The Crispin Colloquy

I was at Incredible Pizza (they have a pizza buffet and lots of games for the little ones to play) with my girl friend and her son yesterday. He was playing a game where you use a rifle (that shoots a light beam of some sort) at a target which in turn makes things move, squirt water, make noise, etc. On the back wall of this "game" there was a shelf of books. One really caught my eye and thought it strange because i don't know how many people actually know what skiving is let alone the little kids that were playing the game.

And I was actually wondering if anyone has read the book and if it helped...

I think it is British slang for slacking off.

If I'm right, I credit the Harry Potter books

Erick

Erick,

You are correct about a different meaning to the word. I don't know if it is english slang or not but i found a definition for skive

"Noun. An evasion of one's tasks, a period of shirking.
Verb. To evade doing one's work or duties, to truant. E.g."Every Friday afternoon you can guarantee he'll be skiving and getting drunk down the pub.""

C Double

It is English. Never heard it in Canada, or US. Heard it in UK, Ireland.

Thom,

Believe or not,I had an Irish descent Canadian woman friend here at the shop the other day when i was telling her about a personality of someone,when she suddenly said "He is a skiver: my jaws fell to the ground,i asked her what she meant by "skiver" and she replied a "trimmer" i was amazed! when i asked her about the word, she said she watches "Coronation street".

Nasser

I believe you, it might be more of a problem over there. Many years ago when I was in competitive sports, I can remember people talking about the unfair advantage they had with the dole and people being able to train full time without worrying about money. Of course that is a pretty strenuous version of skiving (and probably mostly sour grapes). I was surprised to hear that things have gotten worse from the perpective of a wack of visiting young UK counsins last summer. You can't skive in Canada, there is always the snow to shovel and the woodstove to feed, or a mosquito squadron to swat (at least that is my story).

Did anyone happen to listen to 'Says You' on NPR this morning (Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012)? One of the words to be defined (or bluffed about) was 'naumkeag'!! And the contestants did not guess it right, though many in the audience apparently did! There must be plenty of shoemakers or at least shoe repair folks in Seattle!!

It was one of the few times I actually knew the meaning of the word they presented. Most of the others aren't even IN any of the dictionaries I own!

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I am Canadian, and the first use of the word I ever heard was "shirking one's tasks" or something like that. It was in high school, a naughty English teacher taught us the word, so we would know how to properly term our irresponsible behaviour!!

(I am skiving at the moment, actually trying to search the forum for discussion of skiving knives, angles, sharpening and use, and came up with this!!)

anakim wrote:I am Canadian, and the first use of the word I ever heard was "shirking one's tasks" or something like that. It was in high school, a naughty English teacher taught us the word, so we would know how to properly term our irresponsible behaviour!!

(I am skiving at the moment, actually trying to search the forum for discussion of skiving knives, angles, sharpening and use, and came up with this!!)

If I recall correctly the Brits use "paring" to refer to thinning the edge of a piece of leather, as well.

So if you're feeling guilty about "skiving", you can always pare instead.