Things you don't understand about English--Let's Talk!

[Ordinaryaverageguy]

I've wondered about the origin of the term but never delved into it until this thread. Now, I see that even the internet isn't very helpful at explaining where the term came from, but will shovel at you thousands of websites expaning what the color is & not all of them in agreement. LOL <3

[rajillustration]

my understanding (and I'm sure it's different all over) was that the olive in terms to fair skin tone refers to green undertones in the skin. So like if you're buying makeup you can get the pink undertone foundation or the olive undertone one. They're both the same paleness basically, just olive tone implies you don't have that ruddy peachiness.

I guess in makeup they call it a neutral undertone? but if I were painting it I'd be using greens.

[Black_Conscious]

I am learning things that I had never thought I would learn of
and it probably is different all over

[Black_Conscious]

they do be doing that now don't they

[Absol]

Glad I'm not the only one that does this!

[Absol]

I love this personally:

It's some of the Achievement Hunter people taking a English Slang quiz from their English employee and honestly, I love it. They've done three so far and I really want one just on Cockney rhyming slang

[alextsarace]

not my memes but whatever they are gorgeous

[feuersichel]

Peperoni on pizza! I realised this, when I got spacy sausage on my pizza and not the legum...

[alextsarace]

reminds me of this

[Kelheor]

I see we frequent the same linguistic public page on VK

[alextsarace]

Same in Russian, double negation rules xD

[alextsarace]

i'm a (капризный) linguist myself, y'know xD

[sevenstarsofeightIam]

Hi, Black_Conscious.

Wikipedia says this: Olive skin is a human skin color spectrum. It is often associated with pigmentation in the Type III to Type IV and Type V ranges of the Fitzpatrick scale. It generally refers to light or moderate brown, brownish, or tan skin, and it is often described as having yellow, green, or golden undertones.

An interesting fact about olives -- they do not naturally turn black but must be soaked in lye.

[Legendofgenii]

Clip!

You can ‘clip your nails’ and also ‘clip two pieces of paper together’

Edit: Oh! And you can ‘give somebody a clip’ (smack them).

[darthmongoose]

Don't forget that in British English, you can also be moving at a fair clip! (moving quickly, whether walking or on a boat or other vehicle).

And in general English you can watch a clip of a movie!

[sevenstarsofeightIam]

I find it interesting that we put on our shoes and socks (no wonder my socks wear out so fast) and we describe thunder and lightning even though lightning comes first.

[sushy00]

I find the term "African American" confusing. It seems to mean black American, but not all black people are from Africa (and there are also other ethnicities in Africa).

[darthmongoose]

I find the term "African American" confusing. It seems to mean black American, but not all black people are from Africa (and there are also other ethnicities in Africa).

It gets very silly when people ask how many "African Americans" we have living in the UK, because it's like "um... not many. We have plenty of Black British, Jamaican and African people though!"

[NickRowler]

And in general English you can watch a clip of a movie!

This term comes from an old technique of film where they literally had to cut the film strip (or clip in this case). Even tho technology has changed, we still use the term.

This is also where the term “left on the cutting room floor” came from. Because rejected clips would sometimes be thrown on the ground.

[simonitropunk]

When Colonel is pronounced as Kernel!!!!

How the hell does this work???

The short name for Richard is Dick.