What, exactly does this phrase mean? I thought at first, upon hearing it used, that it meant to make fun of. But I just saw it used in a way that would imply it means being lazy.

Well brits? It's your phrase! Explain, please!

It means both, although in a way they're connected - cf. 'make a mockery of'. You can take the piss out of somebody if you want to make fun of them, but if you constantly call in sick at work the day you're due back from your holiday, for example, you can be said to be 'taking the piss'.

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but if you constantly call in sick at work the day you're due back from your holiday, for example, you can be said to be 'taking the piss'.

Really? I don't even think we have a term for that, do we?

"Piss," here usually means "urine," though it can also be use to mean to anger, such as "piss off." Is that the same in England, too?

When you call in sick w/o really being ill, you're blowing it off.

Also, to take a piss here means to go pee.

I suppose a more exact translation could be that you are trying to "take unfair advantange" of a person or situation.

Incidentally, I believe the "pee" actually derived from "piss", being a form of euphemism where the first letter of the word was used. In time "P***" became "pee".

I don't think the meaning of taking the piss has changed when we use it for people taking unnecessary sick leave.

Piss off is just another very common random-swearword-off phrase: I don't think they're ever meant literally.

We say 'pissed off' when referring to anger.

And 'pissed' is drunk. I think most Brits are aware that 'pissed' is the US equivalent of 'pissed off', but that hasn't caught on much here yet - although it's getting there.

"Piss" sure has a lot more meanings in Britain than here. Now it means "drunk" too? Basically it means anger ("pissed") or to urinate here. I also have heard people described as "pissy," though I could only find the British definition of "pissy," which apparently is "weak, feeble, inferior. Often applied to drinks." When I have heard it, it has meant malicious or spiteful.

As it's been a while since I've been able to post here I've read this thread with some amusement. I really will have to take care with some of the phrases I use with CW as they invariably end up as subjects for debate like this one!

As you have discovered, in Britain there are a huge range of uses for this word, some examples being:

Piss off!
Stop taking the piss!
I went to the pub last night and got pissed.
Are you pissing up my leg?
You're really starting to piss me off!

I think the rich variety of uses we have must stem from our national obsession with the toilet, certainly in humour.

Of course, you know who invented the flushing toilet, do you not?

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Of course, you know who invented the flushing toilet, do you not?

A Klingon, perhaps?

Lol - and then of course there's:

A piece of piss - easy / simple (cf. the more refined and physically correct 'a piece of cake').

Piss-poor - very bad; crap (continuing the toilet theme ).

A piss-up - a social gathering involving much alcohol, at a pub or elsewhere (note: 'he couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery' for someone who's, well, piss-poor at doing anything useful; gen. incompetent).

Go out on the piss - go out drinking.


Doad - what does 'are you pissing up my leg' mean? I'm hoping it's idiomatic!

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Originally posted by Caterwauller:
[QUOTE]Of course, you know who invented the flushing toilet, do you not?

I believe Thomas Crapper invented the flushing toilet!

I believe Thomas Crapper invented the flushing toilet!

Not true, he popularized it. John Herrington, an Englishman, invented the Ajax in 1596, but the flush toilet was known in Rome and other ancient civilizations many thousands of years before England existed.

Flushed from the success of my google search, I'm posting THIS about Mr. Crapper.

Very interesting info about the lowly toilet!

While your research is excellent, I simply cannot see the poetry in "I've got to take a Twyford" or "You're full of Cummings, you twit!" And what brother could get the desired response when yelling at his sister, "If you don't get out of the Herrington now I'm telling Mom."

The word crap, meaning excrement, is from the Old French, via Middle English, crappe, which stood for the grain that was trodden underfoot in a barn. The word originally derives from the Latin crappa.

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Doad - what does 'are you pissing up my leg' mean? I'm hoping it's idiomatic!

Basically this phrase may be used to ask someone if they are making a fool of you or possibly just taking the piss.

Well - we went to a piss-up last night and I got totally pissed, but not pissed off, and now I feel piss-poor. It'll be a while before I go out on the piss again.

From what you say you're piss poor at taking a good piss up. Next time somebody asks you to go out on the piss, perhaps you should tell them to piss off. Don't get too pissed at my remarks, I'm only taking the piss.

"Tis far more blessed to be pissed off than pissed on." === Anon.

Fabulous. I think laughter can help heal a hangover! Miraculous!

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Fabulous. I think laughter can help heal a hangover! Miraculous!

Drink good beer and you won't get a hangover!

Richard, I drank EXCELLENT beer! They were all cask-conditioned! Promise! I just had too many. I'm a lightweight when it comes to tolerance, apparently.

Getting pickled is one thing - any alcohol will do the job - but hangovers are caused mainly by the adjuncts in the drink. That's not to say that it's impossible to get a hangover with good beer, but it's far less likely than it is with chemical swill.

For myself I have never had a hangover on real ale (even after eight pints or so) but I've had some stonkers on chemical fizz (until I learnt the error of my ways).

Are you sure you didn't have anything else - some wine, for instance?

I'm certain! All I drank all evening was great beer and water. When I got home, I had a few aspirins and more water before going to bed (my usual preventative from days of old).

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Originally posted by Richard Englishrink good beer and you won't get a hangover!

That's a new one on me. After 8 or so pints I think I'd be comatose regardless of the alcohol I was drinking. I thought that the darker the drink, the worse the hangover dur to the tanins, hence I'm not too bad on white wine but red wine kills me (meatphorically of course).

It does depend on the period over which one drinks, of course. When jheem, Cat, Arnie and I had our ramble around London I drank, over the afternoon, two pints in Wetherspoons, a pint in The Victoria, a pint in the Dickens Tavern, a pint in the Wilton Arms, A pint in the Nag's Head and two pints in the Hole in The Wall.

That was between 1200 and 1800. Mind you, I did sleep well on the train back home!

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I did sleep well on the train back home!

Something I have tried hard to avoid ever since the time some twenty years ago when I woke up in the train sheds. Anyone who has tried to find a taxi at 2.00 am Sunday morning in Slade Green will, like me, not want to repeat the experience!

Arnie - I think you need an escort next time.

After 8 or so pints I think I'd be comatose regardless of the alcohol I was drinking.

Me, too, Doad. I can barely get away with 1!

The way I figure it, Richard had approximately 2400 kcals. from beer the afternoon jheem was there. Besides being comatose, I'd be as fat as a pig!

I just checked my 2 beer books (Michael Jackson's and Roger Protz's) to find the scientific explanation as to why hangovers are rarely seen with cask conditioned beers, but I can't find it. I know there is a reason, though. I think it has something to do with the yeast in the cask beers. I am certain I had found it in one of my books before, but I just can't find it now...and frustration is setting in!

Actually, as it turns out, it was probably a growing sinus infection and not the beer that had me under the weather last Sunday. Sniff sniff.

How To Avoid A Hangover. One compound mentioned in the article that I had never heard of is fusel oil. Note the etymology.

Tinman

Quote "... If, however, something isn't quite right, things take a nasty turn. Say someone lets the temperature get too high to speed things up, or tries to skimp by using cheap malt diluted with rice or corn...."

And what do you think Dudweiser is made from? And what's that beneficial sediment in good cask-conditioned and bottle-conditioned beers?

And which kind of drinks give you the hangover?

I rest my case!

Vodka hangovers really do hurt more than beer hangovers.

Eep!

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Originally posted by Caterwauller:
Vodka hangovers really do hurt more than beer hangovers.

Eep!

My worst ever hangovers were a series in Central America. Tequila hangovers are the worst! At least now I know why.

fusel oil

A favorite scene of mine in the 1956 movie, Forbidden Planet, is one in which the starship's cook convinces Robbie the Robot to replicate some "bourbon" for him. After finishing off what's left in the pint bottle, the robot analyzes the liquid and mentions that it contains simple ethyl alcohol and traces of fusel oil. As a kid I always imagined it was a made-up word, but by the time I got to college I'd discovered its true meaning and found the scene even funnier.

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I rest my case!

An aside: Somewhere over my lifetime I had heard, "I rest my proverbial case," and I say that all the time to my kids. It annoys them no end; they think I am the only one who has ever said that.

My worst ever hangovers were a series in Central America. Tequila hangovers are the worst!

Not mine. My worst...and I still get nauseated thinking of it...Peppermint Schnapps shots. I hadn't ever even had it before, but the friends I was with suggested it. Oh, my God! I had many of those shots the night before a really important interview at the University of Chicago when I first moved to Chicago from San Francisco. I have never been so sick in my life, including during the interview!

Even funnier, I got the job!

When I was in college I learned the "joys" of sloe gin. I had no idea I was drinking alcohol. It tasted that good to me. Never, ever again have I been so sick.

I agree with Bob on tequila hangovers.. I did "shots" one night with a friend whose girlfriend had just moved away... Can't even begin to describe the next day, but that was in 1975, and I haven't touched tequila since... Jose Cuervo is no friend of mine.

Have you read that Mexican novel, "Tequila Mockingbird" ???

My worst hangover is always my most recent one!