Ask a foreigner

[notsurewheretoturn]

As a Brit, if someone said my work was 'quite good,' I'd read it as 'needing improvement.' Lol!

 

[Friday]

As a Brit, if someone said my work was 'quite good,' I'd read it as 'needing improvement.' Lol!

Right?!? Stateside ‘quite good’ is just shy of exemplary, perfect, best. There are higher compliments, than “quite” but very few.

Snicker… when I travel, I’ve learned to avoid the UK until I’ve been elsewhere, first. If I hit the UK first, the language disparities between American English & Kings English break my brain. But -OMFG the dulcet tones- bring flooding RELIEF if I’ve been eyeballs deep in French/Italian/Russian-Slavic/Spanish/German/Scandinavian. I can… get by… in those languages, but the horrific recording in the Chunnel that takes over? Bliss. Mind the gap, indeed. ENGLISH. Thank fawking god. English!

Although I’ll still probably curse people out in Italian. Very little is better (Chinese tops) than ripping someone up one side and down the other in Italian.

 

[Rose White]

the horrific recording in the Chunnel that takes over? Bliss. Mind the gap, indeed.

I experienced this! It was uncanny and unexpected, like a warm shower after backpacking in the mountains for a week. And on top of that British hospitality was amazing. In Paris I had to be so careful not to show any sense of confusion or I would feel the wrath but in London people were so polite and forgiving when I made a mistake.

I remember being in the wrong line in a little shop and apologizing and the seller saying, “It’s alright, you didn’t know.” The fact that he excused it and even gave me my own little explanation felt like a pillow of care, like a lifeguard pulling me in.

 

[Rose White]

Along the same lines of the conversation about the word “quite” in UK vs USA, I learned that the words “clever” and “bold” have a more positive meaning for Americans than for Brits. Does this track?

 

[Teasel]

Probably a bit.

Clever vs intelligent. Clever might not be as positive as intelligent. Clever might be more sneaky, less moral.

Bold could probably sometimes infer cristicism. Just looked it up, one of the dictionary meanings supplied is 'Unduly forward and brazen; impudent.'

 

[RainbowSearchParty]

Okay, here is a question: what do people call stuffed animals where you are? Searching for the origin of the term "stuffy" as I've always called them stuffed animals. Okay, really, they all have names, and that is what I call them, but the category in my neck of the woods is called stuffed animals, at least in English; the local language is different of course.

 

[Teasel]

I grew up calling them cuddly toys. Plush toys seems to be what everyone calls them now. I assume that's come from America

 

[Rose White]

I called them stuffed animals growing up in the American west but stuffies as a term seemed to take over in the twenty-teens from what I recall

Similar with the term binky—I learned them to be pacifiers but binky seems more popular now

On another infantile term, diaper—that was a certain type of cloth in the 1800s used for coats and dresses—no idea how it became the word for baby potty clothes because I don’t think that was the cloth first used for it?

 

[notsurewheretoturn]

In the UK we never use the word diaper, they would be called nappies and would be either disposable or made from terry towelling.

I gather there's a lot of confusion over condoms too, in the UK a rubber would be an eraser, definitely not a contraceptive, lol.

Also, stuffed animals would be stuffed toys, unless you're referring to taxidermy in which case stuffed or taxidermy animals would be used but they'd be named as the actual animal.

Binky is the term used for the jump rabbits do when they're happy, baby pacifiers are dummies.

 

[Rose White]

Bold could probably sometimes infer cristicism. Just looked it up,

Found out it’s more of an Irish term for impudent and brazen than English.

 

[Teasel]

Ok, ok

 

[Friday]

Bold is a compliment in the US. Its pairing insult is timid/weak/cowering/cowardly/quisling/sniveling.

(The arrogant American starts to make more sense? When the choice is bold or bootlicking?)

Fortune favors the bold (Latin)
To boldly go (Star Trek)
Go big or go home (an extension from the 1700s ‘go boldly or go home’)

And countless other cultural reference points that declare bold = good & not bold = bad, in a very binary kind of way.