A Slap Up Meal!!!!

gdm27 · 29-12-2009, 17:54

Your a clever bunch here, so tell me, where does this phrase come from????

MargaretR · 29-12-2009, 18:02

Who needs 'clever' when there is google?

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable gives an origin and a Dickens quote.

Slap up. To have a slap up meal means to eat well. The expression goes back to the time of Charles Dickens, when it was a "slap-bang" meal, derived from cheap eating houses, where one slapped one's money down as the food was banged on the table. Why "down" has turned to "up" is probably another example of language evolution, in much the same way as "to be sold a pig in a poke" has come to mean that one has been cheated, whereas, in reality, the reason for going to a medieval market was often to buy the pig and not to be "sold a pup"!
Quote: Dickens, Sketches by Boz, 3, 36. "They lived in the same street, walked to town every morning at the same hour, dined at the same slap-bang every day."

gdm27 · 29-12-2009, 18:09

Went there also, doesn't seem to have the same ring that it has today. We tend to use it as a meaning for a very good meal that cost more than normal, a sort of reward for something, well in our house that is!

cashman · 29-12-2009, 18:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by gdm27

Went there also, doesn't seem to have the same ring that it has today. We tend to use it as a meaning for a very good meal that cost more than normal, a sort of reward for something, well in our house that is!

yep thats what i always assumed, sod dickens, long dead anyway.

vera · 29-12-2009, 19:18

That is the difference between North and South language, North means one thing, South means another. I learnt that when i moved here from South.

jaysay · 30-12-2009, 09:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by vera

That is the difference between North and South language, North means one thing, South means another. I learnt that when i moved here from South.

And the northern meaning usually makes more sense

mattylad · 30-12-2009, 09:55

nothing to do with dressing up for it, slapping on make up etc ?

vera · 30-12-2009, 14:21

No, Jaysay, it just means that Northeners are very difficult to understand in not only their dialect but also in their customs

cashman · 30-12-2009, 15:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by vera

No, Jaysay, it just means that Northeners are very difficult to understand in not only their dialect but also in their customs

as well as dialect, difficult to understand to southerners cos northerners in the main, call a spade a spade.

gdm27 · 30-12-2009, 15:28

How the heck did we get onto a North/South slaggin match???? I found out awhile ago not to go there. Born here, live there, shouldn't make too much of a problem. Back to Slap Up! (or not, it is an open forum all the same)

Barrie Yates · 30-12-2009, 18:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by cashman

as well as dialect, difficult to understand to southerners cos northerners in the main, call a spade a spade.

As a Northerner - spades were always called something else in the days before PC

Barrie Yates · 30-12-2009, 18:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by gdm27

How the heck did we get onto a North/South slaggin match???? I found out awhile ago not to go there. Born here, live there, shouldn't make too much of a problem. Back to Slap Up! (or not, it is an open forum all the same)

Accrington lad, but 18 years in the RAF, I lived in quite a few areas of UK - North, South even the Scottish Isles and Wales. There is a difference but most of the time it is very good natured banter.

Alan Gilmartin · 02-01-2010, 07:57

I thought we called a spade a shovel.

sm_counsell · 02-01-2010, 10:14

Once got turned down for a job with Thompsom Holidays because my accent was too northern!! Guess where the interviewer came from -would you believe- Burnley- although she did her best to sound like a southerner.

Alan Gilmartin · 02-01-2010, 22:57

Last couple of months they have just started screening Coronation St, last time I ever saw it was 1975, I cant belive Ken Barlow is still in it, & these are episods made in 2001, is he still in it, watched a couple of episods, that was it cant be bothered again. They are showing Emerdale as well back to back, watching coronation St, went to the loo, came back and didnt realize, that emerdale was on, till it finished, thought it was C St. Maybe Im just thick.