Checking For Parsley
The Origins of the Beavish Slang "Checking For Parsley"
"Checking for parsley" means "going to the toilet".
September, 2004
Paul, Huw and myself met for fish and chips at the Rosalie restaurant precinct on the Friday evening. I had walked all the way from work through the hills of Paddington and with my back in a sad state, I was looking to be entertained and get things off my mind.
Huw paid for fish and chips, while Paul and myself ordered an assorted collection of seafood, along with, of course, chips. Waiting for food to be served, we mused on the personalities of the people sitting nearby and generally pounded ourselves on the back with our cleverness. I pulled out my list of Beavish, still called at this time "The Language" and we ran through it, laughing as we did so, and covering our mouths with our hands as though slightly embarrassed by our strange occupation.
At some stage or other, I declared a need for emptying my bladder and Paul responded in the affirmative and off we set, feeling not unlike children who had secretly taken money from their mother's purse and were off to purchase those illicit ice creams announced by the "Greensleeves" music that wound through our neighbourhood (whatever would Henry VIII think?). By that, I do not mean to say we found going to the toilet a guilty pleasure, but because we had been laughing out loud about silly and frivolous things and were thrilled by our secret bond and the slight spectacle we might have been making, even if no-one had noticed us. Which was likely, engrossed, as they were, in their own conversations.
Through the carpark and up some Dimly Lit Stairs we went, but not before weaving our way past some more tables and Rosalie intellectuals and generally the sort of people who vote for the Greens but wouldn't help a drunk man down some stairs in case he vomited over their Italian leather shoes. I don't have to worry about this as I don't own Italian leather shoes.
The Dimly Lit Stairs seemed like something out of those film noir movies, and I expected to find Humphrey Bogart coming the other way down the stairs after just telling some dame in some apartment that maybe he's cute, but he can't do nothing unless people start talking the truth. At the top of the stairs, there was a little entrance which had the sign "Gentleman" above, but we went in anyway. The next door had no sign on it and we pondered if it was the right one, but as there were no others, we assumed so. Paul tried the door. It wouldn't budge. Perhaps it was stuck. He raised his eyebrows at me and suggested without words that we should give it a thump. He then did so, using his shoulder, and the door refused to budge, throwing him off balance, but not as much as when we heard a slightly scared voice emanating from inside, saying something about the room being occupied.
Embarrassed by what we had done, we stifled laughs and ran from the room and down the stairs, out again into the cold night air and conversations about The Bachelor, before erupting into fits of uncontrolled giggling. We proposed to return to our table and venture into the toilets a little later in the evening.
We tried to tell our story to Huw but it seemed too strange and unexplainable, being a moment that had to be experienced, and even now I doubt that I have made it clear as to how odd it was. Soon dinner was served.
Tucking into the meal, I remembered just how enjoyable deep fried seafood is. I rarely eat it because of an intolerant stomach but now it seemed a perfect way to unwind. Each meal had parsley served with it and I noticed Huw had not eaten his. Personally, I eat everything on the plate, but that's just the way I am - I hate wastage.
"Aren't you going to eat your parsley?" I said.
"Oh no," said Huw. "It can give me the shits."
It sounded unusual, so we laughed.
"But you would have to eat a fair bit," said Paul. "To have that happen?"
"Well yes," Huw replied, in his unassuming way.
A little later, I had finished and was licking the crumbs off my fingers. "You know," I said. "In some countries, if they don't have mistletoe, they hang parsley above the door at Christmas, and people have to kiss when they stand under it."
Paul thought about this for a second and started to laugh and then held back in the way he does when he thinks of something that might be a little bit controversial and confronting. And we know what he will say next will cause us to groan in disgust and hold our sides with laughter at the same time.
"Tell us," I said.
"Well...Well in some....in some countries if there is some parsley above you, you have to crouch down and take a dump," he said. And we did, we groaned and laughed long and loud, not believing our ears.
After we had eaten, we stopped by the Bottle-O or as Beavisians would say, the "sweat shop" to pick up ingredients for a Snake Bite that Paul would mix back at his place. A Snake Bite is one part beer, one part cider and one part ginger wine and has a warm, languid kick about it. Paul deliberated over which beer was best, while Huw and I stood around and looked like we knew what it was all about, only pausing to chortle under our breath as a woman brushed past a wine glass display, sending the glasses floorwards to shatter where they landed and cause people to continually say "Watch out, there's broken glass there!"
With the purchases purchased, I suggested we hail a taxi, as my back was fair to painful. So donning a plastic bag on my head (I am not sure why, but perhaps it was, as The Goons' Eccles would say "It fits, that's why!") I called a taxi, and the driver, incorrectly assuming we were already drunk, drove us to Paul's Auchenflower flat. It was sometime later, when we were perhaps "polylingual", and it was after talking to our good friend The Reverend Nigel on the phone, and listening to Paul's collection of Moog anthems, and keeping the evening's events in mind, that we happened upon the phrase "check the parsley".
And so it was whenever we went to the toilet, no matter what we were doing there, we checked the parsley.
In December, many of us ventured down to Adelaide where the aforementioned Rev Nigel became Fr Nigel in a wonderful ceremony. The evening did come and saw us eating at a Mongolian BBQ restaurant, where you choose your ingredients and they cook it in front of you on a wood-fired hotplate with long chop sticks. Eating and carousing was over and we shuffled on to the street, some to go back to their temporary accommodation before heading back to Brisbane, while I was to go with Fr Nigel and his wife-to-be Christine to Murray Bridge, and stay for a few days.
Paul took me aside and spoke to me earnestly.
"I think there may be a problem with the usage of 'check the parsley'" he said. There was no time to explain, so we promised to meet up on my return to Brisbane a few weeks later and discuss this very important matter.
We're back in Brisbane and after a late night cup of tea with Paul and his bowtie Beth, we set off in the car to drop me home.
"I'm disappointed in you, James," said Paul.
I knew what he was talking about and had been waiting for him to broach this subject.
"What you mean the 'check the parsley' thing?" I said eloquently.
"Yeah."
"What's the problem with it?"
"Well, I just think that there might be a problem with the wording in that when you go to the toilet and there is no parsley there, you won't be checking the parsley because in most cases it won't be there. You will need to check for parsley."
It took me a little while to work out what he was saying and a little longer for Beth, although I suspect she knew all along, and was only pretending not to, as that would mean she was on the same wavelength as us and she steadfastly refuses to acknowledge this fact. It also got quite vulgar as Beth, taking things literally, questioned whether you had to do a number two every time you saw parsley. And she used Paddington's Kookaburra Cafe as an example (just because we were passing it at the time) in a way that made us not want to go there and eat at any time soon.
And so it was: That was how "checking for parsley" came into being.
Let's review the Beavish words and phrases you learned today:
Checking for parsley - Going to the toilet
Sweat Shop - Bottle Shop (Bottle shop --> Bottle-O --> BO --> Body Odour --> sweat shop)
Polylingual - The type of verbosity one experiences when one has drunk too much alcohol or, to keep with Beavish terms, when one has "swallowed the horse".
Bowtie - Partner or boyfriend/girlfriend. Can also be your "bow" or "tie". Derived from the term "beau" - meaning boyfriend - and then misappropriated.
Swallow the horse - To drink too much alcohol.
Due to other commitments, you may have to wait another few weeks before you read the next exciting chapter in "The Slang of Beavish".
"Checking for parsley" means "going to the toilet".
September, 2004
Paul, Huw and myself met for fish and chips at the Rosalie restaurant precinct on the Friday evening. I had walked all the way from work through the hills of Paddington and with my back in a sad state, I was looking to be entertained and get things off my mind.
Huw paid for fish and chips, while Paul and myself ordered an assorted collection of seafood, along with, of course, chips. Waiting for food to be served, we mused on the personalities of the people sitting nearby and generally pounded ourselves on the back with our cleverness. I pulled out my list of Beavish, still called at this time "The Language" and we ran through it, laughing as we did so, and covering our mouths with our hands as though slightly embarrassed by our strange occupation.
At some stage or other, I declared a need for emptying my bladder and Paul responded in the affirmative and off we set, feeling not unlike children who had secretly taken money from their mother's purse and were off to purchase those illicit ice creams announced by the "Greensleeves" music that wound through our neighbourhood (whatever would Henry VIII think?). By that, I do not mean to say we found going to the toilet a guilty pleasure, but because we had been laughing out loud about silly and frivolous things and were thrilled by our secret bond and the slight spectacle we might have been making, even if no-one had noticed us. Which was likely, engrossed, as they were, in their own conversations.
Through the carpark and up some Dimly Lit Stairs we went, but not before weaving our way past some more tables and Rosalie intellectuals and generally the sort of people who vote for the Greens but wouldn't help a drunk man down some stairs in case he vomited over their Italian leather shoes. I don't have to worry about this as I don't own Italian leather shoes.
The Dimly Lit Stairs seemed like something out of those film noir movies, and I expected to find Humphrey Bogart coming the other way down the stairs after just telling some dame in some apartment that maybe he's cute, but he can't do nothing unless people start talking the truth. At the top of the stairs, there was a little entrance which had the sign "Gentleman" above, but we went in anyway. The next door had no sign on it and we pondered if it was the right one, but as there were no others, we assumed so. Paul tried the door. It wouldn't budge. Perhaps it was stuck. He raised his eyebrows at me and suggested without words that we should give it a thump. He then did so, using his shoulder, and the door refused to budge, throwing him off balance, but not as much as when we heard a slightly scared voice emanating from inside, saying something about the room being occupied.
Embarrassed by what we had done, we stifled laughs and ran from the room and down the stairs, out again into the cold night air and conversations about The Bachelor, before erupting into fits of uncontrolled giggling. We proposed to return to our table and venture into the toilets a little later in the evening.
We tried to tell our story to Huw but it seemed too strange and unexplainable, being a moment that had to be experienced, and even now I doubt that I have made it clear as to how odd it was. Soon dinner was served.
Tucking into the meal, I remembered just how enjoyable deep fried seafood is. I rarely eat it because of an intolerant stomach but now it seemed a perfect way to unwind. Each meal had parsley served with it and I noticed Huw had not eaten his. Personally, I eat everything on the plate, but that's just the way I am - I hate wastage.
"Aren't you going to eat your parsley?" I said.
"Oh no," said Huw. "It can give me the shits."
It sounded unusual, so we laughed.
"But you would have to eat a fair bit," said Paul. "To have that happen?"
"Well yes," Huw replied, in his unassuming way.
A little later, I had finished and was licking the crumbs off my fingers. "You know," I said. "In some countries, if they don't have mistletoe, they hang parsley above the door at Christmas, and people have to kiss when they stand under it."
Paul thought about this for a second and started to laugh and then held back in the way he does when he thinks of something that might be a little bit controversial and confronting. And we know what he will say next will cause us to groan in disgust and hold our sides with laughter at the same time.
"Tell us," I said.
"Well...Well in some....in some countries if there is some parsley above you, you have to crouch down and take a dump," he said. And we did, we groaned and laughed long and loud, not believing our ears.
After we had eaten, we stopped by the Bottle-O or as Beavisians would say, the "sweat shop" to pick up ingredients for a Snake Bite that Paul would mix back at his place. A Snake Bite is one part beer, one part cider and one part ginger wine and has a warm, languid kick about it. Paul deliberated over which beer was best, while Huw and I stood around and looked like we knew what it was all about, only pausing to chortle under our breath as a woman brushed past a wine glass display, sending the glasses floorwards to shatter where they landed and cause people to continually say "Watch out, there's broken glass there!"
With the purchases purchased, I suggested we hail a taxi, as my back was fair to painful. So donning a plastic bag on my head (I am not sure why, but perhaps it was, as The Goons' Eccles would say "It fits, that's why!") I called a taxi, and the driver, incorrectly assuming we were already drunk, drove us to Paul's Auchenflower flat. It was sometime later, when we were perhaps "polylingual", and it was after talking to our good friend The Reverend Nigel on the phone, and listening to Paul's collection of Moog anthems, and keeping the evening's events in mind, that we happened upon the phrase "check the parsley".
And so it was whenever we went to the toilet, no matter what we were doing there, we checked the parsley.
In December, many of us ventured down to Adelaide where the aforementioned Rev Nigel became Fr Nigel in a wonderful ceremony. The evening did come and saw us eating at a Mongolian BBQ restaurant, where you choose your ingredients and they cook it in front of you on a wood-fired hotplate with long chop sticks. Eating and carousing was over and we shuffled on to the street, some to go back to their temporary accommodation before heading back to Brisbane, while I was to go with Fr Nigel and his wife-to-be Christine to Murray Bridge, and stay for a few days.
Paul took me aside and spoke to me earnestly.
"I think there may be a problem with the usage of 'check the parsley'" he said. There was no time to explain, so we promised to meet up on my return to Brisbane a few weeks later and discuss this very important matter.
We're back in Brisbane and after a late night cup of tea with Paul and his bowtie Beth, we set off in the car to drop me home.
"I'm disappointed in you, James," said Paul.
I knew what he was talking about and had been waiting for him to broach this subject.
"What you mean the 'check the parsley' thing?" I said eloquently.
"Yeah."
"What's the problem with it?"
"Well, I just think that there might be a problem with the wording in that when you go to the toilet and there is no parsley there, you won't be checking the parsley because in most cases it won't be there. You will need to check for parsley."
It took me a little while to work out what he was saying and a little longer for Beth, although I suspect she knew all along, and was only pretending not to, as that would mean she was on the same wavelength as us and she steadfastly refuses to acknowledge this fact. It also got quite vulgar as Beth, taking things literally, questioned whether you had to do a number two every time you saw parsley. And she used Paddington's Kookaburra Cafe as an example (just because we were passing it at the time) in a way that made us not want to go there and eat at any time soon.
And so it was: That was how "checking for parsley" came into being.
Let's review the Beavish words and phrases you learned today:
Checking for parsley - Going to the toilet
Sweat Shop - Bottle Shop (Bottle shop --> Bottle-O --> BO --> Body Odour --> sweat shop)
Polylingual - The type of verbosity one experiences when one has drunk too much alcohol or, to keep with Beavish terms, when one has "swallowed the horse".
Bowtie - Partner or boyfriend/girlfriend. Can also be your "bow" or "tie". Derived from the term "beau" - meaning boyfriend - and then misappropriated.
Swallow the horse - To drink too much alcohol.
Due to other commitments, you may have to wait another few weeks before you read the next exciting chapter in "The Slang of Beavish".
posted by Lord Beavish at 7:35 pm
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