Mar 29 2007
char people
twenty-fifth in a clean series of posts about taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA.
Thursday Tiffin #25: char people
I have not heard the phrase char lady or any politically correct variation thereof, such as char people, in the NW USA. The BBC has used it to refer to an Amercian and a contemporary website has it advertised as a job-type. At my place of work there are char people. They do not wear beautifully tied headscarfs, bring a tea trolley passed your office at 3.30pm, have cigarettes hanging out of the side of their mouth or provide snippits of wisdom disguised in a subversively surly, morose, wrapping. This wrapping isn’t widely available in NW USA workplaces. Sigh.
Two of the definitions of char from Allwords.com
1. To do paid cleaning work in someone’s house, an office, etc. (noun); Etymology: Anglo-Saxon cierran.
2. Slang for Tea (noun); Etymology: from chinese cha (20th century)
char people
