This site uses cookies. Some of these cookies are essential to the operation of the site, while others help to improve your experience by providing insights into how the site is being used. For more information, please see the ProZ.com privacy policy.
Cookie settings
relationship between
to a view across Sydney Harbour at...

Glossary entry

English term or phrase:

Somebody "have (got) no place doing something"

English answer:

"...no place doing" common enough

Added to glossary by Yvonne Gallagher
Apr 2, 2013 21:29
11 yrs ago
3 viewers *
English term

Somebody "have (got) no place doing something"

English Other Slang Similar and Interchangeable idioms
Actually, it is widespread standard usage to say "Hey! You've got no BUSINESS tellING/To tell me how to go about my assingments". This is documented in a number of lexicons -- of both English loosely and of idioms/slang. Having said that, it turns out that the same usage, now substituting PLACE for BUSINESS rifes as well. Nevertheless, do you know how many lexical references I found of PLACE? Not one. Now, if any colleague could provide links to dictionaries attesting as oficial usage the pattern, I would be so grateful.
Regards.
Responses
4 +2 "...no place doing" common enough
References
NS OED
Change log

Apr 20, 2013 22:37: Yvonne Gallagher Created KOG entry

Discussion

Sheila Wilson Apr 3, 2013:
I'd certainly not use it, but I've heard it often It's tantamount to saying "what's a two-bit worthless person like you doing telling high-and-mighty me...". I find that sentiment quite offensive. Business, OTOH, always has boundaries and it pays to mind one's own at times.
Victoria Britten Apr 3, 2013:
Agree with Tony... ...at least partially: for me it is indeed dated - stinks of the rigid class system - but not necessarily formal. I think you can safely substitute "business" and that meaning.
FNO (asker) Apr 2, 2013:
Mr Tony M [Apologies for the solecism]//Well, for the basis to my initial claim, please, Google in brackets "have no place doing", then "have no place telling", hit ENTER and voilà/touché rolled into one: they do occur quite often, and without a soupçon of stiltedness. And yet no lexical register, if as colloquialism!
jccantrell Apr 2, 2013:
I would know the expression as "it is not your place to ....." but not the way the asker has phrased it.
Of course, I am just a lowly Murkin, so what do I know.

Look up "it is not your place" and you will find it in several online dictionaries.
Tony M Apr 2, 2013:
Puzzled You claim that "the same usage, now substituting PLACE for BUSINESS rifes [sic] as well" — yet you say you find no lexical references. Now if you have found no references, on what are you basing your initial claim?

I am certainly familiar with the construction, but in my mind, it is a rather dated and quite stilted, formal expression that might have been used by middle-or upper-class people in a 19th C novel, for example. 'place' is the sort of term that would often have been used in a society or organization where there was a noticeable hierarchy, as in "It's not a chambermaid's place to tell her mistress what to do"; 'business' strikes me as more modern, as in 'it's none of your business'.

Responses

+2
13 hrs
Selected

"...no place doing" common enough

I haven't been able to find this expression in dictionaries either but that doesn't mean it is not used. There are lots of expressions that you will not find in dictionaries.

As you say, all you need to do is Google ""have no place doing", then "have no place telling", and it's quite obvious that the expression is in current use with nothing formal or pompous about it. So yes, I understand what Tony is saying about the use of this expression in formal ways but but I believeit's still in use as meaning "(you/he/she/they) have/ has no business (=place) telling/doing. It is probably more common to use the expression

"it's not your/his etc place to... "

but I've also heard it the other way
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/not place



--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 22 hrs (2013-04-03 19:54:48 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Yes, so besides having the meaning, have no place/business telling... this also has the meaning "have no RIGHT to tell ..." i.e. not have the authority to...

Peer comment(s):
agree Charles Davis : So it seems; my first reaction was that I don't say it. It seems to mean the same as "no business"; i.e., no right. "Not your place to" seems to me slightly different: you're not important enough.
3 hrs
Thanks Charles, yes, it can be read in several ways
agree Tina Vonhof (X) : I think in 'proper' slang it would be "it ain't your place".
5 hrs
thanks Tina! yes, "it ain't your place" quite common
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Selected automatically based on peer agreement."

Reference comments

30 mins
Reference:

NS OED

Definition #9

A proper or appropriate position; fig. a fitting time or occasion; reasonable opportuinty or grounds

I'm not sure this is terribly current usage, and certainly not slang; to my ears, it is a rather dated and quite formal expression.
Peer comments on this reference comment:
agree Jim Tucker (X) : I don't see it as antiquated; can easily imagine using it myself. Would say it's neither slang nor formal.
9 hrs
Thanks, Jim! No, I wouldn't say 'antiquated', just maybe more of my parent's generation than my own...
agree David Moore (X) : Come on Tony, even you're not that young any more...It's not old-fashioned to me either., so I agree with Jim.
10 hrs
Thanks, David! Oh well, I'm just a down-to-earth sort of guy, I don't use pompous language like this ;-)
Something went wrong...
Close search
Term search
  • All of ProZ.com
  • Term search
  • Jobs
  • Forums
  • Multiple search