Thursday, April 2, 2009

To Skive or Not to Skive? That is the Question!

Have you ever heard the term "skiving" or "to skive"? I hadn't until I met my British neighbor Felicity. What wonders come out of her mouth! I am fascinated by language anyway, and to hear the English language spoken with such colorful expressions and vocabulary is an adventure as well as a delight. I have warned her that I am going to start jotting things down in a notebook, because by the time I get home I have forgotten what clever phrases or terms she used. I always have to walk the fine line between annoying her and showing my wonder at her glorious use of the mother tongue in our casual conversations. Sometimes it just isn't cool to say, "What was that you just said?! What does THAT mean?"




So here is the fun part: Please post a comment about what you think "to skive" means. It is a verb, I will give you that much, but no fair turning to Google. I will let you know if any of you get it right in my next post. Hint: Another similar term is "bunking off." Pip, Pip, Cheerio!

3 comments:

Kristy said...

Hmmm, maybe it means sleeping over at somebody else's house? That's a hard one! I had to use a lot of self-restraint to not just take two seconds and google it. :)

Amy said...

Fun! I'm going to guess it's something like lazing about or couch potatoing or something of that nature.

I worked with an English girl back in college, and two of my favorite terms were "the bin" = garbage can and "going out of my head" = "drives me crazy"

Jan.lyons said...

Okay, I'll explain what to skive means. It is streaking with your underware (skivies) still on. You see the British are a refined, cultured people and they would never streak in their birthday suits, so now you know the true meaning of 'to skive' do not believe what anyone else tells you, this is the true meaning...honest. :)