On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 4:16 PM, Alan B. Pearce wrote: >>:: but I failed to understand what do you mean by "hard cheese". >> >>:: seems to be only used by Brits >> >>I didn't know that, I thought it was in other English variants. >>Now I have a quest to find out other British English only phrases. > > I would class it as being well known in English speaking countries, > specifically those that are part of the British Commonwealth, rather than > US-centric countries. Singapore used to be a British colony and is part of British Commonwealth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Commonwealth_of_Nations_by_name Even Canada is part British Commonwealth. So I am not so sure what English Speaking Countries qualify as US-centric other than USA. > The term is a bit more than just 'bad luck', it is self induced bad luck, > i.e. you have done something that induced the bad luck situation, although > the way Colin used it, it would be just 'tough luck' rather than 'bad luck'. > > I suspect it dates back to the workers going out to harvest, with their > lunch wrapped up. Lunch would typically be bread, cheese and cider. If you > didn't wrap the cheese properly it would go hard, and is then almost > inedible. Thanks for the explanation. -- Xiaofan http://mcuee.blogspot.com -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist