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It's surfer slang, elements of which have made their way into a lot of the English spoken in NZ, Oz and SA.
by snovv_crash 10y ago
It's surfer slang, elements of which have made their way into a lot of the English spoken in NZ, Oz and SA.
- slyall 10y agoHe is quoting the movie "Back to the Future" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088763/quotes?item=qt0416301 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088763/quotes?item=qt0416301
- disordinary 10y agoIt doesn't matter, it's not appropriate when people are trapped under collapsed buildings and are dead.
- dvtv75 10y agoYou seem to know something that others don't. What's your source on that?
- disordinary 10y agoI was part of the first response for the Christchurch earthquake providing technical support and co-workers in my old job are trained USAR engineers that were deployed overnight. But most of this information is from the NZ media. We aren't talking high fatalities, but USAR are looking for a couple of missing people and there are buildings that have collapsed, people were also stuck under a vat in a winery and had to be cut out. There are two people dead but not much information is coming out of the most effected area because most communications are down.
- nom 10y agoEnglish is not my first language, so what exactly is the problem here? Please explain.
- disordinary 10y agoThe poster used slang to reference the event and someone else was making fun of the slang by taking it literally, completely trivialising the fact that a huge natural disaster occurred which resulted in death, injury, and hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars in damage.
- nom 10y agoI _am_ that poster. English is my second language and I wasn't aware that the word heavy is perceived as slang. I should've used "serious".
- disordinary 10y agoNo, you're fine. It was just the reply seemed a little inappropriate.
- cloudjacker 10y agoThe only thing that collapsed is your HN karma
- sctb 10y agoWe've asked you repeatedly not to comment like this, so we've banned the account.
- cloudjacker 10y agothis is a shadow ban?
- Symbiote 10y agoI don't think it comes from surfing. It's British (probably Commonwealth) English for serious or important. See usage 6: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/heavy https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/heavy (unfortunately, no dates given on the quotes). This lists the usage meaning "severe" as from 1849: http://historicalthesaurus.arts.gla.ac.uk/category/?id=158618& http://historicalthesaurus.arts.gla.ac.uk/category/?id=15861...
- pmyjavec 10y agoSurfer here from Australia, "heavy" is very common surfer slang used to describe something "serious" or "unpleasant". It comes from the idea of a "heavy wipe-out", which can quite easily occur while surfing "waves of consequence". Generally good, hollow, barrelling waves contain more water volume and energy, when they break they look and feel "heavier" and while being better rides, have more potential to injure a surfer. The slang has indeed made it's way into everyday usages in NZ and Oz and Hawaii, I guess California also. I believe the original poster is describing a serious or unpleasant situation, which seems to be the case.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- zb 10y agoAccording to their profile, the author of the post is a native German speaker. In German, the same word ("schwer") means both "heavy" and "difficult" or "serious" (in the sense that somebody in such a situation is carrying a heavy burden). The literal translation would be "heavy". English is a Germanic language, so perhaps in a sense this meaning has always been part of it. As you point out, even if it's not considered completely idiomatic most people would have no trouble interpreting the meaning.