British english a to z_2

Đây là cuốn sách rất hay, giúp chúng ta phân biệt được đâu là từ mà người Anh thường dùng, cũng như sự khác nhau giữa : DV: Britain: fancy (v), thì America: like, suppose
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British english a to z_2 35 blot one’s copybooktors is having an increasing effect in bringing block, in the American sense, intoBritish usage. See also apartment; flat.block of ice ice cubeObsolete. The American term, sometimes hyphenated, appears to have won out.bloke, n. Slang. guySlang. See also chap; guy. My bloke means my boy friend; my fellow.bloody, adj., adv. 1. adj., Slang. lousy; contemptible 2. adv., Slang. damned; goddamnedSlang. This word is now commonly used as an adverb intensifier modifyingeither a pejorative adjective, as in It’s bloody awful, or a flattering adjective,as in This is bloody marvelous. Used as an adjective, its nearest equivalent inAmerica would be lousy, as in the phrase a bloody shame. Bloody, once regardedas a lurid oath, was formerly proscribed in mixed company, but that sort ofinhibition is waning nowadays. Despite popular belief, there is no sound rea-son to suppose that it is derived from by Our Lady. See bleeding; blooming;blinking; bally; ruddy; flipping; flaming. As to British swearing habits gener-ally, damn is less objectionable in Britain than in America, in polite circles, anddarn is practically obsolete in Britain. Americans are freer with religious nameslike Christ and Jesus and deformations like Jeez, but Crikey (from Christ), origi-nally an oath, is now common as an exclamation of surprise, and sometimesof admiration.bloody-minded, adj. Inf. pigheaded; stubbornInf. Willfully difficult; stubbornly obstructive; cantankerous. An awkward but usefuladjective to describe persons you simply can’t cope with.bloomer, n. 1. Slang. booboo 2. see comment1. Slang. Synonymous with blunder, and sounds like the American slang termblooper, which, however, is generally reserved for an embarrassing public booboo.2. n. A large loaf of bread, glazed and slashed on top before baking.blooming, adj., adv. Inf. damnedInf. Euphemism for the intensifier bloody, like blinking, bally, ruddy, etc.Bloomsbury, n., adj. 1. see comment 2. approx. highbrow1. Bloomsbury is the name of a section of Central London where writers andartists, students and aesthetes generally lived and gathered in the early part ofthis century. There was a Bloomsbury set which included people like Virginia andLeonard Woolf and Lytton Strachey, and others in or on the fringes of the arts,and there was a Bloomsbury accent.2. The name became generally descriptive of that sort of person and atmo-sphere, and developed into an adjective roughly equivalent to intellectual orhighbrow.blot one’s copybook Inf. spoil one’s recordInf. To mar an otherwise perfect record by committing an act of indiscretion.36 blowerblower, n. telephoneSlang. Sometimes referred to in American slang as the horn. Blow is sometimesused as a noun meaning a ‘call’ or ‘ring’ on the telephone as in If you have anytrouble, just give me a blow.blowlamp, n. blowtorchSometimes blowflame. Also called brazing lamp.(be) blown, v. (be) found outInf. Can be said of a person, as well as a spy’s cover or any spurious identity.blow the gaff. See gaff.blow (someone) up blow up at (someone)To blow someone up is to blow up at someone, or to let him have it, and a blowing-upis what you let him have!blub, v. Inf. sobblue, n. letter; letter manA man who wins his letter and becomes a letter man in America wins his blue andbecomes a blue at Oxford or Cambridge. At London University he wins his purpleand becomes a purple, and it appears that other universities award other colors; butneither purple nor any other color compares even faintly with the distinction of ablue. Oxford blue is dark blue; Cambridge blue is light blue. A double-blue is a two-let-ter man; a triple-blue is a three-letter man. The sport in which the British athlete rep-resents his university (makes the team, in America) determines whether he earnsa full blue or a hal ...