wink wink nudge nudge

"Wink wink nudge nudge" followed by "say no more, say no more," is a statement popularized by Eric Idle in his Monty Python days in the early 1970s. The winks and nudges are verbal explications of gestures people make when they want to pass on something sly (a wink of the eye and an elbow in the other person's side, nudging). The "say no more" extender means, rather literally, "You don't have to tell me anything more."

This buzz term (or terms) was used when Idle played a character (usually opposite fellow Pythoner Terry Jones as a stuffy Brit), who persistently (and wrongly) tried to put a sniggering sexual implication on perfectly ordinary situations:

-- Idle: "Your secretary, she's a bit of a goer, isn't she?"

-- Jones (perplexed): "Umm, perhaps."

-- Idle: "Wink wink nudge nudge. Say no more, say no more."

Within the past 30 years "Wink wink nudge nudge" has also taken on almost its exact opposite meaning, used sarcastically to mean something along the lines of "I'm sure it's painfully obvious to us both."
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"Look at her, do you think she runs, do you think she runs?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

(Very broadly): "Wink wink nudge nudge say no more, say no more."

* * *

"Did you have any idea that Senator X was closeted and gay?"

"Oh, wink wink nudge nudge. Anyone gay, or anyone working in official Washington (D.C.) knew it already."
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by al-in-chgo March 26, 2010
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haul water

To perform menial or trivial services for one's superiors, with the implication that the agent is capable of doing nothing more significant.
Alderman "X" does not seem concerned with his constituents; what he does best is haul water for the administration.
by al-in-chgo July 23, 2016
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Murse

A Male nURSE. Often used within the industry to refer to nurses who are male.
"Joe doesn't like the term "male nurse"; he says it's old-fashioned."

"So what then?"

"Murse."
by al-in-chgo May 07, 2016
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Abingdon, Virginia

County Seat of Washington County, Virginia, in southwestern Virginia about fifteen miles northeast of the Tennesse border. Population ca. 6,000.

Active (live-)stock market, seasonal burley tobacco market, site of Federal District court which accounts for beaucoup (way too many) attorneys for hire.

Biggest cultural attributes are probably the annual Virginia Highlands Festival held on the campus of Virginia Highlands Community College, waggishly referred to as "UCLA(q.v.)," and the Barter Theater, the State Theater of Virginia. Contrary to popular opinion, neither Gregory Peck nor Ernest Borgnine was born or grew up in Abingdon, nor Ned Beatty, although they all played the Barter early in their careers.

Worst-kept secret: The really choice furniture, antiques and miscellaneous items (and often, quite good deals) are not to be found at the open-air Highlands Festival, but at a semi-secret rummage sale held by a consortium of downtown Mainline Protestant churches, named for Plum Alley, which the week-long event occupies.

Little-known facts:

. Interstate 81 runs along eastern edge of town and affords easy access to Bristol, where there is also nothing for young people to do.

. One of several thousand communities in the USA that has earned the right to call itself "the buckle on the bible belt."

. Just for fun, Google for "Abington, Virginia" (note misspelling).
"Abingdon, Virginia? Where is this Abingdon? How long to drive there from Richmond?"

"Oh, about six, seven hours if the Interstates don't clot up too much."

"That's impossible. Nowhere in Virginia takes seven hours to reach from the state capital."

"Look on a road map, for the extreme Southwestern tip which they always put in a separate little box."
by al-in-chgo February 27, 2010
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circumbendibus

Amusing fake Latin, in use since the late Eighteenth Century.
"I'm not going to argue with you any more! We're just going 'round and 'round, and I won't get on that circumbendibus again!"
by al-in-chgo February 13, 2018
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Tiene leche?

Careful! It doesn't mean "got milk?" as in the ad campaign.

Nor does it mean "do you(the store) have milk? That's an American idiom.

To see if a shop with a Spanish-speaking proprietor has milk for sale, ask "Hay leche?" (aye LAY-chay?) "Hay," (pron. like long "I" in English") plus the word of which you seek, is very useful to ask: is it here? OR are they here?

If the person behind the counter is a pregnant female, asking "Tiene leche?" would mean "Do you have breast milk?" It implies that anyway if one is strictly literal.

Say "Hay leche?"
Customer, wanting a liter of milk: "Tiene leche?"

Clerk, a young pregnant women, blushes and says, "No se." (I don't know.)

Customer does the right thing on the rebound: "Hay leche en esta bodega" ("Is there milk to be had in this shop?")
--Proprietress: "Si, sen~or. Alli! Alli (ay-YEE)!. "Yes, sir, over there! Over there!"

note from contributor: is there a macro-less way on a keyboard to simulate upside-down exclamation marks and question marks?
by al-in-chgo October 06, 2010
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the tick-tock

Informal American journalese for a detailed chronology of events.
"We don't know the tick-tock of those (scandalous) events yet." ~ Chuck Todd, MEET THE PRESS, February 11, 2018.
by al-in-chgo February 11, 2018
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