Using Google for British translation....(B speaking).

Sometimes a surreptitious use of an online search is critical for understanding what the hell is going on here.

I doubt this has made it to the US, but the front page headlines in the UK this weekend concerned footballers (i.e. soccer) players John Terry (Chelsea) and Wayne Bridge (Manchester City). In past weeks, John Terry has been stripped of the captaincy for the England World Cup team because of rather scandalous behavior, including but not limited to: 1) being so drunk at a nightclub that he peed inside a pint glass--on the dance floor) 2) having sex with a 25 year old fan in his Bentley a week after being named "Father of the Year" for supposedly doting on his wife and twins 3) having sex with a female fan, in a nightclub bathroom--utterly undeterred by the fact that said young fan had a broken leg and was on crutches. But particularly slimy was the fact that Terry also slept with Wayne Bridge's girlfriend (and the mother of his child) when the two were not only teammates, but best friends. This came to a head (errr....) when Bridge decided to withdraw from consideration from being on the squad for the upcoming World Cup squad, and refused to shake Terry's hand at the Chelsea--Man City match yesterday.

What this has to do with me concerns my puzzlement over the coverage of said affair, and particularly news reports feverishly reporting that the Terry camp, in response to the publicity storm, started circulating reports that Bridge was a "bottler." Well, a shame that he drinks a lot, I thought, but that's sort of neither here nor there, isn't it? Ah....until the very curiousness of it all led me to a quick Google search explaining that a bottler is someone who chickens out, or can't stand up to pressure, and helpfully clarifying that the term derives from one's intestines, or indeed, manhood, bottling up in fear and under pressure. And now it all makes infinitely more sense. And indeed it seems that there is no bottling of any kind in Terry's loins, apparently.

Of course, when you are in an Edinburgh pub and have no iPhone or Internet access to explain what the "neeps and tatties" on the menu are, you realize how dependent we all are in the Information Age.

PS: http://www.fife.50megs.com/neeps-tatties.htm