Please help to understand the US English phrases?

[Misha]

1.He didn't hold their awkwardness against them
2.to tyle the door
3.peach switch
4.He had it straightened out for him that
Thanx a lot

[tomaa]

> Please help to understand the US English phrases?

The verb "help" is transitive, and needs an object here. Also the article "the" isn't correct here.

=> Please help me understand these US English phrases.

or

=> Please explain these US English phrases to me.



1.He didn't hold their awkwardness against them

He kindly disregarded their awkwardness.
or
He did not consider it a fault that they were awkward.



2.to tyle the door

This looks like a misspelling for "to tile the door", although, I can't recall seeing a tiled door. "To tile the floor" would mean to put tile down on the floor (tile being ceramic squares).


3.peach switch

If Tom Sawyer is "afeared of his aunt's peach switch", then he is afraid of the stick she got off of a peach tree which she uses to spank him. (A switch is a stick used for spanking children.)

4.He had it straightened out for him that


It was explained to him that...

> You seem confused; let me straighten you out.

You seem confused; let me explain it to you.

But there is a usage with more adversial connotation:

> If I see you near my girl again, I'll straighten you right out.

If I see you near my girl again, I'll fix you.

(It means a threat, but not a specified one.)

[Misha's thanx]

Thank you very much for helping me with these US phrases! It only explains to me that I have fluffed I feel like Tom Sawyer somehow I have spent a load of time to find out the meanings in the i-net. It was no good.
If your kindness is vast as much as to cover a couple of further phrases, my gratitude will be unlimited

1.What's that toast to the flickas?
2.on good behaviour
3.I'm fluffing on a busted flush
4.I don't take a powder at a clem


Actually, it's more than a couple , sorry

[thanx:)]

Thank you very much for helping me with these US phrases! It only explains to me that I have fluffed I feel like Tom Sawyer somehow I have spent a load of time to find out the meanings in the i-net. It was no good.
If your kindness is vast as much as to cover a couple of further phrases, my gratitude will be unlimited

1.What's that toast to the flickas?
2.on good behaviour
3.I'm bluffing on a busted flush
4.I don't take a powder at a clem


Actually, it's more than a couple , sorry

[tomaa]

I don't mind trying my hand at these, and more if you like, but I can't get all of your last batch. Here is what I understand:

****


1.What's that toast to the flickas?

I don't understand this; where did you get these? I.e., perhaps they are from another part of the English-speaking world than the U.S.?

2.on good behaviour

Example use: "Johnny, your grandmother is coming over tonight, and I expect you to be on your best behavior--absolutely no cursing, and no running around like a puppy dog."

Actually we don't use "on good behavior" currently in the US (in my experience), but we do use "on your best behavior", and I'm sure it is the same thing. It means to act politely. It is most often used of children.

3.I'm fluffing on a busted flush

I don't know what the verb means. In draw poker, if have four hearts and 1 club, and you discard the club in hopes of drawing another heart (which would give you five hearts, which is a flush, a very good hand in draw poker), and you don't get a heart in the draw, you have a busted flush (ie, not really a flush at all).


4.I don't take a powder at a clem

I have no idea what this means.

[Misha]

Thanx a lot , anyway
All this stuff is from R. Heinlein's book "Stranger in a strange land". And it seems I am not the first stranger in that world, as I assume from your confusion .The whale uses lotta slanguage and technical terms and double-barrel phrases that simply stumps me in every sentence.
But I like it.
There's a hope that all of them are misprints and yet a thought of your incomprehension of them really soothes my pains.

[tomak]

Ah, you did explain where these come from, here, and I missed it -- thanks.

Heinlein may make some of them up, in order to make it feel to the reader like a dynamically developing language in a future?

I've not read the book in too long to remember.

If you like, I could try to check it out and look some of them up, to see the context, and see what I can say about them then (of course this requires you give me page numbers, and will only work if we are using versions with the same pages, so are you reading a paperback or a hardback edition?)

I'm pretty sure Heinlein was American, so that rules out my earlier idea that perhaps the author was from elsewhere in the world.

[Misha]

My book is a dog-eared hardback! It suffered too much in the library or to put it better in hands of readers. Poor little thing!
Open chapter 25, page 197. There is a lot about flickas , city slickers and door tyled
Thanks.

[Aurelio]

Hi!

Not having read the novel, the word "tyle" appears in a lot of masonic context when properly googled . Digging a bit deeper, I found:

The Tyler.

This officer owes his title to his duty of protecting the Lodge from intrusion. The word tyle, like tile, is derived from the Old English word tigel, or tygel, meaning "cover," and hence "protect."

The duty of the Tyler is " to keep off all cowans and intruders." The word cowan is cognate with the legal word covin, "a deceitful agreement," and with the slang cove. Its proper meaning is "imposter."

[http://home.swbell.net/terrell1/smithfield455/Light/Misc/misc_writings4.htm]

If you look up "door" and "tyled" in google, you'll find that for freemasons indeed doors are often 'properly tyled'.

And for the fun of it (said to be written by Mark Twain):

THE GATES AJAR.

On the occasion of the birth of his first child the poet writes:

One night, as old Saint Peter slept,
He left the door of Heaven ajar,
When through a little angel crept
And came down with a falling star.

One summer, as the blessed beams
Of morn approached, my blushing bride
Awakened from some pleasing dreams
And found that angel by her side.

God grant but this, I ask no more,
That when he leaves this world of sin,
He'll wing his way to that bright shore
And find the door of Heaven again.

Whereupon Saint Peter, not liking this imputation of carelessness, thus (by a friend) replies:

ON THE PART OF THE DEFENCE

For eighteen hundred years and more
I've kept my door securely tyled;
There has no little angel strayed,
No one been missing all the while.

I did not sleep as you supposed,
Nor leave the door of Heaven ajar,
Nor has a little angel strayed
Nor gone down with a falling star.

Go ask that blushing bride and see
If she don't frankly own and say,
That when she found that angel babe,
She found it in the good old way.

God grant but this, I ask no more,
That should your numbers still enlarge,
You will not do as heretofore,
And lay it to old Peter's charge.

[http://www.twainquotes.com/Galaxy/187010f.html]


Regards,
Aurelio

[Misha]

Perhaps, I might look like a lazy one, but it's easier to ask you guys than to search out from the google.
1.The door would do credit to a wall.
Is it near to "do justice"?
2. This is credited on your page.
3.growing graved on her face.
Thanx for the poem

[Len G]

Taking a powder at a clem

Taking a powder is to run away
To ‘clem’ is to starve BUT in circus or carnival jargon it means a problem or fight.

Peach switch is a thin peach branch used to ‘switch’ (whip or spank) a child as punishment.

Tyle a door is to protect it from non members or unwanted persons.