Comments on: Word stuff

By: carbonelle

carbonelle — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 07:23:48 +0000

I’ve heard and used shellacking in both senses. Am familiar enough with argy-bargy to recognize it, but have never used it.

United States: MO, RI, VA, CA, TX and WA

Dad was in the Navy.

By: Stuart

Stuart — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:08:23 +0000

I use argy-bargy to mean a number of things….most literally (to me) it means rough and tumble, horseplay or even a large fight. As a result I also use it to mean commotion, argument, spat, feud or violent, loud disagreement (the event, not the disagreement itself).

By: Cat

Cat — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 14:25:03 +0000

My dad used shellacking to mean a spanking or beating of some sort and he grew up in Northern Ontario, Canada.

By: Mahek

Mahek — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 22:00:04 +0000

I sometimes use Daftt, fool or an idiot. And I have used argy bargy a few times. And there is A*rse about which I use quite a lot.
The most common word I know of is chav which is some lower class idiot who commits crimes and is poorly educated.

I’m from Surrey, UK

By: janet

janet — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 04:26:32 +0000

Argy-bargy — hunh? never heard of it before this.

I don’t really use “shellacking” but have certainly heard often enough: “a shellacking” is an overwhelming defeat, usually of a non-serious, non-fatal variety — e.g. an argument or a sporting contest.

Lifelong SF bay area person.

By: Laura

Laura — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:14:27 +0000

I’ve used “shellacked” and “shellacking” in reference to the amount of product in someone’s hair. Not surprisingly, I grew up in Northern California in the 80’s and 90’s (I’m in NYC now).

I’ve never heard “argy-bargy” before but I’m totally going to integrate it into my vocabulary.

(“Totally” also an indication of my 80’s California upbringing…NYers sense my California-ness from a mile away)

By: Janette

Janette — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 06:20:27 +0000

Great words!! I use both. Shellacking in the sports sense as in “it wasn’t just a win, it was a shellacking”. And argy bargy to mean both verbal stoush and pushing and shoving. I’m from Dunedin, NZ.

By: Lori S.

Lori S. — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 05:31:44 +0000

I use shellacking. As noted, usually in s sports context unless I am talking about a crafts project. I grew up in Michigan.

By: Liviania

Liviania — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 04:51:46 +0000

I live in Texas. (Central Texas, with some time spent in the North and some in H-town.) ‘Shellacking’ to me, it a verb. It means you are currently rubbing a shellack or whatever finish into a table with a lot of elbow grease. (My advice is to do another round of sanding, then another round of shellack. It’s smoother and shinier.)

By: claire

claire — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 03:53:52 +0000

i have shellacked things in the past, so i use the noun “shellacking” to refer to the veneer on shellacked things.

u.s.: tucson, az; columbus, oh; kalamazoo, mi.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 02:27:52 +0000

Only a real pedant would point out that shellacking is a gerund not a noun…

I expect to receive a shellacking for that comment. However I will not reply to it because that would constitute argy-bargy.

At least, that’s what would happen in Sydney, Oz.

By: Amie Stuart

Amie Stuart — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 23:48:38 +0000

I’ve actually heard of shellacking! I don’t remember where but probably from the grandparents (moms and dads were yankees from NY and NJ respectively).

By: Claudia

Claudia — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 23:02:38 +0000

I have heard and used shellacking in context of putting a coating or paint varnish wax really anything on something. I am from NYC

By: Susannah

Susannah — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 22:19:07 +0000

Shellacking is a genius word. I love it. Apart from the literal meaning of using shelac, I have heard it used (and used it myself) to mean:

1) A thrashing of one team by another
2) a yelling or dressing down. ‘You should have heard the shellacking my dad gave me when I scratched his BMW’
3) to be really drunk. ‘I got totally shellacked last night and now my head feels like it’s going to explode.’

Argy bargy. I use this quite often too – and certainly hear it used a lot – usually in the context of a verbal stoush.

I grew up in a small coastal town in Victoria, Aus and now live in Melbourne. But did spend several large slabs of time in the US when i was young – mostly in Washington DC and Oklahoma. So maybe I’m not very helpful for nailing things down geographically.

By: AnnMarie

AnnMarie — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:05:02 +0000

Grew up in South Dakota. Never heard of argy-bargy, but shellacking is the process of applying shellac to something. May have heard it more as an adult in the scrapbooking/arsty-craftsy sort of crowd.

By: Desdemona

Desdemona — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:36:39 +0000

I’ve heard of shellacking in the wodwork/ craft sense. Also, I’ve heard people say they were shellacked if they were very, very drunk.

By: Caryle

Caryle — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:29:20 +0000

I’ve used shellacking in three contexts:
1. Someone beat the pants off another sports team.
2. Someone used waaaaaay too much product in their hair. (“Think she could have shellacked her hair into place anymore? Ugh.”) Why yes, I am a child of the 80s and 90s. LOL
3. Shellacking furniture.

I’ve never heard argy-bargy before, but it sounds like a fun word.

I’m from the Midwestern United States – Illinois till I was 8, Kansas for many years, and now Des Moines, Iowa.

By: Laura

Laura — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:48:06 +0000

Like many of the people above, I’ve used shellacking in sports-related conversations. Never heard argy-bargy, though. I grew up in the US in St. Louis, Missouri and Washington DC.

By: marce

marce — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 16:10:30 +0000

Edmonton, Alberta.

Shellacking is used here with reference to sporting events.
“The Oilers shellacked the Flames last weekend in back-to-back games proving this rivalry is only going to get better over the season.”

I am from Indiana, but I first heard this word used in this context when I moved to Canada in my 20’s and I hear it most often from men over the age of 30.

My teen son also uses this word in the same context as a sort of homage, I think, to his dad. He might say, “The Oilers totally frickin’ shellacked the Flames. Snap.”

Hope that helps…

By: Calistro

Calistro — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:08:30 +0000

I’ve never heard of the first word but argy-bargy is used over here in the UK (I live on the south coast). I’d use it the following way:

The fight in the pub started with a bit of argy-bargy between two drinkers at the bar but soon escalated into a full on rut.

By: Lethe

Lethe — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:50:14 +0000

I’ve heard “shellacking” as a noun in the sporting sense (and as a verb in the woodworking sense), but I’ve never used it. I suspect I’ve only heard it from sports announcers, and perhaps just UK/Commonwealth ones at that.

I was in my 20s before I’d ever heard “argy-bargy,” and I know that was from a Kiwi. I’ve never used it.

FWIW, I grew up just outside of Denver, Colorado, USA.

By: Merrie Haskell

Merrie Haskell — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:21:13 +0000

Shellacking is what you do after you sand down a piece of furniture. It involves varnish.

I grew up in Michigan and North Carolina, but the word is of Michigan–I remember hearing my aunt saying she’d bought some old desks from the school, which would be great after a thorough sanding and shellacking. I don’t think I ever heard the word in NC. As per Michigan, I was then living above the gun line, which is to say, the areas that get the first day of deer-season off of school, as hunting is a food supplement of great importance for a lot of people.

I think if I said shellacking in that context in Ann Arbor, I’d get some puzzled looks, especially amongst the younger generations.

By: ebear

ebear — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:00:57 +0000

I have both delivered and received a shellacking in my time, but I’ve never had an argy-bargy. I’m from central Connecticut, in the New Englandish provinces of the United States.

By: veejane

veejane — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:21:37 +0000

Coastal northeast USA: I’ve never heard argy-bargy.

I’ve seen/used shellacking, but almost never in noun form. It’s “He got shellacked”, but much more commonly “he got shelled” or even “he got waxed”. (Or any of a zillion similarly colorful terms drawn from sports — especially boxing.)

By: Nicholas Waller

Nicholas Waller — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:44:23 +0000

define:argy-bargy in Google indicates I am wrong, apparently… it’s more verbal than physical, according to the results. My use of the term is slanted to the “barging” rather than the “argument” but still, I’ll carry on using it my way.