• kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    86 is a code in restaurants for items that are sold out and need to new removed from the menu (i don’t know why that is the code). So “to 86” something is to remove it, get rid of it, or be done with it. Some have extrapolated that to also mean to remove someone by killing them, but that is not at all a common way to interpret the phrase. And 47 is referencing Trump who is the 47th president of the US. 46, then, referenced Biden.

    • stebo@sopuli.xyz
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      8 days ago

      86 is a code in restaurants for items that are sold out and need to new removed from the menu

      lol and this obscure thing is general knowledge to american people?

      anyways, thanks for the clarification

      • Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        7 days ago

        In our super-stellar, better-than-everyone-else, American exceptionalism job market, many Americans end up working their asses off for less than minimum wage in the service industry at least once in their lives. Enough so that we’re all mostly familiar with the most common industry slang.

        • celeryfc@lemm.ee
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          7 days ago

          Like half of those you listed are police codes that they use over the radios that seeped into common language.

          • ladytaters@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            187 is an old California police code for a murder. Might still be in use, I don’t know. It came into more common knowledge with the song Deep Cover by Dr Dre and Snoop in 1992 with the lyrics “Yeah, and you don’t stop / 'Cause it’s 1-8-7 on a undercover cop”

      • mriswith@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        That’s one way to tell people you don’t know much about your own language/culture. Because all of them have words or phrases that ignoramuses think are normal to most people.

      • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
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        7 days ago

        It’s not obscure at all, and it isn’t limited to just restaurants. I’ve known the term 86, referring to removing something or someone, since I was kid.