She put on her jumper, drove to my flat, and is now happily wrapped

June 16, 2009 6:18 PM

Wrapped up in British English filter, with

Earlier today, a lovely British lady and her daughter picked up a piece of furniture that I listed on Craigslist. She just sent me a follow-up thank you e-mail (never had that before, which was nice!) and said:

"Thank you very much for the CD holder, am wrapped!"

What does "wrapped" in this context mean? I assume it is positive, since it is preceded by a "thank you" and followed by a ":o)" but am wholly perplexed on what is meant by "wrapped."

Can any MeFi Brits or British English experts provide any thoughts on this?

posted by raztaj to society & culture (24 comments total)

Wrapped (also spelled rapt) means "very very happy".
posted by pompomtom at 6:23 PM on June 16

"Rapt".
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:23 PM on June 16 [1 favorite]

It means excited, but it's not common English origin slang that I have heard - it's more Australian, to me. It was pretty common on the daytime OZ soaps (Home and Away and Neighbours) from the early to mid 90's.

They both heavily implied that this was how teenagers in Australia talked and the two shows were enormously popular - I have no idea if it was an accurate representation. This is the only usage that I am aware of, and possibly stems from there. It's not any sort of English slang I have heard of apart from that.
posted by Brockles at 6:24 PM on June 16

It's Australian English primarily: wrapped. As noted above, it's a variant of 'rapt', as in 'enraptured'.
posted by Paragon at 6:25 PM on June 16

(further to Brockles' point: I'd always know it as an Australian usage, and don't think I've really ever heard a Brit employ it).
posted by pompomtom at 6:30 PM on June 16

Sorry, just to double check - in retrospect, are you sure they were from the UK and not Australia? It's just that, like pompomtom, I've never heard that expression in the UK, so I'm curious.
posted by DarlingBri at 6:53 PM on June 16

DarlingBri and others, I'm quite positive the woman was from the UK (or at least her accent was). My ear isn't attuned to regional specifics, but she didn't sound remotely Aussi at all to me. In any case, thanks all for the insight into the expression - maybe she spent some time in Australia, or watches a lot of OZ soaps and programs. Or maybe I'm totally incompetent when it comes to identifying accents, but it's nevertheless interesting to learn the definition of a new, previously unheard phrase!
posted by raztaj at 7:09 PM on June 16

As used in Australia/NZ:

A. I had mixed feelings, rapt that the White Ferns took the trophy but obviously disappointed and frustrated that I wasn't part of it

As used in the UK:

"My guess is that people are paying rapt attention to financial news right now just like people flock to the weather channel during a storm," said Gene Dewitt, chief executive of media buying agency Optimedia US.

They're different meanings. Hooray for Australasian cultural imperialism, led by its heroic soapie star vanguard.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:12 PM on June 16

Just as a follow-up data point: I have lived in NZ almost my entire life, but my accent is consistently identified as English - by NZers and Brits both. Just sayin'...
posted by Paragon at 7:16 PM on June 16

As an Australian old enough to have had most of his early education from British primers, I'm surprised that "rapt" isn't in common usage over there. It certainly was common enough once to be included in those old books - maybe it's lost favour over there in the intervening 50~60 years (I'm not that old, but the books were!), yet hung on here? Possibly because of those old textbooks?

But yeah, 'wrapped' for 'rapt' is one of those annoying semi-neologisms like "for all intensive purposes" which should be destroyed on sight. My English teacher girlfriend would ping kids for using it.

At least, I hope she would. I must ask her about that...

On preview: Fiasco da Gama, verbing adjectives is a fairly common game in Australian English.
posted by Pinback at 7:32 PM on June 16

Yeah, Pinback, as a Strine speaker myself, I verb adjectively all the time [he says, with a rising intonation at the end of his sentence?]

I was just pointing out that "rapt" in Australasian English has the connotation of happiness, surprise and euphoria, where elsewhere it's just intense concentration.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:41 PM on June 16

In terms of the history of that meaning, the OED cites the first printed occurrence of 'rapt' as an adjective in the Australian sense of "very pleased" in The Mercury of March 27, 1986:

"Hoyer ... said he'd be 'rapt to be invited to train with them'."

The spoken form is likely to predate it by several years. Used as an adjective with the original meaning ("enraptured") dates back to the late 16th century, and isn't localised to Oz.
posted by Paragon at 8:01 PM on June 16

The Australian soaps Neighbours (whence sprang Kylie Minogue) and Home and Away have been massively popular in Britain since the late '80s (I'm almost sure that's when I started hearing English people talk like Australians, with the question at the end of their sentence? Going up? With that rising intonation? Like a Valley girl?). I think it's entirely possible that this woman picked up the expression from one of the shows.
posted by vickyverky at 8:04 PM on June 16

I'm pretty sure there's been a misunderstanding and we're talking about homonyms here.

Rapt means engrossed in all the versions of English we're talking about here. Wrapped (not "rapt") is an Australian slang term meaning happy or excited. It's like chuffed in the UK or stoked in the US. She doesn't mean she's enraptured (although she may well be); she means she's psyched.
posted by DarlingBri at 8:05 PM on June 16 [1 favorite]

Well, speaking up as a Kiwi here, I think that "wrapped" is just a very annoying misspelling of rapt.

My NZ Oxford Dictionary says:
rapt
1. very intent and absorbed, enraptured
2. NZ and Aust, colloquial, delighted, overjoyed

No corresponding entry for "wrapped"
posted by slightlybewildered at 8:16 PM on June 16 [2 favorites]

I was just pointing out that "rapt" in Australasian English has the connotation of happiness, surprise and euphoria, where elsewhere it's just intense concentration.

I concur with this (except for the "surprised" part). Also, I like DarlingBri's comparison to 'chuffed' or 'stoked'.

That said:

The Australian soaps Neighbours (whence sprang Kylie Minogue)

Our Kylie TM is from 'The Henderson Kids'.
posted by pompomtom at 8:26 PM on June 16

Tho' I see the Ask Oxford site says that
wrapped
• adjective Austral. informal overjoyed; delighted.
— ORIGIN blend of wrapped up "engrossed" and RAPT.
posted by slightlybewildered at 8:27 PM on June 16

Chiming in as another New Zealander: "wrapped" is a mis-spelling of "rapt", and a casualty of declining literacy and standards of what used to be called 'general knowledge'.

See also "taking a different tact".

*shoots newsreader*
posted by Catch at 9:11 PM on June 16 [3 favorites]

That's a tragic dictionary entry because I am here to tell you that "rapt" is a terrible slang word. And the kids are on my side, yo: 12,100 Google results for "wrapped Australian slang" vs. 2,740 for "rapt Australian slang."

But I will, of course, defer to my AUS and NZ neighbours. We all know kids can't spell anyway.
posted by DarlingBri at 10:18 PM on June 16

Mind you, if you search Google's Australian space for
"I'm wrapped" -"wrapped in" -"wrapped up" -"wrapped around" (to exclude all the other kinds of wrapped-ness that one might be) you get 1,120 results.

If you search for "I'm rapt" you get 2,300.

However, I am willing to put this down as an Australia vs New Zealand thing. Perhaps it is a correct variant in Australia... typical.
posted by slightlybewildered at 11:37 PM on June 16

Not to disparage your accent identification skills, but to the American ear, British and Aussie accents often sound very similar. I've had several, if not many, UK and Aussie friends over the years and even dated girls from both countries. I like to think I'm good at recognizing a Brit vs. an Aussie but even now, when posed with that question, I'll venture a guess and be wrong as wrong can be. Just sayin'.
posted by zardoz at 11:43 PM on June 16

Not to flog a dead horse but I am an Australian and have had some confused looks from the locals when I used wrapped/rapt in conversation here in the UK (albeit in Scotland)

I am going with it being more prevalent amongst us Aussies and Kiwis.
posted by TheOtherGuy at 2:37 AM on June 17

I'm a Brit and I would give another Brit a very weird look if they used that expression. If they were antipodean though, that would be fine. It's just not a British expression. If this woman really is a Brit then she needs to stop watching so many Aussie soaps. Either that or move there.
posted by ob at 10:13 AM on June 17

Eggcorn?
posted by speedo at 10:18 AM on June 17