Re: To 'beat the rat'?

Frido Schefft wrote:
Am Wed, 9 Aug 2006 22:40:03 +0200 schrieb John of Aix:

Frido Schefft wrote:
Am Wed, 9 Aug 2006 17:43:48 +0100 schrieb Ben Shimmin:

Frido Schefft <schefft@xxxxxx>:
Am Wed, 9 Aug 2006 17:28:37 +0100 schrieb Ben Shimmin:

Frido Schefft <schefft@xxxxxx>:
I was watching the film "About a boy" the other day and I
distinctly heard Hugh Grant say "I think we beat the rat there,
mate."

[...]

I think you'll find he says `beat the rap'.

Oops, well... But I still don't have a clue. What does that mean?

Oh, sorry, a definition would have been helpful, wouldn't it? :)

It means `avoid being punished'.

That fits the situation perfectly. Thank you.

It's mainly an Americanism though UK speakers and other English
speakers know it. A 'rap' is a charge, in a police sense, so you get
other expressions like 'a bum rap' for a trumped up charge (or at
least trumped up according to the person being charged). It probably
comes from 'a rap on the knuckles', that is, being hit by a
schoolteacher, parents etc, literally or figuratively.

Thanks. I've read up on those expressions. Apart from being of US (and
Canadian) origin, "to beat the rap" is also marked as being slang. I
think I can deal with the different levels of formality of
vocabulary and idiomatic expressions (or lack thereof). However, you
say "UK speakers and other English speakers know it". Does that mean
that it would still stick out as not really being proper English (BE,
of course) if I used it in causal conversation? I mean there are
certainly quite a number of linguistic traps for a non-native speaker
to fall into. I do not want to add to those by deliberately using US
slang, if I can prevent it.

Non-native speakers would not be expected to employ slang expressions, so
any use would stick out, whereas it would normally be unnoticed if used by a
native speaker. The main hazard is irony, which could well have been
employed in this case - or maybe it was simply using Americanisms for an
"international" (i.e. American) audience.
--
John Briggs


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