Thread J27

Well yes.

We simplified it by getting rid of all those unused vowels. You should really thank us. :sunglasses:

Apparently itā€™s an Acronym for ā€œNot On Normal Communal Exerciseā€ - i.e. they are segregated from the other inmates due to the nature of their crimes and wanting to avoid them getting shanked.

I canā€™t figure out why YOU GUYS canā€™t spell it right?! :laughing: I meanā€¦pediatrician has no a before the e, so why would pedophile?

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Meeting the characters is part of Disney, donā€™t worry Matt, keep enjoying those character meals. If Iā€™m going somewhere without children I donā€™t read the kids section, so I hope they end up under restaurants with a mention in the kids section. For me Iā€™d never do a character meal without children, unless that was the only way to get into a park early.

LOL @ryan1 thinks characters are silly but last time we talked about it the discussion degenerated so letā€™s not talk about itā€¦ :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: :crazy_face:

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This website suggests thatā€™s probably not true, certainly Iā€™ve never heard that explanation before. Most acronyms we use come from the US - FUBAR for example (at least I think thatā€™s from the US). Iā€™ve seen lots of words explained as being an acronym when actually they were in common use hundreds of years ago and evolved from other words. Annoyingly I canā€™t think of any now!

It does if you spell it properly.

But Pediatrician DOES have an a in front of it in the UKā€¦ unless you were kidding, which I am not great at detecting via internet.

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LOL I never figured why english words can have different spelling in UK vs US. Like ā€˜ā€˜realiseā€™ā€™ vs ā€˜ā€˜realizeā€™ā€™ and such. Even though we have very different accents, us French Canadians spell the same as French from Franceā€¦ :wink:

It was Urban Dictionary that claimed it was an acronym. The derivation would make some sense.

FUBAR is a WW2 acronym I believe for when things arenā€™t going well at allā€¦

Yes Iā€™d always understood it came from US troops to us in the war.

I wouldnā€™t call urban dictionary a reliable source but then I doubt thereā€™s a person in the U.K. who knows why we use the word so itā€™s hard to prove one way or the other. In the UK though I believe sex offenders are in with the general population unless they request segregation under rule 43 (Iā€™m not sure this is still the case but used to be).

No idea if itā€™s reliable - it was just the one with the definition that matched yours & had a believable origin claim. The regular dictionary site was just showing the normal word definition with nothing about prison slang. It does sound like the slang is a relatively recent derivationā€¦

Itā€™s certainly not been in use hundreds of years but I remember it from when I was a kid and Iā€™m 44. I think rule 43 began before I was 10 so I guess the dates could fit.

Etymology of nonce (because I have nothing better to do with my time)

Several origins have been proposed; possibly derived from dialectal nonce , nonse (ā€œstupid, worthless individualā€), or Nance , nance (ā€œeffeminate manā€), from nancy or nancyboy . Another theory is that it is a shortening or dialectal pronunciation of " no(t) once ", a common defense of sexual predators in court of law.

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Reading that etymology, it basically says: We have no idea where it came from! :wink:

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Most etymology of slang is that way. Etymology is so interesting.

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Thatā€™s what the link I posted said basically, but in a lot more words!

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Agreed.

My son tried to argue with me about why we should just spell all words phonetically. I told him that doing so would erase a bit of linguistic history.

Put simply, if your son came home from school or Uni and said he was being called this, particularly if he was homosexual, you would be extremely concerned for his well being and physical safety. It would probably be sufficient to have the ā€˜name callerā€™ arrested for a ā€˜hate crimeā€™. It is a derogatory and very unpleasant word. I would be appalled if I heard someone use it and would step in, as I have now.

Very topical!

Although Iā€™m not going to spell it out, but think upcoming court cases.