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Agreed. Bum as a verb in USA means borrow, I've never heard it mean anything else, and I've lived everywhere except the far west coast...
by silisili 3y ago
Agreed. Bum as a verb in USA means borrow, I've never heard it mean anything else, and I've lived everywhere except the far west coast...
- qup 3y agoI've heard it in another context, something like: "I was broke, so I bummed around Oklahoma for a few weeks..." Kerouac's On The Road might be a good example. But 99% of the time I hear "bum a ride" or "bum a smoke" and I have never heard a third (verb) meaning in America.
- silisili 3y agoAh you're right! I completely forgot about 'bum around the house', though uncommon, I've heard that a few times.
- PrimeMcFly 3y ago> I've never heard it mean anything else, and I've lived everywhere except the far west coast... At least you've lived around. One of the things that amazed me when I first came to and was traveling the US is seeing Americans in one state say some phrase, only to go to another state and have those Americans claim it was never said in America. People really like to absolutely generalize based o their ow necessarily limited experiences.
- silisili 3y agoAgreed. Linguistics and etymology are fascinating to me, so I try to pick up what I can. Some things are hyper regional, especially accents. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh sound nothing alike, for example. I didn't intend my comment to mean it doesn't exist, more that if it does, it's probably a very regional thing, based on not having heard it in the various cities I've lived in.
- astrange 3y agoAn opposite case of this is "nah, yeah" "yeah no" "nah yeah nah" etc, which is English slang in maybe 200 different places, all of which claim they're the only ones who say it.