The Enid Blyton Society

I think people do say "A Happy New Year" in advance, unless they are also going to meet on New Year's Day!

With "If you want to know, he's been funny - very funny" I would guess it was not funny at all and the observation that it was a misuse of language was the use of 'funny'. Of course 'funny' can mean either 'humorous', or 'peculiar'. I would need to see the context to know what it might mean.

If the bottle and jug have capital letters, 'The Bottle and Jug', I would guess it is a public house or an inn.

I see Katharine has also answered... between us we may have shed some light on your queries.

sixret wrote:Now I have finished the translation of Leo Bruce's "Case for Sergeant Beef." Checking my translation, I have some questions, and I hope someone in this group might help me.

1) In chapter 1, Townsend call on Sgt. Beef, and Beef tells him "Hullo. I was wondering when you'd turn up. Come along in. And a happy New Year!" Actually, it was New Year's Eve that they visited Barnford to investigate their case. Do you usually say "A happy New Year!" before New Year's day?

2) In chapter 21, Mrs. Pluck replies Beef's question, "Well, if you want to know he's been funny, Very funny." To this, Townsend wrote, "This common, but curious, misuse of the language did not perturb Beef," I cannot understand what is the misuse of the language.

3) In chapter 24, I came across the following expression: "Mrs. Pluck was in the bottle and jug and wanted to see Beef most particular." What does "in the bottle and jug" mean?

1) In my family we often wish each other a Happy New Year in the run-up to New Year's Day. For example, if I phoned my nanna on 28th December and was unlikely to speak to her again for a week or so we'd say, "Happy New Year!" We continue saying it for a few days into the New Year too, e.g. if I hadn't spoken to my dad for about ten days and he phoned on 3rd January we'd say, "Happy New Year!" I agree with Daisy that it would be perfectly normal to say "Happy New Year!" to people you saw on New Year's Eve.

2) Like Katharine and Daisy, I'm guessing Townsend doesn't like the word "funny" being used so imprecisely. It has several meanings. Besides, it would sound more formal to say something like "...he's been acting strangely" or "...he's been feeling strange".

3) In days gone by, customers could bring their own jugs and bottles to a pub and pay to have them filled with beer. The bar where that was done was called "the bottle and jug department". I don't know whether that practice was still going on in the 1940s, but the name might have stuck. As Katharine and Daisy said, if 'The Bottle and Jug' has capital letters it will be the name of a pub.

Regarding the word 'funny', I'm sure Enid sometimes uses it in this way, as in 'there's something very funny going on here...'

I have a funny feeling you're right

Funny, that.

Thank you to all. I will copy all the answers and submit to that person.

Thank you, Floragord.

Sign in Wilton House Garden Centre

I'm tempted to ask "scented Lily's what?"

Reminds me of the song 'My Old Man's a Dustman'.

"Lily's wearing them...!"

Rob Houghton wrote:"Lily's wearing them...!"

On another forum I did write that if I had had a white marker pen, I would have added a word. I didn't think I should write that on this forum! You are very close, Rob!

The worst I ever saw was at a fruit stand in Brisbane years ago, with not only a wrong apostrophe but two spelling mistakes... "SWEETT MADARIN'S" Seriously.

Then there was the time when I decided to have a proper Cornish pasty for lunch in Redruth and went to a bakery where the people were very nice, but the pasty in question was tasteless and had all of two or three small lumps of meat among the rest of the filling. As I left, I noticed (as I hadn't before) that the sign on the front window declared that this establishment sold "Pasty's". If I'd seen that before I went in, I wouldn't have touched their "pasty's" with a barge pole...