Steam, sausages, and chocolate

[vilakins]

We went on a steam-train trip yesterday: an hour's circuit taking us round Auckland and from one side of the country to the other and back, a less impressive feat than it sounds. Greg, devoted ferro-equinologist that he is, is down at one of the stations now, waiting to get a photo of the train thundering through. It's too hot for him to wear an anorak though. :-P Across the road from the station is Avon's Butchery. Avon (yes, he's really called that) has won awards for his sausages (What!) and Greg is buying some to whack on the barbie tonight along with the soy ones I bought for myself yesterday.

Which reminds me: I discovered Green & Black's organic fair-trade chocolate in the organic supermarket yesterday. Yay! I bought orange with spices, vanilla white, and extra cocoa. They didn't have the chilli various UK friends have raved about. I asked at the checkout and they said they'd see if it was available but I won't hold my breath. I had three squares of the orange last night. Yum. [craves some now]

Comments

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

"I haven't a sausage" means "I haven't got anything". "Not a sausage" means "nothing".

So the point of that story was that Avon came into the world with nothing.

[mistraltoes.livejournal.com]

"Not a sausage" means "nothing".

Let me be sure I get this: do you mean this is an idiom? Is it only a sausage, or would 'not a pickle' mean 'nothing'?

[trixieleitz]

Yes, "not a sausage" is an idiom. I suspect, though, that if you substituted some other foodstuff, an astute listener would get what you meant from context, and be quite amused :)

[mistraltoes.livejournal.com]

Ah. Thanks. :)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It's just sausages, perhaps because they're intrinsically funny. Now I think of it, Germans who don't care about something say, "Das is mir Wurst" or "That's sausage to me". :-)

[mistraltoes.livejournal.com]

Now that's intriguing. Thank you.

[mundens.livejournal.com]

To back up the others (not that they really need it, I just like overkill) you'll note the idiom is also used by Marvin the Paranoid Android in HHGTTG when he is left to defend the building against the amazingly deadly and astoundingly stupid automated killing machine whose name I've currently forgotten, though being an android, he modified it to :

"Nothing. Not an electronic sausage."

[mistraltoes.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that. It's funny and informative, too.