I think there's a couple of options, none fitting perfectly. What is a less ambiguous way of saying this?Īs an aside, is there a word which means the misunderstanding of two phrases that sound identical but have completely different meanings? What actually prompted me to wonder if there is another way of saying "I need to do that foreigner" is that I said it recently to a colleague in a restaurant, but it was overheard by a nearby waitress who was not a native English speaker, who - judging by the shocked look on her face - clearly misunderstood the meaning and seemed to think that I wanted to have sex with her. I also found a thread on Word Reference asking the same question.Īccording to this webpage, the phrase "doing a foreigner" may originate from the 18 th century practice of Liverpool ship owners registering their ships abroad and carrying slaves for other countries, in order to flout the ban on the slave trade although this isn't verifiable. Wiktionary's definition isn't quite as clear (unless this is a different meaning again):Ī private job run by an employee at a trade factory rather than going through the business. I'm not coming to the pub this lunchtime, I'm staying at work to do a Foreigner for a mate of mine. With notable exceptions, doing Foreigners is a fairly accepted part of British working life and, depending on the workplace, can even be done with managemental consent. The most relevant "source" (and I use that term very loosely) that I could find was Urban Dictionary, which defines it as:Ĭommon British slang for unofficial work, often making use of company equipment/ time/ premises but solely for personal gain, unrelated to the interests of the company but DOES NOT hold racist connotations in this context. I have always assumed that the word ‘foreigner’ was an homonym, since it's use in the context of “doing a foreigner” is quite universally understood by most Brits. Up until right now, after looking up the word ‘foreigner’ in a few dictionaries and finding nothing relevant, I would never have guessed that it is British slang.
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