ISSUES Vol.

19, September 2007

Modern English in action

Enhancing our everyday English!
Contributed by Dr Angeliki Deligianni
deligian@enl.auth.gr
Do you want to enjoy every single saying or phrase
in an article, a chapter of a book, all sorts of scripts?
Do you want to resolve a friendly argument over what
a saying or phrase actually means, when it can be
used and how it originated? Or do you simply enjoy
sayings, phrases, or words?
If yes, then you'll probably be interested in this
column which is meant to become interactive. You are
invited to e-mail to us your questions about the
meaning and origin of sayings or phrases that you are
interested in.
For a start, the phrase "The Full Monty" was the title
of the eponymous 1997 film. A blockbuster worldwide.
In Greece too.
The release of the film, sparked off the demand for
a)explaining what it means and
b)where the phrase came from.
The former is easy to answer: It means "the whole
thing, everything, the whole lot".
The second question is difficult to answer definitely.
It seems that there are almost as many explanations
as there are writers doing the explaining. The
dictionaries department at the Oxford University Press
provides a number of different stories for this
expression entry.
However the most repeated derivation is from the
tailoring business of Sir Montague (Monty) Burton.
Burton opened his first shop in Chesterfield in 1904. As
the business flourished he opened a chain of shops in
1906. By 1913 he had his headquarters in Sheffield
where the film "The Full Monty" was set. The firm
became huge, with more than 500 shops by 1929, and
made a quarter of the British Uniforms in the Second
World War. The full monty would be a three-piece suit,
with the waistcoat included, not just coat and trousers.
Customers often asked for the full monty by name,
when they wanted to place an order for the "whole
thing". Burton's name became well known as well as
the phrase "the full monty" which came to mean "the
whole thing", "complete", at around 1985.
People who have known the business prefer the
Montague Burton origin. They argue that the firm used
to offer a two- piece suit as the basic option. By paying
an extra sum of money you could have a waistcoat
plus a spare pair of trousers. That meant that you
would go for the Full Monty.
A few words about the film.
"The full Monty" is a 1997 Academy Award-winning
British Comedy Film. It is about six unemployed steel

workers who, living in Sheffield "the beating heart of

Britain's industrial north in the early 70's" find
themselves unemployed a quarter of century later.
Being in dire straits they decide to perform a striptease
in front of 200 women , to do the "full monty" strip,
meaning to strip all the way, hence the film's title. Their
motive is to make money. Gaz, one of the heroes,
desperately wants to earn some money to pay for his
child support obligations. his would allow him to see
his son. Despite being a comedy, the film touches on
hot issues, like the effects of economic recession on a
country, the contribution of unemployment to
increasing divorce rates, father's rights and relations,
depression,
frustration,
attempted
suicide,
forgiveness, behavior or jokes that go too far. The film
inspired a 2000 Broadway musical of the same name
after having americanised characters and setting.
The film features British slang, informal English,
insulting and more particularly the slang of Sheffield.
e.g.
"Ta" for "Thank you".
"nutter" for "crazy person/idiot" ()
"bugger" for "smb annoying or unpleasant" ()
"t','" for definite article "the"
"jennel" for "alley"
"thang" for "thing"
"mug" for "stupid" ()
"nifty" for "practical, handy" ()
"kit off" for "take your clothes off"
"caper" for "illegal/dangerous activity" (,
)
Watch the film and find more..
I would suggest you get the DVD, from your nearest
DVD club and play it with English subtitles. This will
help you to identify more slang or simply informal,
everyday English.
I wish you enjoy viewing!
Your comments are more than welcome! They will
certainly see the light of the day!
AND YOY'LL RELISH "ISSUES" SPOTLIGHTS!
Sources:
The Oxford English Dictionary
Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia
www.worldwidewords.org
www.phrases.org.uk