Shift a Stone I just saw this article (in headline version only) a moment or two before I came here. I automatically thought (well, I tried) and began to think of myself as shifting a stone - a large one made of millstone grit, or granite, or something. I gave it up after a very short while until I could get someone big and strong to do it. Then I realised that wasn't the sort of stone they were talking about and it wasn't that way of shifting it. It was an advert about dieting. Whenever you use abbreviations just think of those many millions of people who know nothing of the abbreviations you are using. I have just looked at a conversation here that means nothing at all to me.
I have never met a person with such a curious way of looking at things as I have. It may be that they do not tell me for fear that they may be called nuts - I don't mind. I was just pointing out how words can mean one thing to one person and something quite different to someone else. Shift a stone - lose a stone in weight if you diet. Shift a stone - move a stone of whatever size from somewhere to somewhere else. Have you never had the same sort of experience - I'll bet you have. For instance, examination means a test, but to a doctor it may mean something quite different.
Now for my slang, If i said mint - what am i saying? If i said safe - What do you consider i'm saying?
As an exercise in instant recall, mint means money, to me. It might mean a sweet to someone else. safe means just safe as opposed to not being safe - i.e. at some risk. On the other hand it may mean that instrument of office furniture which is very very painful when you catch your thumb in it - a safe for keeping articles 'safe' from burglars. Neither is slang. Mint could mean condition - in absolutely new condition with no blemishes at all. I am sorry - I do not understand what my 'on' is??
Exactly, they have official and un official meanings, tell me when your finished guessing what they mean to me and i'll tell ya
PS when i say i know what your "on" with, it means i understand what your trying to express. Which was in this case, how words can mean one thing to one person but mean completely different thing to another person.
I have no idea what they mean to you. On was usually associated with the word 'about' as in "What are you on about?", ie what are you talking about. What do the words mean to you? So now I understand when you say you get what I am on with - it what I am talking about.
