Can you raise one eyebrow? Which? Or, like Roger Moore (“My acting range has always been something between the two extremes of ‘raises left eyebrow’ and ‘raises right eyebrow.'”), can you raise either, independently of the other?
Aunts vs. Uncles
“It is no use telling me there are bad aunts and good aunts. At the core, they are all alike. Sooner or later, out pops the cloven hoof.”
Thus did Bertie Wooster condemn the genus aunt in The Code of the Woosters. Admittedly, uncles come in for a certain amount of censure too – the 5th Earl of Ickenham, aka Pongo Twistleton‘s Uncle Fred, is a notable example. But never do we find the wholesale condemnation of aunts repeated on the avuncular side.
What do you think: on the balance of things, is it aunts or uncles that are “a menace to one and all”?
What Do You Call…
a) the thing a person keeps their cash in
b) the thing a person keeps coins in
c) the thing a person keeps the aforementioned things in
and do these terms vary depending on the gender of the person in question?
Myself, I call them
a) a wallet (or possibly a purse, if it is basically a little bag with a fastening, as in picture above);
b) a purse (also as in picture above);
c) a bag, bilum or handbag.
I tend to avoid the words purse and handbag when referring to men’s accoutrements, since some consider those words apply only to women’s accoutrements and become uncomfortable and/or offended. And if I’m going to make people uncomfortable and/or offended, I’d rather it was intentional.