On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 4:16 PM, Alan B. Pearce<
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_nameEven 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.
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