Back to buts

[James Hogg]

Well, it's Monday, and back to buts.

How many people here know and use this expression? If you know it, how
long would you say it has been around?

--
James

[Guy Barry]

"James Hogg" wrote in message news:lg6a3f$954$2...@dont-email.me...

>
>Well, it's Monday, and back to buts.
>
>How many people here know and use this expression?

Never heard of it. No idea what it means, either, and Google isn't much
use, though it seems to be something that people say at the start of the
week. Can you elucidate?

--
Guy Barry

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

James Hogg skrev:

> How many people here know and use this expression? If you know it, how
> long would you say it has been around?

I do not know it. What does it mean?

--
Bertel, Denmark

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

It seems to be used to mean "back to the beginning".

A use is recorded in the Northern Ireland Hansard (parliamentary
record).

During a meeting (8 June 2011) of the Northern Ireland Assembly's
Committee for Employment and Learning Mr Jim Allister said (re
university tuition fees):

I am concerned that we are ending this session without a great deal
of clarity on the timescale or content of where we are going on
tuition fees. You say that you hope to put forward a paper
before recess, which is worrying in itself, but that it may not be
until after recess. However, it is clear that your paper will
include an option for increasing fees. That may be kicked back to
-> you, and we may then be back to “buts”, I suspect, and more time
lost. New terms are looming, and universities, parents and students
need to know where they stand.

From pdf file:
http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/Documents/Official-Reports/Employment/2011-2012/Overview%20of%20the%20Work%20of%20the%20Department%20for%20Employment%20and%20Learning%208.6.11.pdf
or
http://tinyurl.com/q33lem3

The entry for "but" in the OED doesn't give anything that could be
forcibly twisted to fit the idea of a "but" as a starting point.

"butt" is more promising. It was sometimes spelled "but".

One sense that caught my eye is:

butt, n.3
2. The trunk of a tree, esp. the thickest part just above the root.

1601...
....
1787 G. Winter New Syst. Husbandry 103 The tops and buts of ash
and oak are more advantageous for burning into charcoal than if
sold for firing.

So when literally or figuratively climbing trees "back to buts" could
mean starting from the bottom again.

(Just a very tentative thought.)

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Cheryl]

I think it is, more simply, a reference to the other person's tendency
to waffle, and qualify his promises with "but". This person hoped that
the paper would be ready before recess, and added "but it may not be
until after recess". Allister is saying that the paper, whenever it is
presented, will included an unwelcome option for increasing fees, will
then be sent back to the other person, who will then cause further
delays, saying "I hope to have it ready by <date> but might not <because>"

Excuses heralded by "but", in other words.

I don't think it's an idiomatic expression at all - I've certainly never
heard it as such. I think it's a figure of speech referring to the
excuses for delays by the word "but" which precedes the excuses.

--
Cheryl

[James Hogg]

No, it means something like "back to everyday reality, back to the
normal routine", and it refers to starting work again on Monday or after
a holiday. I heard it in Ulster at the weekend and questioned it. My
sister was amazed that I had never heard it. She seemed to think it had
existed forever and maybe even that it was standard English. I
immediately googled and found very few examples. One Facebook status
update reads "Ok, back to buts today, what a week i have ahead, quite
possibly my busiest week yet", and it's from a cake shop in Ballymena.
My sister lives near there, so she's obviously grown accustomed to it.

In Peter's quotation from the Northern Ireland Assembly it seems to mean
"back to square one". What kind of "but(t)" people get back to is a
mystery to me. I can't find the expression in print anywhere.

--
James

[Marius Hancu]

James Hogg wrote:

> No, it means something like "back to everyday reality, back to the
> normal routine",

Very interesting.

> and it refers to starting work again on Monday or after
> a holiday. I heard it in Ulster at the weekend and questioned it. My
> sister was amazed that I had never heard it. She seemed to think it had
> existed forever and maybe even that it was standard English. I
> immediately googled and found very few examples. One Facebook status
> update reads "Ok, back to buts today, what a week i have ahead, quite
> possibly my busiest week yet", and it's from a cake shop in Ballymena.
> My sister lives near there, so she's obviously grown accustomed to it.
>
> In Peter's quotation from the Northern Ireland Assembly it seems to mean
> "back to square one". What kind of "but(t)" people get back to is a
> mystery to me. I can't find the expression in print anywhere.

--

Marius Hancu

[CDB]

On 17/03/2014 8:56 AM, James Hogg wrote:
> Cheryl wrote:

>> Peter Duncanson [BrE] wrote:
>>> "Guy Barry" <guy....@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

It's very common on Google with the extra "t", although many of those
uses appear to be puns on the expression (to do with smoking, for
instance). If you accept "buts" as a variant spelling of "butts", why
not "back to the daily routine of archery practice", after a battle?

[James Hogg]

CDB wrote:
> It's very common on Google with the extra "t", although many of those
> uses appear to be puns on the expression (to do with smoking, for
> instance). If you accept "buts" as a variant spelling of "butts", why
> not "back to the daily routine of archery practice", after a battle?

Archery practice has never been a big thing in County Antrim.

--
James

[Leslie Danks]

I have never come across it. I presume it was uttered by someone whose
weekend was fill of ifs.

--
Leslie (Les) Danks (BrE, m)
The days are long gone when the equipment for an attempt on Nanga Parbat
comprised stout walking boots, a tweed jacket and a stolen washing line.

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Mon, 17 Mar 2014 13:56:34 +0100, James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com>
wrote:

Another example from NI, in a football (soccer) context:
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Football%3A+Irish+League+Fanzone%3A+FANS+UNHAPPY+WITH+EIRCOM+LOAN+DEALS.-a096410708

OVALITE (Glentoran)

SOME of the players with top clubs - competing on all fronts - will
be playing as many games as pros in England or Scotland.

UNCLE FESTER (Glentoran)

THESE deals may give us short term gain - but at the start of next
-> season we would be back to buts again. I wouldn't like Glentoran
players to be loaned out to eircom League clubs .

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Mon, 17 Mar 2014 13:56:34 +0100, James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com>
wrote:

Accordingly to the Online Scots[1] Dictionary:

pl. butts Targets, place for archery practice, *a starting line*, a
bank of earth concealing grouse hunters, a measure of distance.

*my emphasis*

[1]
http://www.scots-online.org/dictionary/search_scots.asp

Scots is the Germanic language, related to English, spoken in
Lowland Scotland and Ulster, not the Celtic language Gaelic!

[James Hogg]

Peter Duncanson [BrE] wrote:
> Accordingly to the Online Scots[1] Dictionary:
>
> pl. butts Targets, place for archery practice, *a starting line*, a
> bank of earth concealing grouse hunters, a measure of distance.
>
> *my emphasis*
>
> [1] http://www.scots-online.org/dictionary/search_scots.asp
>
> Scots is the Germanic language, related to English, spoken in Lowland
> Scotland and Ulster, not the Celtic language Gaelic!

That seems after all to be the most likely source for an expression
meaning "square one". But I see no example in the Scottish dictionaries
of the phrase "back to butts". Mysterious.

--
James

[James Silverton]

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/X_me_no_Xs

But me no buts!

--
Jim Silverton (Potomac, MD)

Extraneous "not." in Reply To.

[James Hogg]

James Silverton wrote:
> On 3/17/2014 9:31 AM, James Hogg wrote:
>> CDB wrote:
>>> It's very common on Google with the extra "t", although many of those
>>> uses appear to be puns on the expression (to do with smoking, for
>>> instance). If you accept "buts" as a variant spelling of "butts", why
>>> not "back to the daily routine of archery practice", after a battle?
>>
>> Archery practice has never been a big thing in County Antrim.
>>
> http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/X_me_no_Xs
>
> But me no buts!

But can we get back to butts? Have you ever heard this as a Scots
expression?

--
James

[Mark Brader]

James Hogg:

>> Well, it's Monday, and back to buts.
>> How many people here know and use this expression?

Guy Barry:
> Never heard of it.

Likewise.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "But I do't have a '' key o my termial."
m...@vex.net -- Lynn Gold

[Robert Bannister]

Can't you store porter in large butts?

--
Robert Bannister - 1940-71 SE England
1972-now W Australia

[Seamus McAleavey]

The term back to but(t)s was common in Northern Ireland in 1960s when kids played ‘marbles’ a shooting game played with very small glass balls, pea sized, the line on the ground where players started was called butts! So in the game if you were forced back to the start you were declared back to butts. Don’t know the origin but the archery line mentioned above seems likely.

[Jerry Friedman]

I passed that interesting comment on to James Hogg.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Peter T. Daniels]

Your marbles are much smaller than American marbles
(or else your peas are much bigger than American peas).

[charles]

In article <7909a648-4848-4744...@googlegroups.com>, Seamus

Buts were where we lay when rifle shooting.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England - sent from my RISC OS 4té²
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

[Lionel Edwards]

Hoggify has become part of the English language:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxK4iGx_bno