[WikiEN-l] Conventions and movie vs. film

[Ray Saintonge]

james duffy wrote:

> 'Taking the piss' means ironic teasing. It is something done the world 
> over, understood the world over. If Stan is incapable of understanding 
> the difference between ironic teasing and being deliberately rude, 
> that is a reflection on him and his humour bypass. But no, Stan, I did 
> not mean to offend you. And if you misunderstood what I was saying as 
> being offensive then I apologise, but that was not what I was doing. I 
> was being sarcastic and ironic, using a standard form of humour in 
> Europe that people do not usually take offence at, they 'getting' the 
> joke.
>
> I was making a standard joke which is made all the time about how 
> movie is used to imply Hollywood blockbuster, film is often used to 
> refer to arthouse film or film with intellectual content or a film is 
> in itself a quality piece of work. So 'Dumb and Dumber' is often 
> described as a movie in Europe, Casablanca, The Dead, Schindler's 
> List, American Beauty, The Big Chill, etc are described as films. It 
> is subjective opinion by definition. In any case 'movie' is generally 
> seen as an American term (though it is used occasionally outide the 
> US), film as a worldwide one.  There is no one 'right' term unlike 
> formal names or definitions. I think it unacceptable that wiki wants 
> to use an American term that most non-americans don't use, or if they 
> do, they use it as a code for bland, Hollywoodized, heavily 
> merchantised produce.
>
> JT
>
>> Taking the piss means you were being rude to him, and now think 
>> you're allowed to be
>> rude because he didn't think it was funny. No. Taking the piss, like 
>> many forms of humor,
>> only works if all involved agree. The phrase you're looking for is 
>> "I'm sorry, Stan, I didn't
>> mean to offend you."
>
If JT was taking the piss out, I'm afraid he was doing it up wind.

I just reviewed the phrase where it appears in Eric Partridge's 
"Dictionary of Slang" as ambiguous.  On the one hand it is indeed used 
as JT declares, but Partridge also notes that it is more commonly 
applied to jeer at someone's bladder of conceit.  

The action of "taking the piss" is surely a world-wide phenomenon, but 
that specific term is not universally used.  Do we have here the 
antecedent Hibernian imperialism that once infected the gangs of New 
York, and which would one day be the model for a whole nation? 
 Presidents John IV and Ronald I really did have reason to be thankful 
for their Irish roots.  We have it proposed that a "fillum" should be 
distinguished from a movie on the basis of intellectual content, and 
that "Dumb and Dumber" is no longer a quality piece of work to reflect 
the true nature of the American psyche.  Perhaps it is our very pisser 
who should be "passed the catheter."

Ec