to commit suicide by turning on the gas of his oven (or perhaps the cooker)and lying on the kitchen floor hoping to kill himself with the fumes. Ironically, he opened the kitchen window which really didn't help him at all in achieving his goal. He was subsequently found and rescued by (if I'm not mistaken) his lyric writer Bernie Taupin. Even though suicide is nothing to laugh at, I can't help finding amusing the fact that he opened the window which led me to tell one friend, "Elton John is definitely more skillful at writing songs than he ever was as a suicide committer!".

I welcome all comments and input. Please, let me know if you have had similar misunderstand of words or expressions, especially as they relate to American vs. British English.