Monday, May 04, 2009

UWOTD

In a previous UWOTD post (Ulster Word Of The Day) I mentioned how we'd call a bottle of soda or pop, a mineral.  

When I was at school and someone had a mineral, the main way to ask for a drink from it was to ask for a slug.

Now this didn't mean I'd gone all French and wanted a gastropod mollusk to go with my drink ! Perish the thought.  No it just meant I wanted a drink from a bottle or can of soda.

Slug : a drink, a sip, a slurp.

"Gizza wee slug o' your mineral."  The usual response to this was "feck off" but it never hurt to ask.

The great thing about a slug was that it was of indeterminate size.  You could take a wee drink, swallow it and take another.  A slug usually meant as many repeats of this as the owner of the drink would permit before he wised up and snatched it back.

Of course, thinking back now, it may have just been me being greedy !

That's always a possibility.

4 comments:

  1. I've come across the word before - - who knows where! - but I've never actually known it to be used before. I'm wondering where it came from since it clearly has no connection with the slithery things in the garden.

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  2. We say that in the U.S. as well.

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  3. Ha! I think it comes from cheap US crime thrillers where the cop and/or the bad guy always drank a 'slug' of whiskey. LOL!

    And yes, I did happen to read a lot of them as a teenager. Why do you ask?

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  4. I need to read and commit to memory all these words... daughter has (her first!) boyfriend ... and he comes from Northern Ireland(!)
    Perhaps I'd better get back on Skype Ian and listen to you some more, and get some practice in, so I don't have to keep asking him to repeat what he says...

    Have a nice trip up to London.

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