Larry wrote:
"'chuffed'... is that good or bad? ;-))"
Interestingly enough, my "British English From A to Zed" gives the following
definition:
" This curious bit of Army slang has two diametrically opposed meanings,
depending on the context. In case of ambiguito, one can say 'chuffed pink'
(tickled pink) to mean pleased or 'dead chuffed' to mean displeased. In the
second sense 'chuffed is synonymous with 'choked'. Philip Howard has much
more to say about thei 'Janus" or reversible word in an article entitled
'English English" in the language quarterly 'Verbatim, vol VII, No. 1
(Summer 1980.) He quotes Eric Partridge, the authority on British slang, who
declared that "... if one needed to distinguish [the two meanings], one said
'chuffed to fuck' or 'chuffed to arseholes' or 'chuffed pink' or
'bo-chuffed' to mean gruntled and 'dead chuffed' to mean disgruntled. He
mentions the variant 'chuffed as bollocks' and winds up with these
sentiments: " I doubt whether we are ever going to arrive at an explanation
of 'chuffed' that is going to satisfy everyone. In any case the Janus word
is distinctly old-fashioned in British English."
So, now is everything clear?
Hal
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